User:GoldenSandslash15/Guide for Returning Players

This page is being made so that, if you took a break from Lorcana, you can come here and see what you've missed. Just find the point where you left off and keep reading from there. Note that I am doing this in userspace, so this is not meant to be encyclopedic. I'm going to be a buttload more informal than a wiki typically is, hence my use of the word "buttload".

The First Chapter

The Great Illuminary is abandoned, so we, the Illumineers, have learned to make use of the artifacts left behind in order to summon glimmers of Disney characters.

You can create characters, actions, and items, by spending ink from your inkwell (you can play one per turn, if it has the inkwell symbol) to play them. Characters need to wait for their ink to dry before they can do anything requiring them to exert though. Once their ink is dry, they can quest, to cause you to gain lore, or they can challenge, to get opposing exerted characters off the board. Challenges use strength and willpower.

Items, by contrast, can be used right away, but the catch is that they can't be used for questing and challenging.

As for actions, they just are one-shot effects that do their thing and are then discarded. A special sub-category of actions are Song cards, which characters of sufficient cost (greater than or equal to the cost of the song itself) can exert to sing the song for free. Alternatively, Songs can just be played as normal actions, by paying their ink cost.

To make a deck, you must include 60 or more cards, have no more than 4 copies of the same card, and have no more than two colors of ink. Once you have a deck, you start playing by drawing seven cards and altering your hand by putting unwanted cards back into your deck and drawing replacements, then reshuffling. On your turn, you ready all your cards, set conditions for the turn, draw a card (unless it's the first turn of the game), and then you can play and use your cards.

The first player to get 20 lore wins. You also lose if you attempt to draw from an empty deck.

In Draft/Sealed, deck-building restrictions are relaxed slightly, so that you now only need 40 or more cards (rather than 60), you MAY have more than four copies of a card, and you can have as many ink colors as you want. Draft is typically played with four booster packs while Sealed is played with six.

For games played with Starter Decks, you may modify your starting deck using the booster pack that comes with it, even if these modifications cause your deck to have more than four copies of a card or more than two colors of ink. Your deck still must be 60 cards or more.

While cards often have their own unique named abilities to use, some abilities are so commonplace that several cards have them. These are called keywords, and here's what they are:

• Bodyguard = This character can enter play exerted. If you have a character with Bodyguard, your characters without Bodyguard cannot be challenged.
• Challenger +N = While challenging, this character gets +N strength.
• Evasive = Only characters with Evasive can challenge this character.
• Reckless = This character cannot quest. It must challenge if able.
• Rush = This character can challenge even if its ink isn't dry.
• Shift N = You may pay N ink to put this card (from your hand) on top of one of your other characters with the same name as this character. When you play a character this way, they retain all properties that they previously had, such as damage, whether their ink was dry, and whether they were exerted. If the character would be moved to another game zone, the entire stack is moved.
• Singer N = This character counts as having a cost of N for the purposes of singing.
• Support = When this character quests, another chosen character of yours gets +strength equal to the strength of this character.
• Ward = Opponents cannot choose this character for the purposes of card effects, but can still choose it when challenging.

Rise of the Floodborn

The Great Illuminary is flooded with magical ink, creating a large number of Floodborn glimmers in this set.

New keyword: Resist +N = Damage dealt to this character is reduced by N.

Into the Inklands

The great flood washed away some of the powerful artifacts. We should go try to get them back. So let's journey out into the inklands. While there, we discovered Location cards.

Location is a new card type. Location cards are landscape-oriented. When you pay their ink cost to play them, they just stay in play. From then on, at the start of each of your turns, you gain lore equal to that location's lore. Additionally, you can pay an amount of ink equal to a location's move cost to move one of your characters to that location (thereby moving it away from its previous location, if any). There are no inherent benefits or detriments to being at a location, but certain card effects do care about whether or not a character is at a location. Finally, since the opponent can challenge cards that are exerted, and Locations are in a landscape format, it means that your locations can be challenged and can be damaged. If the damage exceeds their willpower, they are banished. When this occurs, any characters at that location are no longer considered to be at a location.

Ursula's Return

Oh no! Ursula has obtained the hexwell crown and the trident and is now... going to be a major problem.

New keyword: Sing Together. This is a keyword found on Songs and lets you exert ANY NUMBER of characters to combine their costs in order to sing the song.

New to Ursula's Return are Floodborn characters with a Shift cost besides playing ink, namely discarding certain cards from your hand.

Also new to Ursula's Return are characters with multiple names, separated by an ampersand. A character with this in their name counts as multiple names. So a character named "M & N" counts as being named "M", and counts as being named "N".

Illumineer's Quest

A sub-set of Ursula's Return is the Illumineer's Quest: Deep Trouble product, in which you can take on Ursula just like in the story, either alone or with your friends. Up to four players can take her on at once, and each of you needs your own Lorcana deck, which must follow standard rules - 60 cards or more, no more than four copies of a card, and no more than two colors of ink. Ursula's deck is 50 cards and has a golden card back.

When you play, you and the other players will all take your turns together, simultaneously. In order to win, you must ALL reach 20 or more lore. To aid you, you are given a Battleground, which will provide abilities that you can use once per turn each, by spending the listed amount of ink. Which Battleground is used depends on what difficulty you want to play on, with four options being available - Easy, Normal, Hard, and Extreme.

Ursula always goes first. She begins with Ursula's Stolen Trident in play. On her turn, she resolves all of the cards that she has in play, in the order that they were played. For items, she uses their abilities. For characters, she will quest if able. If unable, she will do nothing, unless that character has Reckless, in which case, she will challenge if able (and do nothing if unable). If she challenges, the players get to choose what the target of her challenge will be from among legal targets. In fact, whenever a card effect of any kind would require Ursula to make a decision, the players get to choose for her.

Then Ursula draws cards. The number of cards will vary between 2 and 6, and will depend on what difficulty you are playing on, how many players there are, and how much lore Ursula has. After drawing cards, she attempts to play them, by revealing each one one-at-a-time. If she has enough ink in her inkwell to play the card, she does so. Otherwise, she adds it to her inkwell. She does not need to PAY ink to play her cards, she just needs to HAVE the ink. On Extreme Difficulty, if a character of Ursula's would be banished, it is returned to her hand instead.

Ursula wins when she reaches 40 lore. But in terms of the storyline, that doesn't happen. The heroes are successful and Ursula is defeated! Yay!

Shimmering Skies

To celebrate Ursula's defeat, we're having a party! Whoo!

The only noteworthy new thing is that there's a new 5-lore symbol found on characters who have 5 or more lore. Which, until now, was none of them. But now that exists.

We also got an errata on Bucky - Squirrel Squeak Tutor. So if you had this in your deck from back when you played Lorcana prior to Shimmering Skies, you'll need to be aware that it has been updated to be nerfed so that it no longer functions the way it used to.

A new product was released named Lorcana Gateway, which functions as a tutorial for new players. Players start with pre-built 30-card decks and earn more cards as they complete certain in-game goals, to expand their decks.

The game additionally features some simplifications. Players may not alter their starting hands. Putting a card into their inkwell, if you wish to do it, must be the first thing you do during your main phase. And you do not lose the game from drawing from an empty deck. Additionally, for the first game of Lorcana Gateway, you do not shuffle your deck, and keep it in New Deck Order.

Azurite Sea

Now then, we set sail out on the Azurite Sea. What new wonders await us? Honestly... nothing. This set didn't really introduce anything new. The only kinda-new thing is a Chip 'n' Dale card that uses the 'n' in lieu of an ampersand, but it functionally works the same.

Ravensburger did start to promote a new format - Pack Rush. To play Pack Rush, each player receives two booster packs. You shuffle the contents of the packs together without looking at them to form a 24-card deck. It does not matter if you have more than two types of ink. You begin with two cards in your inkwell (using the marketing cards for this). Your opening hand is only five cards (though you may still alter it as normal). You win the game upon reaching 15 lore instead of 20. And if you would draw from an empty deck, then instead of losing the game, you shuffle your discard pile to form a new deck.

Archazia's Island

Upon sailing across the Azurite Sea, we met Archazia, one of the original Illumineers. She taught us how to use dual-ink cards.

Dual-ink cards have two types of ink, and can only be included in your deck if your deck includes BOTH colors of ink.

New keyword: Vanish. If a character with Vanish is chosen as a target for an opponent's action, that character is banished. This makes Vanish a detrimental keyword (similar to Reckless).

Shift now has two variants: Classification Shift and Universal Shift. A character with Classification Shift can be placed on any character of the specified Classification, and a character with Universal Shift can be placed on any character at all.

Reign of Jafar

TBD

Fabled

TBD