Where to start playing Disney Lorcana?
One of the aspects I love the most about Trading Card Games is that the fun grows exponentially when you can meet and play with other players. In my experience, Disney Lorcana community is great and very welcoming and it is always a pleasure to go a bit around and find new players to enjoy this beautiful game with. Moreover, Disney Lorcana is still a reasonably new and easy-to-learn game, and this really helps bringing new players into the community without the stress and pressure some other TCGs may have.
I know for a fact that a lot of people may be attracted by cards games by the excitement of opening new Booster packs and by the beautiful art on the cards. However, going from opening some packs to learn how to play the game may not always be a simple leap and can cause some frustration. This may be a result of the complexity or the rules but also by the fact that you need to learn the game and find your play style at the same time without really having a lot of cards to play with.
Having a friend that can guide you through the rules and address your questions can surely be of help in this sense and that's why visiting your local community is always the best option if you want to get into a TCG. However, sometime it may be difficult to meet other players locally and in the case of Disney Lorcana there is also no official app to play the game online. In these cases, most of the players explore the option to buy some cards and to test the rules playing the game with a friend or a supportive family member. In this case, unfortunately, the only product available to new player to get into any TCG are usually the Starter Decks. Ravensburger, however, decided to go the extra mile and created a new tool to allow players to learn how to play Disney Lorcana even if they want to do it at their own pace at home. I recently got a copy of the new product, “Disney Lorcana: Gateway”, and I have been quite impressed by how well thought and designed this product is. In particular, I think Disney Lorcana: Gateway is the perfect product for any player with no experience in TCG or for anyone that just want to enjoy an occasional game without really committing to the full TCG experience. With this in mind, we decided to put together a brief overview of what product may be best to play Lorcana depending on your level of experience. Let's open the boxes and see what we find...
Disney Lorcana Starter Decks: Best product for players with Experience
Since the release of the First Chapter, Disney Lorcana has been very focused in helping all players to enjoy the game disregarding their level of experience and their preference towards casual or competitive game. The starter decks have been a great way to experience new sets right upon release and they also provided a good way to ease any new player into the game in particular if they had already some TCG experience.
Each Starter Deck comes with a 60-cards pre-constructed deck, a small cardboard playing mat with a Lore tracker and some damage tokens. Essentially, you get everything you need to start playing the game for less then £20, including a booster pack with 12 additional cards to start your collection. There are also various Starter Decks to choose from. In fact, including the latest set released, Azurite sea, there are 13 different Starter Decks to chose from as Ravensburger released 2 for each new set other than the First Chapter that featured with 3 Starter Decks. Picking a deck from one of the latest sets released is usually better as they should be easier to find and they will likely includes cards more relevant for the game. You should also consider that each Deck in a set is balanced against the other one from the same set.
In general, any Starter Decks would be a good option to have a taste of the game as they also comes with a booklets of rules and a small guide explaining how the Deck works and which combo/card interaction can be more efficient. The main limit of the Starter Deck, however, is that players will need to learn all the rules of the game before playing the first match. This may not be a big issue in general, in particular if you don't have any previous experience with Trading Card Games. On the other hand, any player with experience may not find the Starter Deck to be competitive enough and that's one of the reason. This is one the reason that lead the Starter Decks to usually become more and more of a thematic deck in many TCG as the game increases its depth and the number of cards with the release of each set.
In summary, I think each Disney Lorcana Starter deck still offers a good low-cost starting point into the game with its comprehensive rulebook and the straightforward deck of cards. However, with the complexity of the game increasing with each set, it is becoming harder and harder to decide which starter deck new players should buy especially if the new players are young kids without much tabletop or TCG experience.
Disney Lorcana - Gateway: Best product for any players
Lorcana Gateway is a great attempt to deliver a complete learn-while-playing product to anyone interested in playing Disney Lorcana. Players can learn the game at their own pace and have all the support they need from all the resources provided and the online tools made available by the team. Moreover, the well designed progressive approach and the nice components can make teaching the game easier and more engaging than using Starter or ready made decks. Its price is also quite interesting considering is very close to the one of any Starter Deck, in particular if bought from Zatu.
From a product point of view, Disney Lorcana: Gateway comes in a standard boardgame-size cardboard box, Inside the box, you will then find a lot of products including 2 Starting 30-cards Decks, 1 large 2-players cardboard Game board, 2 Character standees and 2 character cards, 4 Reward Packs (18 cards each), 1 Rulebook, 1 Guidebook and 2 Pamphlets with strategic tips on each Deck.
The 2-Players board was the first item that caught my eyes when I open mine, mainly because is double sided and quite large. The first side works as a player aid during your first games and it provides valuable help by reminding not only the turn order and all available turn actions but it also shows a few reminds of the properties of different areas of the field (Inkwell, Play area, Discard pile etc). The rules are often spread in different parts of the rulebooks thus having them listed on the board is also quite useful to avoid forgetting them.
The other great feature is a lore tracker printed in the middle of the board. In Lorcana players compete to be the first to collect 20 Lore and you can use multiple tool to trace your progress
Having a lore track on the playmat is very useful and players can use one of the character standees provided to clearly trace their progress towards the final goal. The character standees are actually double sided and they show the 2 main characters featured in each of the starting decks.
Once players are more comfortable with the rules, they can also chose to use the other side of the board area that works as a standard playmat to just protect their cards from the dust of any surface.
The other main interesting aspect of this game is the presence of 4 numbered Reward Packs which provide a handy learning curve to the game. At the very start, players that have no knowledge of Lorcana can start from the main Rulebook (the one with the logo “Read this first”). The idea is to learn how to play by doing a few rounds using the two actual Decks provided. The order of the cards in each deck is pre-established so that the players are guided step by step on the action they should take. The rulebook also provides some coaching about why a card should be preferred in respect to another at each step in an effort to enhance players' knowledge about the game. Once the first few turns completed, the players can continue to take a turn at a time till one reaches the 20-lore goal.
Once the first game completed, the players can open the Guidebook and learn what tasks they need to complete in order to unlock their next Reward pack. Each of of these introduces a new mechanic to the base game players have learned with the starting decks by providing a few new cards to add to each of the gaming decks. This way, the simple base 30-cards decks will grow progressively one mechanics at the time to become a well structured constructed deck with an average complexity. The new rules are also introduced by each new pack with a lot of details and focused examples while a link to a video tutorial is there in case additional support may be needed.
I don't want to spoil anything here but I found the learning curve very well designed and the choice of cards very spot-on. I was also pleased to see some very good and interesting cards in these decks as I was worried the designers may have favoured the easy-to use cards to prioritize the learning.
In fact, the added value of this product also lies on the final set of cards you will have once all the Reward Packs unlocked as players would be able to take them to their locals shop to play some good level casual events. Considering the four Ink colours featured in the set have also been quite relevant in the metagame so far, there is also a good potential for these decks to be improved easily if the players would like to continue their adventure into the world of Lorcana.
Final thoughts: which one would you choose?
Overall, I think Gateway is a probably the best product to check out for anyone interesting to learn how to play Disney Lorcana, in particular if you have no previous experience in Trading Cards Game. The progressive way of learning the game through playing is definitely the best way to avoid the frustration that may sometime come from learning a complex Trading Card game. At the same time, opening the Reward packs and adding new mechanics to the game is quite fun and it feels a lot like retracing the first year of Disney Lorcana one set at the time. Gateway is also a great stand-alone game that can be played casually for a few hours of fun and that provides all the cards needed to allow two players to play against each other.
The main limitation of Gateway is that it will not feature all the most recent new mechanics and card type released in Disney Lorcana. At the moment, for example, the Location cards are missed from the base game but I hope Ravensburger will keep investing into the game and we may perhaps have yearly Gateway expansions or, even better, an updated core game to keep the experience contained in a single product.
In this respect, the Starter Decks will be a more up-to-date product and they will always feature the most current version of the game and card types. As a product, Starter Decks will therefore always provide the players with a glance of what they can experience by playing Lorcana and in the most current set. As such, this type of product is definitely more suitable for experienced players that would like to have a go with Lorcana and see if the game is for them or for those who already play
Lorcana and would like to have a deck to play casually among each other. In addition, we should remind that Starter Deck are single-player product therefore each player will need at least one in order to play.
Overall, I think that both Disney Lorcana: Gateway and a Starter Deck are good products to consider to get into the game. Being them very well designed and within the same price range, choice among them is likely driven by personal preference. However, being them different products they are not redundant and you can actually consider to buy them both. In this case, Gateway can be the best tool to learn the game and to start your card collection while purchasing Starter Decks can be a good way to add variety and integrate the most recent card rules into the game. This way, you can still collect amazing Disney Cards and play the game without necessarily invest too much into Booster boxes or very expensive cards. And whenever you decide to play Lorcana more competitively, you will have a better idea of which play style and type of deck suits you better.