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On the eve of the D23 Expo, Ravensburger shared the first seven Disney Lorcana cards with the world. Before anything else let’s take a look at them:

Initial Impression

I’m very encouraged by these initial designs. The art is amazing and carries continuity throughout the set. The card design is clean and they use color and iconography to denote different abilities and types. The game has more depth than I initially expected, and that is a pleasant surprise. On the cards, you’ll find a host of abilities. Some are triggered, and others are activated abilities. Even though the game was said to have a “low confrontation level” it still has a combat system (challenges). Speaking of which let’s jump into some of the mechanics.

Game Mechanics

When the cards were first previewed our Discord started a huge voice call to discuss what the mechanics could be. Here’s what we came up with. Keep in mind that everything after this point is all speculation, nothing official has been released.

Challenges (Combat)

As I mentioned above the game has a combat system. This is implied by the attack and defense icons. It seems that these numbers will be used to challenge other characters and not to attack your opponent’s “life total” like in Magic: the Gathering. When a character is defeated, they are “banished” we see this term in the Maleficent and Cruella De Vil cards.

Resources (Ink)

The big number in the top left seems to be a cost as we noted in the diagram. If you remove the number and the diamond shape, you’ll see the circle part of the Lorcana logo.

Here’s the other interesting part, the symbol in the middle is the same symbol on the lower right side of the card )marked “Resource Generation”). Because of this interplay with the logo elements, I suspect that the fountain pen icons on the right of the card are how you generate the cost to play cards. This would make sense since the way that you bring characters into the world is using “magic Ink”.

In Disney Lorcana, you’ll wield magic inks and the power of Lorcana to assemble your team of Disney characters. Some characters will be familiar friends. Others will be fantastically re-imagined.

– Lorcana Twitter

Characters Versions

Stitch shows off the “Shift” mechanic which allows you to upgrade a previously played Stitch card. This points to multiple versions of a character. You’ll notice that this character version is “Rock Star” Stitch. We can expect other versions of Stitch and other characters.

A Year is a Long Time

I’m excited to see some official information on the rules for the game. Ravensburger has done a great job of getting us all excited. What’s next? A year is a long time to wait, so hopefully, they have a full plan for teasers and information drops over the next few months. Let’s see what the rest of D23 holds, to keep up-to-date on the news there, follow our live journal.