MTG Salvation

Quote from Matt from Lorcana Player »

The latest Game Trade Magazine issue 279 was delivered to game stores this morning, and with it come a massive surprise. An article has revealed the rules of the game as well as five new cars, three playmats, and more!

Update: The official rules have been released by Lorcana on top of the leak. Take a look at the rule sheets below but most of the rules are already summarized in this article! We now have songs, mulligans, phases, multiplayer games, and more!

It seems like the official rules were to be released online roughly at the same time as demos of the game would be available at upcoming trade shows. It was widely thought that GAMA Expo on the 24th of April would be the first official drop.

The only clue we’d been given was “spring”, but there are a few different games expos coming up in the next two weeks. Now it seems like the vast majority of the rules of the game have been shown in a trade magazine. We’ve gone through and covered everything we can below.

Win Condition – Lore

GTM Magazine’s article starts by outlining much of the info we already know, then quickly answers the questions we’ve all asked from day one: how do you win the game? It states: “In Disney Lorcana, you’ll race against other players to gather lore scattered across the realm. The first player to gather 20 lore wins.“

That confirms one of the biggest theories ever since the “star” on every card was revealed as being called Lore. Then in publicity information, they mentioned the game was a “search for missing lore in a race against time“.

That means cards with a large amount of Lore will be hugely useful if they can stay on the field. The very first revealed card – Mickey Mouse Brave Little Tailor – has four Lore. That’s the highest of any card we’ve seen so far.

Setting Up

Games are played as best two out of three – though for casual play you don’t have to do this. That means if you win twice, you win. Set up is as follows:

• Shuffle your deck.
• Set your lore tracker to 0.
• Draw 7 cards for your starting hand. You can look at the cards in your hand, but not anyone else’s hand.
• Alter your starting hand if you choose (see below). Skip this step in your first game.
• Determine the first player by flipping a coin, rolling a die, or so on.

Phases

You start in the beginning phase, then in the main phase, you can do most actions.

Beginning Phase

• READY – Ready your exerted cards by turning them upright.
• SET – Check for effects that happen at the start of your turn and follow their instructions.
• DRAW – Draw a card from the top of your deck. The first player skips this step on their first turn.

Main Phase

Apart from adding a card to your inkwell – you can do as many actions as you like in the main phase as long as you can pay the ink for it. Characters can normally only choose one action from the list, and can only do those if they weren’t played this turn and aren’t exerted.

• Once a turn, add a card to your inkwell
• Play a card
• Activate an item.
• Play a character ability that doesn’t require.

With a character that was in play during the Set up:

• Quest -OR-
• Challenge an exerted character -OR-
• Use an ability that requires.

Drawing Cards

Each player starts by drawing seven cards from their deck into their hand. You draw one card per turn but the first player doesn’t draw a card on their first turn.

You can also “mulligan” your starting hand by putting as many of those seven cards in your hand back to the bottom of your deck without showing them. You then draw from the top of your deck until you have seven cards again. You reshuffle your deck if you do this but you can only do this once.

You also don’t mulligan in your first EVER game, as when you’re learning you probably won’t know what to mulligan for.

Exerting Cards – Tapping

When you see the exert symbol it means you turn the card sideways and it can’t be used again on this turn. This is called tapping in many other card games. You can exert characters when you quest or challenge, ink when you use one, or items when they are used.

Resources / Inkwell – Gaining + Spending Ink

The resource used to pay the costs of using cards is called ink. The ink resource is noted as the hexagon symbol on the left of cards – ink. This has long been an obvious theory, but what ink was has been disputed. It’s now confirmed that you turn the cards in your hand into ink by placing them in the inkwell.

Once per turn you can turn a card from your hand into ink. Only cards that have the inkwell inkwell symbol around the ink icon can be put into your inkwell to be used as ink. This gives cards multiple uses and means you will nearly always be able to gain one ink resource per turn.

You show the card to your opponent then put it facedown into the inkwell. All cards represent just one ink, regardless of their cost or lore e.t.c. The ink stays in your inkwell unless specifically discarded by an effect or card.

To use ink to pay for cards, you “exert” it by turning it sideways so you can only use a specific ink once per turn. You make the cards ready at the start of your next turn.

Questing To Gain Lore

The main mechanic that had been left very late into the hype train since the announcement was finding out what exactly lore was and how it was gained. My big guess has that lore was gained by exerting cards to quest – that’s now been confirmed.

The exact text from the magazine is: – “To gather lore, you’ll need to send characters to quest for it. On your turn, you can exert those glimmers to have them quest. Just turn them sideways to show they’re exerted, and you get the amount of lore shown on the cards“.

This is all now confirmed on the rules sheets. This turning a card sideways is commonly referred to as “tapping” a card as it is a large mechanic used in Magic: The Gathering. You gain the Lore immediately, and as soon as you are at 20 Lore you win.

Challenging – Attacking / Defending / Banishing

When glimmers “attack” another card, it is called challenging in Lorcana. To challenge you will exert (turn sideways) one of your characters. Only exerted characters can be challenged.

The strength strength score of the character is the amount of damage the character deals, and the willpower defense is how much damage it takes before the character is banished. When you challenge a character, each character does as damage to other according to the strength strength icon.

You keep track of damage taken to your willpower defense using damage counters that are included in many of the first box sets and starter decks. Once the amount of damage tokens on a character reaches the same number as the willpower defense: that character is banished.

These are things we’d sort of guessed already based on other card games. Many of the rules in this game are similar to KeyForge and Kaijudo, as well as Magic: The Gathering.

• A 3 strength 4 defense The Wardrobe Belle’s Confidant challenges a 2 strength 3 defense Elsa Snow Queen.
• Elsa must be exerted to be challenged, so she probably quested or challenged in her last turn.
• The Wardrobe is first exerted to show they are challenging.
• The Wardrobe does three damage to Elsa, and Elsa does 2 damage to them.
• 2 damage counters are added to The Wardrobe. Their Willpower is 4 so they still have 2 to go. They don’t have any other damage from previous challenges, so they are not banished but are exerted from challenging.
• 3 damage counters are added to Elsa. As Elsa only has 3 willpower, she is banished.

Cards that are banished are essentially discarded, and can’t be played again unless brought back from the banish area. Mickey has an effect that states: “Whenever one of your Broom characters is banished in a challenge, you may return that card to your hand.”

Abilities

Abilities on character or item cards can only be used once per turn – unless specified on a card. To use abilities you’ll often have to pay a cost. For example, you might need to pay 1 ink and this character to use a special ability.

You must do these things and be able to do them (i.e. you need a ready ink and this character can’t have already been exerted) to get the abilities action. You also can’t use a character’s ability on the turn they are played, though you can for an item or action.

Some abilities are just innate, and are present while a card is active.
Using Items, Actions, and Songs.

Items

Items are played for their ink cost and left on the field above the inkwell. Their abilities can be used immediately – unlike characters. Most items’ abilities require them to be exerted, though by default characters can’t attack items.

Exerting just stops them from being used multiple times in a turn. They stay on the field and can be used again in the next turn.

Actions

Action cards are one-time-use cards. You pay the cost, then can use the ability. After use, the action card is put into the discard pile. Some require other costs, you must be able to pay those or carry out the required action to use them.

New Card Type – Songs

One unexpected release was a completely new card type with a Song card reveal. Songs are a type of action, and you can play one just like any other action: by paying its cost and resolving its effect. But that’s not your only option – some characters can sing the song for you, so you don’t have to pay the ink!

One Jump Ahead can be played for either two ink, or you can exert a character card with a cost of 2 or more to sing the song. The card adds an ink from the top of your deck into your inkwell – gaining you valuable resources but possibly losing a good card.

New Cards + Mechanics

Along with the new Mickey card that released today we also got to see a bunch of new cards including Scar Fiery Usurper (our second Scar card), Belle Inventive Engineer, Lefou Bumbler, Just In Time Action, Mickey Mouse Steamboat Pilot, Yzma Alchemist, Hercules True Hero, and (Something, probably Fire) The Cannons.

Bodyguard

There is a new Hercules True Hero card with the Bodyguard ability. It is essentially the Taunt ability from Hearthstone. The text for this specific ability on this card is:

Bodyguard (This character may enter play exerted. An opposing character who challenges one of your characters must choose one with Bodyguard if able.)

It seems like this means that when the card is played, you can play it exerted. Only when the card is exerted can the ability be used as only exerted cards can be targeted. When your opponent targets one of your cards and a card with Bodyguard is exerted on your field, that is the only card that can be challenged.

The reason for the “may enter play exerted” is because most other characters can’t be exerted on their first turn because characters can’t attack or challenge on their first turn. If you don’t use this ability to exert on your first turn you could probably keep the card alive and use it on your next turn by challenging or questing, then also getting that Bodyguard ability to work on your opponent’s turn.

Searching / Drawing Cards / Less Costs

We have a Belle Inventive Engineer Card that when questing, allows you to pay 1 less ink for the next item you play this turn. Yzma Alchemist when questing allows you to look at the top card of your deck, then choose to put it back on the top or bottom of your deck.

When you have a Gaston character in play, you pay 1 less ink to play the new Lefou Bumbler character. For Mickey Mouse Wayward Sorcerer you pay 1 less ink when playing Broom characters and when a Broom is banished, you can return it your hand.

The Just In Time Action costs 3 ink but lets you play a character with 5 cost or less for free. Though the card doesn’t have the inkwell so can’t be turned into ink.

Deck Building

• A deck must have at least 60 cards in it – there doesn’t seem to be an upper limit.
• Your deck can’t have more than 4 copies of any single card. However, you can have more than four cards of the same name, but not more than four of the same version.
• You can only have cards from up to two different ink colors. So ruby and sapphire for instance. You can just use one ink color, you don’t have to use two.

Multiplayer Games!

You can play with more than two players! You just start with one player and move to the left (clockwise). Whenever an ability requires more than one player to do something at the same time, start with the player whose turn it is, then proceed to the left until each affected player has done their action.

Lorcana League + Game Night

There is a short section in the magazine that mentions there will be an official League at local games stores. This is the organized play that has been talked about before. From the mag: “In League play, local game stores will hot 12 weeks of events, broken up into three rounds. You can earn League points, win or lose, by participating in casual Disney Lorcana matches (best two out of three games) and through Lorcana-related activities, such as teaching someone how to play.“

“Prizes are awarded to most of the participants, and those with the most points in each round are given a modest additional prize. Ravensburger plans tournaments in the future to give fans bigger opportunities to prove their talent for gameplay.“

So we’ll definitely be seeing in-store tournaments and probably some more casual learn-to-play events at the first few releases.

Lorcana Rules Summarized

The main new rule reveals of the game are: –

• The first player to gain 20 Lore wins.
• You start the game with seven cards.
• Each player draws one card per turn.
• Once per turn you can turn one of the cards in your hand into “ink”, which is the resource used to play other cards from your hand.
• These “ink” cards go into your “inkwell”.
• To gather lore you exert a character card to have them “quest”, they gain the amount of Lore shown on the bottom right of the card.
• The strength icon is for strength, and the defense icon we’d previously called defense is called willpower.
• To challenge an opponent’s character, you exert one of your characters.
• You can only challenge an exerted opponent character.
• You both do damage to each other based on the strength strength of each character.
• You add tokens to represent damage, and when the damage reaches the willpower defense number of a character, they are banished.

Previously confirmed rules are:

• You can have up to two ink colors in your deck.
• Decks are made up of 60 cards.
• Characters can take and heal damage – this is tracked by putting damage counters on the cards.

Clarifications / Questions

We’ve still got a lot we want to confirm but it’s unlikely that Lorcana or Ravensburger are going to dish out anything until they’ve had the full chance to demonstrate things officially. Here are some things we’ve got confirmed, assume, or want to know: –

• What was commonly referred to as “types”, aka Dreamborn, Sorcerer, Hero, Villian, Broom, is officially known as “Classifications”
• Characters that are exerted can’t attack or quest again. You have to choose between challenging or exerting in a round unless you can “ready” it, or use a specific ability to do either twice.
• You can’t challenge, quest, or use a character’s ability on the turn it is played – unless specifically stated on the card.
• As we’ve seen cards that give a character Rush (you can attack with a character on the turn it is played), you can’t challenge on your first turn.
• You ready all of your cards at the start of your turn in the Beginning Phase so they can challenge and quest again.
• If the card just has the hexagon ink cost ink then it can’t be put into your inkwell and used as ink. It if has the inkwell symbol around it, it can be put into the inkwell and used as an ink resource.
• You gain lore as soon as you quest, or when an ability gives you lore. You don’t lose lore if the character is banished. As soon as you reach 20 Lore you win.
• The rarities based on the symbols were correct. Circle is common, the Book is for uncommon, the bronze triangle is Rare, silver diamond is Super Rare, and the Gold pentagon is Legendary.

Playmats, Sleeves, Deck Boxes, Portfolios

All of the accessories due to be released have been leaked in the magazine and we have some decent photos. The only real surprise is the Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse playmat.