Lorcana: The Heart of Magic Review (Part 1 of 2)

The CCG gamespace has always been a treacherous one. Following the advent of Magic: the Gathering in 1993, a legion of games chasing that same lucrative business model glutted the market. How could they not, when by the end of 1994 Wizards of the Coast had sold over a billion cards.

The 90’s saw a number of still-notable games carve out a place for themselved, but for ever Netrunner there were probably at least a dozen Spellfires.

While a broader history of the medium is fascinating (including a “second wave” in the early 2000’s), suffice it to say that the model of the idea of a collectible card game- games where you buy booster packs containing random playing cards for the game- is a far harder sell. Magic is still going strong, but far fewer games are competing in the booster space.

While the market innovated (in particular, Fantasy Flight Games with the “living card game” model), there are a few still looking to have success with the original formula. Disney’s Lorcana is the newest member of that rarified air, and one worth coming out of retirement for a moment to take a look at.

Part of your World – the Basics of Lorcana

First, let’s take a quick look at the basics of the game (if you’re already familiar, please feel free to skip this section). As before when we’ve reviewed non-Magic offerings, Magic remains a good point of reference so we’ll be using it as a lens to view through.

Like Magic, the magic number for victory is pegged at 20, but instead of having to deal that much damage to your opponent’s life total you instead start at 0 and have to accumulate that many “lore points.”

Lorcana’s bone structure is very familiar. Like Magic’s Land cards, you use “Ink” to pay for your cards and activate effects on the board. Ink is agnostic- although Lorcana has six different colors of Ink (similar to, though arguably less well-defined than Magic’s five colors), it doesn’t tie Ink colors to specific resources. There is no equivalent of Mountains or Swamps here, Ink is simply Ink.

Like the World of Warcraft CCG, you create your resource pool by using playable cards from your deck, turning them irrevocably face-down and adding them to your Ink pile no more than once per turn. Not every card can be so used- it has to have a special Inkwell marker on it, most of them can. For The Heart of Magic, only 7 of the deck’s 60 cards lack the Inkwell marker, and its absence or inclusion on cards seems somewhat arbitrary.

Cards in Lorcana are also broken down in a familiar way. There are Creatures (Characters), Artifacts (Items), and Sorceries (Actions). Lorcana’s Characters are defined by their Power and Toughness (Strength and Willpower here), and are summoning sick when first played (“waiting for their Ink to dry,” this game is filled with touches that a Vorthos will appreciate).

Creature combat has more in common with Hearthstone than Magic. You can declare attacks on specific Characters your opponent controls, but only if they are tapped (Exerted). Damage is persistent, and Characters do not heal up at the end of each turn.

The last thing to know is that in addition to attacking (Challenging) your enemy’s minions, Characters can also tap to go “Questing.” This earns you Lore points (typically between 1-3, each card will specify), helping you move towards victory.

So that’s Lorcana. Summon minions and artifacts. Cast spells. Use your minions to attack other minions, and earn you victory points. Get 20 Lore and you win!

Next, let’s open up the hood on the first of the inaugural set’s three preconstructed decks, The Heart of Magic.

Decks in Lorcana can contain up to two colors of Ink, and The Heart of Magic blends Amber with Amethyst. “Patient and dedicated,” Amber is the color of “persistence and community” and comprise Characters that work well with others such as healers and bodyguards.

Amethyst, on the other hand, is the “otherworldly ink of sorcerers, sages, animated objects, and other glimmers who use their special powers to achieve their aims.”

Friends on the Other Side

So here’s how the deck breaks down. Deckbuilder is at Dreamborn.ink, card image links from Lorcana Player.

The deck clearly wants you to be running a consistent throughput at every stage of the game, and fully one-quarter of the deck consists of one-drop cards.

For creatures, we have a few options to choose from here. Two of them are vanilla cards, with three copies each of the basic 2/2 Stitch – New Dog and defensively-minded 1/3 Olaf – Friendly Snowman. We find our first mechanic here with Heihei – Boat Snack, a 1/2 with support. Support nudges you to use Heihei for questing, as it lets you add its Strength to another of your Characters whenever you send the chicken out for Lore.

The final one-drop is Pascal – Rapunzel’s Companion, a 1/1 with the flavorful camouflage ability. As long as you have another Character in play, Pascal has evasive. Unlike Magic, where evasion has a more attack-minded connotation, Lorcana’s evasion makes Characters unable to be attacked unless their attacker has the same ability. That’s great for Pascal, who can be used to quest over and over from relative safety.

Moving into the two-drops, we find more quest support in Yzma – Alchemist. Yzma lets you scry whenever you send her questing, helping you dig through your deck for the cards you need.

Magic Broom – Bucket Brigade is a 2/2 body with a marginal (but flavorful) ETB ability letting you recycle a card from a discard pile back into its owner’s deck. Magic Broom suffers a bit in comparison to Minnie Mouse – Beloved Princess, who lacks the Sweep ability but more than makes up for it with an extra bit of toughness. Still, the trio of Magic Brooms do synergize with one of the deck’s two foil rares, Mickey Mouse – Wayward Sorcerer, so there’s that.

Finally, there are some interesting design choices at play with Dr. Facilier – Charlatan. This card plows familiar ground with the “situationally strong, otherwise weak” model. As a 0/4, Dr. Facilier is an easy target for your opponent’s attacks, since he won’t be biting back when engaged. However, he becomes a 2/4 when swinging into one of your opponent’s Characters thanks to his challenger +2 ability. While absorbing free punches isn’t ideal, it is a good way to entice your opponent to turn cards sideways, leaving them vulnerable to attack on your next turn.

To this point, all of the Characters we’ve looked at have a Lore Value of 1, meaning you gain 1 Lore point when you send them questing. Moving into the three-drops, that changes with Mickey Mouse – True Friend. Mickey is a vanilla 3/3, but with a Lore Value of 2. You can start to get a sense of card valuation here when you compare that to The Wardrobe – Belle’s Confidant, which boasts an extra point of Willpower at the expense of a point of Lore Value.

Then take a look at Maximus – Relentless Pursuer and Rafiki – Mysterious Sage. We’re back to squared stats here (both are 3/3), but each carries a special ability. Maximus offers a one-time ETB Strength boost to a chosen Character, while Rafiki has the game’s version of haste (here called rush).

Finally, Maleficent – Sorceress gives a glimpse of insight into cantrip costing, as she’s only a 2/2 but replaces herself in your hand.

The deck’s complexity begins to make itself known in the four-drops. The attack-minded challenger ability we saw on Dr. Facilier returns on Jafar – Wicked Sorcerer, a 2/5 that becomes a 5/5 juggernaut on offense. Jetsam – Ursula’s Spy is a 3/3 with evasive that will also grant the ability to its partner Flotsam if you have it in play.

By the way, when I noted above that this game has a very rich Vorthos mindset, I wasn’t kidding. Hades – Lord of the Underworld is a 3/2 that lets you return a creature from your discard pile to hand, and that’s just the start of it. Ariel – On Human Legs has a drawback called Voiceless, which means you can’t use her to sing songs. This being Disney, songs are well-represented in Lorcana’s gameplay as special action cards you can play at a discounted rate if you tap one of your eligible Characters to “sing” it. For a comparable Magic analogue, think convoke where you can tap creatures to help pay for cards. Ariel- who gave up her voice to become human in The Litle Mermaid- unable to sing is delightfully flavorful design.

Songs play a part with Cinderella – Gentle and Kind as well, who punches one grade above her weight when it comes to eligibility to sing. She also can tap to heal Princess cards (8 of the deck’s Characters bear this subtype). Lastly, we find the aforementioned Mickey Mouse – Wayward Sorcerer. As a sort of “Broom lord” card, he makes your Brooms not only cheaper to deply, but also endlessly recycling. With this Mickey in play vanquished Brooms will return to hand rather than head to the discard pile. Again, strong notes of the animated Disney movies here- in this case, Fantasia’s iconic “sorcerer’s apprentice” scene.

At the top of the curve, the deck is far from done with its tricks. Flotsam – Ursula’s Spy is the stronger of the two eels at 3/4 with rush, and much like its partner-in-crime Jetsam it will grant its keyworded ability to its partner. The deck’s other foil rare, Moana – of Matunui, is one of the deck’s strongest questers with a Lore Value of 3. While Moana isn’t much for combat as a 1/6, she loves to go on quests. When you send her off for Lore, she untaps all of your other Princess cards. While they can’t be used to questing that turn (no double-dipping, it seems), that still helps keep them safe from your opponent’s attacks next turn.

The deck’s other version of Dr. Facilier, the – Agent Provocateur one- also goes hard in the paint for questing. In addition to a Lore Value of 3, this Facilier boats a much fatter statline (4/5) and allows your defeated Characters to return to hand rather than be discarded away. It also features one of Lorcana’s signature mechanics, shift. This allows you to play your stronger version of Dr. Facilier at a discounted price if you already have another Dr. Facilier in play. That saves you 2 Ink, but comes at the cost of potential card disadvantage as the new copy replaces the old (in game parlance, is “played on top of”).

The final beater here is Sven – Official Ice Deliverer. Nothing fancy to see here, just a simple 5/7 fattie with a Lore Value of 1, making it pretty clear that Sven is here more as a way to rough up your opponent’s Characters than anything else. Good thing he’s bringing the ice.

With so many Characters, there’s not a lot of room left over for support cards, but the basics are well represented. You get a bit of healing with the Dinglehopper, which can remove a point of damage a turn. If you need more robust intervention, Hakuna Matata can be played (or sung) to provide a much more powerful restorative.

Part of your World is Lorcana’s Disentomb, yanking a defeated Character back to hand from the graveyard. Friends on the Other Side is a bit of card draw, while Be our Guest digs through the top of your library for a creature card. Given the deck’s massive creature component, you’ll almost never come up empty.

Finally, a bit of combat shenanigans (if sorcery-speed cards can really be called “shenanigans”) in Control your Temper!, which knocks an enemy Character’s Strength down a couple pegs for a turn.

So there it is! A fairly straightforward deck that seems to play it pretty safe with its aims and objectives. But is it fun to play? We’ll find out in Part 2!