Disney Lorcana and Star Wars Unlimited are two of the hottest trading card games in the market, and now both games have banned new cards from competitive play. This is actually the first time Lorcana has banned cards from competitive play, while Star Wars Unlimited adds a few more suspended cards to the mix for a total of four in the game so far. Disney Lorcana and Star Wars Unimlimted’s new bans are now live, and you can get all of the details on the banned and suspended cards and why they were removed from competitive play below.
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Let’s start with Disney Lorcana, which has banned two cards. Those cards are Hiram Flaversham – Toymaker and Fortisphere, It is worth noting that neither of these cards are removed from the game, so you can feel free to use them in your decks when playing against friends and family. It’s only when participating in Disney Lorcana Challenge events or other tournaments that use the Core Constructed Format that you have to remove them from play.
Flaversham is a 4-cost 1/6 card and comes with the Artificer ability, which says “When you play this character and whenever he quests, you may banish one of your items to draw 2 cards”. Fortisphere is an Item that contains two abilities. The first is Resourceful, which lets you draw a card when it’s played. The other is Extract of Steel, which for 1 cost lets you banish the item and give one of your characters Bodyguard until the start of your next turn.
Chief Marketing Officer for TCGs at Ravensburger Elaine Chase said, “No card is ever designed with the intention of it not being played in competition, but in order to keep the meta-game healthy and challenging without it feeling stale or repetitive seeing the same strategies again and again, the TCG design team at Ravensburger made the difficult decision for the good of the game. We know bans are the last line of defense and we will only pull that lever when it will increase excitement for competitive play.”
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Moving on to Star Wars Unlimited, there are three cards being suspended from the premier format, and those include Triple Dark Raid (Shadows of the Galaxy, 194), Jango Fett (Twilight of the Republic, 16), and DJ (Shadows of the Galaxy, 213). Fantasy Flight Games released a full deep dive into the effects of each card and why they made the decision to suspend these cards now that Jump to Lightspeed has released, and for Triple Dark Raid, the card went from being rewarding but risky to one of the most powerful damage dealers in the game. Jump To Lightspeed’s new additions shook up the Vehicle Unit Pool and allowed Triple Dark Raid to maximize its damage value with Devastator pulls. After seeing the card’s impact on the top 8 decks of the most recent Sector Qualifier, the decision was made to suspend it.
The next card is the Jango Fett Leader, and the suspension comes mainly due to two factors. The first is that about half of the Top 8 decks that utilized Triple Dark Raid also had Jango Fett as the Leader. The second is that even on his own, Jango’s ability to exhaust enemy units when on the battlefield coupled with his high health made taking him down a substantial challenge.
The team felt that both of these cards needed to be suspended since some of the same Triple Dark Raid strategies could be used with Boba Fett. Likewise, Jango would still be deadly on his own even without Triple Dark Raid, so the meta wouldn’t change much. That meant both cards needed to be removed from the equation.
The latest card being suspended is DJ, and the design team says that “DJ’s ability to permanently steal resources with such ease was simply not an intended use of his mechanic.” They didn’t want to errata the card either, but because he can have such a major impact on the playstyle of opponents trying to get rid of him quickly, it was decided to remove him from the game. They also say this is as a correction to Han Solo towards his intended power level, though they suspect Han Solo will still be a strong deck in the metagame.
Lastly, the team did say that with Force being a huge part of the upcoming Legends of the Force set in July, they are going to be monitoring older cards with Force traits that are more powerful than they anticipated. They aren’t looking to make changes preemptively, but if they see outliers that prove to be too much, they will take quick action.
What did you think of the newest bans and suspensions, and were they the right call? Let us know in the comments, and you can talk all things Disney Lorcana and Star Wars Unlimited with me on Bluesky @knightofoa!
