Disney Lorcana Co-Designer Explains Game's Foil Process

Disney Lorcana's foil cards might look a little different than other cards found in popular trading card games. In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, Disney Lorcana co-designer Ryan Miller explained how the game's cards are made using a cold foil process, which might explain why the cards look different than Pokemon Trading Card Game foil cards or most Magic: The Gathering foil cards. "A lot of foil, the paper itself is already foil and you print the card on the foil," Miller said. "With the cold foil process, you're more like printing the foil over the card."

The cold foil system actually presents a practical advantage as well."Both systems let you pick out parts that are foil and parts that are not, to let the art pop," Miller said. "The nice thing about cold foiling is that it mitigates the curl effect. All foils are going to curl a little bit depending on atmosphere and other factors, but cold foiling really mitigates that." Miller also noted the ways that the white plate helps the art stand out, with foil treatments for Tamatoa, Drab Little Crab emphasizing the crab's first "Shiny" instead of the character itself. 

One other way that Disney Lorcana is standing out is that every card in the set, all 204 of them, have a foil variant. Every card pack contains a foil card, but rarity and foils are totally distinct in the game. Of course, that also potentially means that foil cards will be a lot more valuable on the secondary market, but we'll have to see how the card market shakes out when the game launches in a few weeks. 

Disney Lorcana will be available at Gen Con ahead of its official launch in August.