Disney Lorcana Prepares for Competitive Play, But Wrinkles Remain

Disney Lorcana's competitive play is starting to take shape, with a new comprehensive set of rules and a quick sellout of its first regional event. Ravensburger is gearing up for Disney Lorcana's first-ever competitive season, with a total of 10 events announced for North America and Europe. The ten events will collectively build towards Disney Lorcana's first-ever world championships, set to take place in 2025. Ahead of the first competitive event, Disney Lorcana released the full set of rules for the game, marking the first time in 222 days that players have had a full rulebook to rely on when playing the game (and more importantly making rulings on things like the timing of card effects.) The full rules for Disney Lorcana can be found on the game's webpage. 

However, similarly to the game's initial release in August, it appears that demand for competitive play outpaced availability. Tickets for the first Lorcana Regional Challenge event, set to take place in Atlanta on May 25th and May 26th, sold out in minutes over the weekend and were capped at just 512 players. In response to demand for the event, Disney Lorcana noted that they were looking for ways to add additional tickets. "We are looking at options for increasing the player caps to all Disney Lorcana Challenge events and adding additional tickets to the events that have already sold out," Lorcana wrote on social media. "In the meantime, we will delay further ticket sales going live until we come to a decision on event caps."

During last week's Lorecast, Lorcana community manager Richelle Brady explained that they had been prepared for potentially expanding player caps from the outset. On the game's official Discord server, Brady explained the rationale behind the initial player cap limits. "This is the first competitive event for the game," Brady explained. "While it's easy to assume there would be a lot of hype (many of us internally thought this might happen), we also need evidence of it. The fact that it sold out this quickly sends a message that we can take back and discuss and potentially take action to improve the situation."

Another important note about the upcoming Challenge events was also pointed out by Brady in a separate note over the weekend – some cards would not be legal due to timing. Brady noted that the recently announced Ursula's Return set would not be legal to use at the first channel set, as it would be released too close to the event. "While the [Organized Play] rules say that you can play sets as soon as they're released, we'll have updated rules for Challenge that specify you have to wait 3 weeks after Hobby release (1 week after mass release)," Brady explained. This means that Lorcana players attending the Atlanta event can build their deck using cards available now without having to worry about how the next set will impact the game's metagame.

So far, no cards have been banned from competitive play, although Disney Lorcana's rules certainly allow for it. "Some cards may be banned from organized play," the ruleset states. "Refer to the Disney Lorcana OP page for information on banned cards." This is likely just futureproofing the game in case a specific card becomes too dominant, although many would-be competitive players have noticed the inclusion and commented on it on social media or Discord.

Keep an eye on Disney Lorcana's social media for more details on upcoming organized play and updates on events.