Since Ravensberger’s Disney-themed shot at the trading card big leagues, Lorcana, launched locally last year, I’ve tried to dip my toe in as much as I can (and can reasonably afford) as a way to get my TCG fix without committing the time and funds necessary to keep up with something like Magic the Gathering. Thanks to its relative infancy and an angle towards a more accessible and idealistic play experience, it’s proven to be good fun for those like me – folks wanting a TCG that’s easy to fall in and out of, and simple for friends and family to pick up. It helps if you’re a little nostalgic for classic Disney animation, too.
Still, a game like this does need to evolve with each new set in order to keep a recurring interest and look like a serious contender against the likes of MtG, Yu-Gi-Oh or even Pokémon. Archazia’s Island, which debuted last month, does exactly that with arguably the biggest shake-up the game has had to date – the introduction of dual-ink cards. Magic players, now’s your chance to scoff and say “We’ve had multicolour cards since the 90s! We have five-colour cards!” and look, sure, but it’s nice to be at this milestone just seven sets in.
Monochrome is so last season
In the context of Disney Lorcana, the idea of cards borne of two different ink colours also works nicely into the lore and the ways that this game has continued to interpret the classic Disney characters, objects and moments portrayed on its cards. So when I pick up one of Archazia’s Island’s new starter decks – a Ruby/Sapphire deck featuring Belle and Beast or an Amethyst/Steel deck lead by Jafar and Iago – I can still pretty quickly identify what kind of playstyle I might be in for, even just using knowledge of Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin over that of Lorcana’s mechanical complexities.
While checking out this set, and the starter decks, for review, I definitely gravitated toward the former, which combines Ruby’s penchant for hot-headedness with Sapphire’s more strategic style of play to great effect. The headline Beast – Frustrated Designer card funnel’s the big guy’s vexation at your Item cards by saccing them for big damage, while its counterpart in Belle – Mechanic Extraordinaire salvages and repurposes the same discarded items for a cheaper cost to play and some big Lore gains. It’s a lot of fun when it plays as intended, though I did find myself conceding defeat more than once because I just wasn’t drawing the Item numbers needed to support the core strategy.
I used these two starter decks to introduce my partner, who’s a big fan of Marvel Snap but was a hesitant first-timer in the physical TCG sphere before now, to some very easygoing Lorcana play, and it was heartening to find that it remains incredibly easy to teach even with the new stuff factored in. Unlike some other games, there’s rarely anything to know that isn’t either part of the most basic ruleset or spelled out in the card text, a luxury the game might not have forever but is incredibly helpful right now.
The only rush stronger than a first TCG is teaching someone their first
The Jafar and Iago team-up is a little more obtuse and probably less friendly to absolute newcomers, but it can be potent in the right hands. This one uses the new Illusion card type with the new Vanish mechanic, which causes an Illusion card to be banished if it becomes the chosen target of an opponent’s Action card. Thankfully, the Jafar card is there to return banished Illusions to your hand, which can keep in play some powerful cards like Iago – Giant Spectral Parrot which also has Evasive and so is already pretty good at staying on the field. The Vanish mechanic launched with some confusion over its wording, and still now I struggle to see how to use it effectively, which I reckon puts it firmly in TCG Sicko territory. It’s nice that Lorcana can have a bit of that, as a treat.
My biggest gripe with Archazia’s Island, and this is admittedly a more subjective criticism, is the lineup of characters and properties it portrays. Outside of a big focus on pets, which gets us into excellent territory with banger classics like 101 Dalmations, The Aristocats and Lady and the Tramp, the rest of the roster is a little mid. There’s a lot we’ve already seen, and a larger cohort of long-forgotten side characters that I can recall seeing in a Lorcana release, but mostly there’s just not a recognisable enough throughline to anything else here. The art remains lovely, but I just haven’t been as excited by the cards I’m pulling as I have been in the past.
Big fan of the Gift Box
It doesn’t help that these releases continue to come with additional accessories or promo stuff that stems from older sets, instead of the relevant one. The new playmat that debuted with Archazia’s Island depicts a Tigger card from the previous set, Azurite Sea, and the new Gift Set also happens to contain a (admittedly very nice) promo card based on one from Azurite Sea. Maybe that’s a minor gripe, but here it further muddies what’s not a particularly memorable or cohesive set from a thematic perspective. Oddly enough, the foils in this set have seemingly kicked off a new style of treatment which affects the whole card, not just the art, which doesn’t look good enough to make up for them being appreciably more difficult to read in play.
That said, I do quite like the overall aesthetic of this set’s packaging. The Illumineer’s Trove continues to be a great product for gifting and/or collecting with its generously-sized card box, extra accessories like gorgeous ink-themed dividers and dice, and healthy heaping of booster packs. The starter decks have a really nice teal thing going on with their pop-out cardboard damage and lore counters, too. There’s also a Gift Box now, which is where the promo “Glimmer Foil” Lilo – Escape Artist card comes into it, along with a random assortment of five boosters from previous sets. Again, absolutely nothing from the set it launched alongside, but it’s a neat little lucky dip.
Overall it’s great to see Disney Lorcana continue to evolve while still playing to its strengths. This might be one of the weaker releases in terms of the roster and card art, but it’s mechanically solid and significantly shakes up deck building and lore implications without steering too hard and keeping out TCG newbies or casual players. There’ll always come a day when that does happen, you can’t have something like Magic running for decades and not becoming bloated, but the more measured pace of Lorcana is comforting for now.
You can find out more about Archazia’s Island and Disney Lorcana on the official website here.
These Disney Lorcana Archazia’s Island products were provided to WellPlayed for the purposes of this feature
