Just as I was lamenting the lull inDisney Lorcanaupdates, we got hit with back-to-back doozies. Late Thursday night, news of a brand-new platform for in-store play reporting broke, along with a bunch of details about changes coming soon to the retail side of Lorcana, including new promos, changes to Set Championship prizing, and a new approach to weekly play. Then, just hours later,our first card reveal for Archazia’s Island appeared on Twitter. Belle, Mechanic Extraordinaire is (as many expected) a Dual-Ink Ruby and Sapphire card - the first of its kind in the game.
Let’s break down everything we learned this week about the future of Lorcana, starting with that memo to retailers re: Ravensburger Play Hub.
Bye Bye, Melee
While there’s a lot of info here, the headline is without a doubt Ravensburger Play Hub (RPH), the new program set to replace Melee starting with June’s Reign of Jafar. The new platform can facilitate and organize core constructed events, as well as Draft, Sealed, and even Pack Rush.
Your store should have access to RPH starting in early February, but they’ll need to continue using Melee for all Archazia’s Island events through Set Championships.
This isn’t an optional substitute for Melee, it’s a mandatory replacement. Stores will need to use RPH to schedule and run their events to be eligible for future continued support materials, including the organized play kit filled with pins and promo cards for event prizing.
It’s great news for everyone who has suffered through delays and matchmaking errors thanks to Melee. Lorcana has quickly outgrown the platform and I’m excited to see how Ravensburger’s version can be a better fit for the game.
The first event your local game store will likely use RPH for is the Reign of Jafar pre-release, a brand new type of event that will take place a week prior to the full set release, which is a change from the current two-week lead time LGS’ currently get. Stores will be allowed to sell products for Reign of Jafar starting with their pre-release event. Pre-Release Pack Rush is mentioned, but it’s unclear exactly how pre-release events will work at this stage.
New Promos For Players
Box toppers are coming to Lorcana with Reign of Jafar, as well. Starting in June, the OP kits will include buy-a-box promo cards to incentivize in-store purchases. The post also mentions that these promos can be used for the pre-release pack rush events
The Set Championship kit is changing, too. Instead of eight Enchanted Promos and two playmats (one champion and one non-champion for second place), the new kits will come with just one champion playmat, eight Enchanted foil promos, and 40 non-foil promos that feature the Enchanted’s card’s art in a non-Enchanted format. These are participation prizes for Set Championship attendees. It’s an unfortunate change for those who prefer the non-champion version of the playmats, but participation promos are something players have been asking for since the start of Set Champs, so this is a huge win for the community.
Finally, the post mentions new programs for weekly constructed and Pack Rush will be included in the OP kit, and that RPH will have digital support, like store leaderboards. There’s no more details right now, but that’s another exciting aspect of the upcoming changes that should help make weekly events a little more exciting.
Dual-Ink Cards
Afterrevealing that reveals will start being revealed on February 10, Ravensburger shocked us with a big reveal! Belle, Mechanic Extraordinaire is Lorcana’s first Dual-Ink card. She will either be functionally both a Ruby and Sapphire card, or exclusively for a Ruby/Sapphire deck, depending on how the Dual-Ink mechanic works. For what it’s worth, her item interaction abilities will synergize nicely with existing Ruby/Sapphire decks. We’ll learn more about how Dual-Ink cards work starting on February 10.
With the continental championships behind us and spoiler season not starting until next month, I expected this to be a fairly quiet time for Lorcana news. But this week’s big reveals are a good reminder that we never really know what to expect.
Disney Lorcana
Lorcana is a trading card game developed by Disney and published by Ravensburger, featuring iconic characters, settings, and more from the studio’s long history. As an Illumineer, you must build your deck and help protect Lorcana.
