How to play Disney Lorcana

How to play

Setup: Each player brings a deck of at least 60 cards using one or two of the six inks (Amber, Amethyst, Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire and Steel), with no more than four copies of any card. Flip a coin or roll a die to choose the starting player. Shuffle, set your lore to 0 and draw seven cards. Starting with the first player, each of you may alter your hand once: put any number of cards on the bottom of your deck, draw back up to seven, then shuffle.

Your turn: Ready all your exerted cards (turn them upright), deal with start-of-turn effects, then draw a card; the first player skips that draw on the first turn. Then, in any order and as often as you can afford, play cards, quest, challenge, use abilities and move characters to your locations. You may also ink one card a turn.

Ink: Once a turn you may reveal a card with the inkwell symbol around its cost and put it face down in your inkwell. To play a card, exert (turn sideways) ready cards in your inkwell equal to its cost; each gives 1 ink. Your inkwell readies at the start of your turn.

Playing cards: Characters, items and locations stay in play; actions take effect and go to your discard pile. Characters enter play ready but drying: until your next turn they can't quest, challenge or exert to pay a cost. A song is an action that you can also sing by exerting a dry character whose ink cost is at least the song's cost, instead of paying ink.

Questing: Exert a dry, ready character to quest and gain lore equal to its Lore value. A location with a Lore value gives you that lore at the start of each of your turns.

Challenging: Exert a dry, ready character to challenge an exerted opposing character or any opposing location. Each character deals damage equal to its Strength to the other at the same time, while a location deals none; put down a damage counter for each point. Anything with damage equal to or greater than its Willpower is banished to its owner's discard pile. Keywords bend this: Rush lets a new character challenge straight away, Evasive characters can be challenged only by Evasive ones, and Bodyguard characters must be challenged first if able.

Winning: The first player with 20 or more lore wins. A player who ends their turn with no cards left in their deck loses.

Strategy

Lorcana is a race to 20 lore, so most decisions come back to one question: am I gaining lore faster than my opponent? Quest or challenge: Each character usually does one thing a turn. Questing moves you towards 20; challenging removes a threat but costs a turn of lore and often damages your character. Challenge when you can banish a high-lore character or a key ability without losing yours, or when your opponent would otherwise win the race. Remember that questing leaves a character exerted, and only exerted characters can be challenged, so every quest is an invitation. Grow your inkwell: One card a turn is the normal way to gain ink, so ink a card nearly every turn early on. Choosing what to ink is a real decision: ink the card you are least likely to need, and keep most of your deck inkable so you always have a choice. Non-inkable cards are often strong, but too many can leave you stuck. Curve: Plan cheap characters for your first turns, a solid middle, and a few expensive finishers. Because characters must dry before they quest, a character played on your second turn can quest from your third, so early plays add up to a lot of lore. Protect your questers: Evasive characters are hard to challenge, Ward stops opponents choosing a card for their effects, Resist reduces damage, and Bodyguard characters pull challenges away from your key questers. Characters with high Willpower survive challenges and keep questing. Songs and Shift: Singing lets a character pay for a song by exerting instead of spending ink, which is like extra ink when that character doesn't need to quest. Shift lets you play an upgraded version of a character on top of one with the same name, usually for less; if the character underneath is dry, the new one is too and can act straight away. Pick your inks: A second ink gives you more tools but a less focused deck; a single ink is legal too. Look for cards that work together across your inks, not just the strongest card in each. Watch the race: Count both lore totals every turn. If your opponent can reach 20 next turn with the characters they have, you must challenge, remove or otherwise stop them now.

Tips

- Ink a card nearly every turn early on; your inkwell grows by only one card a turn. - New characters are drying: they can't quest, challenge or sing until your next turn, unless Rush lets them challenge. - Only exerted characters can be challenged, so questing exposes a character to a challenge on your opponent's turn. - A character can sing a song whose cost is equal to or less than its own ink cost, instead of you paying the ink. - Keep most of your deck inkable; a hand full of non-inkable cards can stall your ink. - Keep lore totals and damage counters where both players can see them. - Reckless characters can't quest, and you can't end your turn while one is ready and able to challenge. - If your opponent is one turn from 20 lore, stopping them comes first.

Player count & time

Built for two players, with games of about half an hour. The Comprehensive Rules also cover multiplayer games, and an official multiplayer format for three or four players, played to 25 lore, entered open beta in 2026. Good first purchases are the Gateway box, a step-by-step learn-to-play set for two, and the 2-Player Starter Set with two ready-to-play 60-card decks and lore trackers; single starter decks come with damage counters and a lore tracker.

The six ink colors

Ravensburger describes each ink by personality. Amber glimmers are purposeful: leaders, healers and bodyguards. Amethyst is wondrous: sorcerers and others who rely on special powers. Emerald is flexible, adaptable and quick-thinking. Ruby is daring: fast, brave warriors and explorers. Sapphire is intellectual: strategy, invention and the arts. Steel is strong: big, armoured and full of brute force. Every ink has heroes and villains. A Constructed deck may use one ink or two, and a dual-ink card fits only a deck with both of its inks.

Collecting and formats

New sets arrive several times a year in booster packs, starter decks and other products. Core Constructed is the main rotating format: since Set 13, Attack of the Vine! (July 2026), it uses Sets 9 to 13 and later sets. Infinity Constructed allows cards from every set, with its own banned list. Limited events use Sealed, with a deck of at least 40 cards from six or more packs, and Draft, with at least 35. Rarities run from Common up to special versions such as Enchanted.

Common beginner mistake

Holding expensive characters for the perfect moment instead of playing cheap ones that start questing. A character played now can quest next turn, and lore adds up fast. The other common slip is questing with a fragile, valuable character while your opponent has a ready character able to challenge it; sometimes it is better to leave it ready, where it can't be challenged.