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After a long journey we finally made it, Ursula has been defeated and peace reigns one more in the magical realm of Disney Lorcana. Most important, a year (almost) has passed since the 20th of August, the day the very first chapter of Disney Lorcana released. It is therefore a great time for celebrations in both the fictional realm and the real world and the newer set of the game, Shimmering Skies , will mark the first milestone of this great Trading Card Game.
As usual, we had some great card reveals across the network in the last few weeks and with the release date just round the corner, I thought it would be a great time to summarize what we know so far about the new set. Important note: I will discuss some of the new cards as part of this content thus please be aware that there will be some spoilers.
Anatomy of a set – what to expect?
As mentioned, the story of the new set takes after the defeat of the Sea Witch. All the glimmers are celebrating and the Illumineers gathered at the Great Illuminary for a massive festival. In the trailer of the new set, we saw them playing games, dancing and enjoying food and music. Among the Characters we have already seen in the past, we found some new faces joining the celebrations including Ralph and Vanellope from Wreck-it Ralph and Gazelle from Zootopia. Together with these two main movies, we know from the card reveals that Characters from Koda, Brother Bear will also make their debut on this set.
There are a lot of cards from Wreck it Ralph among those revealed so far and they range across three different Ink colours, Amber, Sapphire and Ruby. The red ones include some vanilla versions all the Racers from Sugar Rush and a version of both Vanellope and Turbo/King Candy. Not surprisingly, some of these cards have Rush and/or evasive... Among the Amber cards from the same movie, Ralph is the most interesting one as it allows to return a Character from the discard pile to the player hand and gain 2 lore if such Character is a princess. Deck strongly focused on Princesses have been obviously around since the first set and I start wondering if this is finally the time to see this Archetype shining.
Among the cards we have seen so far, we will have a new full set of Snow White and the 7 Dwarves, this time as armoured Knights. As the new attire may suggests, these are all Steel cards with a range of Resist, Bodyguard and Challenge abilities. Dopey also allows to damage a character or Location on play if you have another knight while Doc allows the player to draw two cards assuming they discard their hand. In this new version, Snow White gains resist +1 for each knight in play that cause some serious headaches to an opponent considering also her Willpower of 5.
Looking at all other cards, I think there are a few new mechanics in this set that we have never seen before in Lorcana. The most notable one is the new Mufasa that allows the player to return two random cards from their Inkwell on play AND to ready all the cards in the Inkwell every time it quests. It is true this Sapphire Mufasa has a cost of 8 but the possibility to interact with the Inkwell is completely new to the game and can open-up a lot of strategic possibilities. This is particularly true in a Sapphire item focused deck which offers the ability to easily build up cards in the Inkwell to ramp. Moreover, there are a lot of very interesting items and item-related ability in this set that can definitely make this Archetype shine even more.
In addition to the large amount of support to Item decks, Shimmering Skies seems to provide a lot of support also to Ruby aggro decks focusing on getting lore through challenging other characters. Among the most interesting cards we have the Action “ Who's with me?” that grants 2 lore for every Reckless Character that challenge this turn. This ability can be particularly efficient if your
character marches to the lyrics of the Song “Don't let the Frostbite bite” that ready all you characters at once. Combines this with “Queen of Hearts, Sensing Weakness” or “Shere Khan, Menacing Predator” or “Flyn Rider, Frenemy” from previous sets to gain further additional lore or card drawing and you will start get to 20 lore in a second.
Last but not least, the newer Lorcana set also provides a very interesting support to Emerald decks. After the Errata that put an end to Bucky Discard domination, the new Emerald cards seem to tend more towards generating additional direct damage to opposing characters and then exploit this. “Scar, Vengeful Lion” for example allows the player to draw a card if it challenges an opposing character while the location “Tropical Rainforest” forces all opposing damaged Character to become Reckless. “Robin Hood, Sneaky Sleuth” is likely the most interesting cards among them as he can quest for 1 additional lore for each damaged opposing character and it only costs 5 (or 3 if you Shift it).
Which Products this set will include?
As usual the set will include 204 cards equally divided in the 6 Ink colours. The cards will be available mainly as Booster Packs of 12 cards each and as Booster box, each containing 24 Booster Packs. An Illumineer Trove will also be available as usual and it will include 8 Packs, 6 dividers to help store your cards, 6 Damage Dice and a Lore counter. Last but not least, there will be two Starter decks featuring Ralph and Elsa (Ruby/Amethyst) and Kronk and Scar (Steel and Emerald).
In terms of accessories, there will be two sets of sleeves and Deck boxes featuring Aladdin and Tiana and two different playmats (a stunning “Belle, Accomplished Mystic” and “Casita” from the movie Madrigal). There will also be a set of Sleeve featuring the art on the back of the Lorcana cards for all those players that like it.
Last but not least, Ravensburger has re-designed the format of their portfolio binders so that they are more suitable to store your card collections. The new portfolio are larger, able to hold a full set of cards and they are decorated with some amazing art to catch your attention right away.
Shimmering Skies will also see the release of two new types of product. The first one, called “Lorcana Gateway”, is a new type of entry level set designed for all those players that want to learn the game but have never played it. The set includes two small set of 30 cards each and a few sealed packages with cards players can progressively add to their initial deck. The idea behind this product is to allow players to learn the strategic complexity of Disney Lorcana one step at a time at their own pace. The Starter Decks are still very good products to have a feeling of the newer set and to get into the game if you have previous TCG experience but the new Lorcana Gateaway is a great product to have to introduce new or younger players to the hobby.
The second product that will release in August is the D23 Collection, a celebratory set containing one card from each set from the First Chapter to the sixth (yes, the one that will release in November). The set was made to celebrate the recent D23 yearly event and it will only be available for purchase at Disney Stores and Disney Parks for a limited time.