The first official competitive Disney Lorcana circuit has been revealed today. It will feature regional Challenge events, Championship events for both North America and Europe, and an invite-only Disney Lorcana World Championships in 2025.
This alone is massive, but there’s more! There will also be a new type of in-store Organized Play event: Set Championships. With this come the first announced Championship promo card and playmat.
Plus, a new 2-player starter set called the Disney Lorcana TCG Gateway is due to be released in August. Then, we’ve also been told the release dates for the next three sets coming in 2024. Read on for everything you need to know!
Disney Lorcana Challenge – Competitive Circuit
Update: Read updated information about the Disney Lorcana Challenge circuit in this article
The first official competitive circuit will be called the Disney Lorcana Challenge, and will start in May 2024. They will be separated into North American and European circuits. There will be different regional Challenge events spread across different areas.
The top four players from each regional Challenge will earn the chance to qualify for final North American or European Championships events. These are due to take place in the 2024 holiday season. However, there will be another way to qualify for these Championships yet to be revealed.
For those new to trading card games, regionals are larger events that often have 500-1000+ players. They run all day, or sometimes over a weekend. Expect 8-9 rounds of very competitive play, and more rounds the next day if you make the “top cut” of the top-placing players from day one.
Disney Lorcana World Championship 2025
The Disney Lorcana World Championships will be invite-only and are due to take place at a “larger open event” in early 2025. At a complete guess, this could be part of a larger Disney event held in a Disney Park, or possibly part of a large-scale Lorcana event with other events for Disney fans and players to get involved in.
More information about the schedule, rules, prize cards, and other prize details – plus how to register – is due to be released on the official site in March. There will likely be different promo cards and playmats for each type of event.
Into the Inklands Championships – “Set” Championships
A separate type of competitive event has also been announced, which will focus on allowing more competitive play at local stores. You may have already attended Lorcana League at your local store. These are weekly events, generally aimed at promoting regular play by earning points – though they can be more competitive at some stores.
It makes sense there would be a new Set Championship every three months, with every new set. The Into the Inklands Championships will start in April 2024 as the main set releases on Feb 23rd for stores and March 8th for larger retailers.
Retailers already approved as Lorcana Play stores can apply from March 8th through melee.gg. Events will be held from April 19th to 28th, and we’ll know more about specific dates and player count/format in coming weeks.
Promo Card + Play Mat
A unique Enchanted promo version of Stitch – Rock Star from The First Chapter will be available as a prize. The top four players will receive the Stitch promo.
Additionally, the top two players will win a playmat of the new art from Nicholas Kole. First place gets one with Champion text, second place gets the same one without the Champion text.
Players aren’t limited to only Into the Inklands cards, and there will not be judge promos for this Set Championship. Stores are encouraged to give additional prizes but have been told not to offer cash prizes.
More Promos?
There are very likely more promo cards to be made available through the various championships or others. We’re missing promo number 25, which sits in between the Gaston – Arrogant Hunter – Event Promo at 24 and the four Into the Inklands league promos which are 26-29.
Then this new Stitch and the three event promos take us from 30 to 33. The Scrooge McDuck – Uncle Moneybags – Event Promo is 39, so we’re missing another 5. That brings us to six promos we don’t know of at this point.
Disney Lorcana TCG Gateway – 2-Player Starter Set
With the success of Disney Lorcana having caused issues with stock, Ravensburger now seems keen to widen the player base. A new type of product has been announced that is aimed at younger players, or those new to TCGs.
Disney Lorcana TCG Gateway is a “progressive learn-to-play experience designed to ease new players into the game and TCG space“. Two people can open the box, take a deck each, and get playing straight away. The set includes:
- Two basic decks of 30 cards
- A two-player game board with character standees
- Rules and player’s guides
- Additional cards
Though players will start with just 30 cards, the press release says: “When players have played through all of Gateway, they will have built two standard Disney Lorcana decks they can take and play with friends”.
A picture of what looks to be the French version of the kit was shared by the user Forda in the Lorcana France Discord server. They also shared from a source that this kit will contain cards from the first four sets, and won’t have unique cards.
“Prélude” in English means… prelude, aka the introduction to something. The top left means “Learn to Play”, and the bottom text says “Endless adventures await you”.
The characters on the box all line up with characters we’ve already seen, and it’s likely they’ll be the characters with standees. Mickey Mouse – Detective is there, and what looks like Elsa – Snow Queen, Maleficent – Sorceress, and Stitch – New Dog – though this is not confirmed.
Disney Lorcana TCG Gateway is priced at $24.99 USD / $29.99 CAD / €24.99 EUR / £22.99 GBP and will be released on August 9, 2024. This coincides with the release of Set 5, see below.
Compared to $16.99 for a starter deck, this is great value and seems like an excellent gift for new players. We expect it’ll be perfect as a Christmas gift, and we might see updated versions with new sets.
Next Three Set Release Dates Announced
We haven’t been given the names, but we have been told the dates of the next three Disney Lorcana sets that will be released in 2024.
- Set 4 – Friday 17th May 2024 @ LGS + Parks / Friday 31st May 2024 @ Retailers + shopDisney
- Set 5 – Friday 9th August 2024 @ LGS + Parks / Friday 23rd August @ Retailers + shopDisney
- Set 6 – Friday 15th November @ LGS + Parks / Friday 29th November @ Retailers + shopDisney
As an aside, Ravensburger said long ago that the first six sets would all have a two-week period where local stores would have early access to sell before big retailers. These six would cover that. Will it change going forward?
We can’t say, but the two-week period is a very, very good thing for local games stores. Given the reach of Disney, most casual collectors would probably prefer being able to pick up where they normally shop.
Assuming the popularity continues, if those collectors didn’t have to to a game store – it would have a decent impact. The “market pricing” trend of many LGS in the US is definitely a bad look. To some, that puts Ravensburger and even Disney in a bad light, even when they’ve done this to try and help those local stores.
Overall, this strategy can be very good for the game in attracting people to try playing. But without a penalty for stores that abuse this privilege (and the extra work that goes along with policing that), why would Ravensburger continue?
How Is Disney Lorcana Doing?
The press release this article was sourced from was introduced by Filip Francke, Global Head of Games at Ravensburger, who seemed very positive about the direction the game is taking: “The Disney Lorcana TCG has been well received by players, collectors and fans around the world and has also proven to be a fantastic introduction for TCG newcomers“.
“We’re only just getting started, but consumer feedback and industry data supports our belief that this game will be around for a very long time”. For a trading card game, this is a really positive indication that we can expect support for Disney Lorcana in the long term.
We’re eager to hear what you think – Are you more excited for the circuit, or the set championships?
