Thar she blows! TheGamer is proud to reveal Ink Geyser, a brand new card coming in Disney Lorcana’s Archazia’s Island.
This dual-ink Emerald/Sapphire card does something we’ve never seen before in Lorcana: When played, all players exert the cards in their inkwell and return those cards to their hand at random until only three remain. This is a powerful action that has the potential to majorly disrupt your opponents’ game plan – if you know how to use it.
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Last week, I sat down with Disney Lorcana brand manager and co-designer Ryan Miller to talk about the introduction of dual-ink cards in the upcoming Archazia’s Island set. During our chat, Miller talked about the design of Ink Geyser, how it could be played, and the ways it represents the philosophy behind dual-ink cards.
Dual-Ink Cards Are Coming
Dual-ink cards are brand new to Archazia’s Island. These cards have two different ink colors and must be played in a deck that uses the same two colors. So Ink Geyser goes in an Emerald/Sapphire deck, which is a fairly uncommon ink color combo in the current Lorcana meta.
Creating opportunities for archetypes that haven’t seen a lot of play yet is one of the main goals of dual-ink cards. Miller explains that, by restricting the decks these cards can be used in, the designers found the opportunity to create exciting and powerful cards with abilities we’ve never seen in Disney Lorcana before. Ink Geyser definitely fits the bill.
Dual-ink cards also have the potential to give popular ink-color combos a totally new identity. The recently revealed Belle, Mechanic Engineer is a Ruby/Sapphire card with a powerful ability that requires you to bury items from your discard into your deck, which doesn’t work well with the current Tamatoa/Lucky Dime strategy this ink-color combo is known for.
The Ink Geyser Is A Game Changer
Miller says early on, he wouldn’t have wanted to make a card like Ink Geyser that has players interacting with the cards in their Inkwell. “When designing the game, messing with Inkwell cards is something Steve [Warner] and I didn’t want to do,” he explains. “We didn’t want players caring which facedown card was which. That seems super unfun.” The designers felt it was important that once a card enters the inkwell, players don’t have to try to remember what that card was. “I have to show the card to you and then put it down in my Inkwell, and we never wanted to encourage players to go ‘Oh okay, that card with Mickey, Brave Little Tailor.’”
That was one reason we haven’t seen this kind of opponent manipulation yet, but the other is Miller is aware that messing with people’s resources can lead to unfun situations if done too much, as we saw last year with Bucky, Squirrel Squeak Tutor.
Ink Geyser avoids those concerns by forcing players to return cards at random. “I might remember some of the cards you put down there, but I don’t know which cards you’re going to take back,” he explains. “That gets around that for the most part, but I think there’s still some savviness you can employ when using it.” Miller says a clever player might hold back from playing the Ink Geyser if their opponent puts a card in the Inkwell they don’t want them to have, for example.
Miller describes Ink Geyser as a card that “rewinds the clock”, setting the game back to an earlier phase that he thinks will make for some interesting gameplay.
Finding The Right Deck For Ink Geyser
Emerald/Sapphire, lovingly nicknamed Baja Blast by those who play it, isn’t a particularly popular or well-established deck in Lorcana. Miller explains that Ink Geyser is a great example of the way dual-ink cards can blend the identities of two colors together. “Ink manipulation is a very Sapphire thing, while Emerald is very flexible and all about turning on a dime,” he says. “So this is a very subtle blend.”
But the question remains, what kind of deck would like to use this card? The Emerald/Sapphire decks being played today use an ink ramping strategy to increase the size of their inkwell quickly with Sapphire cards and outvalue their opponents’ on the board with big Emerald threats like Genie, On The Job. Ink Geyser seems like an anti-aggro card meant to punish other Sapphire decks, but you wouldn’t want your own deck to be ramping too – less you inevitably end up punishing yourself. When I suggested as much to Miller, he said ‘not so fast.’
“I don’t know about that,” he says. “If you’re playing ink gain you can recover from this card much quicker than your opponent. I don’t think it precludes ink for that deck, it might change the suite of cards you use to ramp, but I don’t think this is necessarily anti-ramp for you.” What’s more, he says when playing against an ink gain deck, you will have the benefit of deciding when to play it to catch your opponent off guard and unprepared. “I can see holding back on a few One Jump Aheads or Mickey Mouse, Detectives just so I can play this card, get some cards back, and then drop them in the inkwell again.”
Dual-ink cards have a lot of potential to introduce fresh ideas into the Disney Lorcana meta, and Ink Geyser is one you’ll definitely want to keep an eye on when Archazia’s Island hits local game stores and Disney parks on March 7th.
Disney Lorcana
- Original Release Date
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September 1, 2023
- Publisher
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Ravensburger
- Designer
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Ryan Miller, Steve Warner
- Player Count
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2-6 (suggested)
- Age Recommendation
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8+