It’s Time To Spice Up Disney Lorcana Packs With Something New

There’s nothing I look forward to more than a new Disney Lorcana set. It’s a pretty miraculous thing for me, a lifelong hobby jumper, to be this invested in the same thing for so long. But after six sets and 17 months, I’m still just as excited to see new Lorcana cards as I was when the first seven were revealed in 2022.

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I can’t wait for March’s set, Archazia’s Island. 204 new cards brings so many exciting possibilities to my favorite card game. I want to explore new deck archetypes, beef up my decks, and see which new cards are going to inevitably help Ruby/Amethyst stay on top. But as time goes on, I have to be honest about one thing that is changing for me: I’m not that excited to open packs anymore.

Opening Packs Isn’t As Fun As It Used To Be

This is a problem I’ve seen coming for a long time, but it finally hit me full force with the launch of Azurite Sea. Though Lorcana cards have six rarity tiers, there’s not much that distinguishes them. Other than the ultra-rare Enchanted cards, all the other cards look the same. I’ve always felt like Legendaries should look special, and over the last few sets they’ve started to get some flair with details in the art that overlap the border here, or an embossed finish on the characters there. It does help to differentiate Legendaries a bit, but over all, opening packs of Lorcana isn’t as rewarding as it should be.

Compare Lorcana to Pokemon or Magic and you’ll see a huge difference. When you open a pack of Pokemon cards you get three foils, with the potential for upgrades to rarer cards in each of the three slots. The rare at the back could be an ex, a Full Art, a Special Illustration Rare, or a gold card, and either of the reverse holo cards could be an Illustration Rare. Your chance of finding something outside of the ordinary is high. It’s not always going to be the most expensive cards, but you’re going to find something in at least half of your packs, and there being so many different things to find makes opening every pack exciting.

Magic is constantly inventing new frames and art treatments that are thematic to each set. One of my favorite recent examples were the Lurking Evil cards from Duskmourn. These were normal commons and uncommons, but with a secret second version that included a monster hidden in the art, which encouraged you to examine your cards carefully to find these rare anomalies. Pokemon recently did something similar with the Pokemon Go set, which had hidden peel-away cards that revealed a ditto.

Lorcana Can’t Compete With The Variety Other Games Offer

Six sets in, and Lorcana has yet to introduce anything new to spice up pack openings, even though Lorcana is more expensive than Pokemon and Magic. And while it may seem unfair to compare a (relatively) brand new game like Lorcana to games that have been around for decades, the fact is all of these games are competing in the same market, and Lorcana is falling short.

I love collecting Lorcana cards, and I go out of my way to collect hard-to-find promos and rare memorabilia for the game. I will always be able to look for cool Lorcana stuff to collect, but I just wish the packs themselves were more exciting to open. With an average of four legendary in a box and one enchanted per case, I’m at a point where it’s not worth opening packs anymore.

I can buy all the cards I need for playing and buy an enchanted or two that I want to collect, and I’ll be saving hundreds that I would have spent opening boxes and getting the same worthless Super Rares. In Lorcana’s second full year, it’s time to bring something new to the game to make opening packs exciting again.

Disney Lorcana

Original Release Date

September 1, 2023

Publisher

Ravensburger

Designer

Ryan Miller, Steve Warner

Player Count

2-6 (suggested)

Age Recommendation

8+

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