You'd be hard pressed to find a better Disney Lorcana teacher than the man who co-designed the game. Last month, I spent an afternoon with brand manager and co-designer Ryan Miller for an extended interview and to play my first ever game of Lorcana. For the second day of TheGamer's Lorcana Week celebration, we're releasing our full gameplay session. Click play on the thumbnail below if you want to get right into the game, or keep reading if you'd like to see some of the cards featured in our match.
Before we started, Miller talked a bit about the philosophy of designing a good starter deck. "Your goal is not to be competitive," Miller says. "Your goal is to be a nice onboarding experience. We feel like a lot of folks who never played a trading card game before are gonna try this game. We want to make sure the starter deck experience is really welcoming and it eases you in to the intracacies of the rules." Miller says Lorcana is designed to be easy to pick up, and that the strategic depth of the game comes from the cards themselves.
For these specific decks, Miller says they're each meant to demonstrate a particular set of strategies and mechanics. The Sapphire/Steel deck is all about "gaining more resources quicker than you should so you can put out larger characters," while the Amber/Amethyst deck is about "lots of friends, tons of friends out really quickly." Miller describes the Ruby/Emerald deck as a combo deck and the "most strategically complex of the three."
Miller played the Ruby/Emerald deck - which at this point has not yet been shown publicly - while I piloted the Sapphire/Steel deck. Miller walked me through the strategy of my deck, which is all about playing ramp cards like Gramma Tala, Storyteller to build my inkwell quickly so that I can play cards like Mufasa, King of the Pride Lands early to overwhelm my opponent with large bodies that are difficult to subdue. It didn't exactly go as planned.
Though I started strong, my deck hit a roadblock when Miller played two copies of Pongo, Ol' Rascal, a character with Evasive that can only be challenged by other Evasive characters. Since the Steel/Sapphire deck has no Evasive, I had to rely on removal actions like Fire The Cannons! and Grab Your Sword to deal with the dogs. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stop him fast enough, and he collected his 20 lore before me. To add insult to injury, his final card play was Mad Hatter, Gracious Host, a character with a staggering three lore and the ability Tea Party, which allows you to draw a card every time it's challenged. This is one of the most impactful cards in the Ruby/Emerald starter deck. As you'd probably guess, the guy that made the game utterly stomped the noobie. Apparently, Miller has never heard of game journalism difficulty.
I may have lost the game, but I gained a nemesis. When I see Miller at Gen Con next week he better be prepared for the thunder. It's been a month since our meeting and I've been playing A LOT of Lorcana. I'm coming for you Miller!
It's Day 2 of TheGamer's Lorcana Week and we have a lot more planned in the days to come. Keep your eyes glued on our Lorcana Week hub page to stay updated on all things Lorcana.