I am no longer participating in this charade. Throughout TheGamer's Lorcana Week I have written a heartfelt summary of why Elsa matters so much to me, looked at the ruleset from a beginner's point of view, experimented with (Elsa-infused) deckbuilding, explored the narrative power of the cards, and written about why the game has so much charm in the first place - and steps it must take to keep it. My colleagues have been helping you all construct a perfect deck, analysing the game, offering their insights after 100 games, landing major interviews with game designers, and having existential crises about magic mirrors. But I can pretend no longer: I just wanna write about Big Tink.
There are four Tinker Bell cards in the First Chapter, leaving her joint third with Elsa, Stitch, and Ariel for overall representation, beaten out by only Mickey Mouse in first place and, perhaps surprisingly, Maleficent in second. Of these four cards, two of them are Storyborn, which broadly means they represent canon Tinker Bell. One of them is Dreamborn, which means it is an alternate reality version of the fairy, showing her with a thimble helmet, button shield, and needle sword as a Tiny Tactician. And the last one is Floodborn. That's Big Tink.
We don't really know what Floodborn cards mean yet. Our own Eric Switzer offered a breakdown of the card type earlier in the week based on interviews he conducted with Lorcana designers and his own attempts at dissecting the lore. Like Storyborn cards, they're also some form of alternate reality, but we aren't sure what the difference is yet. There are only 12 Floodborn cards, and some upend our expectations of famous characters. Aladdin is a Robin Hood-style outlaw rather than a street urchin. Hades is King of Olympus in place of Zeus. Captain Hook seems to be in possession of pixie dust that allows him to fly freely. And Tink is big. She's Big Tink. I might have mentioned.
The card's actual name is Tinker Bell, Giant Fairy, and she's not just big for Tinker Bell, which might make her human sized. On the card, she's standing in the ocean looking down at a pirate ship on the shore, and the fleeing pirates on the cliff near it. This (presumably full-sized) pirate ship only comes up to Tinker Bell's knees (and that's while she's ankle-deep), with the mast bringing it to hip height. Big Tink is very big.
As Eric has already discussed in far more interesting ways, Floodborn is going to be a major part of Lorcana's storytelling, and over the coming sets (the fifth is currently being designed) we'll see Floodborn expand and, hopefully, make more sense. I'm interested to see where this goes. Sure I am. But I think by this point I've made it clear that I'm here for Big Tink.
There are other pieces of card art that show the creativity of Disney Lorcana (Merlin, Self-Appointed Mentor) as well as ones that hint at the power of its storytelling (Belle, Inventive Engineer). But for a game like this, you need a card that makes you feel something. Big Tink makes me feel alive. It both showcases the creativity of the artists and hints at the power of the storytelling, but more than that, there's something exciting about it. Why is she so big? Why does she look angry? Is she a villain now? Does she crush ships for fun and laugh as the sailors drown? When can I start stepping on my enemies as Big Tink? And so forth.
It's just very cool that we have such a passionate reimagining of a classic character right out of the gate, and that the biggest character in the game is a teeny little fairy. Give me the Big Tink. I want the Big Tink.