How to Play Disney Lorcana

Disney Lorcana is a trading card game from Ravensburger where you play as an Illumineer — a powerful sorcerer who summons Disney characters (called glimmers) to collect lore. It's easy to learn and hard to master. Here's everything you need to play your first game.

The goal

Be the first player to collect 20 lore. You earn lore mainly by sending your characters on quests. First to 20 wins — simple as that.

What you need

A 60-card deck using cards from at most two of the six ink colors (Amber, Amethyst, Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire, Steel).
A maximum of 4 copies of any single card.
Something to track lore (a die, the FloodBorn lore counter, or pen and paper).

The six inks

Each ink has a personality:

Amber — go-wide, supportive, song-friendly.
Amethyst — card draw and tempo.
Emerald — disruption and bouncing characters.
Ruby — aggressive challengers.
Sapphire — ramp, items, and value.
Steel — removal and big bodies.

A turn, step by step

Each turn follows the same beat:

Ready — turn your exerted cards upright again.
Set — trigger any "start of turn" effects.
Draw — draw one card. (The player who goes first skips their very first draw.)
Main phase — this is where the game happens. In any order you may:
- Ink a card. Once per turn you may put a card with the swirl symbol in its top-left corner into your inkwell face down. This is your mana — each inked card gives you one ink to spend.
- Play cards by paying their ink cost. Characters, items, actions, and songs.
- Quest. Exert a character (turn it sideways) to gain lore equal to the number next to the lore symbol on the card.
- Challenge. Exert a character to attack an opposing exerted character. Both deal damage equal to their strength to each other.
- Sing songs. Instead of paying a song's cost, you can exert a character whose cost is equal to or greater than the song's cost to sing it for free.

The golden rule of summoning sickness

A character you just played has "drying ink" — it can't quest or challenge the turn it comes down, unless it has Rush (can challenge) or another ability that says otherwise. Items and locations don't have this restriction.

Challenging in detail

You can only challenge a character that is exerted (already questing or having challenged).
Both characters deal damage equal to their strength to one another.
A character with damage equal to or greater than its willpower is banished (sent to the discard).

Winning

Keep questing, trade efficiently in challenges, and protect your lore engine. The moment you hit 20 lore, the game ends and you win.

That's it! The depth comes from deckbuilding and sequencing — but the rules above are all you need to sit down and play. When you're ready, try the goldfish simulator to practice your opening hands.