Lorcana Release Day!

Release day for Lorcana is here! Rejoice!

For those lucky enough to have access to a local game store with Lorcana product to sell, today was the first day for many to get their hands on some cards. There have been a lot of stories of stores not receiving much or any product to sell today, so it seems like fewer players are getting their hands on the game than we would like, but here's hoping this situation improves in the coming days/weeks and more people can play this great game!

As for me? I did not buy any new product today. As someone who works normal business hours, I couldn't go to any stores during the day, and besides, I have an event tomorrow which will net me a starter deck and a few boosters! So no need to break the bank paying outrageous prices for product on day 1.

That being said, I do have some stuff to share! A friend of mine managed to get ahold of a couple starter decks and 8 extra boosters so we did a mini sealed event and a few trades (details later!).

"Sealed Event"

So my friend ended up with 10 booster packs total, enough for us to have a little mini sealed event together. He kept all the cards of course, but it was fun to crack the packs with him and build 40 card decks. We did no color restrictions for these games, so our decks were both a big mix of everything. So how were the pulls and the games?

Well, overall we both pulled some decent stuff. Some big hitters for my deck were Stitch Rock Star, Zeus God of Lightning, Let it go (x2), Cheshire Cat Not All There, Aladdin Heroic Outlaw, Captain Hook Ruthless Pirate, and Hades Infernal Schemer. Some decent cards to build around! With such a limited card pool (slimming 60 cards down to 40), I mostly played just all the good stuff I pulled. I tried to build a sort of late game focused deck since we had almost no removal between the two of us, along with some decent board control with big bodies.

A quick outline of our games. We played a best of 3. Game one I fell behind on the lore count early but once I was able to stick Aladdin on the field, I was able to slow down my opponent's lore gain. Aladdin Heroic Outlaw is such a good pressure tool to dissuade your opponent from questing or challenging, as the 4 lore swing can be huge. And as it turned out, it was. Towards the middle of the game, my opponent challenged into one of my other characters to banish them, leaving the door open for Aladdin. That 4 lore swing made a big difference, and I was able to clean up in the late game due to my bigger characters on the field. My opponent did have 1 copy of Be Prepared in his deck, but it didn't make an appearance. If it had, it would have wiped out my chances. Game 2 I again fell a bit behind early, but once again my better late game characters won it for me. So a quick 2-0 match on the back of some heavy hitters.

Some standouts from the games were Cheshire Cat, Aladdin, and somewhat surprisingly, Scepter of Arendelle. Both my opponent each had a copy, and we were impressed with how well it performed. It was a valuable tool in allowing normally small characters to challenge bigger characters, while costing nothing beyond the initial 1 ink investment. I hope to get my hands on a few of these to continue experimenting with! I was able to get Stitch Rock Star on the field in both games but his impact wasn't huge beyond his questing since my deck wasn't build to take advantage of his ability. Great card for my friend to have though, so I hope he gets some use out of him!

The Trades

It was great to actually do a trade in this "trading card game"! I made what I would consider a somewhat uneven trade (worse for me) but one I was happy to make to start to enable a strategy I've been wanting to play! I traded one of my Maleficent Monstrous Dragon and one Mad Hatter Gracious Host for two Mickey Wayward Sorcerer and one Simba Future King. Not very even to give up a legendary for 2 super rares that come in the starter deck, but I was happy to give my friend a powerful card and get my 2nd and 3rd sorcerer Mickey copies to work towards my playset. I want to run Broom Control (even though it isn't all that good) so getting ahold of these 2 Mickey cards gets me close. The Simba was also nice just as a solid 1-drop for steel.

Broom Control here I come!

For those who don't know, Broom Control is a micro-strategy involving Mickey Wayward Sorcerer and Magic Broom Bucket Brigade. Mickey reduces the cost of the brooms by 1 ink (which stacks) and when they are banished in a challenge, you can add them back to your hand instead of sending them to your discard pile. If you can set up the combo, the strategy is very effective at controlling the board and putting constant pressure on your opponent through challenges and questing, but it completely falls apart against any kind of removal. So the strategy does well against amethyst, amber, sapphire, and emerald since those colors tend to play more for board and lack consistent removal, but it struggles against steel and especially ruby. Not an amazing strategy, but one I want to play! We played a few constructed games after our little sealed match and I was able to get fantastic use out of Broom Control in one of our games. I had 2 Mickey on the board, so the brooms were free to play. Every turn I would either challenge with them or quest and force my opponent to either challenge into them or let them keep questing each round. It was an amber/amethyst mirror, so it was a good matchup for the brooms. I look forward to playing more with them in the future!

Release Event Tomorrow

Like I said in the first blog post, I will be attending a sealed release event tomorrow at a local game store! It will be 1 starter deck plus 2 extra booster packs (a third if I play all 3 rounds, which I plan to). So that will add 48 new cards to my collection, plus extra copies of cards from whichever starter deck I end up with. I would love amber/amethyst (to get that 4th Mickey) but I'll be happy with any of them as they will fill out my staple cards in a couple colors. I will try to take many pictures and get a blog post up soon after the event is over so that those of you interested can follow along!

As always, thank you to those of you who have read all the way through and are tagging along on this little Lorcana journey. I appreciate you all!