By Bruce C. Steele
At the Disney Lorcana panel Friday at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event, members of the Ravensburger trading card game’s creative team held all the cards and played them one at a time to please the standing-room-only crowd: Pixar! Pocahontas! A Lorcana Challenge World Championship! A one-of-a-kind Lorcana card!
Ryan Miller, senior brand manager and co-designer, began the event by saying that the year since the Disney Lorcana launch had been “like a roller-coaster on a rodeo,” a momentous period only partly captured by “a lot of numbers.” Such as:
- More than 1 billion Disney Lorcana cards sold, which comes out to 131,000 cards an hour.
- One-and-a-half times around the equator: The distance that could be covered by all those cards placed end to end.
- More than 400,000 downloads of the related app.
- 100,000 players participating in regularly organized play.
- More than 76,000 organized play events so far.
More important than that, said Brent Strong, executive creative director, Walt Disney Imagineering, is that “every single game is a story.” Appropriate to this creative partnership, he said, “I love the way Lorcanacaptures the stories [Disney tells].” Strong is a player himself, along with his 8- and 10-year-old children.
“We’re bringing all the generations together,” added Steve Warner, co-creator and game designer. “That’s huge.”
There are three ingredients to a great experience, Miller noted: love, attention to detail, and hard work—elements exemplified by both Disney storytelling and Ravensburger’s crafting of the Disney Lorcana game and its beautiful, collectible cards.
After sharing behind-the-scenes details and artwork detailing the finely honed process of creating each Lorcana card—and the creation of the rich, semi-secret backstory that underpins the Lorcana world—the panelists moved on to sharing a lot of big news, including:
- Four major regional Disney Lorcana events (previously announced) are scheduled for the remainder of 2024: in Toronto, Canada, later this month; in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Birmingham, England, in September; and in Seattle, Washington, in October.
- Those events will be followed by the European championship in December at the Disneyland Paris Resort and the North American Championship in January at the Disneyland Resort. Exact dates and details will be revealed later.
- Even bigger news was that a Disney Lorcana Challenge World Championship will take place in 2025 at Walt Disney World Resort. (Dates and details to follow.) The participants in the World Championship will be playing for a one-of-a-kind Disney Lorcana card: a golden card featuring Mickey Mouse as the Brave Little Tailor. (It has already been printed and hidden in a secure location, all duplicates shredded at the printer.)
- As for cards that every player can own, fans can look forward to:
- Autograph-ready cards that can be signed in Disney Parks by the characters depicted—part of a Disney Lorcana Quest activity now in development.
- An Oswald the Lucky Rabbit card later this year.
- Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers cards, also later this year.
- Cards featuring The Black Cauldron, coming in 2025.
- A Pocahontas card to complete the Disney Princess deck, coming in 2026.
- Cards featuring Pixar stories, songs, and characters, also in 2026.
But besides all the collectible cards and challenging events, Miller emphasized, “Story is the glue that holds it all together.” That, and the warmth of friends and family gathered to enjoy a Disney Lorcana trading card game together.
Ravensburger has just released the fifth and newest card set for Disney Lorcana, called Shimmering Skies. A sixth set (details to come) will have a nautical theme, with Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Goofy, and other characters depicted in pirate roles.