D23 has come and gone, and it brought a lot of announcements for Disney properties. The one we care about the most is the first preview cards from Disney Lorcana. These cards were the only thing previewed for the game, but I think there're some interesting things we can speculate on based on the cards alone. Some of the things I suggested were necessary for a good card game appear to already be implemented, so let's jump into it.

For reference, I've outlined sections on the card below so it's easier to understand what I'm talking about. I will not talk about individual cards or try to figure out which ones are good or bad because there's not enough information or context at this point to figure that out.

The first thing I notice about this card is it seems to suggest a game system more similar to Magic: The Gathering than Pokemon TCG or YuGiOh!. The top left of the card features a number (1) presumably indicating the cost of the card. Assuming this is the cost, the higher cost cards seem to be bigger characters with better abilities. which lines up with a resource system similar to Magic. The Stitch card specifically cares about card costs so it's hard for me to believe that number doesn't indicate cost.

The next thing I notice is the card name has a subtitle (2). This says to me that there won't be a single Mickey card. If you read my last article, I noted that was one of the keys to making this a successful game. I think the subtitle letting you differentiate versions of Mickey is better system than Pokemon's, which uses the set and collector number to differentiate which version of Pikachu you're playing. It remains to be seen if they will take a Magic-style approach to deck-building (you can play 4 copies of a card named Mickey, Brave Little Tailor and 4 copies of another Mickey card, etc) or the Pokemon approach (your deck may only contain 4 copies of a card named Pikachu but Pikachu V is a different card name).

The indicator (3), I believe, is actually a color indicator. Since these cards don't have any other symbols to signify what type of card it is, this color indicator should help colorblind people. The Mickey card and the Maleficient card both have the same indicator and are both red.

The card type (4) follows a few conventions. Every card is either a hero or a villain and has a "born" type. I don't know what the specificity of the "born" types are and they appear to be independent of the color of the card. Some cards also have additional types to indicate they may have some synergies with cards from other stories. For example, Maleficient is, unsurprisingly, a dragon. Does it mean there will be cards to support a deck that includes Elliot (Pete's Dragon), Mushu (Mulan), and Sisu (Raya and the Last Dragon)? I also expect some cards to have different types in different versions. The previewed Elsa is a Queen but I would not be surprised to see an Elsa card that was instead a Princess. There's a lot of cool stuff they could do here and some deep cuts they could make. Captain Hook is a pirate but is also a captain. How many captains can they make that aren't pirates? Captain America, Captain Marvel, and Captain Phasma are all cards I could see existing but would they make a Captain EO card? That would certainly be something special.

The numbers in these bubbles (5) appear to be attack and defense. Captain Hook's card gets bigger on what is presumably attack when it challenges a card which makes sense for a pirate duel.

Then we have the stars. What do they mean? This is the part of the card that stumps me the most. The Lorcana team was very tight-lipped about the rules of the game but I have to imagine that these stars have something to do with how the game is won. The cards previewed indicate there is an emphasis on character combat, so maybe this is the number of points you get for defeating this card? Generally, the lower cost cards have less stars but there's a deviation here since Maleficient costs 9 and has only two. Mickey costs 8 and has 4 which is twice as many for a card that costs 1 less. It's possible the opposite is true and it's how many points you get from an unchallenged attack. The only other thing I could think of is this could be part of a deck-building restriction (i.e. your deck may only contain a minimum or maximum number of stars) but that seems less likely because it's more obtuse.

The most surprising thing about these preview cards is not the cards that were previewed but the cards that were not. All of the previewed cards are characters, and I can't imagine a game where your whole deck will be characters. Since they're so integral to Disney properties, I expect locations and moments to be cards. For example, there will probably be character cards for Timon and Pumbaa but also cards for the pride lands (location) and Hakuna Matata (moment).

Ultimately, this is a good step forward. These cards are convention exclusives, but will have versions in packs of the first set (albeit without the D23 and 1st edition stamps). That's great, because it creates premium versions for collectors but doesn't lock average players out of having access to game pieces. I am surprised to see Elsa is the most modern character featured and that there were not any Marvel or Star Wars characters. Given the game is more than a year from release I am not yet worried about that. There is a ton of time to preview new cards in the first set and I will be here to break them down when we see them!