Releasing August 2023, Lorcana has landed pretty well with its players. Well into set 2, Rise of the Floodborn, we're already seeing new creative decks, as well as old favorites (or not, depending who you are) such as Ruby-Amethyst. With Into the Inklands hitting our friendly local game stores in less than a month, Ravensburger has been firing on all cylinders with both previews and announcements. We're here to talk about the latter, more specifically, organized play.

Ravensburger has formally announcement their plans for organized play heading into 2024. Competitive players all around the world are now able to compete against each other for coveted prizes, fame, and glory. Illumineers will be able to face off in their local competitive scenes, all the way up to the strongest Lorcana players hosted in a worldwide event for the ultimate title of World's Greatest Illumineer.

Tournament Structure and Schedule

So far, two lines of organized play have been announced; The Lorcana Challenge and Set Championships. Let's start with The Lorcana Challenge.

The Lorcana Challenge is a series of events that starts with regional events that lead up to an invitational World Championship sometime in 2025. Winners of a regional Challenge Event will qualify for a larger North American or European Championship toward the end of 2024. Invitations to the World Championship in 2025 will be given to the top performers in those regional finals. Details on specific dates or locations have yet to be announced, but more info should be coming to the Lorcana site in March.

Set Championships are events that local friendly game stores that qualify will be able to host. These events won't award to invitations to The Lorcana Challenge, but will offer exclusive rewards.

Ravensburger also announced release dates for the rest of the sets of 2024, which could be a good indicator of when we can expect to see each of these Set Championships. With the first one firing off sometime in April, we can most likely expect to see these events as soon as one month after the retail release of the respective set. That should give us enough time for the first initial decks to set a foundation for re-establishing the meta.

Prize Support and Rewards

The top two players in Set Championship tournaments can expect to earn one of the first ever enchanted Stitch - Rock Star, along with a matching play mat. While prizing for future events has not been mentioned yet, I'm sure Amber players are very happy with Stitch getting ANOTHER enchanted variant. I know I am! What prize support are you looking to get?

For The Lorcana Challenge, the only confirmed prize is entrance into the invitational itself. I would love to see custom play mats and other enchanted cards along with some serious prize money to almost guarantee a large player turnout for these events.

Format and Rules

For both Lorcana Challenge and Set Championships, we will most likely see the format follow the current formal rules, which is best of three matches, 50-minute rounds, with 5 rounds of play when going to time. If players have not completed their matches by then, it's considered a tie. This may be a cause for concern given the current meta with a large presence from Ruby-Amethyst. However, with Into the Inklands around the corner, we've already seen some great cards that can definitely change things up right before these events kick off.

Another alternative, although unlikely, could be a draft format following the same ruleset as above. Or could they run events for each type? It's all up in the air as we currently have limited details.

Player Engagement and Community

Ravensburger has done a great job with Lorcana local league play. Players have been able to win promos exclusive to these events, as well as high quality pins and a paper lore counters. Fostering this community lays an important foundation for high attendance to these larger events. My hope is that league play will continue to exists and support players that may not be confident enough for highly competitive play. That way, those players will be able to practice and play in hopes of becoming competitive in the future, if that's what their goal is.

Wrapping Up

There you have it. With Into the Inklands coming soon, it's really hard to start planning for such events. My suggestion is to continue to play in your locals to share strategies and discuss previews that can give you a competitive edge. I'm really excited for what's in store for competitive Lorcana, both in play and locations. One could hope that we could someday see an event hosted in our backyard at Disney World. It would only be so fitting.

What are your hopes for the future of competitive play with Lorcana? Are you already brewing in hopes of taking home the enchanted Stitch and playmat? How about playing at national or worlds?

Until Next Time,

Stefen Delgado