Summary

  • Disney Lorcana's 2025 plan includes the debut of dual-Ink cards in Archazia's Island in March.
  • There's potential for Disney Lorcana to consider adopting a Commander-like format in the future.
  • A Commander-like format in Disney Lorcana could enhance replayability and appeal to a broader audience.

2025 is already poised to be a big year for Disney Lorcana, with the first expansion of the year coming out in March and introducing both a new non-canon Disney character and a new type of card. Disney Lorcana's dual-Ink cards will debut in Archazia's Island, and they seem to be designed as powerful cards that have a built-in restriction in the form of forcing players to use those two colors in a given deck. With Reign of Jafar set to come out sometime later this year, possibly concluding the Year 2 storyline, the game is sure to get some new exciting tools. Yet, it is currently lacking a popular format from Magic: The Gathering.

Magic: The Gathering has been around for over thirty years now, so it only makes sense that it has a much wider array of cards and formats as compared to Disney Lorcana. Still, the main way to play Disney Lorcana for all kinds of gamers is to do 1v1 matches that are typically best-of-two or best-of-three, much like official tournaments. However, there is a strong case to be made for Disney Lorcana to adopt a new format later on in its lifespan that is similar to Magic: The Gathering's Commander.

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Magic: The Gathering's Commander Format Would Be a Match Made in Heaven For Disney Lorcana

Magic: The Gathering's Commander is arguably the face of the game now, seeing how it has quickly become a fan-favorite format with a lot of support from new cards and precon decks coming out every year. The way it works is that players have to build a 100-card deck where one of these cards acts as the Commander, which is a Legendary Creature that also determines the color identity of the deck. Commander is typically played with four people, unlike most MTG formats that are 1v1. There are various ways for this to work in Disney Lorcana, and the game also has some cards that affect all opponents instead of one, which would be solid foundations for this format. These cards include some already popular cards, like:

  • Daisy Duck - Donald's Date
  • You Have Forgotten Me
  • Diablo - Devoted Herald
  • Cursed Merfolk - Ursula's Handiwork
  • A Pirate's Life
  • Lady Tremain - Imperious Queen
  • Ariel - Treasure Collector

There are currently 58 cards with the "each opponent" wording in Disney Lorcana, and with more interactions for the whole table with new sets, a Commander-like format for the game would grow rapidly. It would also make for interesting new card ideas for Disney Lorcana, as there could be some abilities that actively target two or more players or their cards in play.

Why Lorcana Should Add a Commander-Like Format

The possibilities would be endless with a Commander-adjacent format in Disney Lorcana, and Magic: The Gathering's precon Commander decks would prove like a good starting point. Disney Lorcana already has Starter Decks, but for this format, they would follow new rules and have their own "Commanders." In the case of Disney Lorcana, there could be multiple ways to approach a similar ruling to Commander, such as using up to two characters as "Commanders," thus determining either the Ink colors of the deck or the type of characters allowed in it (i.e., Hero, Villain, Dreamborn, Floodborn, etc.).

Unlike Magic: The Gathering's Commander, a similar format in Lorcana may work without the limit to one copy of each card per deck, a rule that would instead apply to the Commanders. If not this, the game could still enforce the one-copy rule per card, but not limit the usage of Ink colors in the deck to a maximum of two, like regular decks. This way, players could end up having more fun because they would be able to use all their favorite cards in one place without further restrictions, also enabling more diverse strategies for Disney Lorcana's meta. Overall, this could be a big win for the game, dramatically improving its replayability and the type of audience it may appeal to, as Commander is also great for families and groups of friends, much more than any 1v1 format would.

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Magic: The Gathering Arena Tag Page Cover Art

Magic: The Gathering Arena
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Digital Card Game
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Systems
PC-1
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Top Critic Avg: 82 /100 Critics Rec: 81%
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Released
September 27, 2018
ESRB
T for Teen // Blood and Gore, Mild Fantasy Violence
Developer(s)
Wizards of the Coast, Wizards Digital Games Studios
Publisher(s)
Wizards of the Coast
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WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL
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Engine
Unity
Multiplayer
Online Multiplayer
Platform(s)
PC, Android, iOS
Genre(s)
Digital Card Game