Four Disney Lorcana card types doesn’t sound like much, but there’s a surprising amount of detail to remember about each. Every kind of Lorcana card comes with sub-types, classifications, and unique details that make them stand out. Part of learning how to play the game is understanding what your cards are – and we’re here to help.
Before we crack on with our definitions, we’d like to point you to some other explainer guides you might find helpful. Our Lorcana rules guide goes over the basics of how to play, and you can further identify cards using our guides to Lorcana rarity symbols and Lorcana colors.
These are the different Disney Lorcana card types:
- Lorcana glimmers
- Lorcana character cards
- Lorcana action cards
- Lorcana item cards
- Lorcana location cards
Lorcana glimmers
If you’ve been keeping up with Lorcana’s lore, you may have heard the word ‘glimmer’ thrown around. But what does glimmer actually mean?
A Lorcana glimmer is a new version of a classic Disney character, created by Illumineers (the player) by using an inkcaster. Basically, you have the power to create new (and non-canon) versions of beloved Disney characters by summoning them during a game. It’s like how Magic: The Gathering refers to the cards you play as ‘spells’ – to give a story reason that you’re playing at all.
Except it’s not quite like MTG spells, as only some Lorcana cards are glimmers. Right now, it seems like the Lorcana glimmers term only refers to cards that remain in play after you cast them. So that’s character cards and item cards, but not action cards (more on these shortly). Lorcana Location cards are new to the game, but they also appear to be glimmers.
Lorcana character cards
Lorcana character cards depict the people and creatures you’ve seen star in Disney movies. Once played, these cards remain in play until you or an opponent do something to remove it. For example, if a character card takes too much damage, it’s banished (discarded).
Like all Lorcana cards, characters have an ink cost required to play them, and many can be played as ink into your inkwell. Each character has a name, an ink type, and a rarity symbol. They also have a few extra unique features:
Strength and Willpower
An exerted character card can be used to challenge other exerted character cards. During a challenge, they will test their Strength and Willpower stats. The first determines how much damage your character deals in a challenge, and the second tells you how much damage they can take before they’re banished.
Lorcana character classifications
As well as a name, each character card has one or more Lorcana character classifications. These add flavor to each card, but they also allow certain card abilities to interact with each other. For example, ‘Queen of Hearts, Wonderland Empress’ has an ability that gives other Villain characters +1 lore whenever it quests.
Many character classifications are clearly linked to the nature of the character on the card. These are:
- Alien
- Ally
- Broom
- Captain
- Deity
- Detective
- Dragon
- Fairy
- Hero
- Hyena
- Inventor
- King
- Knight
- Mentor
- Musketeer
- Pirate
- Prince
- Princess
- Puppy
- Queen
- Seven Dwarfs
- Sorcerer
- Tigger
- Titan
- Villain
What are Storyborn, Dreamborn, and Floodborn cards?
Lorcana has also invented three character classifications linked to its lore, and these take a bit more explaining:
- Storyborn – Glimmers who look and act like the character would in their original Disney stories.
- Dreamborn – Glimmers who, thanks to the imagination of the Illumineer, look and act notably different from their original form.
- Floodborn – Glimmers affected by a story event called The Flood, who have changed appearance or behavior in unpredictable ways.
Lore value
Character cards with lore symbols on their right side can be exerted on your turn to quest for lore. The number of these tells you how much lore they gather per quest.
Abilities and keywords
Many character cards come with special abilities. These often have unique names – for example, ‘Morph, Space Goo’ has the ‘Mimicry’ ability. Some abilities also have a cost to use them, like exerting the character card or paying ink.
A character card may also include important keywords, either on their own or mentioned as part of an ability. These give the character unique mechanics to play with. Examples include Shift, Rush, and Ward. Characters tend to explain what their keywords do in the card’s text, but it can help to memorize them just in case.
Lorcana action cards
Lorcana action cards offer a unique, one-off ability. They have an ink cost, and some of them can be played as ink. Other than this, the only text on an action card tends to be a description of its use. Once an action card is played and its ability resolves, the card is discarded.
Lorcana song cards
Lorcana song cards are a subtype of action cards. The only difference between a song and an action is that songs can be ‘sung’ by certain character cards. If you exert a character card that fits your song’s description, that song card can be played for free.
Lorcana item cards
Like characters, Lorcana item cards stay in play once you’ve paid their ink cost. Like other cards, some can be played into your inkwell to generate ink. They also feature a named ability.
These abilities might be triggered by a certain event, and others can be used any time during your term by paying a cost. Others might have a trigger and a cost – like ‘Sleepy’s Flute’, which can be exerted to gain one lore if you played a song that turn.
Lorcana location cards
The newest card type is Lorcana location cards, which show various settings from the world of Disney. Like all cards, they have an ink cost and are sometimes inkable. Lorcana location cards also share many traits with characters – including a Willpower number and a lore value.
Instead of questing, Locations generate lore during the ‘Ready’ step of your turn. Some character cards also gain benefits from moving to a location, which you can do by paying the location card’s cost (represented by a symbol on the left-hand side of the card).
You can learn more about these new cards in our Lorcana location cards guide.
For the cream of the crop, check out the most expensive Lorcana cards on the market or the best Lorcana cards of all time. We can also help you keep up with each new Disney Lorcana set.