How to get started

The four card types

Characters: they quest to gain lore and challenge your opponent's characters.

Actions: they have a one-time effect and go to the discard pile. Songs are actions a character can sing instead of you paying ink.

Items: they stay in play and give abilities. You can use them the same turn you play them.

Locations: they stay in play and give you their lore at the start of each of your turns. You can move characters there by paying the move cost.

Setting up

Decide who goes first (coin or die), shuffle and draw 7 cards.

Once, before the game starts, you can alter your hand: put any number of cards on the bottom of your deck without showing them, draw back up to 7 and shuffle again. Players call this a mulligan.

You also need damage counters and a way to track lore. Ready-to-play decks include both.

Your turn

First: ready your exerted cards, resolve start-of-turn effects (including lore from your locations) and draw a card. The first player skips the draw on their first turn.

Then, in any order: once per turn, reveal a card with the inkwell symbol and put it into your inkwell. In tournaments it stays faceup until the end of that turn and is then turned facedown. Each card in your inkwell is worth 1 ink for the rest of the game.

Play cards by exerting as much ink as their cost, use abilities and move characters to locations.

Characters that were in play at the start of your turn can quest (you gain their lore), challenge, or use abilities that need them to exert. Characters played this turn are still drying.

Challenges and damage

To challenge, exert one of your characters and choose an opposing exerted character or location. You can't challenge ready characters.

Both characters deal damage at the same time, equal to their strength. Locations take damage but deal none.

When a card's damage reaches its willpower, it is banished and goes to the discard pile. Damage stays from one turn to the next.

How it ends

The first player to reach 20 lore wins. If your deck runs out, you lose the next time you would have to draw a card.

If a card's text contradicts the rules, follow the card.

Building a deck

In Constructed, a deck has at least 60 cards, from 1 or 2 inks, with at most 4 copies of the same card (same name and version) and no banned cards.

Different versions of the same character count as different cards. Dual-ink cards only go in a deck of those two inks.

The easiest way to start is to take a ready-to-play deck and swap cards in and out.

Formats

Core Constructed: only cards from sets in rotation. Since Attack of the Vine! (set 13), cards from set 9 (Fabled) onwards are legal, and no cards are banned. It is the format of DLC main events.

Infinity Constructed: cards from every set, with its own banned list (currently only Hiram Flaversham, Toymaker). It is the format of this season's DLC CCQs.

New sets are tournament legal from the prerelease at stores.

Limited: you get sealed product and build your deck on the spot, from any number of inks. Sealed uses at least 6 packs and 40 cards; Draft, 4 packs and 35 cards. There is also Preconstructed (a ready-made 60-card deck) and Pack Rush (two packs shuffled together, 24 cards).

At a tournament

Bigger tournaments are best of 3. Before game one, a random method decides who chooses to play or draw first; in later games the loser of the previous game chooses, always before seeing their hand.

When you ink a card, say its full name and let your opponent see the inkwell symbol; the card stays faceup until the end of the turn. Whenever you gain or lose lore, announce your new total.

Swiss rounds last 50 to 60 minutes. When time is called, the active player finishes their turn and 5 more turns are played in total. If nobody wins that game, it counts as a draw: the player with more game wins takes the match, and with equal game wins the match is a draw.

In the top cut, if there is a time limit and it runs out, the player with more game wins wins at once. If they are tied, 5 more turns are played (in a new game if needed) and then the player with more lore wins; with equal lore, play continues until someone is ahead.

Both players can agree to an intentional draw before the match ends, but each can only offer it once per match.

Competitive and Premier events require a registered decklist, on Play Hub or on paper. Sleeves must all be the same and have opaque backs.

Where to start

The best way is to learn from someone: weekly store leagues are the right place and there is always someone happy to teach.

To practise at home, there is duels.ink in the browser. The official Disney Lorcana TCG Companion app has a tutorial, and Ravensburger has announced a digital game for 2027.

When you feel ready, try a prerelease or a Set Championship at a store near you. Store events are listed on Ravensburger's Play Hub and on our events page.