Banned and restricted cards are common in other TCGs, so it’s reasonable to ask: ‘Is there a Disney Lorcana banlist?’. Ravensburger’s game is young, and its decks are still figuring out their identities, but Disney Lorcana already has a thriving meta – and some standout cards.
Currently, there is no Disney Lorcana banlist. With only a handful of Disney Lorcana sets available, few truly broken decks have emerged. However, with the first wave of official Lorcana tournaments on the horizon, we’re wondering if a banlist will be added as part of the Lorcana rules. And among the best Disney Lorcana cards, there may already a few banlist contenders.
Does Disney Lorcana need a banlist?
A banlist is typically introduced to protect the balance of a card game. A new card (or more likely, a combination of several cards) may become so powerful that playing anything else becomes near-pointless. Pretty soon, every competitive player is building the same decks, and despite new releases, the game may begin to stagnate. Banlists remove or restrict the offending cards to allow a variety of archetypes and diverse decks to thrive in the meta.
Designers may also choose to deal with these problem children by creating cards that directly combat their abilities. This reduces the need for constant bans, but there may still be cards that are too disruptive to be left alone. With months between set releases, sometimes the TCG gods must act fast – and ban a card from play.
Right now, there’s no truly game-breaking cards in Lorcana, so a banlist hasn’t been needed. But there are signs of possible trouble in the meta.
Ruby/Amethyst Bounce decks have been dominating in online Lorcana games and in-person events for some time (as of February 6, the database Lorcana.gg estimates it controls a staggering 15.6% of the meta). While the deck doesn’t completely rule the roost, it’s able to steamroll much of the opposition. If things stay the same for too long, banning or restricting cards may start to look like a viable option.
When will Disney Lorcana get a banlist?
With no word from Ravensburger on the subject, we’ve no idea when a Disney Lorcana banlist may appear. And each existing trading card game takes a vastly different approach to card bans, so it’s hard to make a prediction from that either.
For example, Magic: The Gathering was first released in 1993, and the first version of the MTG banlist was already around by early 1994. The world’s biggest TCG needed to ban cards within a year, so perhaps Disney Lorcana will create its own list before 2024 is over.
But on the flip side, YuGiOh rocked up in 1996, and it didn’t test the waters with a limited list (which reduced the number of copies of a card in each deck) in 2002. All-out bans and a proper YuGiOh banlist wouldn’t begin until 2004. This means it could be nearly a decade before anything worth an outright ban crops up in Lorcana.
What cards might be on the Disney Lorcana banlist?
If we had to guess which Disney Lorcana cards would be banned first, these would be our top picks:
A Whole New World
When played well, A Whole New World can be hugely advantageous. You can disrupt an opponent’s carefully-laid plans by forcing them to discard their hand. You can play it for free and spend all your ink getting your new cards on the board faster. Or you can play it when your hand is smaller than your opponent’s to create a significant card advantage. This is probably the most powerful Song in the game.
However, this card is challenging to play – and that might save it from a ban in future. Playing this card at the wrong time can put you in a worse position than you were in before, and there’s always the chance your opponent will draw even better cards for their strategy.
Be Prepared
With the right character in play, you can essentially cast Be Prepared for free and wipe the board. It’s cheap and simple but so, so effective. And often, those are the kinds of cards that need banning first (looking at you, YuGiOh Pot of Greed).
The high cost to play this card (or a character that can sing it) does dampen the party a little and keep things balanced. So while we think this is one of the most ban-worthy cards in the game right now, that still doesn’t mean Be Prepared is destined for the axe.
For more TCG meta, here are the best MTG Arena decks around right now. Or, for more Lorcana, here’s Disney Lorcana colors and Lorcana rarity symbols explained.
Source: Wargamer
