While Hyperia City is the next and final Lorcana set due to release this year, collectors are already peering ahead at 2027’s Into the Inkdark, ancitipating the debut of the absurdly rare Illustrious cards. Limited to just 23 copies per card, publisher Ravensburger revealed the second of these Illustrious rares on Tuesday – an elegant reprint of ‘The Evil Queen, Commanding Presence’ from Rise of the Floodborn.
Illustrious rares will only be available in Collector Booster packs, a new product type that will debut in February 2027 with Into the Inkdark. There’ll be six Illustrious rare cards per set, and each individual card will be printed with a serial number.
It’s going to be a lot better for your mental wellbeing to pretend Illustrious Rares don’t exist when you’re opening packs – they’ll be as rare as rocking horse poo. We may have to exclude them from our guide to the most expensive Lorcana cards just because they are definitely going to dominate the list, and it’s going to get pretty boring just tracking six cards from each new set.
Moving to something comparatively humble, Ravensburger has revealed two Iconic rares from Hyperia City: ‘Cinderella, Unintentional Icon’, and ‘Mickey Mouse, Best in Town’. These both have simple – but festive – art.
In gameplay terms, Cinderella looks like quite a powerful top-end card for Sapphire decks that have a way to protect her: she can Quest for three Lore, has a fairly respectable six Willpower, and if she’s exhausted at the end of your turn, she lets you put a card from the top of your deck into your Inkwell exerted.
Mickey Mouse, Best in Town has been somewhat spoiled by leaks from an earlier presentation, but we now have a better picture of what his rules mean. With no Strength, four Willpower, and the ability to Quest for two lore, all for one Ink, he looks like a classic Amber card that will get you questing early at a great rate. But if he’s exhausted at the end of your turn, each player gets an Ink Drop counter; these are single-use Ink counters.
While that looks like a symmetrical bonus for both players, the symmetry is actually a little broken by the mere fact that you know you’ll have this advantage when you build your deck, and your opponent doesn’t. But for a more structured way to take advantage, Ravensburger has revealed plenty of new cards from the set that get better when you remove Ink Drops.
If you remove an Ink drop to play the new Madam Mim, Resourceful Trickster, you get to draw two cards, and then once she’s in play each time you remove an Ink Drop you draw a card; and the new Baymax, Amped Up can be shifted on top of another Baymax by removing two Ink Drops, and then lets you put the top card of your library into your Inkwell when you would gain Ink Drops in the future.
With songs and discard-pile shenanigans as the other major themes, the gameplay for Hyperia City looks very interesting, and the new chase cards are as pretty as ever. If you’re a big Lorcana fan, why not show of the crown jewels in your collection in the friendly Wargamer Discord community?
Source: Wargamer
