The Winter finally came to the magical Realm of Disney Lorcana and now everything is covered in shimmering snow, and Christmas' magic. The fun however has not be limited to just the Inklands as there have been tons of exciting pre-release and release events for Winterspell to enjoy, culminating in the first UK CCQ of 2026 (Lorcana Fest in Leicester) and the Melbourne DLC during last weekend.
Personally, I have to say that this last two weeks have been one of the most exciting set release in quite some time. I personally managed to start enjoying Winterspell products a bit early thanks to the great team at Ravensburger, but the combination of so many great new cards, products and events, just made the last two weeks a whirlwind of fun and I wanted to share a bit of this experience with everyone.
Winterspell at a glance
As you may have already read in a previous content on Zatu, the Great Illuminary and the whole Realm of Disney Lorcana is now in deep deep snow in a sort of eternal Winter. While a lot of Glimmers are catching this opportunity to have fun, an evil vine is spreading across the Inklands and it is starting to drain the flood ink, the unique resource used to bring the Glimmers to life. As a result, Winterspell is a set with both “flurries of fun” and the seed of greater adventures.
Winterspell set features a total of 204 card as usual plus 18 Enchanted, 18 Epic and 2 Iconic cards. The two iconic cards for the set are “Moana, Curious Explorer” and “Pocahontas, Peacekeeper” while the artwork of the products features Darkwing Dick, Tinkerbell and Angel. Together with the usual Booster Boxes, Booster packs, and Illumineer's Trove the set includes 2 different playing mats (“Dragon Fire” and “Ariel, Sonic Warrior”). For the very first time since the First Chapter, this set does not have Single Player Starter Decks but we will have a new Collection Starter set themed around “Stitch, Rockstar” and a new Gift Box featuring “Scrooge McDuck, S.H.U.S.H. Agent”. In addition, and for the first time ever, Ravensburger released a special foil Playmat for this set and that's where my Winterspell Release adventure actually started.
Hunting for a treasure at the Disney Store
The release of the newer set of Disney Lorcana started pretty early on the 13th of February with me catching a train to London in order to queue outside the Disney Store in Oxford Street for a chance to secure a Foiled Playmat. This mat is the first of its kind and it features the art of Mickey and Minnie Iconic cards from the 9th Set, Fabled hence I was super excited to try to get one for myself. In the past, the queue outside the Disney store has always been dramatic when new collectible items released but this time showing up just before 8am was enough to secure me a good spot in the queue. To be fair, the store had tons of stock and the strict “2 max per customer” policy helped in making sure everyone was able to have their own mat.
If you also had the chance to get one, you probably already know: the new Iconic foil Playmat is as gorgeous in reality as it looks in the pictures and videos! The Artwork itself is obviously stunning and the rendering on the mat is pretty detailed. I was expecting the foiling to be quite present but I think it has been limited to a few key areas making it more subtle that I was expecting. The result is actually pretty good as the foiling just adds a nice touch to the artwork without altering it too much. Moreover, this playmat is also the first one produced by Ravensburger to have stitched edges and these make the overall design better and sturdier.
Last but not least, everyone purchasing on the day also got a Magical Places Promo card “Goofy, Set for Adventure” that was quite an unexpected surprise. Obviously, I also bought a few random Booster packs to kill some time on my train back to start warming up for the sealed event at my local in the evening.
First Winterspell Events – Great fun at my locals
One the thing I like the most when a new set releases is to play a sealed event. Events using this format are usually the most common once to find on PlayHub for release and they are usually great fun as everyone gets six pack to open and to keep. Together with the excitement of “who will gets and Enchanted or an Iconic”, this format challenges the players to make a deck of at least 40 cards and to compete against each other for fun. As all the Ink colours are allowed in these decks and all cards are from a completely new set, there are a lot of weird combinations and tons of “what does this card does again?” that just add to the fun.
In addition to the usual sealed event, the community at my local game store, Lionsheart Bookstore in Woking (Lionsheart Bookshop | Lionsheart Bookshop) decided to schedule a Pack Rush event on the Thursday after in order to double the fun and to give me more chances to pull some great cards.
The Sealed tournament on the release day started in a very weird way as I managed to pull not a single Legendary (or Epic) out of all my six packs. My son also had the same exact bad luck with the pulls but this does not mean we were destined to lose all games. Sealed events are surely influenced by your luck (both with pulls and with the draw during the games) but picking the right cards to keep in your deck is equally important. Plus, there were a lot of good cards pulled from other Players including a beautiful “Negaduck, Public Enemy Number One” Enchanted thus the excitement was very high when we started.
Unfortunately, my first game was strongly one sided with my opponent dominating the board. I think I realised there was no way I could have won when I saw my opponent playing a Lilo, followed by a Pudge for free, a “Minnie Mouse, Mrs Cratchit” to draw another Lilo that they could play right away with their last Ink. I was top decking at the time thus you can imagine the rest.
My second match was actually much better even if my opening hand after Mulligan included almost only 2-cost characters. The Star of this second match was actually “Reuben, Sandwich Expert” that strongly helped me keeping more board presence and use my Ink more efficiently. The location “Game Preserve, Protected Land” was also quite handy and allowed me to win my second game getting me to one win and one loss just before the last match.
Interestingly, the key card of the third and last match of this mini-sealed tournament was “Negaduck, Public Enemy Number One”. In a weird twist of fate, my opponent managed to play this card in both the first and second round of our match. Normally, you would expect a card with such high Strength and Willpower would likely shift the balance of the game toward my opponent but in my case I was super lucky to have the right answer for it. Liquidator and a timely played action “Swordplay” in the first round, and a top deck “Taran, magically armed” were unexpectedly there to answer the Villain Negaduck. Funnily enough, Taran was the card I previewed for the set and is illustrated by Emily, the same artist behind Swordplay. Quite a fated end for the tournament and a very exciting forth place for me. Obviously my son had to beat me again and managed to end in first place....
Overall, the sealed event proved as exciting and fun as usual. Actually, I think the wide range of playable cards featured in Winterspell made the event even more exciting than usual. The underdog was for example a very nice addition in this set and they proved quite handy in the sealed format where the advantage of going first was quite important. Winterspell is also filled with new powerful Whisper cards, some very good locations and tons of good actions including some very good removal and this variety definitely contributed in creating very exciting games. Above all, Winterspell is a very thematic set and displaying so many nice cards on your Playmat was a beautiful experience on its own. I cannot wait to continue the season and work out which deck I am going to play competitively in next events and Set championship. Make sure you check Ravensburger Playhub to find the next event close to you and, if you are in the area, why not coming to play a few game or the Set Championship at Zatu Gaming Centre?
