The wait is (almost) over as Hyperia City is ready to open its doors to all Illumineers in search for the best cards this set has to offer. The very first town in the Inklands, is a amazing place where “Music and art bring these animated streets to life” and “where metro meets fantasy!” but, most important, is a place filled with exciting new Locations to discover and stories to unfold. “Port Authority”, “Khan Industries”, “Merlin Shop and Smithy”, “Madrigal bridge”, “Institute of Technology”, and “Khan Stadium” are just some of the beautiful corners of this city that have been turned into cards. Obviously, there is more than meets this eyes in this city as new powers are surging and new ways of playing become available.
As usual, the best way to jump right into the excitement of a new Disney Lorcana set is obviously getting a copy of its pre-release kit. Thanks to the always amazing team at Ravensburger, I was able to take a look to one of these kits ahead of the official pre-release and I couldn't have been happier. I personally love how well designed this product is and how efficiently provides everything you need to start playing with the new set, together with a few items that really help Players getting into the “mood” of the new set. In this case, this kit really comes in hand to get you around the town and I will be very happy to show you the way if you are willing to take a stroll with me into Hyperia City.
A map can be better than a GPS: Pre-release Kit contents
The Pre-release kit is product that was introduced for first time in set 12, Winterspell. As the name suggests, this kit is designed to provide everything needed for any set pre-release event for a new set, thus it comes with six Booster Packs, a few dice and some collectibles. The number of packs included is perfect for pretty much any format as is suitable for Sealed, Draft and even Pack Rush.
In addition to the packs, the kit includes also a collectible Promo card stamped with the name of the set. I think it is very important to remind that there is one promo card per Ink colour and that these cards come in the golden frame recently used for all promo cards. The other collectible item included in each kit is a large map of the Hyperia city. The map is as large as a 3x3 binder page and I love the fact that shows visuals of different areas of the city. Among the rest, Illumineers can visit places like “Old Towne Hyperia”, “The Greenway”, “Wandering Straits”, and the “Marigot District”. Favourite one at the moment is the “Multidisciplinary Academy for Genius, Imagination & Creativity”. The style of this map clearly match the art deco/nouveau art style of the whole set and I cannot wait to add it to my binder.
In addition, the Pre-release Kit comes with four damage counter dice similar to the ones you have in the Illumineer's trove and a paper Deck box you can use to store all your cards while playing at your locals. Most important, the Hyperia City kit also features a sheet of Ink drops cardboard counters. The Ink drops are a new mechanic added in this set and they essentially represent temporary Ink. Each drop can be gained in various ways and consumed to pay the play cost of any card proving more acceleration to the game. Each Booster packs of Hyperia City may also includes a Ink Drop card counter for the Players instead of a puzzle art card but I love the cardboard ones included here as they really feel much more exciting to use than the card themselves. I think a lot of players will look to 3D printed one very soon but for your Pre-release events it is nice to have the option to either use the cards or the tokens.
Let's get out and hit the town!
As mentioned, the Pre-release kits are specifically designed to be used during pre-release events. In fact, they does not only make easier to organise and play the event but they increase the fun and the fairness of it. When attending sealed events in the past, the six packs the players used to play the events were pulled randomly from a standard Booster boxes. Disregarding how the assignment of the packs was managed, Players engaging in the event were essentially sharing the content of the box/boxed set aside for them resulting sometime in one Players getting all the Legendaries and other getting almost no cards of the highest rarity. The increase in the pull rates seen recently in Lorcana definitely helped a bit to mitigate this imbalance but having a dedicate Pre-release kit is a much better option as everyone picks a single kit that has been put together, randomised and sealed at the point of manufacturing.
In terms of statistics, the kit I opened for Hyperia City may not have been the luckiest of them all unfortunately but I still manage to get one Epic and one Legendary. The Epic “Tinker Bell, Curious Fairy” in particular seems a great card to have in a Amethyst-Steel deck. This new Tinker Bell is not only a good 0/4 Character that can be played on turn 1 to get some early Lore but it is also a good Shift target for your Steel “Tinker Bell, Giant Fairy”. The 6-Cost Tinker Bell has always been a very solid card to have in your Deck and it can be even more impactful now that Ink Drops may allow to shift her earlier than turn 4.
The Legendary I pulled, “Max Goof, Karaoke Star” is also a pretty nice card to have. For a cost of just 3, Max allows the Player to discard a Song card to draw 2 cards providing a solid way to keep card advance. In addition, the discarded song can eventually be taken back at a cost of 1 Ink by Playing “Max Goof, Rebellious Teen” from set 9 providing even more flexibility. However, keeping you songs in the discard may not be too bad either as once there are 5 of them, the new Max will be able to quest for 4 Lore for an insane rush to the 20 Lore. In the past sets, Emerald action based Decks have been quite fun to play and this set brought even more options to this strategy to try. I would have loved to have Maui, Half-Shark reprint in this set to bring back a great Emerald-Ruby strategy but I saw some very nice singers that can also do the trick....
Looking through the rest of the cards I pulled from the Pre-release deck, I feel there were a lot of different strategies and synergies I wanted to try. As a general reminder, sealed tournaments during pre-release are very different from constructed ones and you need to be careful on which cards you keep in your decks and which ones you decide not to play. I know everyone is fully aware of this and they have their own strategy but one of my friend keeps reminding me of this difference as it is very easy to get excited by the great cards you pull when you open your packs. I usually do and sometime I end up with decks that are trying to do too many things at once. Having said that, I am pretty excited to attend my first pre-release on the 16th and I hope everyone already has some plans. If you don't, make sure you log into Ravensburger PlayHub to find the event next to you and remember that Zatu is also hosting one on the day!
