It is now official: a new threat has taken root in Lorcana and all the Illumineers will now need to rally again the evil that is blossoming in the mystical Realm. The Vine we saw for the first time in Whispers in the Well has been sprouting for months within the Great Illuminary and across all Inklands and it is now ready to unleash all its powers to take over Lorcana. The story is far from being over but it is now the time for the Illumineers to face off against this new treat. What will happen to Lorcana? What powers the Vine really has? Will the glimmers left after the new set rotation be up to the challenge? During the Lorecast yesterday, the Ravensburger team finally showed the true colours of the next set in Disney Lorcana TCG and provide us some of the answers we have been waiting from set 10. Let's dig into them again to find the root of this new challenge.
The Vine is finally here!
The very first card I want to mention from the stream is obviously the Vine itself, a towering dark presence that makes even the brave Mickey look so small in front of it. The “Vine, Towering Stalk” is a Steel 10/10 card that costs 10 Ink to play and can quest for 3 lore. I love the consistency of these numbers.... On the other hand, the ability of this card is as impressive as its size. First, it can be shifted on top of ANY Floodborn card for 7 and it grants Bodyguard to all Floodborn in return. After this, it also deals one damage to all opponent Characters every time a Floodborn is banished.
The reason the Vine loves so much Floodborn is because she can summon its own Glimmers that are (obviously) called “Vinelings”. This is a new card Classification that represent Glimmers summed by the Vine using the Ink flood. These Vinelings are not just as beautiful as they are strong but they are also all Floodborn thus they can be used as base to summon the Vine at a discounted price. Most important, when the Vine is in play you will have an army of Vinelings with Bodyguard and the ability to deal damage to your opponent when they are banished.
Together with being key to the Vine, the Vinelings themselves are pretty interesting cards. Yesterday we saw a 2-cost “Gaston, Created by the Vine” for example that increases the Strength of all Floodborns by one together with a nice “Pete, Created by the Vine” that provides all these Characters Challengers +1. “Ursula, Created by the Vine” is also a pretty neat Character that reduces the Strength of an opponent Character for every Floodborn that quests. It feels there will be some Vinelings in all Ink colours that will definitely make this set pretty interesting.
New Floodborn concepts and game mechanics
In terms of gameplay, it seems clear this new set is all about Floodborn expanding on the overall concept behind these characters and inventing new ways to use the Shift mechanics. As seasoned players know, the Floodborn were already part of Lorcana when The First Chapter released and they had a sort of “dedicated” set when “Raise of the Floodborn” (set 2) hit the shelves. The Vinelings, however, are the first characters we saw in Disney Lorcana that do not have Shift even if they are Floodborn.
This is pretty interesting from a gameplay point of view but it is also intriguing from a lore perspective as that Floodborn we saw in set 2 were born when the flux of wild Ink was set free by an Illumineer and that now the Vine is using Ink to summon all these Glimmers. I am pretty sure there is a connection here and some sort of great villain scheming behind the scenes.....
Attack of the Vine! also expands further the concept of Shift with many more creative ways to use this ability. As a starter, we have the first Characters that can shift on two different Characters. All these cards have the new keyword “Team” as they always represent two Characters at the same time. For example. “Lilo & Stitch, Fun-loving Friends” and “Belle & Beast, Certain as the sun” can be played on top of either one of the two Characters named in the card and they have quite impressive abilities. Belle and Best are the most terrifying ones from a gameplay perspective as they can ready all the Ink when they quest and all the Characters by paying 6. While newly ready characters cannot quest as a result, it means Questing with this new team can provide the mean to protect all your other Characters or using them to go on the offensive after using them to Quest. Considering this a Ruby-Sapphire card, I am sure a few Players have also thought of a few great deck ideas....
If you love any of these two cards, let's also not forget that they are the signature Iconic for this set. The style for these and the Enchanted card has been described as “cinemayhem” as the card shows additional Characters and scenes from the movies together with the two main Characters. I honestly love these cards as they look so much movie posters! Cannot wait to see how the Enchanted from the set will look considering this style.
And finally, let's not forget about Meilin Lee, our favourite red panda character. Meilin can Shift into the 6-cost “Meilin Lee, Popular Red Panda” but, to be true to the character in the movie, she is forced to revert back to her human form at the end of every turn. Bonus feature: before reverting she can fully heal all her damages and if the Panda sings a song the player gets 3 lore. I wonder if we will have some fun RUBY songs to play with this 6-cost character....
While it is not a Floodborn Character per se, I would also like to celebrate the return of one of my favourite characters: Morph from the movie Treasure Island. Interestingly, this new “Morph, Little Imitator” is not a reprint of the Emerald card from set 3 but a new Amethyst Character with a whole new artwork. Luckily, both cards share the same ability and they can be used as a base to shift any characters on them. Of course, the new Morph had to be an Amethyst card.....
It is also worth noticing that a few cards were revealed ahead of the lorecast as they all build on the concept of Discard in a very creative way. “Rapunzel, Escaping the Tower”, for example, can get one more lore and Evasive if a card is discarded during the Player's turn. This is similar to Angel's ability to do damage at the cost of discarding a card but today which card you discard matters. For example, discarding the new Action card “Look what you've done” allows the Player to play it from the discard to deal 2 damage to chosen Characters. And if you discard “Mother Gothel, Evil as Ever” it allows the Player to play her instead. In both cases, the Player will need to be able to pay the Ink costs to trigger these abilities from the Discard pile but it feels like Emerald-Steel Discard Decks may have a come back with this set.
The Hunny and the Scarers
With the releaser of set12 Illumineers will also be able to finally get their hands on the new Illumineer's Quest, “Great Hunny Rescue”! This stand-alone product is an amazing “boardgame like” adventure where Players can play with their Lorcana decks to vanquish a main Villain. The first Quest of this series saw the Illumineers face off against Ursula, then we had Jafar and today we have the great Vine. What makes this version of the Quest different is the fact that The Great Hunny Rescue is all about Winnie the Pooh!!! While the game design and details are still to be discovered, we now know that Winnie the Pooh will get its own Lorcana card denomination (“Hunny”) and a style that reminds of a D&D adventure. Now we know why Winnie was re-printed in Set 9 and why they added the Hunny denomination to it....
First key card of a Hunny-centric Deck would likely be the 6 cost “Christopher Robin, Hunny Sage” card that allows a Player to have Hunny Characters in their Deck disregarding the Ink colour. Playing the Sage will also allow the Player to search any Hunny card in their deck and take it in Hand. The choice will be quite large as we will soon have for example the Ward “Roo, Hunny Rogue” or the Reckless “Tiger, Hunny Barbarian” to add to our Deck (or Party). However, the star of the show will definitely be the new “Winnie the Pooh, Hunny Archmage” that gets 2 additional Lore if you have two more Hunny Characters in Play. Winnie feels a lot like “Piglet, Pooh Pirate Captain” from set 3 and wonder if it will see as much play as this previous Amber card.
Monster&Co will be the other great addition to this set. The Ruby “Boo, Energetic child” looks super fun to play considering she can banish any Character with a Strength of 3 or less without being banished. We saw a few cards that can lower the Strength of your characters thus we should expect some interesting removal strategy here. The Sapphire “Randall Boggs, Scary Smart” also looks interesting as it offers a clever way to get lore by having all your cards in the Inkwell exerted at the end of the turn. I can definitely see it fitting a Sapphire/Ruby deck together with the new Belle & Beast for example. I am also pretty sure that the best cards from this Franchise are yet to be revealed …...
What more should we expect in this set
Together with featuring tons of great cards and new franchises, it is important to remember that this set will also mark the start of the next set rotation. Once set 13 releases, in fact, cards from set s 1-8 will not be legal in core constructed. This means, that Players will only be able to use cards from set 9 to 13 and this will force everyone to come up with new strategies and new decks. There are plenty of interesting cards and mechanics that have been released in this set alone thus it will be quite fun to see what Decks and strategies Players will come up with.
Considering the value of this set and the fresh start it will bring, I am personally looking forward to the release of this set with a lot of excitement. If you haven't done it yet, you should also consider making good plans for the day of the pre-release as this set will have a new foil Playmat (featuring Winnie the Pooh) and a super shiny new collector collection. This one named “Curator's Collection Heroines edition” has been just recently revealed and will feature 6 Disney Princess cards, all with Alternate artwork. Last time something similar released in 2024 the queues at the Disney Stores were brutal and people had to wait the big part of the day to have a chance to get their copy of the box. I know Ravensburger learned from that event and they are planning to ensure there will be enough stock for everyone while also managing the queue in a very secure manner but if you are interested in securing your playmat and Curator's Collection, make sure to arrive as early as possible.
Once these super collectible items secured, perhaps you can head to any local store or to your locals in order to try out the new pre-release kits. Launched for the first time in the Wilds Unknown set, this kit includes six booster packs, one foiled promo card (stamped with the name of the set) and a collectible items themed for the set. For Attack of the Vine! this will be one of three posters featuring Mickey&Minnie, the Madrigal family from Encanto or the main Characters from UP!. These posters look gorgeous in the pictures we have seen so far and they will look even better in your collection! Do not also forget that these kits will include four dice you can use during your pre-release events to try out the new cards and the new Floodborn strategies! I cannot wait to see how many strategy will blossom from this set!
