Wilds Unknown, the 12th set of Disney Lorcana is about to release in just a couple of weeks and it will bring a major shift in Disney Lorcana. From a gameplay point of view, this will be the last one to release before the next Set Rotation therefore every Player is looking to the cards the set will feature trying to grasp what we should expect when key cards from set 5 to 8 will be rotated out.
In addition, this set is the first one featuring Pixar movies and Characters and it is quite interesting to see how these new Glimmers are already playing a major role in the background story of this game. On top of this, the mysterious Vine continues its relentless spread across the land and the Illumineers are sticking together to find a way to put an end to this threat.
As the Inklands are expanding once again in order to to bring more adventures and more fun to the game, Wilds Unknown product line is also expanding to keep up with the ever growing story of Disney Lorcana. This set will in fact see the release of two new type of products, the Two Players Starting Deck and the Pre-release Kit, the second Exclusive Foil Playmat and new set-branded pre-release promo cards. Definitely a super-exciting product line for a super amazing new set!
What is even more exciting is that Ravensburger team sent me a huge box with all the products from Wilds Unknown! Together with being incredibly grateful to the team for their amazing kindness, I am really glad as today I can share my very first impression on all the products you can find in the new set and hopefully help anyone that is still considering which ones to buy when Wilds Unknown releases on the 15th of May. Are you ready to see what this set holds for us?
Wilds Unknown – Set overview and product line
Wilds Unknown new set features as usual a total of 204 card and no double-Ink cards. In addition, the card list of the set also includes 18 Enchanted, 18 Epic cards, and two new Iconic cards, “Buzz Lightyear, Jungle Ranger” and “Merida, Formidable Archer”. All cards are randomly packed as usual in Booster packs, with each of them featuring 6 Commons, 3 Uncommon, 2 cards Rare of above and 1 foil card of any rarity. Each booster pack also include one part of a 9-piece puzzle artwork featuring an Illumineers packing up for adventure and a few of the new Traveler Glimmers.
As seen in previous sets, Wilds Unknown Booster Packs can be purchases singularly or in group of 24 in a Booster box. In addition, the set product line also includes an Illumineer's trove with 8 Booster Packs and a new Pre-release kit with 6 of them. There is also a new 2-Players Starter set although this one will not have any Booster Packs as we usually had in the Single Player Starter decks. The 2-Player set is actually a completely new product that is featured in this set for the first time and that will include two ready-made 60 cards decks as described below. The Pre-release kit is also a completely new product that we will (hopefully see) for every set going forward.
In terms of accessory, Wilds Unknown does not feature any Card Sleeve or Deck box but we will see have as usual two new Playmat. The first one feature the artwork of “Goofy, Super-Goof” while the other one showcases the art of “Merida, Gifted Archer” illustrated by LadyShalirin. As you can see from the picture the box Ravensburger sent me included this last one and I couldn't be more grateful for this: the Playmat is really stunning and one of the best I have seen in a while.
As a reminder, Ravensburger will also release a new foil-playmat for this set that will only be available in limited quantity at selected Disney locations on release day.
Two-Player Starter Set
The 2-Player Starter Set is a newly designed product that includes everything you need in order to start playing Lorcana: decks, deck boxes, damage counters, and lore counters. The best part is that every item is duplicated allowing two players to start playing the game right away. It also eventually means that you do not need necessarily to pick a Starter Deck but you can try both of them in order to find out which one suits your playing style better.
Each of the two decks featured in this set is based on two Ink colours and it include one Super rare cards of the main character for those two Ink colours. The first of the Two Starter decks, Playful teamwork, is an Amber-Emerald deck largely focused on Toy story Characters. The key Characters of this deck are “Buzz Lightyear, On The Way” and “Jessie, Lively Cowgirl”. Interestingly, there are only cards from set 12 in this Starter Deck. The second Starter Deck, Daring Heroes, is a Amethyst-Ruby deck featuring “Mrs. Incredible. Super Stretchy” and “Jack-Jack Parr, Incredible Potential“. With respect to the first deck, this one includes 16 cards from set 9, 10, and 11. In both cases, the main featured characters are available in their decks with a Rainbow foil treatment that is exclusive of this Starter set. The same cards can be pulled as standard foil from any booster pack but no rainbow-foil will be available in the packs.
In terms of components, I quite like how the new Starter Deck is designed. The small package includes pretty much everything the Players will need to enjoy their Decks. Most of the components are simple cardboard versions to be fair but there are effective and they are a good starting point to allow new players to get started with a minimum investment. I think a few Players may miss the Booster Pack we used to have in the previous Single-Player Decks but I personally don't think it was needed here. If you are interested in what cards the decks feature and how to play them, you can read more at this link.
Illumineer's Trove
Personally, the Illumineer’s Trove is always the best product of a set and the Wilds Unknown one continues the tradition of being the best way to jump right into a new set.
Alongside the boosters, the Trove includes beautifully illustrated, and well designed accessories: six cardboard dividers, six damage-counter dice and one lore tracker. Both the dice and the Lore tracker are themed to match the set in a bright Orange colour. The tracker also shows the same artwork of the Trove in the front and a nice floral theme on the back. A few samples of the whimsical flora of the Inklands are also shown on the most external part of the tracker wheel making these items quite thematic. I also love that the dice for this set are in a bright orange colour and they show the Lorcana Lore symbol instead of the “6”.
A similar thematic improvement has been applied to the card dividers that this time are double sided: one side shows as usual six notable characters from the franchises featured in the set, while the other shows the strange flora associated to each different Ink colour. These Ink-themed plants are the ones also seen on the Lore tracker and you can spot them in some of the cards. The overall feeling is that there is a strong connection between the game, the story and the products of this set. We saw Ravensburger starting to push these type of connections in Winterspell and it is quite nice to see them continuing working towards a more immersive experience.
If you are curious which cards I pulled from the trove and you are eager to get one from Zatu, you can follow this link.
Pre-release Kit
As the name implies, the Pre-release kit is a product specifically designed to be used at pre-release events and it comes with everything you need in order to play the most common formats in Lorcana. At its core, the kit includes six Wilds Unknown Booster Packs that are perfectly suitable to play a Sealed or a Draft tournament. Moreover, the six packs can be used to play three rounds of Pack Rush (assuming you change deck at every round).
In addition to the packs, the new kit includes also one amazing Promo card (out of six) and a Postcard (out of three). The Promo card included in the Pre-release Kit features one of the new Traveler Glimmers and it is stamped with the name of the set. This is the first time Ravensburger creates something exclusive for their Pre-release events and it is quite exciting to have something that everyone can take back to commemorate the events. In addition, all these promo cards feature the new golden frames and a rainbow foil treatment that make them quite gorgeous.
Together with a promo card, the Pre-release Kit also comes with one postcard randomly selected among three different ones. Each postcard is based on one of the three main Domains introduced in the set and in my case, I find the “Torchlight Peaks”. The idea of having postcards in an adventure themed set with tons of new Locations is just beautiful.
In case you are planning to collect and keep all these postcard, you will be pleased to know that their height is good enough to fit on the side of the Trove or in a pocket in your binder. In this last case, the pocket will not be large enough to cover the width of the Postcard. As a solution I decided to use a large card sleeve and to stick a spare Lorcana card to the back to secure the sleeve to the binder pocket. I will have more pictures of this approach later once I managed to collect all the Postcards!
Booster Boxes and Booster Packs
As usual, I kept the best part at the end. In this case, the first box I opened for the Wilds Unknown really set the bar very high for the set as I managed to pull: 6 Legendaries, 3 (three!!) Epics, and 1 Enchanted. I usually have a very average luck when opening Disney Lorcana packs and I would have never expected to find such a great box. To be fair, getting three Epic cards in a single box was already quite wild but I couldn't believe myself when the last card of the last pack was a beautiful Enchanted! And if you are wondering, yes, that was my son's luck, not mine as usual....
Obviously, finding an Enchanted is a great experience but in this case I felt quite excited as the “Dunbroch Family Tapestry” is really a beautiful one. I love the movie Brave and it is quite fun I had the pleasure to pull this card after revealing a Mor'Du card just a couple of weeks ago. This Enchanted is not only beautifully illustrated but I also quite love that it seems to focus more on the role the tapestry has in the story than the item itself. Natalie Dombois' artwork uses the in fact the relationship between Merida and her mum, Queen Elinor, turned into a bear taking inspiration from the tapestry we see at end of the movie when the spell is broken and the curse lifted. The Rare version of this card, by contrast, shows the tapestry as it is in the first part of the movie creating a sort of before and after between the two cards.
If you are curious to see which other amazing cards were hiding in my Booster Box, I wrote a more detailed review at this link.
Final thoughts
So far, it seems Wilds Unknown will be one of the most immersive sets we’ve seen so far. It blends lore, mechanics, and artwork into a cohesive adventure that makes this set really stand out. Ravensburger already managed to create this feeling in Winterspell and in Whispers in the Well to be fair, but the Wilds Unknown really feels like we are charting into a new territory for Disney Lorcana. I quite like the developers and the artists are pushing the cards and the products for this game slightly away from the more canonic Disney artwork to bring our a new identity for Lorcana.
In term of design and mechanics, this set is quite solid although there is nothing ground breaking. Winterspell in comparison was a great set filled with very playable cards that had clear impact on the meta-game. Wilds Unknown, on the other end, is much more appealing from a collectible point of view considering the new Pixar Franchises and the amazing Enchanted Artwork.
As usual, this may change as Player start building new decks and work out new strategies. Some have already spotted a few interesting combo and synergies including two infinite-Lore combos and I am pretty confident we will see more as we approach the release. Remember also that the next CCQ in UK is just a two weeks after the formal release of the set on the 15th of May thus make sure you pre-order as many products as possible in order to get all the cards you need! See you at UKGE!
