Somehow, summer is almost over and I bet everyone is already starting to look to how to properly celebrate Halloween and Christmas. With 2026 coming to an end, it is also time to unveil the last Disney Lorcana set of the year, and to find out how this set will change our beloved game: will you be tricked by some very scary cards or will we be gifted with some colourful and cheerful ones?
Ravensburger has been dropping hints and small bits of information about this set for a while obviously, but nothing was detailed enough to have a good idea of what we can expect in the new set. However, the wait is now finally over as the latest Lorecast officially kicked off Hyperia City preview season: were the news shared by Gregg and team good enough to quench our need for more Lorcana Lore? Let's summarise and review those together!
Where Hyperia city comes from?
From a Disney Lorcana point of view, Hyperia city will be the 14th set and it is planned to release on the 23th of October with pre-release events to take place on the 16th. As many Disney fans may have already spotted, the name of this set is very evocative and shows a deep connection to the early days story of the Disney Studios themselves.
In fact, “Hyperion Studio” is the Los Angeles avenue where Mickey Mouse and Snow White and the seven dwarfs were produced. The Disney brothers moved their Studio from the original Kingswell Avenue location to 2719 Hyperion in Los Angeles in January 1926, and named it “The Walt Disney Studio”. The location was changed again later in 1940 as the team needed more space to increase production further but Hyperion Studio represent a key step in the making of the Disney dream. I find quite fun and evocative that the name of newest set of Disney Lorcana links directly into such an important piece of the Disney story one century after they moved into this location.
Hyperia city – Key highlights for the set
As the Global Disney Lorcana page shows, Hyperia City is a place where “Music and art bring these animated streets to life” and “a town where metro meets fantasy!”. The city looks a vibrant place where glimmers can meet, work, research and, most important, enjoy an exciting night life. As briefly shown in the city map included in the set Pre-release kit, the city is filled with amazing Locations for the Illumineers to discover and to use in their decks. Among them we saw “Port Authority”, “Khan Industries”, Merlin Shop and Smithy, “Madrigal bridge”, “Institute of Technology”, and “Khan Stadium”. All these Locations seem gorgeous and quite interesting from a gameplay point of view and I am pretty sure we will see more of them once the full card list have been revealed. I cannot wait to see if Locations will become a more integral part of the Meta of the new set.
Just by looking to the map and the Location cards, it is pretty obvious that all cards are inspired by a very clean Art Deco style with a hint of Art Nouveau for certain Ink colours. Both these art styles are contemporaneous of the time Hyperion Studio was created although at the time the Art Deco was rapidly taking on the global scene with its sharp angles, symmetrical geometry, and high-contrast colours. As a result, the cards for this set have a very unique style, and the two new Iconic cards of the set are masterpieces examples of how far Lorcana cards have come. The first one, “Cinderella, Unintentional Icon” is a 4/6 Sapphire Character that quest for 3 Lore and can be shifted for 5. Together with being a very good Character, Cinderella's passive ability allow the Players to look to the top two cards of their deck and put one among them into the Inkwell and the other at the top or bottom. This ability is very similar to the one-cost actions “Develop your Brain” and “One jump ahead” that have been staples in Sapphire decks since the very early days of Lorcana. Having this ability on a Character is an interesting approach and it raises my hopes we will see the return of the Sapphire ramp decks. Let's also not forget the amazing artwork of this card. I love how detailed and rich is the background of this card and how many hints and details the artist Clio Schaffner managed to add to Cinderella's dress.
The other iconic card, “Mickey Mouse, Best in town”, is the perfect Character anyone can wish to have in a set full of hidden references to the story of the Disney Studios and Movies. In fact, Mickey was the first Character to ever spoke in an animated move and he did it in the 1929 short film “The Karnival Kid”. In the movie, he worked as a carnival vendor trying to sell food and he yelled out, "Hot dogs! Hot dogs!" to attract customers. This sentence marked a huge milestone in the story of the animated movie, and also became an iconic expression of our beloved Mouse. It does not surprise then that the card illustrated by Jochem van Gool showcases a modern take on the 1929 movie but keeping the same art Deco style of the set.
This new Mickey is also the perfect card everyone will like to have in their Aggro deck. For a cost of just 1, Micky provides a solid 0/4 Character that can quest for 2 right from turn 2. Most important, if Mickey is exerted at the end of turn 2 both Players get one Ink Drop. I cannot wait to see the rest of the cards for this set and how this ability can synergise with other cards and Ink colours to create a strategic effect.
One of the other interesting aspect of this set is the use of a vibrant night life urban environment as setting for a lot of cards. Quite a while ago, Shimmering skies set showed us a huge party at the Great Illuminary; in Hyperia City, however, the party takes a whole new scale and we see glimmers having fun in the city, dancing around, and most important SINGING. Music is a huge component of this set as the Pixar movie “COCO” is released for the first time as part of this set. Together with some amazing new Character, this franchise is bringing some amazing new songs to Lorcana. The 5-cost Amethyst song “Everyone Knows Juanita”, for example, will be an amazing way to boost your hand by drawing 2 or 3 cards. “Remember me”, one of the most iconic song of the movie, has also been added to Lorcana offering the Players the ability to play characters from the discard during the turn. In recent sets we saw a few other cards with a similar ability and I cannot wait to see if we can finally see the beginning of some effective discard-manipulation strategies in Lorcana.
Together with Coco, we cannot have a Lorcana set heavily focused on music without the best singers from the Goofy Movie. Max, Goofy and Powerline are back in this set with tons of new characters and songs designed to interact with each other to create the perfect harmony. “Goofy, Dancing Superstar”, for example, increases the Lore of each Character with Singer upon questing, while “Powerline, Megastar” gets one more Lore for every other singers on the board, and “Max Goof, Karaoke Superstar” will gain 3 more Lore if there are 5 or more songs in the discard. These cards seem quite fun to play in particular during the pre-release events and I would love to see a non-Amber song deck becoming more relevant in the meta. Also, keep an eye out for the artwork on these cards as there are tons of little details linked to their Ink colour identity and original movies.
New Gameplay Mechanics and Keywords!
As you likely have seen already, Hyperia City brings a massive change to the gameplay by introducing the Ink Drops. As discussed in the Lorecast, these are tokens and are not considered cards and can be used to pay one Ink cost to play other cards. Essentially, they can be considered temporary Ink that can be gained in various ways and that are separate from the Ink in your Inkwell. This last one can be ready every turn and manipulated via card effects while the Ink drops can only be gained or spent.
I think the possibility to gain temporary Ink to use in addition to the cards you already have in the Inkwell is very intriguing. I would expect this mechanic will give a great acceleration to the game and it can open up a lot of possibilities. I also quite like that different Ink colours will interact with the Ink drops in their own special ways providing different ways to gain and/or use them. For example, Amber follows its nature to provide Ink Drops to every Players when conditions are met, while Emerald and Amethyst have strong interactions with Items and Drawing cards respectively.
Together with a new mechanics, Hyperia City also introduces a new keyword: “Adventurous”. Similar to Reckless, Characters with this keyword cannot challenge in their turn and they should always Quest if they are able to. Questing every turn is usually part of a very aggressive aggro strategy but it can backfire by exposing your cards to be challenge and banished. The first character with this Keyword we saw in the live stream is the new Iconic Mickey that will also provide an Ink drop to all players when questing.
The fun just began!
I am very excited to start preparing for the release of the new set. The fun will take off right on October, the 16th with the possibility for all Players to enjoy the Hyperia City Pre-release kits and its set specific promo cards and dice. In addition, this kit will also come with a beautiful map of Hyperia City itself and a few Ink drop cardboard tokens. All booster packs of the set are expect to have a Ink Drop card instead of the usual puzzle art card but these tokens will be a nice alternative to try for anyone that prefers a different way to trace the drops.
Once the set release, it will be time to start cooking some fun decks as the set champ for the 14th set of Disney Lorcana will come soon rewarding the players with a beautiful “Honey Lemon, Testing the limits” card and playmat. Players will also also have a chance to compete using the new set at the upcoming Disney Lorcana Challenge in London in November where young Players will have a chance to attend a dedicated Junior league for the first time ever.
However, the most anticipate event for Disney Lorcana will not be in 2026 but right at the beginning of 2027 with the release of the 15th set, Into the InkDark. This set will in fact feature a new Collector Booster box filled with only Foiled card and a chance to pull one of the new Illustrious rarity cards. This rarity will only be used for 6 different cards (one per Ink colour) and each card will be serialised as there will only be 23 copies of it. As you have seen during the D23 and the latest streams, these cards are not only gorgeous but will also be ultra rare and very difficult to find so the expectation is that the collector boxes will be in very high demand among all collectors. Even if you do not pull an Illustrious card, the Collector box will still offer only foiled card and higher chances for Enchanted and Iconic cards making the hunt for the Illustrious even more exciting!
