The era of the Vine is finally over, and the Illumineers are ready to celebrate the end of the struggle with a mega party in best town in the Inklands, Hyperia City! The newer and 14th set of Disney Lorcana promises to bring new excitement to the game with a new mechanics, new Characters and awesome cards, and I cannot wait to get my hands on this set during the pre-release on the 16th of October!
However, thanks to the amazing team at Ravensburger, I had the chance to get a Booster Box and taste the new set slightly earlier than planned. Would opening some packs quench my thirst for the new set or did it raise the excitement even further? Let's review together and find out...
Let's get the party started: Hyperia City set details
In terms of lore, Hyperia City is the first set after the showdown with the Vine in the Illumineer's Quest “The great Hunny rescue”. I will not discuss too much what happened in the Quest to avoid spoiling the game, but it's safe to say that the Vine was defeated and the Glimmers were set free once again. We will discuss in due course how the Vine came to be and what it means for Disney Lorcana but in the meantime, the Illumineers and their Glimmers are finally free to celebrate their victory.
This last Villain arc brought all the glimmers and Illumineers far into the Inklands, opening upon the fabulous world of Disney Lorcana as never before. As part of their travels thought all these new Locations, the Illumineers have finally arrived to Hyperia City, a place where technology meets magic and the nights are filled by music and lights. It is also the place where the Ink Drops have been developed. This technology will definitely have a role in the next chapter of Disney Lorcana but in the meantime it will bring a new and fresh mechanic to the game.
In terms of Gameplay, the Ink Drops are treated as a temporary Ink. They can be gained in different ways though various cards ability and they can be spent at any time to pay the play cost of any card. As a result, using Ink Drops should provide a sort of temporary ramp, allowing the Players to play high-cost cards faster.
Ink Drops are different from the Ink in your Inkwell: the first one can be gained and spent right away while the second one can only be exerted during your turn and can be reset from turn to turn. As mentioned in the rules, cards affecting your Inkwell do not affect your Ink Drops and vice-versa. Last but not least, Ink Drops can be counted using the Token cards provided in the Booster packs, or the cardboard ones provided in the pre-release kit or even using dice etc. We have already seen Players creating 3d Tokens for this and I am looking forward to see how many other fun ways we will find to keep track of this new resource.
Together with the Ink Drops, the new set also comes with an Impressive amount of new Singer cards and abilities designed to synergise with them. This is not fully unexpected considering the movie “Coco” is the main new Franchise featured in this set but it is great to also see some of best singers in the game coming back for the party. Max, Goofy and Powerline for example are back in this set with tons of new characters and songs like “Goofy, Dancing Superstar”, for example, that has an ability that increases the Lore of each Character with Singer upon questing. “Powerline, Megastar” also can get one more Lore for every other singers on the board while “Max Goof, Karaoke Superstar” can gain 3 more Lore if there are 5 or more songs in the discard. With all these new characters and actions/song we can surely expect some interesting new strategies coming out as soon as the set releases and Players start ripping their packs.
24 Chances to get an Enchanted: Booster Box contents
In terms of design, Hyperia City is the 14th set of Disney Lorcana and the last one to be released in 2026. This is an important aspect to consider as Set champs for this set will be in January providing a lot of time for the Players to design new decks and strategise. Of course, if you are attending London Disney Lorcana Challenge in November you do not have a lot of time to come up with a new deck....
Booster Boxes will offer as usual the best way to pull all the cards you need for your decks. Each standard Booster Box includes 24 Booster packs of 12 cards each with each Booster pack featuring 6 Commons, 3 Uncommon, 2 cards Rare or above and 1 foil card of any rarity. The pull rates for this set are similar to the ones seen in the last two sets making easier to complete your set collection. Together with the playable cards, each Booster packs also include a piece of a new 9-card Puzzle art or a Ink Drop token card or a single Story card about Hyperia City.
After the 207 cards of the previous set, Attack of the Vine!, the newer set is back to the standard set size of 204 cards lacking double-colour Ink cards that led the previous set to be larger. On top of the core set Hyperia City includes as usual 18 Enchanted and 18 Epic cards, and two new Iconic cards, “Cinderella, Unintentional Icon” and “Mickey Mouse, Best in town”. The art style of both Iconic and Enchanted has been strongly influenced by both Art Deco and Art Nouveau resulting in a very unique style with a retro and nostalgia feeling. I honestly would love to pull any of them but if I can choose, my favourite one will be the Mickey illustrated by Jochem van Gool. This Character is an hidden historical reference as 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 that movie, he worked as a carnival vendor trying to sell food and he yelled out, "Hot dogs! Hot dogs!" to attract customers similar to what the Character is doing on the new Iconic card.
The second Iconic Card, “Cinderella, Unintentional Icon” is a great 4/6 Sapphire Character that quests for 3 Lore and can be shifted for 5. Together with being a very good Character, Cinderella's passive ability allows 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 of their Deck. Even if you do not pull the Iconic version of this card, I can definitely see Cinderella being a good value in a Sapphire deck to provide additional acceleration to the one already provided by the Ink Drops.
First Box Opening: Which amazing cards can you pull?
The first box I opened for Hyperia City was pretty exciting although the pulls were on the lower end statistically speaking. On a positive, I found 2 Epics, and 6 Legendaries that is still a very good results comparing to the pulls we had up to Winterspell. Unfortunately this time I haven't pulled any Enchanted but I will keep my hopes up for the pre-release events and the Booster packs I will open after that.
On a good news, I was quite happy about the Legendaries I pulled as there are pretty much all the ones I am very keen to try for this set. “Baymax, Amped Up” is a very Interesting 5/8 Sapphire Characters that quests for two Lore a card and can be shifted by paying just 2 Ink Drops. One the new Baymax is in play, Sapphire Players will be able to decide to put the top card of their deck into the Inkwell every time they would get an Ink Drop. This option is particular interesting as Players can decide to use the short boost provided by the drops or invest in long term Ink.
"Madame Mim, Resourceful Trickster” is also a great example of what Amethyst does best as she can draw cards on play (if Ink Drops are used) to pay her cost and every time an Ink Drop is used. Unfortunately, Mim cannot be shifted, thus you will need to have cards like the 6-cost song “Igitus Figitus” (gain 3 Ink Drops) or the 3-cost Item “Inkcaster Skates” (gain an Ink drop each turn if a character quested). Amethyst characters seem more inclined to use the drops to gain cards thus it will be interesting to combine this colour with another that may be more keen in generating Ink drops than using them.
Among the options, I would love to test Amethyst with Steel as it has been one of my favourite combinations in past sets. Luckily for me I already found the perfect card for this combo in the Booster Box: “Shere Kahn, Khan Industries CEO”. I quite love the artwork of this card as I have a strong feeling the envelop he handled has a role in the overall story but for now, what I really like is the possibility to get Ink Drops by banishing characters in a challenge. The 3-cost Uncommon “Sir Pellinore, Tougher than he looks” has a similar ability meaning you can play Pellinore on turn 3 and Shere Khan on turn four to gain 2 Ink drops by challenging a banishing a Character.
Let's also not forget that Steel also features a 1-cost location that provides Ink Drops to every character moving there, the 2-cost action “Khan Transport Delivery” to draw a card and get an Ink Drop and the 4-cost action “Ink Explosion” to deal four damages to a Character and get 1 Ink Drop.
The next two legendaries I pulled seem destined to work together in an Amber-Emerald Singer deck. First, we have the new 3-cost “Max Goof, Karaoke Star” that allows the Player to draw 2 cards by discarding a song. Max also gets +3 Lore if there will be 5 or more song in the discard, making him a very versatile card in your deck. On the other hand, “Aurora, Delightful Musician” can return a 3-cost song from the discard as long as it has been played during the turn Aurora is also Played. Interestingly, this combo does not seem too bad considering Amber-Emerald decks are pretty notorious for their 3-cost songs “Malicious, mean and Scary” and “Akood and Emuti”...
Let's not forget about the Aurora passive effect that can generate a free Lore at the end of the turn, if at least a song was played during each Player turn.
Overall, Hyperia City seems a very interesting set with plenty of new options and possibilities. The new Ink Drop Mechanics will very likely make players re-consider combos and cards that were just too slow in the previous meta and I am sure we will see more fast paced decks going forward. I cannot wait for the release day to be here and to start thinking which deck I want to play for this set. Wish you a lot of fun and great pulls too!
