“Whispers in the Well” is the latest set released for Disney Lorcana, and the tenth for this game since its release in August 2023. The set comes right after “Fabled”, which marked the beginning of Set Rotation and the banning of certain cards from certain events from the first four sets, making them suitable only for the Infinity Format.
Fabled brought a very welcome new beginning to the gam, although it was largely composed by re-printed cards from the first sets. After a couple of months into the Set Rotation, there was definitely a strong appetite within the community for new and exciting cards and everyone looked at Whispers in the Well with a lot of excitement. Are you curious to see if the set is able to meet such high expectations? Thanks to Ravensburger, I was able to open a Booster Box of Whispers in the Well filled with 24 Booster Packs ahead of their release date, and I am very happy to share my first impressions on this new set.
“Whispers in the Well” is the latest set released for Disney Lorcana, and the tenth for this game since its release in August 2023. The set comes right after “Fabled”, which marked the beginning of Set Rotation and the banning of certain cards from certain events from the first four sets, making them suitable only for the Infinity Format.
Fabled brought a very welcome new beginning to the gam, although it was largely composed by re-printed cards from the first sets. After a couple of months into the Set Rotation, there was definitely a strong appetite within the community for new and exciting cards and everyone looked at Whispers in the Well with a lot of excitement. Are you curious to see if the set is able to meet such high expectations? Thanks to Ravensburger, I was able to open a Booster Box of Whispers in the Well filled with 24 Booster Packs ahead of their release date, and I am very happy to share my first impressions on this new set.
Right out of the Booster Pack – Set overview
Whispers in the Well features a total of 204 cards in the core set plus 18 Enchanted, 18 Epic and 2 Iconic cards. Each Booster Box features an amazing large artwork with Detective Mickey and Ariel exploring the caverns behind the Great Illuminary while Daisy Duck, Demona feature on the Booster Packs for this set. Each Booster pack includes 6 common, 3 uncommon, 2 Rare or Super Rare or Legendary and 1 foil card of any random rarity. Among this last ones there is also a chance to pull an Epic card (Borderless Foil version of 18 cards featured in the set) or an Iconic card among the two featured in this set.
In addition to the 12 cards, each Booster pack will include 1 out of 20 different Lore cards. These cards are different from the previous puzzle cards as they do not feature any puzzle art. Instead, each lore-card holds a piece of the transcripts of the case file Judy, Nick and the other detectives are working on. The story that comes out from putting the pieces together should help players understand what is happening in the realm of Lorcana, but I don’t want to spoil the fun of finding all the lore-cards!
Whispers in the Well Booster Box comes, as usual, with 24 Booster Packs for a total of 288 cards. Although there is no guarantee on which cards will be pulled, the statistics from previous sets suggest each box should include 3 to 6 Legendary and 1 to 2 Epic cards. The chances of getting an Enchanted card are one every 4 boxes, although there are no guarantees you will find one if you buy four boxes. The Enchanted cards of the 10th set are quite different from those illustrated for previous sets. Some of them are quite joyful and colourful whilst other have very dark tones and dark vibes. I quite like this contrast and the overall quality of the Enchanted as they seem to get better and better with every set.
New powers and new mechanics – Gameplay impact
The story of Whisper in the Well takes place beneath the Great Illuminary, in a place where the magical Ink used by the Illumineers come together. While exploring these dark caves, our heroes stumble upon pages that appear like they have been torn from a lorebook. Moreover, it seems these pages brought to life a new type of Glimmer, the Whispers that are only partially created. In terms of Gameplay, these cards all have a new ability called “Boost”. Every turn a Player can pay the cost indicated on the Boost ability (1 to 3 in general) in order to put a card underneath the Whisper from the top of their Deck. Once they have a card underneath them, the Whisper can become “complete” and they can gain new stats and/or ability. In some cases, adding a card under them also triggers an effect that can be resolved immediately.
In order to link the gameplay to the narrative, each Whisper card has a frame on it that encases the Character. This frame looks like pieces of parchment, reminding us of the torn page of the lorebook. This choice adds a nice visual appeal to these cards that look completely different from the other Disney Lorcana cards, creating a nice and whimsical effect. Ravensburger visual choice also has a nice effect in the game as the Whispers can be identified immediately while they are on the playing field reminding all Players of their abilities.
Together with the Whispers, the new set also includes cards with the new ability “Alert”. Alert Characters can challenge Evasive Characters although they are not considered Evasive. This is quite an interesting addition to the game and it will surely please a lot of Players in particular considering there were not many ways to deal with large amount of Evasive Characters after the Set Rotation took out a lot of the most common removal cards.
The other new addition to the world of Disney Lorcana is the classification “Detective”. As you may have noticed from the artwork and the story, the new set is largely focused on the mystery behind the torn pages floating in the Well and the origin of the Whispers. This theme is taken forward on the art cards added to each Booster pack within the set as this time they are a puzzle of clues to help re-build the story behind the Whispers and not a beautiful artwork as usual. There are a lot of new cards classified as Detectives and the abilities of most of them either target Characters with the Detective keyword or they require one of these cards in play. While most of the Detective cards are unlikely to break the meta, they can come together to create a nice and very thematic deck. The strong connection between the theme and the gameplay in Whispers in the Well is also a nice addition to this set and it creates something similar to what we experienced for the Pirate Characters in Sail to the Azurite Sea.
Last but not least Whispers in the Well introduces three new franchises to Lorcana. The first and main one is “The Black cauldron” the dark fantasy adventure movie released in 1985, followed by “The Gargoyles” from the ’90 series, but there are also a few cards from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. The addition of this franchise to Lorcana was kept a secret until these cards were revealed making it a very nice and unexpected surprise. And a spooky one just in time for Halloween!
Final thoughts – Why you should buy Whispers in the Well?
Overall I think Whispers in the Well will be a very fun and exciting set full of amazing cards. After Fabled and the set rotation, it is great to see not only new cards but, most important, new mechanics that can infuse new energy to this game. The last Set Championship and the most recent DLC showed that the number of decks in Fabled meta-game was quite limited but it feels the cards we will have in Whispers of the Well will open up the game to a lot of new possibilities. I cannot wait to see which decks will come out from the mind of the Players and I am very excited to start testing my own.
I also love how the narrative aspects of the game are tangled with the card mechanics in the new set. The idea of having a different frame for the Whispers makes the cards look nice on your playmat but it also reminds you of the story that is going on behind the scenes and you cannot avoid to wonder how the lore of Disney Lorcana will develop. This is taken one step further by the artwork on some of the cards that brings out small stories within the cards themselves. For example, Hen Wen and its action are well connected together and the flavour text on some of these new cards just add the cherry on top hinting to new developments and providing clues that will certainly keep all of us busy: How many mysteries are actually yet to be solved within Disney Lorcana?
Zatu Review Summary
Zatu Score
95%
