Into the Inklands: Highs and Lows

Now that we’re nearing the end of the Into the Inklands season of Disney Lorcana, lets look back on some of the biggest highs and lows for this epic time in the card game’s history.

High – Locations

The announcement of locations brought with them a good deal of excitement and anxiety for Locana fans. On the one hand, the potential of a new, powerful mechanic like Locations seemed like a good thing. On the other thing, would the decks that we had in sets one and two be even viable anymore?

As it so happened, while Locations certainly impacted the game, many of the same deck archetypes remained strong after the release of the set.

However, Locations were also something of a low for me. As it so happens, many locations weren’t as playable as you might think at first. Low cost, vanilla locations, for example, so relatively low play as it turned out their low will power was easy to take out.

Indeed, mostly locations with 7+ will power were those that stuck around. This is mostly because they could survive a blitz from Maui – Hero to All.

Hopefully we see a little more variety in regards to locations in the next set.

Low – Puppies

I had a really strong feeling that the puppies gimmick spoiled before Into the Inklands was released would be just that: a gimmick. I was only too right. It seems a little strange to put so much time and energy into creating cards and support for those cards when they wouldn’t actually be playable from a competitive standpoint.

That being said, plenty of trading card games have plenty of unusable cards, so that’s not exactly new.

Low – Beast – Relentless OTK

It feels like before Inklands even officially hit the shelves, Beast – Relentless from Rise of the Floodborn had shot up dramatically in price. This is largely because of the famed one-turn-kill combo that grew in popularity. Indeed, a lot of these so called “infinite” combos gained popularity at the beginning of the set. However, they rarely panned out in regards to big tournament wins, and were soon forgotten.

That doesn’t mean, however, that Beast – Relentless is a bad card. He just does better in decks where he plays a supporting role, not the main show. Indeed, Lorcana decks in general do better when they are well rounded and not based around a specific set of cards to win, as getting all of these cards into play in the right way has proven incredibly difficult within the confines of the games’ current draw/card search support.

High – Set Championships

Ravensburger hit Set Championships out of the park. They created a viral moment where players were driven as much by FOMO as they were by the desire to compete in trudging their way to one or more local Set Championships to bag a Stitch or playmat. Suddenly it wasn’t just about winning one Stitch – one Stitch makes you look like a relative lightweight.

And while some things could have been managed better (I think some sort of a limit should be set on Set Championship finishes to level the playing field), overall it was a huge viral moment for this hot new game.

Low – attempting best-of-two format with weird point system

Lorcana announced a new competitive format that gained a lot of attention (both positive and negative) during the Into the Inklands season. This format would replace the typical best-of-three game format found at most competitive TCG tournaments with a two-game one designed to level the playing field and remove negative aspects common at tournaments like intentional slow playing and unlucky dice rolls.

The initial tournament to try out this way of scoring was done by The Pack during the Easter weekend. The game format proved to be massively unpopular and led to an incredible number of ties that left an already luck-influenced competitive experience to feel almost totally random.

Whether the initial points system was miscommunicated or Ravensburger simply changed it I’m not sure, but going forward the point system has been fixed to be more reasonable, while the best-of-two format remains.

High – the Meta Grows in Variety

If there’s one thing Lorcana players can agree on its how much fun the Lorcana meta has been since Into the Inklands hit the shelves. No longer does one single deck dominate all of the standings, and new and creative decks crop up all the time winning big events. Lorcana has set themselves up with a fantastic game and now a fantastic competitive metagame. Let’s hope Ursula’s Return doesn’t mess that up!

What do you thin? What were your personal highs and lows from the Into the Inkands season? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!