Summary
2025 is already poised to be a big year forDisney Lorcana, with the first expansion of the year coming out in March and introducing both a new non-canon Disney character and a new type of card.Disney Lorcana’s dual-Ink cardswill debut in Archazia’s Island, and they seem to be designed as powerful cards that have a built-in restriction in the form of forcing players to use those two colors in a given deck. With Reign of Jafar set to come out sometime later this year, possibly concluding the Year 2 storyline, the game is sure to get some new exciting tools. Yet, it is currently lacking a popular format fromMagic: The Gathering.
Magic: The Gatheringhas been around for over thirty years now, so it only makes sense that it has a much wider array of cards and formats as compared toDisney Lorcana. Still, the main way to playDisney Lorcanafor all kinds of gamers is to do 1v1 matches that are typically best-of-two or best-of-three, much like official tournaments. However, there is a strong case to be made forDisney Lorcanato adopt a new format later on in its lifespan that is similar toMagic: The Gathering’s Commander.
Magic: The Gathering’s Commander Format Would Be a Match Made in Heaven For Disney Lorcana
Magic: The Gathering’s Commanderis arguably the face of the game now, seeing how it has quickly become a fan-favorite format with a lot of support from new cards and precon decks coming out every year. The way it works is that players have to build a 100-card deck where one of these cards acts as the Commander, which is a Legendary Creature that also determines the color identity of the deck. Commander is typically played with four people, unlike mostMTGformats that are 1v1. There are various ways for this to work inDisney Lorcana, and the game also has some cards that affect all opponents instead of one, which would be solid foundations for this format. These cards include some already popular cards, like:
There are currently 58 cards with the “each opponent” wording inDisney Lorcana, and with more interactions for the whole table with new sets, a Commander-like format for the game would grow rapidly. It would also make for interestingnew card ideas forDisney Lorcana, as there could be some abilities that actively target two or more players or their cards in play.
Why Lorcana Should Add a Commander-Like Format
The possibilities would be endless with a Commander-adjacent format inDisney Lorcana, andMagic: The Gathering’s precon Commander deckswould prove like a good starting point.Disney Lorcanaalready has Starter Decks, but for this format, they would follow new rules and have their own “Commanders.” In the case ofDisney Lorcana, there could be multiple ways to approach a similar ruling to Commander, such as using up to two characters as “Commanders,” thus determining either the Ink colors of the deck or the type of characters allowed in it (i.e., Hero, Villain, Dreamborn, Floodborn, etc.).
UnlikeMagic: The Gathering’s Commander, a similar format in Lorcana may work without the limit to one copy of each card per deck, a rule that would instead apply to the Commanders. If not this, the game could still enforce the one-copy rule per card, but not limit the usage of Ink colors in the deck to a maximum of two, like regular decks. This way, players could end up having more fun because they would be able to use all their favorite cards in one place without further restrictions, also enabling more diversestrategies forDisney Lorcana’s meta. Overall, this could be a big win for the game, dramatically improving its replayability and the type of audience it may appeal to, as Commander is also great for families and groups of friends, much more than any 1v1 format would.
