Disney Lorcana’sSet Championships have a problem. The quarterly competitive event is meant to bring a higher level of competition to local game stores, with valuable prizes up for grabs to incentivize healthy competition. In the absence of regional Challenge events this year, Set Champs have been the only opportunity people have to get a real competitive experience, and yet, interest seems to be at an all time low.
I live in a very popular place for Disney Lorcana - maybe the most Lorcana-loving place in the world. I’m 15 minutes from Disneyland, and if I wanted to, I could play Lorcana at a different store every night of the week. And yet, registration for this month’s Archazia’s Island Set Championships are barely half full. It wasn’t long ago that players were willing to travel hours to find an event with open seats, but these days it’s hard to even get my friends excited about going. What changed, and what can Ravensburger do to bring that excitement back? Thanks to this week’s The Next Chapter livestream, we have our answer.
From Rock Star To Scar: The Fall Of Set Champ Promos
The first Set Championships took place at the end of the Into the Inklands meta. Each event had two playmats and four Stitch, Rockstar promo cards for prizes, spread out to the top four finishers. The competition was fierce, and I don’t just mean playing the game. It was hard to evenget intothe event because so many people were excited to try to win a Stitch.
It’s easy to understand why. This was the first competitive promo card for Lorcana, depicting a beloved character on a fan-favorite card, and while Rock Star Stitch wasn’t very playable at that point, it was still a desirable card. Listings for the card went as high as $1000 during the first weekend, and today it still fetches over $300 on TCGPlayer, ungraded.
If you haven’t heard about the first person in the world to win a full playset of Stitch, Rock Star, well,that’s me.
In Ursula’s Return, the titular sea witch was the Set Championship prize. It wasn’tquiteas popular, due to the fact that the same card appeared in the set as an actual Enchanted, and it was only played in niche Amethyst/Emerald decks - and only one or two copies at that. Still, Ursula, Sea Witch Queen fetches around $90 online.
In the next set, Shimmering Skies, Ravensburger increased the promo card prizes from top four to top eight, doubling the number of cards out there. As expected, this lowered the overall value of the prize cards, and interest in Set Championships overall. I will argue, though, that what really killed the hype for Set Champs was the fact that the prize card, Mirabel, Family Gatherer, was and still is completely unplayable. You can pick up a copy of the card today for $33, just a little more than what most stores charge to compete in a Set Championship.
This trend continued through Azurite Sea and into the current set, Archazia’s Island. The Azurite Sea Set Championship card was the biggest whiff yet. Instead of featuring a Pirate or Robot - the set’s two major themes - the prize card was Scar, Heartless Hunter. Not only is it an out of theme, it’s also another off-meta card. This set’s promo is Hiro Hamada, Armor Designer. Another duplicate of an Enchanted card, another Set Champ card with low play value.
Reign Of Jafar Breaks The Cycle
This week’s Lorcana livestream revealed the Set Championship card from Reign of Jafar, and it made me excited and motivated to compete in Set Champs for the first time this year. As expected the prize card is going to be Jafar, but what wasn’t expected is just how good this Jafar is.
Jafar, High Sultan of Lorcana is a five-cost uninkable 4/4 Amethyst/Steel card with three lore that says “Whenever this character quests, you may draw a card, then choose and discard a card. If an Illusion character card is discarded this way, you may play that Character for free.
As we learned from Belle, Apprentice Inventor; and Scrooge McDuck, Resourceful Miser; playing cards for free is incredibly powerful. Then when you consider that Illusion characters tend to be overstatted anyway, this becomes an incredibly powerful effect.
Amethyst/Steel decks are already playing the Giant Cobra for its beefy stats and free lore, with Jafar in play, Giant Cobra becomes freeandgives you a card draw. Other Illusions like Iago, Giant Spectral Parrot and Rajah, Ghostly Tiger may fight their way into Amethyst/Steel decks as well, along with the other new Illusions coming in Reign of Jafar.
I don’t know how good this Jafar will be, and I’m not claiming it’s a totally-busted-must-have card. But at the very least it’s easy to say that it’s going to beplayable, which might be all we need to make Set Championships exciting again.
