What's Going On With Lorcana?

[@speedrobo99]

Lorcana totally collapsed at the game store that I own. We went from 12 players to 0. I have bought and flipped all their collections online.

[@RensCollectibles]

@@speedrobo99 at least you made some money off of it!

[@SapphireGladeComics]

I think it also has to do with, people want to the best decks they can build in Lorcana and there's not a lot of variety of decks at the top. Emerlad/Steel Discard is top gun atm and this format was a ton of Hyper Aggro. I've seen it too with my locals. After set championships, our locals died off a lot, but likely will see them back once Azurite Seas comes out.

[@RensCollectibles]

@@SapphireGladeComics that's a good point. And I think having more and more sets to help stabilize the game and offer better mechanics to every color, it'll get better

[@Peeweez0]

I agree the player scene of Lorcana has been shrinking and Championship promos price declining but The First Chapter booster boxes have almost had a 50% increase in the past week - really weird trend going on

[@RensCollectibles]

That speaks to a lot of the problem; lack of players versus collectors. Both are important to any game, but if your player base is dwindling, the game will eventually fail. They just need to pick it back up and get the train moving again.

[@TrentOrTreat]

I was surprised that the other LGS I go to has a regular 5-10 people who play it. I wanted to play it (even made a Captain Hook deck) but no one would play it with me so I dropped it. Great cards and easy to learn but I think the audience who originally bought the cards were more Disney collectors than card game players.

[@RensCollectibles]

@@TrentOrTreat and that's a tough problem to overcome. RB needs to do more to make the game pop.

[@deancombs4075]

My local scene (SW Ohio) has died completely. It used to be massive but the latest set has almost tanked my lgs because they bought tons of the latest set expecting demand and nobody is buying or showing up. Genuinely just fell off a cliff. It's not my particular tcg so I can't say for sure, but I think most of the local scene for it was just disney fans more than tcg players. And I don't think they were prepared for meta shifts, etc.

[@RensCollectibles]

@deancombs4075 that is pretty much the story here. Truly sad too, the game is fun. But without players, games don't last.

[@rhoades23]

Still seems fairly popular here in Arizona, but personally I play it a lot less. I did start playing Magic in the middle of Set 5 so that definitely makes a difference, but I just don't get the excitement I used to for new sets.

[@RensCollectibles]

@rhoades23 mtg gets expensive fast too.

[@davidhagstrand8614]

The real reason Lorcana is having this issue is the fact they stopped pixelborn. That game gave people the ability to have fun and get involved with the game . They sent the cease and desist letter out shortly after the UR set, it didn’t sell as well as other sets and SS set did pretty bad. You take away the ease off access for people to play and the game will die. It’s that simple.

[@RensCollectibles]

@davidhagstrand8614 i definitely think pixelborn has something to do with it, but more likely it's the lack of generated interest in local leagues. But I do think they need an online client for the game.

[@ukaszsekulski1873]

Form me? Pixelborn. I was flying around (bochum, quest tour, loclal torurnaments) buying for boxes per set and singles - now 0. Zero interest after pixelborn was killed. This was stupid decision, free advertaising for disney and ravensburger. People who forced this plain morons.

[@foyoGames]

Wow ...if Disney can't do it, who can?

[@karlkiup.9179]

Set fatigue is real. More established games struggle with it, newer games that come out this aggressively are going to struggle, even with a Disney IP. Take that with print to demand there is no reason for people to chase the cards, rather yet play them. For a CCG you need to focus on the both the C and the CG to be successful.

[@RensCollectibles]

Very true, you have to be able to manage both aspects of a CCG.

[@solemnstar2373]

My local game store had a sizable play group. Now it has none I think, I'll have to double check. I may ask in general about all games. This was why I didn't want to get into flesh and blood. Everything about it appealed to me, but too few people, meanwhile the price of a half decent deck was as expensive, or more, than a deck in magic. Why would I try? With Lorcana I think it got bought out by speculators, so it was hard for organic growth of a playerbase due to lack of being able to casually find packs at stores for organic grwoth. Maybe starting the TCG with tons of crazy special rarity arts in the opening couple sets wasn't very wise. I think they ostracized the playerbase with pixelborn. Then also from the start it put off a lot of potential players with the lawsuit over the game mechanics itself. Morally, I can't play a game where a megacorporation took the game mechanics from someone else who was building their own game....allegedly. I think this is a reverberation after effect of the 2020 era, if you know what I mean. There was a lot of money flowing into any consumer product or collectible items of any sort. Lots of hype over card games. Lots of people trying to bring out card games all at once. Its now contracting. I think in general its been a slow and hard road downward for even the main stay card games. There just isn't as much money, and people don't have as much time. I know lots of people picking up second jobs because they got a massive paycut or reduced hours. Others straight up being laid off. Sometimes reality of life outside your hobbies dictate if you can afford to have a hobby.

[@RensCollectibles]

Those are solid points and why I believe economy plays a huge role. Even for me, I've had to slow down on content creation and picking up sets just to make sure my dollar goes the same distance.

[@TechnoGolem]

I've always liked trying other card games and I will admit that I really got into Lorcana at first. It was a simple game that everyone could play, loved the ink system, and very easy to play with a group. But pretty much lost all interest by the Ursala set. My friends weren't interested in buying much so the majority of the time we would just play the starter decks that I own. It didn't help that it was starting to get boring seeing yet another variant of a Disney character. Not really a fan of any of them. Pretty much went back to magic, which I will admit is just an okay game at best for me. Why? Because it the only game really being played where I am not supplying all the cards/decks for the game. I've played many games in my life that I thought put magic to shame but they all come and go. Always come back to it for a year or two because it is about my only option.

[@RensCollectibles]

MtG is just a staple though that you can never really get away from lol. You should look into the Harry Potter TCG with the new revival sets.

[@Luisthenerd]

Great job

[@aaronziermann9470]

Not saying the games dying but is def dead in my locals, i feel the staleness of the same meta decks over and over with 0 sideboards nor counterablility, along with the conflicting issues with game of 2 and best of three, their is also clear color favoritism, in short the game is boring when you watch your opponent play, and predict their next move and still cant do anything about it.

[@RensCollectibles]

I feel as if the slow dying off in some local scenes is just a symptom for the game at large. They have some problems to fix.

[@aaronziermann9470]

@RensCollectibles it's bound to happen with such high numbers that flooded into the game, lorcana will stick around, as much as I personally dislike the meta right now the game is (good) the community will stay as tight as it is whilst keeping it alive and it's ok that players don't like lorcana or whatever the case. It has its place in the TCG world it has replaced mtg for me entirely so their is that..

[@Possu81]

Without promotional money or such model involved safe design with a big IP behind seems not to be enough in the middle of TCG winter. Either playability or collectibility should be 10/10, lorcana was around 8ish/10 to me. It was not terrible. Actually a good game in limited.

[@JarretZimmerman-j5e]

doing great in PA! Visited Seattle also, huge scene for year 1!

[@fernandodelreal9160]

I own a lgs, at the first lots of people were interested in the game, now i have only 4 clients, game is not bad, but there is no improvement on metagame

[@stefan7848]

Do u have 1.st chapter box? :)

[@missjennauk]

pokemon is king :)

[@RensCollectibles]

It certainly is

[@aggressivelyrelaxing155]

Bummer I just got into it 😅😅

[@RensCollectibles]

@aggressivelyrelaxing155 keep going! You're local scene may be flourishing where mine isn't. If you like the game, keep playing. :)

[@nathanaelschanie]

A couple of thoughts: By no means is lorcana dying as a game, rather turn outs on the local scene have started to decline due to lack of sufficient tournament support and a stale meta. People are still excited to play with their favorite characters from the IP they are just being pushed out of comp play because of the strength of the meta decks. Either a store offers great prizing and comp players turn out to play against locals and the newer more casual players get a bad taste from the experience or stores have lack luster prizing that results in fewer comp players and a lower turn out which results in events not firing. When events fail to fire locals start to perceive that the game is dying when in reality it’s not just that the prizing doesn’t warrant the comp players driving out when they could go elsewhere for better opportunities, whether a different store or different game. Leagues like magic has where people are incentivized to strive for different goals than just winning with a chance for high end prizing may be a way to get more people engaged and help build your scene back up. But once a local scene starts to die something drastic has to be done and continued to see it grow again. Offering something like a 2,000$ tourney may be a good catalyst to start then offering win an enchanted event every week could keep it interesting if you didn’t want to do a league of your own with higher prizing. But individual stores have to be actively supporting it by advertising their events, posting on socials, and trying to link up with creators to generate traffic. TLDR: game is fine, new set has brewers excited, but if stores don’t step up their effort to support events that get people excited the game can and will decline.

[@RensCollectibles]

Great detailed response! I agree with that assessment. And it's a shame that RB let it get to this point as well. The stale meta and players being pushed out of competitive play are truly the biggest downfalls for it, imo. The game is far from dead, but it is still concerning a newer game is already having big issues. Hopefully they can right the ship.

[@kelo8685]

At least it's not MTG lol.

[@RensCollectibles]

@kelo8685 yeah they have a lot of problems right now

[@WardieDawg]

Lorcana never really took off here

[@RensCollectibles]

@@WardieDawg yeah that's unfortunate:/

[@LorcanaGuru2324]

Disagree but respect your opinion. The games execution and potential outweighs Pokemon/MTG longer term and has only been out 1 year.

[@RensCollectibles]

I appreciate the comment. I think the ceiling for Lorcana is high, and I've always felt that RB has been doing good with the game. I just can't ignore how no one here plays it anymore and seeing that become a reality for a lot of people. It feels kind of like Flesh and Blood, there are a few pockets of people that have massive players and followings, but outside of that no one plays. I think Lorcana can still be a fantastic game and even become part of the big three eventually, but they've gotta do something about locals.

[@LorcanaGuru2324]

@ it’s probably relative to where you live. Keep in mind this is only been out for one year, there is not a ton of cards to play with at the moment. Biggest pulse will be 3 years from now. Out of all TCG’s Lorcana in my opinion has the highest upside and ceiling. If RB continues to execute this really well they will be #1 TCG in 10 years from now.

[@LorcanaGuru2324]

@ also could be a sign of the health of LGS and not reflective of Lorcana.

[@RensCollectibles]

@LorcanaGuru2324 it could be, if this was a more isolated scenario. But it seems to be a rather strong scenario for a lot of people. And look, I love lorcana and think it's a fun game. I hope it doesn't actually die off or go anywhere.