Lorcana: A look back at 2025 and ahead to 2026!

Hello, everyone!

We're almost at the end of the year! As we prepare to celebrate the transition from 2025 to 2026, it's a good time to reflect on how much Lorcana has developed over the past 12 months.

In today's article, we'll look back and summarize everything that happened in 2025, and what to expect in 2026! Let's go!

The new sets

In 2025, we had four new sets released, and it was very interesting to observe how each one brought its own touch of novelty to the game, and how they always had an impact, in some way, in everything from casual to competitive play.

-Archazia’s Island: The 7th set introduced multicolored cards, meaning cards that belong to more than one ink color, and therefore can only be used in decks that use that specific combination;

-Reign of Jafar: The 8th set concluded the story arc surrounding the villain, Jafar, and continued the development of the Multicolor mechanic, as well as the Illusions theme;

- Fabled: The 9th set was one of the most anticipated, mixing several reprints from the first 4 sets, new rarities with Epic and Iconic cards, and consolidating the strong Amethyst base with Dumbo - Ninth Wonder of the Universe;

- Whispers in the Well: The 10th set brought a new keyword, Boost, and certainly got us hyped for 2026, with several impactful cards, especially in the competitive scene;

Single-Player Decks

Furthermore, this year we had the opportunity to analyze all the Single-Player Decks released - a very important product, especially for beginners in Lorcana. This undoubtedly helps to keep new players interested and provides a clear entry point to try the game!

-Analysis of the Archazia’s Island decks;

-Analysis of the Reign of Jafar decks;

-Analysis of Fabled decks;

-Analysis of Whispers in the Well decks;

Competitive Circuit and Organized Play

2025 was a landmark year for Lorcana's Organized Play in several ways, as well as for the further establishment of its competitive structure.

We had two very important moments during the year: the First Lorcana World Championship, which took place at the end of June, and the first set rotation in the Core Constructed format, which took place at the end of August.

The First Lorcana World Championship, which we reviewed in this article, was an exclusive and closed event, meaning it was unaccessible to the general public. All coverage was done via streaming, and Ravensburger made a great effort to showcase and support the participants.

At the end of the event, Lorcana crowned its first world champion: Dinh Khang Pham, from Germany. Although the tournament format involved the use of three different decks, containing the six ink colors among them, the champion was already world-renowned for his mastery of the Ruby-Sapphire Control deck, which we highlight here:

The other moment of great impact was the first Set Rotation in the game, which began with the release of the 9th Set, Fabled. We analyzed the rotation in this article here.

The creation of the rotation also brought about the separation of competitive formats: Core Constructed, which is the format in which only sets within the rotation are valid; and Infinity, which is the format in which all released sets are valid.

The first banned cards

Another important moment of the year was when we had the first banned cards in official tournaments. The Amethyst-Steel combination was completely dominating the competitive metagame, demonstrating a very high win rate – in practice, stifling several other strategies.

Therefore, on April 8th, Ravensburger officially announced the banning of two cards: Hiram Flaversham - Toymaker and Fortisphere. We analyzed the whole issue of the bans in this article.

Although the bans, of course, received some disapproval – after all, banning cards is never desirable or pleasant from a player's point of view – the fact is that the metagame really improved afterward. But we must highlight, of course, the deck whose strength led the Lorcana designers to announce the first ban in the game:

Which deck was most popular?

This past year we also had many deck guides, always aiming to bring you everything from more thematic decks, designed for casual and fun play, to competitive decks focused on winning tournaments.

Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that our most popular deck guide in 2025 was from my beloved ChernaDogz, with an article published in April, which you can check out here.

The deck is basically an aggro deck that seeks to flood the board with characters and take advantage of the synergy between Tramp - Street-Smart Dog and Chernabog - Evildoer. It's possible to create a gigantic board by turn 3 or 4, thanks to this combination.

The format rotation initially forced the deck to undergo a complete adaptation, but it still exists and remains very relevant in competitive play. The new version of the deck, now nicknamed ChromiDogs, is already showing results in major events:

In the more thematic decks, the most popular was the deck focused on the characters from Alice in Wonderland, analyzed in this article here.

The deck mixes the Alice theme with cards that interact with damage counters, especially on the opponent's characters. The multicolored cards from the seventh and eighth sets are fundamental to this list:

Without a doubt, 2025 was a year of great moments and important milestones for Lorcana. Everything indicates that 2026 will be just as eventful, especially with the game's expansion to several new countries, such as Brazil, and third party competitive events receiving more and more support.

On a personal note, it's always very rewarding to continue writing articles and content about Lorcana, and to receive all the feedback and affection from readers. Your contribution is very important!

So, I extend my special thanks to everyone who follows and enjoys the articles, and I assure you that in 2026 we will continue with even more dedication!

Happy holidays! And see you next year!