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It’s taken a hot minute, but Aussie Disney and TCG fans are finally getting caught up on the world of Disney Lorcana. While the first four sets of Ravensburger’s fun and accessible TCG took their time to launch here, the fifth – dubbed Shimmering Skies – marks the first simultaneous release. And although it did already drop elsewhere in May, we’ve just gotten confirmation that Illumineer’s Quest: Deep Trouble is going to be making its Australian debut a few months from now.
In case you’re unfamiliar, Illumineer’s Quest: Deep Trouble is a fresh take on Disney Lorcana’s gameplay that swaps competitive play for cooperative, pitting either one or two players against a big opponent – the mighty sea witch, Ursula. The game ships with two prebuilt player decks, one featuring Mulan and the other Yen Sid, and a third custom deck representing Ursula – complete with its own special card back so you don’t get the witch’s legion of warped characters mixed up with your standard play cards.
In this exciting scenario, which is clearly meant to cap off the adventure being told throughout the first four set releases but will awkwardly come long after for Aussie players, Ursula’s role is played autonomously by custom rules which see her cards and abilities played quickly and consistently as she attempts to collect 40 Lore. To win, the human players must quest for 20 Lore each before Ursula succeeds.
It’s an interesting format and one that builds on a lot of Lorcana’s unique gameplay and narrative ideas, and I was lucky enough to play it ahead of the Australian launch to get a feel for how it all works. As someone still very new to the standard game, I’ll admit I was a little nervous about jumping into Deep Trouble, but it turned out to be quite friendly to new players and, I suspect, those coming to it from co-op tabletop game backgrounds and not necessarily the world of TCGs.
Well, at least on the easier difficulties, because Ursula does not mess around. The iconic The Little Mermaid villainess has a number of advantages in this format, not least that she’s unburdened by the need to exhaust Ink to play her cards, meaning she can empty an entire hand in one turn if she’s got at least the minimum in reserve. Her autonomous play is aggressive, too, with every single character, ability and effect being played to its fullest each turn. This ups the stakes in Lorcana’s risk-reward gameplay more than ever, forcing players to react to Ursula’s rapidly-compounding power while also thinking about their own Lore count.
As I found in my time with this version of the game, cooperation is the singular key to victory, and thankfully that’s highlighted both in the construction of the included player decks and the bespoke ruleset for this experience. Player turns, for example, happen simultaneously, meaning you’re able to coordinate strategies and reap the benefits of each other’s abilities and effects. Playing alongside Dexerto’s Ethan, who patiently allowed me to figure out the basics of Lorcana on the fly as his partner against Ursula, we eventually found a groove in pumping up one person’s Lore so that they had surplus to spend on some potentially game-altering bonus abilities that feature in this format.
Ultimately, we lost, but as we began to develop a synergy and learned to deal with everything being thrown at us, it was an absolute thrill right through to the bitter end. I genuinely can’t wait to get my hands on this set for myself and not only get my revenge, but earn the sweet reward of opening the exclusive Secret Card that comes with Deep Trouble and is meant to be opened only after a winning game, as a way of capping off the overall story.
All told, despite the slight awkwardness in release timelines, Illumineer’s Quest: Deep Trouble feels like a great way to bridge the gap between the old (Australian players not getting new Lorcana sets day-and-date) and the new (simultaneous global releases!) and it’s also just a neat bit of kit for tabletop fans with a penchant for Disney and in particular the striking aesthetics and storytelling of Lorcana.
Disney Lorcana Illumineer’s Quest: Deep Trouble launches locally in Q4 2024, with exact dates as well as retailer info and pricing to come soon.
Set 5: Shimmer Skies launches into local game stores on August 9th, before a wider release on August 23rd. Find out more here.