Before we set sail on the Azurite Sea, let’s take a look back on the Set Championship (SC) season for Shimmering Skies!
Lorcana’s third set champ season just concluded, and we as a community have now participated in enough events to draw some conclusions on the strengths and weaknesses of these tournaments, as well as the updates to the prizing structure and promo selections. Presented below are four main takeaways I have from three SC seasons.
Set Champ season is an excellent addition to the Lorcana ecosystem
I know, way to open with a crazy hot take, but before any constructive criticism is offered, I wanted to reinforce how awesome set champ season is. Set champs are fun and rewarding events that can help casual competitors transition into a more competitive mindset, if they so choose. Not everyone has the resources to attend a DLC, and set champs help fulfill a need for competitive events with worthwhile prizing.
The consistent cadence of set champs creates momentum from set to set. We spend the first month after set release enjoying and experimenting with the new cards, and then BAM there’s just a few short weeks to refine our lists before set champs are upon us. By the time SC season ends, we’re in the thick of reveal season and can already anticipate the next set.
Finally, set champs produce some amazing stories. Just in our local scene, we had a Shimmering Skies set champs where a pre-teen won his first major event by topdecking a Merlin – Goat at 19 lore in game 3 against an opponent who had game on board. Our LGS had a back-to-back set 4 and set 5 SC winner, piloting two different decks. An Emerald Ruby meta-breaker made a deep run all the way to the final table last month. These tournaments have been the setting for fond memories we’ll recall in the years to come.
The Mirabel Set Champ promo was a flop
Don’t get me wrong – I am a charter member of the Encanto fan club. With its beautiful color palette, the Lin-Manuel Miranda soundtrack that still constantly plays in the background of my house, or the touching story of a family working through its generational trauma (Alma isn’t a villain #JusticeForAlma), my family genuinely loves this movie, and when it was revealed that the Encanto characters would be coming to Lorcana in this set, I was thrilled but not at all surprised that Mirabel was the SC promo.
However, you don’t have to be an entrenched TCG veteran to look at the card and see “Hey, this isn’t a playable card in the current meta.” That was true then and remains true today, as Mirabel hasn’t seen play in any Top 64 DLC decklist. Contrast this to the previous two set champ promos. Stitch – Rock Star has almost completely faded out of any competitive Amber decklist, but this Set 1 card was a mainstay in early Amber Steel decks. Ursula – Sea Witch Queen appeared in a whopping 7 of the 9 Emerald Amethyst decklists that made the cut in DLC Las Vegas. So what was the verdict on Mirabel Madrigal as a promo? Would a beloved character, beautiful art (truly – hands are hard to draw, OK?), and no other enchanted Mirabel in the set be enough to offset the card’s lack of playability? From today’s tcgplayer.com data:
Not great! While yes there were many more copies of Mirabel in circulation this SC season (we’ll get there in a minute), it’s clear Mirabel did not wow the community in the same way the previous two SC promos did. Naturally, this leads us to the Azurite Sea SC promo:
Scar – Heartless Hunter has fantastic art, and I can’t wait to see what this mat looks like. He is a pantheon Disney villain; Jeremy Irons had all of us singing along during “Be Prepared”. But again – how desired will this card be? Scar is certainly more playable than Mirabel, but as of now, I only see him being fringe playable in Amber Ruby Mufasa decks, and maybe in some Ruby Amethyst tempo midrange decks. He also doesn’t really fit the theme of the set – I thought either Maui – Half-Shark or Moana – Kakamora Leader were for sure a lock to get the promo. I don’t see Scar as a 4x in many competitive decks, so I am curious to see where he ultimately settles. In the meantime, I’ll be holding my Mirabel stocks, waiting for Ravensburger to develop a token mechanic.
The Set Champ prizing structure just needs one more tweak
I know what you’re thinking right now – SC promos can also just be beautiful treasures whose monetary value doesn’t matter nearly as much as being the physical manifestation of a wonderful tournament experience. And hey reader, you’re correct, which is why I love that Ravensburger expanded the prizing structure to reward anyone who made the Top 8 with a promo card. I don’t care that doubling the quantity of promos in the market certainly impacts the price of a promo. It was a relatively awful experience to make the top 8 cut of a set champ, lose in the first round, and then potentially walk away with absolutely nothing – no swag, no packs, just a moderate entry fee down the drain with satisfaction just out of reach.
Just one nitpick with the current prizing structure – getting to top 4 and losing now yields the same prizing as those who finished in the top 8. This is definitely a #firstworldproblem; however, let’s address two issues with one fix: make the top 4 and top 2 SC promo cards foil. Top 4 is now distinguished from top 8, and we’ve added a little extra financial oomph to some of the SC promos. This is low hanging fruit – we believe in you Ravensburger!
The Set Champ event rules sheet needs some work
In short, this document bums me out:
If I am a low information Lorcana player, I would expect to show up to a set championship and play using the rules advertised on the official Set Championship Tournament Rules sheet. What I wouldn’t expect is to show up to an event, having only ever played best of three Lorcana series, and find out that the tournament is using the two game format, because in addition to this Rules sheet, Ravensburger emailed SC hosts to let them know either bo3 or bo2 formats could be used.
I also would be confused by the “enthusiastic participant” who raised their hand as the event started, asking if who goes first in the top cut is decided by Swiss seeding, or randomly, because this isn’t addressed in the rules document at all. And while many of us know that SC top cuts should decide who goes first using a random method, several localish set 5 SCs used Swiss seeding to determine who was on the play in the top cut.
All of this confusion could be eliminated by a thorough and definitive document update. If stores can use either format in their tournaments, state that in this document. Clear up common format questions on this widely visible text. In card games, diction matters. Syntax matters. Semantics matter. As Lorcana grows as both a competitive and casual game, keeping these tenets in mind will reduce community confusion.
If you take one idea away from this article, it should be that Set Champs rock, and I am very happy with how Ravensburger has both introduced and iterated on these events. I would love to see continued growth in the official event space – something midway between a Set Champ and a DLC would be excellent. Thanks for reading and good luck in January chasing those Scars!
