Each Disney Lorcana release brings a change that impacts the game and player strategy. Sure, the Ravensburger game is only on its third release, but this has been true so far. The latest chapter, Into the Inklands, brought location cards. To say they change everything sounds dramatic, but the cards do change a lot by adding another dynamic to the board. Along with the starter decks and other products, each Disney Lorcana release comes with an Illumineer’s Trove and a Gift Set. Ravensburger sent Nerdist one of each for review, and the Illumineer’s Trove in particular has some nice extras, but they come at the cost of our favorite part of past troves.
Into the Inklands Illumineer’s Trove
Here’s what comes with the Illumineer’s Trove:
- 8 booster packs
- 1 lore tracker
- 6 dice to track damage
- 6 card dividers
- 1 storage box
For a $49.99 MSRP, the Illumineer’s Trove remains, in my opinion, the best value in Disney Lorcana. The booster packs alone would cost $47 on their own, and the extras that come in the trove have improved in quality. Let’s look at those extras first.
The Into the Inklands Illumineer’s Trove box features card art from the adventurous set. Pirate Piglet is one of the best illustrations in Into the Inklands and you can’t convince me otherwise. The sides of the storage box showcase some of the locations from the set, and as someone who always wants to look at backgrounds in Disney animation art of books, these grabbed my attention.
The lore tracker is sturdier than previous iterations and carries the theme of Into the Inklands well enough. However, the dice and the card dividers are the winners here. I imagine dice will only become more of a thing for Lorcana as Ravensburger flexes on Lorcana merchandising and products (which seems like a matter of time), and these are a lovely start. They’re a inky, shimmery dark blue with gold numbers and pretty enough that I’d buy them on their own. Then the card dividers, one for each ink, are well-constructed and helpful for sorting out your collection. They’re much more functional than the so-so quality deck boxes from previous Illumineer’s Trove sets.
And speaking of the deck boxes, they’re gone in this release’s Trove. I don’t mind since they were flimsy. However, my favorite part of the previous Illumineer’s Trove releases is gone too: the booklet! The booklet had a list of the cards and called out some specific cards and ink combos to look out for in the set. More importantly, it featured part of the Lorcana lore and brought the game’s world to life more with text and illustrations. I’d rather have that than card dividers. Hopefully this means Ravensburger is working on standalone story booklets. We’ll see what the future brings.
Into the Inklands Gift Set
The Into the Inklands Gift Set comes with:
- 2 oversized foil cards
- 2 playable foil cards
- 34 damage counters
- 4 booster packs
- 2 lore tracker tokens
The Gift Set has a MSRP of $29.99. The booster packs alone get you to almost $24, so if you’re into collecting the oversized cards, this set is for you. While I like the idea of the oversized cards, they don’t do anything for me. I store them and then never look at them again. However, if you want to frame them or otherwise display them—maybe in your gaming space—then this is the set for you. While the damage counters and lore tracker tokens have improved in quality over time, I switched to tracking damage with dice ages ago. I do appreciate the attention to detail with the tokens changing to match the current chapter, in this case Into the Inklands. Gift sets can be fun to pair with a starter deck for a new player.
Disney Lorcana: Into the Inklands is already out in local game stores. Mass market retailers get the third set later this week on March 8, 2024.
