Hello Illumineers! My name is Lukas Litzsinger and I was the lead game designer on Winterspell. I wanted to give you a peek behind the curtain of the design team with some of our goals for the set.
Winterspell uses a new set construction template that we started working on in Whispers of the Well. The template breaks the set up into different featured themes and franchises, and also checks the number of "staple" effects we have in each color. This helps achieve two main results.
The first result is improved limited play. We want our sets to be especially fun to draft. Making sure that we have enough interaction at lower rarities is a good way to do this. In addition, having louder themes in our sets gives players more overt synergies to look for when picking cards, rather than just choosing the most powerful card each time.
In addition, starting with Winterspell, we’re making a rule change to the draft format. Instead of requiring 40 card decks, we are now only requiring 35 card decks. This means that you have more control over the cards that you end up playing, and a better chance of drawing your synergies.
The second result of our new set template is giving players who care more about theme, more obvious constructed deckbuilding hooks. Many core players enjoy playing decks based around one or two franchises, and we want them to feel like they can personalize their experience and remain more competitive, versus always needing to use cards from across the Disney catalog when showing up to local leagues (although that can be fun too).
Of course, we don't want to make things too prescriptive, and so you'll hopefully still find a lot of other cards that are interesting build arounds. We don't want to hand you the strongest decks on a silver platter.
The six franchises/themes for this set are the following:
Pocahontas: Primarily Amber/Amethyst. These cards care about not challenging and represent the peacekeeping Pocahontas is so well-known for.
Darkwing Duck: Primarily Sapphire/Steel. Darkwing glimmers care about using their gadgets and keeping St. Canard free from all villains.
Mickey's Christmas Carol: Primarily Emerald/Sapphire. This is all about boosting and cards under cards. Collect cards or transfer them with various ghosts, the Cratchits or Donald Duck – Fred Honeywell.
Fox & the Hound: Primarily Emerald. These cards care about having evasive characters, and dodging any hunters that come your way.
Lilo & Stitch: Primarily Amber/Steel. Since this is a returning franchise, it has less of an overt mechanical theme. But you'll find some fun synergies between playing Lilos, Stitches, and even Pudge!
Frozen: Primarily Amethyst/Ruby. Since this is a returning franchise like Lilo & Stitch, it has less of a mechanical theme. It does, however, tell us the story of Winterspell. An Elsa glimmer finds a vine growing out of control, and attempts to freeze it. However, she instead loses control of her powers and unleashes a winter shockwave that brings winter to Lorcana! It is only with the help of her sister that she can bring the endless winter to an end.
I hope you enjoy the set, and remember, always be questing!
