Tier 1 · Pull Up a Chair · Lesson 12 of 15
Challenging
Your opponent has three characters sitting in front of you, and you have a big one ready to go. The game will still not let you touch any of them. That is not a mistake.
Most of the time, you cannot challenge anything
Challenging is how your characters get rid of your opponent's characters. You exert one of yours, and the two of them deal damage to each other.
But you do not get to choose freely. You may only challenge an opposing character that is already exerted.
Exerted means turned sideways. A character usually ends up that way because it quested. Your opponent has to act first before you have anything to challenge.
Second, the player chooses an exerted opposing character to be challenged.
Comprehensive Rules 4.6.4.2
In plain terms: if every character your opponent controls is upright, you cannot challenge at all. Locations follow a different rule, and they get their own lesson later.
That cuts both ways. Every character you send out to quest is a character your opponent is now allowed to challenge.
Your own character has to qualify too
Two more conditions, and both are on your side of the table.
- It must be ready. A character that is already exerted cannot challenge.
- It must not be drying. It has to have been in play since the Set step of your turn (4.6.4.1).
So a character you played this turn cannot challenge. Beginners get the rest of this backwards: drying limits what your character may do, and it does not protect it. A drying character can still be challenged.
Damage does not wear off
Both characters deal their damage at the same time (4.6.6.2). You mark it with counters, and those counters stay there for the rest of the game.
A character with damage equal to or greater than its Willpower is banished (1.8.1.4). Banished is the word for a card going from play into the discard.
So a character can be worn down across several turns. Three damage now and two damage four turns later add up the same as five damage at once. There is one way that count resets.
When a character or location with damage leaves play for any reason, all damage counters on that character or location cease to exist.
Comprehensive Rules 1.9.6
In plain terms: return a damaged character to your hand, play it again, and it comes back clean. Nothing remembers the damage.
Banished is not the same as discarded
Both words end with the card in the discard, so they look interchangeable. A lot of cards care about the difference.
- Banished is a card leaving play and going to the discard.
- Discarded is a card leaving your hand and going to the discard. You can only discard from your hand.
A character card thrown away from your hand was never in play, so it was never banished. Anything reading "when this character is banished" does nothing there.
New players read a challenge as one direction. It is not. Your character takes damage too, at the same moment, and that damage is permanent.
Say your character has 3 Strength and 4 Willpower, and it challenges something with 3 Strength and 3 Willpower. You banish it, and it feels like a clean win. But look at what you own now: a character carrying 3 damage for the rest of the game. Count the damage both ways before you declare a challenge.
Your opponent has two characters in play and both are upright and ready. You have a large character that has been in play since last turn. Can you challenge?
- Yes, choose either one of them. This is the one that catches everybody. You may only challenge an opposing character that is exerted, so two ready characters are two you cannot touch.
- Yes, but only the one with lower Willpower. Willpower decides when a character is banished. It has nothing to do with which characters you are allowed to challenge.
- No. Neither of them is exerted, so there is nothing to challenge. Correct, and this is the answer to "why can I never challenge anything". Your opponent has to commit first, usually by questing.
- You may only challenge an opposing character that is exerted.
- Your challenger must be ready and must not be drying.
- Both characters deal damage at the same moment.
- Damage stays until that character leaves play.
- Banished means leaving play. Discarded means leaving your hand.
Before the first challenge you declare, say out loud how much damage your own character will take. Just the first one. That is enough to start seeing challenges as a trade rather than a free hit.
Rules quoted from the Disney Lorcana Comprehensive Rules, version 2.2.0, effective 9 July 2026. We check every rules claim on this site against the current document rather than quoting from memory, because rule numbers change between versions.
Next: When you are not sure what to do. It gives you the three rules that settle any card you have never seen before.
No account needed. Sign in and your progress follows you anywhere.