Tier 1 · Pull Up a Chair · Lesson 5 of 15
The table
Your side of a Lorcana table is five separate places, each with its own rule about who may look. Learn them and you can sit opposite a stranger without ever feeling like a guest.
Five places, and only one of them is play
Cards live in five zones: your hand, your deck, your inkwell, your Play zone, and your discard. They sit inches apart on the same table, and the game treats them as entirely separate places (7.1.1).
Touching is not the same as joined. Only cards in your Play zone are in play (7.1.5), which is why a card that talks about a chosen character can never reach one in your discard.
None of that layout is compulsory. Arrange your Play zone however you like, provided it stays clear to everyone at the table (7.4.2).
What you are allowed to look at
Every zone is public or private, and the difference is about faces, never numbers.
Cards in a public zone are publicly known. Players can look at or count the cards in any public zone at any time.
Comprehensive Rules 7.1.2
In plain terms: the public zones are play, the discard, and the bag, which is not physical and gets its own lesson later (7.1.2.1). The private ones are your hand, deck and inkwell (7.1.3.1).
Now the part nobody tells beginners. You may count any zone at any time, including your opponent's private ones: any hand (7.3.2), any deck (7.2.2), any inkwell (7.5.4), and you may read straight through any discard, theirs included (7.6.2). Private means you do not see the faces, never that the number is secret.
The inkwell is the strict one
One zone carries a hard rule, and it is the only physical tidiness the game asks of you.
Players can’t look at a card in an inkwell at any time, even their own.
Comprehensive Rules 7.5.4
In plain terms: once a card becomes ink it is a blank counter for the rest of the game, and you never see it again. It stays facedown and clear of every other zone, always, and you cannot hide the state of your ink from an opponent (7.5.4). There is no cap on inkwell size (7.5.3), and no maximum hand size, so you never discard down at end of turn (7.3.3).
Things you are allowed to say out loud
All of these are legal at any point, and none needs permission:
- "How many cards in your hand?"
- "Can I see your discard?"
- "How many cards are left in your deck?"
- "How much ink do you have?"
Asking is not slowing the game down. The rules hand you that information on purpose. Someone who asks is playing properly. Someone who guesses is guessing.
Halfway through a game you will want to know what you put in there. Everyone does. You may not look, and neither may anyone else.
The other half catches more people: ink stays facedown and clear of every other zone, always. Sliding one under a character as a reminder breaks that.
You want to know how many cards your opponent is holding. What may you do?
- Nothing. Their hand is private information. Private covers the faces, not the count. That misunderstanding is what keeps new players quiet when they are entitled to ask.
- Ask them to fan their hand out so you can see it. No. Nobody may look at the cards in another player's hand at any point.
- Count them, whenever you like, and simply say so. Right. Players can count the cards in any hand at any time (7.3.2), and the same goes for any deck, discard or inkwell.
- Five zones: hand, deck, inkwell, play, discard.
- Only cards in your Play zone count as in play.
- Play and discard are public. Hand, deck and inkwell are private.
- You may count any zone, any time, including your opponent's.
- Nobody looks inside an inkwell, not even its owner.
In your next game, ask one counting question out loud. "How many cards in hand?" will do. Say it once and the permission stops feeling theoretical.
Rules quoted from the Disney Lorcana Comprehensive Rules, version 2.2.0, effective 9 July 2026. Rule numbers move between versions, so we cite them.
Next: Exert and ready. You know where every card sits; now learn the one physical action you perform on them.
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