Tier 1 · Pull Up a Chair · Lesson 14 of 15
Play your first game
Everything before this was preparation. This lesson is a whole game, from the shuffle to the fifth turn, with nothing skipped and nothing assumed. Read it once, then play it with real cards on the table in front of you.
There is no new rule in this lesson
Every rule used below has already been taught. Setup, ink, drying, questing, and the two conditions for a challenge.
What you have not done is put them in order. A first game also runs slowly, because both players stop and look things up. That is what a first game is supposed to look like.
The first ninety seconds
Nobody takes a turn until the game is set up.
- Decide who goes first. Any fair random method you both agree on (2.2.1.1).
- Shuffle your own deck, then offer it to your opponent to cut (2.2.1.2).
- Set both lore trackers to 0 (2.2.1.3).
- Both players draw 7 cards (2.2.1.4).
- Alter your hand, if you want to. Put any number of cards face down on the bottom of your deck, then draw back up to 7. Starting player first, once per game (2.2.2.1, 2.2.2.2).
- Shuffle again if you altered anything, even 1 card, and offer the cut again (2.2.2.3).
Now the starting player begins their turn (2.2.3). When you alter, keep cards you can pay for early.
The first five turns
These are your turns. Your opponent takes one between each, and theirs works the same way.
Turn 1
You are going first, so there is nothing to ready and nothing is drying. Then something surprising happens. You do not draw.
The active player draws a card from their deck. If this turn is the first turn of the game, the starting player skips this step.
Comprehensive Rules 3.2.3.1
In plain terms: going first costs you a card. You take your whole first turn without adding anything to your hand.
Then comes your Main Phase, and there are 2 things to do:
- Ink a card. Choose one from your hand with the swirl around its cost. Reveal it so your opponent sees the swirl. Then put it face down in your inkwell (4.2.1.1 to 4.2.1.3). You now have 1 ink.
- Play a 1-cost card, if you have one. Exert your single ink card to pay for it (4.3.2.4).
That character cannot quest this turn. It entered play this turn, so it is drying (5.1.1.11). End your turn there.
Turn 2
Your opponent has had a turn. Now yours starts properly.
- Ready. All your cards in play and in your inkwell turn upright again (3.2.1.1). Ink is exerted to pay, never spent, so every ink card comes back.
- Set. The character you played on turn 1 stops drying (3.2.2.1).
- Draw. One card.
In your Main Phase, ink a second card. You now have 2 ink, both ready.
Quest with the character from turn 1. Exert it, then gain lore equal to the lore value printed on it (4.5.1.3, 4.5.1.4). Questing costs no ink, so both ink cards are still available.
Spend them on a 2-cost card if you have one. That character is drying, so it does nothing until your next turn.
Turn 3
Ready, Set, Draw again. Ink a third card. You have 3 ink and 2 characters that are allowed to act.
This is usually the first turn a challenge is possible, and only if your opponent quested. You may challenge only an opposing character that is exerted (4.6.4.2). Your challenging character has to be ready. It also has to have been in play since your Set step began (4.6.4.1).
Both characters deal their damage at the same moment (4.6.6.2). That damage stays on them for the rest of the game (5.3.6.3). A character with damage equal to or greater than its Willpower is banished (1.8.1.4).
So turn 3 holds the decision the whole game is built on. Quest for lore, or challenge to stop theirs. One character rarely does both.
Turn 4
Ready, Set, Draw. Ink a fourth card. With 4 ink you can afford more than 1 thing in a turn.
This is often where a first action card gets played. An action does not stay on the table. It enters play, its effect happens at once, and then it goes to your discard (5.4.1.2).
Leaving one sitting in front of you is a common first-game habit.
Turn 5
Ready, Set, Draw. Ink a fifth card. Now stop and read both lore trackers out loud.
Ask 1 question. At this rate, who reaches 20 lore first? If they gain more lore per turn than you do, questing harder will not fix it. Something of theirs has to be challenged.
You do not need to work that out precisely yet. Asking the question is the habit.
How the game ends
- 20 or more lore wins (1.8.1.1). You do not have to stop on exactly 20.
- Ending your turn with no cards in your deck loses (1.8.1.2). You may draw your last card and still win on that turn.
- Either player may concede at any point (2.3.3.4).
Five turns is not a full game. Keep taking turns until one of those 3 things happens.
You may ink 1 card on your turn, and the rules cap it there (4.2.3). There is no way to catch up later.
Miss it once and you are 1 ink behind for the rest of the game. Every turn after that, you can afford 1 less than the player who remembered.
It is your second turn. You have 2 ready ink cards. You play a 2-cost character. Can that character quest this turn?
- Yes. It is your turn, and questing costs no ink. Questing really does cost no ink, so half of this is right. The problem is the character itself. It entered play this turn.
- No. It entered play this turn, so it is drying. Right. A drying character cannot quest, cannot be declared as a challenging character, and cannot exert to pay a cost. It becomes dry at the Set step of your next turn.
- No, because you exerted both ink cards to pay for it. Your ink has nothing to do with questing. Questing exerts the character, not your inkwell. With 10 ready ink cards it still could not quest this turn.
Your first game will not go like this
The walkthrough above assumes you ink every turn and always hold something worth playing. Real hands do not behave. Some turns you will ink a card, find nothing you can pay for, and stop there (3.3.2).
You will also get things wrong, and the rules expect that.
If you begin something you cannot finish, it is undone. You may attempt it again correctly (1.7.6, 1.7.6.1). What cannot be undone is a shuffle or a reveal (1.7.6.2), so slow down before you shuffle.
Five turns is also a walkthrough, not a skill. Right now the target is a finished game, not a good one.
- Set up, alter your hand once, then start.
- The starting player skips the draw on turn 1.
- Ink 1 card every turn. It never carries over.
- A character played this turn cannot quest or challenge.
- Challenge only an opposing character that is exerted.
Play 1 game all the way to the end. Not 5 turns, and not until it gets confusing. Play to 20 lore, or to an empty deck, or to a concede.
Get things wrong, look things up, and finish it anyway.
Rules quoted from the Disney Lorcana Comprehensive Rules, version 2.2.0, effective 9 July 2026. The numbers in parentheses point at the same document.
Next: Where to play next. You can finish a game now, so the only thing missing is somebody to play it against.
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