On 11 August a player asked r/Lorcana whether their Droids deck could work. They had most of the cards already. The problem was three they did not have. A week later, a different player asked the same subreddit for help before their first store tournament, and named the same cards. Neither had read the other.
- Three cards do most of the gatekeeping. Playsets of all three run $485.40, which is more than most people spend on their whole first deck.
- Dumbo alone is $50.47 a copy. One card, four times, and you are past the price of a booster box.
- 927 of the 1026 cards you can legally play cost under a dollar. That is 90% of the format.
- Two creators have published budget lists since the rotation. Both are linked at the bottom, with their decklists.
The three cards
Here is what a new player runs into, priced from live market data at the cheapest legal printing of each.
| Card | Rarity | One copy | Playset |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dumbo - Ninth Wonder of the Universe | Legendary | $50.47 | $201.88 |
| Demona - Scourge of the Wyvern Clan | Legendary | $40.82 | $163.28 |
| Hades - Looking for a Deal | Legendary | $30.06 | $120.24 |
| All three, one copy each | $121.35 | $485.40 | |
None of these three is a card you can substitute your way around by reading a spoiler. They are expensive because they are good, and the players asking about them already knew that.
Why the question keeps getting asked
Both posts came from players with a deadline. One was three weeks out from a local store tournament and new to the game. The other had already built most of a deck and hit a wall at the last three slots.
That is the ordinary way into Lorcana, and it is why "what are the alternatives" is the wrong question to answer for them. Swapping a $50.47 Legendary for a cheap card with one keyword in common does not give you the same deck. It gives you a worse one, and the player finds out at the tournament.
The useful answer is that whole archetypes exist that never wanted these cards.
What the format actually costs
- $485.40playsets of the three
- 927Core cards under $1
- 90%of the legal pool
There are 1026 Core-legal cards, and 927 of them cost less than a dollar at their cheapest printing. The expensive shelf is real, but it is a thin layer on top of a very deep and very cheap pool.
What that money buys instead
Spend the same $485.40 at the other end of the format and you could own playsets of 922 different cards. That is not a fair comparison for deck building, but it is the right one for understanding where the money goes.
| Some of the cheapest legal cards | Rarity | Each | Playset |
|---|---|---|---|
| Higgins - Undercover Officer | Common | $0.02 | $0.08 |
| Detective's Badge | Common | $0.02 | $0.08 |
| Amos Slade - Tenacious Tracker | Common | $0.02 | $0.08 |
| Lyle Tiberius Rourke - Looking for His Moment | Common | $0.02 | $0.08 |
| Young Macintosh - Proud Son | Common | $0.02 | $0.08 |
| Tyler Nguyen-Baker - 4*Town Fan | Common | $0.02 | $0.08 |
Cheap does not mean unplayable. It usually means the card was printed at a common rarity in a set people opened a lot of, which is a fact about supply rather than about the card.
Where the real budget lists are
Two creators have published post-rotation budget decks with full lists. We are linking to them rather than reprinting them, because they did the work.
Budget for Set Champ S13, Part 1 2026-08-24
Four budget decks with full decklists linked in the description: Amber/Steel Lilo & Stitch, Amethyst/Steel Tempo, Ruby/Steel Super Droids, Emerald/Steel Tempo.
Beginner's Guide to 4 Budget Decks Under $50 2026-07-31
Four decks for Set 13, each under fifty dollars.
The Amber/Steel deck that opens the first video is built around two cards costing eight and twelve cents. Its namesake card is $1.13.
If you are the player who asked
Build the deck you can afford completely, rather than three quarters of the deck you cannot. A finished cheap deck beats a good deck with four missing slots, and you will learn more from playing it.
Prices here update daily. You can price any list as you build it in the deck builder, which reads the same feed as this page.
Card links go to TCGplayer. We may earn a commission.
