A Deck Guide to Disney Lorcana Tournament Formats

Disney’s Lorcana is perfect for a few rounds of casual fun, but if you want to play in tournaments or organized events, you need to understand the different deck formats. These rules define how you build your deck, which cards can be used, and much more.

If you’re playing in a draft format, you won’t need a pre-built deck. Other formats allow you to bring your own deck, but if the deck doesn’t meet the requirements for an event, you’ll be disqualified. No one wants that, so make sure you familiarize yourself with the rules.

One more thing to keep in mind: a recent change has made it so that new sets become legal to use in tournament play three weeks after release, rather than immediately as the rules once stated.

Core Constructed

Core Constructed is the main gameplay style of Disney’s Lorcana. The rules for this format are straightforward: your deck must have at least 60 cards and no more than four of a single card. There’s no upper limit to how many cards you can have in a deck, but players have to be able to shuffle quickly.

In Core Constructed, a deck can consist of only up to two ink colors. With regard to card duplicates, subtitles are key. Ariel – On Human Legs and Ariel – Spectacular Singer are considered two different cards according to the rules. Starting in September 2025, Core Constructed will use rotations, so make sure your decks are eligible.

Infinity Constructed

Infinity Constructed abides by the same rules as Core Constructed, with one major exception: you can use any card you want. Lorcana has not seen any major card rotations yet, but Infinity Constructed will come into play starting in September when sets one through four will leave standard play.

Pack Rush

Pack Rush isn’t typically used in tournament play, but it has gained popularity as a way to introduce new players to the game. Think of it as a race to 15 Lore, rather than the normal 20. Both players start by opening two booster packs and shuffling all of the cards together. The booster packs can be from the same set or a mixture of sets.

Pack Rush has no color restrictions. Players draw a hand of five cards and start with two ink ready to go. The game involves whatever cards each player draws, and if a player runs out of cards, they shuffle their discard pile back into the deck. This format is particularly effective for getting a quick overview of gameplay mechanics while still keeping things light and fun.

Limited

There are three types of Limited formats: Sealed, Preconstructed, and Draft. All three differ slightly in specifics but share the same rules overall. These decks are built during a specific deck construction period; players open a predetermined number of booster packs and build their decks from what they open.

The first major rule is that limited decks can contain any number of ink types. You can have a deck that consists of Amber, Steel, Emerald, and Sapphire cards, and you most likely will.

The next rule is that a limited deck can have any number of copies of a card. The four-card limit from Core Constructed doesn’t matter here; if you draw seven Mufasa – Betrayed Leader, you can include all seven in your deck.

Decks in Sealed and Draft formats must have at least 40 cards, but there isn’t an upper limit to the number that can be used, although you’ll face a natural limit based on the number of booster packs opened.

Sealed

Sealed tournaments provide players with at least six booster packs per player; from whatever sets the organizer chooses. All players will start with the same number of packs. Six is standard, but that number can sometimes be higher.

Draft

A Draft tournament is slightly different. Players receive a minimum of four packs per player and sit around a table with at least five other players, with a target of eight players per group. After each player opens a pack, they choose one card out of the pack to keep and then pass the remaining choices to the left. When the next pack is opened, it is passed to the right, and vice versa. This continues until all cards from the pack have been drafted. The process is then repeated for the next pack(s) until all cards are accounted for. Once all players have chosen their cards, their picks become their decks for the tournament.

In a casual draft tournament, players can face off against anyone participating. However, in a competitive setting, players are paired off against others at their table (often called a pod).

Preconstructed

The last Limited format type is called Preconstructed. As the name suggests, players in a Preconstructed tournament are given a random starter deck from the tournament set, as well as a booster pack. The cards in the deck can be exchanged with those in the booster pack, provided the end result has a minimum of 60 cards.

This format is less common and typically found only in casual tournaments.

Super Sealed

Super Sealed is a new format type that saw its debut at the Lorcana World Championship. It’s unclear whether this will become a format used more widely or if it will remain part of official, large-scale tournaments only.

In Super Sealed, players are given four booster packs from four sets: Shimmering Skies, Azurite Sea, Archazia’s Island, and Reign of Jafar. Players then have one hour to construct a three-color, 50-card deck. Cards not used in the deck become the players’ “sideboard” and can be exchanged between games, provided the cards match one of the three chosen colors.

Triple Deck Constructed

Triple Deck Constructed is another new format introduced at the World Championship event. This format involves three decks, each with two unique colors per deck, so that all six color types are represented. Players are given a chance to review their opponent’s deck before the match begins, and then both players decide who should go first.

Each player gets to choose one of their opponent’s three decks to bench, which means it won’t be used in the tournament. Matches are in a best of three setup, with best of five coming into play for the finals.

After the first game, the losing player can switch to their other deck (the remaining un-benched one), or they can continue to use the same deck. The losing player also decides who goes first in game two.

The winning player is required to switch to their other remaining deck. If both players score a single win, then a third game is played to determine the overall match winner.

These rules remain consistent until the finals, at which point no decks are benched and players have to win with all three decks to win the entire tournament.