A beginner's guide to Disney Lorcana: how to win, build a deck, take a turn, quest, challenge and use keywords, in plain English and checked against the official rules.
Each player races to be the first to reach 20 lore. You gain lore mostly by questing with your characters, and you slow your opponent down by banishing theirs.
A deck of at least 60 cards, with no more than four copies of any card with the same full name (name plus version), using at most two of the six ink colors: Amber, Amethyst, Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire and Steel. Starter decks come ready to play. The Ready Set Ink deck builder checks these rules as you build.
Shuffle your deck and draw seven cards. Once, you may put any number of those cards on the bottom of your deck and draw back up to seven (see starting hand). One player is chosen at random to go first, and that player skips their first draw.
Cards cost ink. Your ink comes from your inkwell, a facedown pile of cards you have chosen to turn into ink. Once per turn you may put a card from your hand into your inkwell, but only if it has the inkwell symbol around its cost (it is inkable). Every card in the inkwell is worth one ink, whatever is printed on its front.
Characters have Strength, Willpower and usually a lore value, and stay in play. Actions do one thing and go to the discard pile. Songs are actions you can play by exerting a character to sing them instead of paying ink. Items stay in play and give lasting effects. Locations stay in play, have Willpower, and can give you lore at the start of your turn.
Your turn starts by readying all your exerted cards, then characters that were already in play become able to act and you gain lore from any locations you have, then you draw a card. After that you are in the main phase, where you may do any of these in any order, as often as you can pay for: ink one card (once per turn), play cards, quest, challenge, move a character to a location, and use abilities. When you have done everything you want, you end your turn. See turn structure.
To quest, exert a character (turn it sideways). You gain lore equal to its lore value. A character cannot quest, challenge or pay exert costs on the turn it comes into play: it is drying until your next turn.
To challenge, exert one of your characters and pick an opposing character that is already exerted (or an opposing location). Each side deals damage equal to its Strength to the other. A card with damage equal to or greater than its Willpower is banished and goes to the discard pile. Damage stays on a character until it leaves play. Because you can only challenge exerted characters, a ready character is safe from challenges.
Many cards have a short bold name that stands for a package of rules. A few to learn first: Evasive (hard to challenge), Rush (can challenge right away), Bodyguard (protects your other characters), Shift (play a character on top of the same name for a different cost), Singer (sing songs cheaply) and Ward (can't be chosen by opponents' effects). There are 14 in total on the keywords page.
Look up any unfamiliar word in the glossary, search every card, or start a deck in the deck builder. This is a summary for new players. The official Comprehensive Rules always win if anything here differs; this guide was checked against version 2.2.0.