How to play #2: Turn Phases

In our chapter #2 of our guide on how to play Lorcana TCG, we will teach you all the parts or phases of a turn. In case you missed it, here is chapter #1.

Initial Turn Phase

Our turn starts right at the end of the opponent's turn (sounds obvious) but there are things to do before we draw our first card from the deck.

Ready Step

In this step we must vertically place all our cards in the field (Characters and inks).

Set Step

The Set phase refers to the fact that there are some cards with effects that are activate at the start of the turn, this is the time to activate them and resolve them once finished, go to the next phase.

Draw Step

You draw the top card of your deck to your hand.
Important! the player of the first turn of the game skips the draw phase.

Main Phase

In the main phase you can do as many actions as you can as long as you have the resources.

Add Card to Inkwell

You place a card from your hand on the bottom of the board, show it to your opponent, then turn it face down vertically. Important! This is only once per turn.

No matter what the text of the card is, all cards in your ink zone are worth 1 point.
Once a card is placed in ink form, it will remain so for the entire game.

Play Cards

Very well, now it is time to play with the cards and the form is as follows. Each card has its cost as we mentioned here in the parts of the cards.

So in order to use it you have to pay that cost. How do I do it?

For example, if you have a card with a cost of 2, then you should have at least 2 inks on the field and put them in exert mode (that is, put them horizontally).

And ready! So you can play the cards from your hand. Remember you can only play cards up to the maximum amount of ink you have vertically.

For example, if you have 4 inks, you can play 2 cards that cost 2 each, but to play more cards you must wait until the next turn.

Use Card Abilities

Many items and characters have abilities you can use during your turn (and only during your turn). These normally affect other cards in play. Cards in a player’s deck, discard, hand, or inkwell aren’t “in play,” so they aren’t affected by other cards unless the card says otherwise.

If a card ability has a cost, that appears before its effect, with the two separated by a dash. The cost might include an exert cost {E}, an ink cost {I}, text that explains the cost, or a combination of any of these. You must pay every part of an ability’s cost in order to play the ability.

Remember, you can’t use the abilities of a character you played this turn.

When you play an item card, put it on the table above your inkwell. Unlike characters, you can use items right away.

When you play an action card, do what the card tells you to do, then put the card into your discard pile. Always put cards into your discard pile face up so everyone can see them.

Songs are a kind of action card, but there’s a special rule that gives you another way to pay for them. Each song says “(A character with cost X or more can {E} to sing this song for free.)” If you have a
character with the listed cost or higher, you can exert that character to play the song card instead of exerting cards in your inkwell to do it! Using this approach still counts as playing the card.

Rules for when you can exert a character still apply, of course, so characters can't sing songs the same turn they come into play.

Use Character Action

Remember you can't do anything with a Character the turn it comes into play.

Having said that… This is what you can do with a character:

• Quest.
• Challenge an opponent’s exerted character.
• Use an ability that requires them to exert.

Learn how to apply each of the previous actions in chapter #3. 👇

If you want to know other decks that use these Ink's: How to play.