We are now halfway through February, and Disney Lorcana is now officially wrapping up their latest spoiler season. Since the announcement about Archazia’s Island, we’ve been given a preview of what the new expansion set has to offer; dual ink cards, a legendary action, more tools to promote creative deck building between the different ink combinations, and now we are given a card that can change the game’s actual win condition.
Introducing Donald Duck - Flustered Sorcerer, this 7 ink cost uninkable character comes with one basic, albeit game-shaking, ability; that is to move up the opponent’s required winning lore amount from 20 to 25.
This isn’t the first time a Trading Card Game (TCG) has produced a card that alters the game’s overall win/loss condition. Other popular TCGs like Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh have made their own flourish in that aspect throughout the years. Changing the opponent's win condition, however, is very unusual.
Now while Donald Duck - Flustered Sorcerer has an admittedly robust stat block for his ink color, he does have a critical point. He doesn’t contribute much when it comes to changing the overall state of the board. At best, Donald Duck might buy amethyst players a couple of turns -maybe even just one turn when it comes to aggressive opposing decks that are hyper-focused on generating lore.
There is also the fact that Donald Duck’s ability immediately reverts the win condition back the moment he is banished. Depending on how priority works with effects like this, some complicated situations could arise in competitive play.
The woes for dear Donald don’t end there, as he was built with no self-granting protection. No Evasive, no Resist, and no Ward means that he, unfortunately, is quite easy to remove from the board with the likes of staple cards with banishment abilities. Somce examples include Dragon Fire, Let It Go, Maleficent - Monstrous Dragon, or Lady Tremaine - Imperious Queen.
Even when the opponent doesn’t have those options in hand, hard-hitting characters used in the competitive scene, such as Maui—Half Shark, can easily crash into Donald Duck should he be left open to being challenged.
Could Donald Duck - Flustered Sorcerer be useful in tournaments or organized play? There exists a world where he may sometimes actually be the game defining move to help a player win their match, but the odds of that happening are heavily stacked against him.
TCGs always have an element of luck in them. No two games are ever exactly the same. That said, competitive play refines both the deck and player to limit that aspect in favor of consistency. Donald Duck doesn't look like he can keep up,