Choosing a Deck for a Disney Lorcana Set Championship

At Level 2 you built a deck with a plan. A tournament deck needs one more thing: a plan for the room. You are not playing against a random opponent. You are playing against the decks people in your area actually bring. This lesson is about choosing for that room.

Step 1: check legality

Set Championships are Core Constructed. Your deck must have at least 60 cards, no more than two inks, no more than 4 copies of any full name, no banned cards, and only cards from sets in the current Core rotation.

The July 2026 Tournament Rules list the rotation: with the release of Attack of the Vine!, Core allows Fabled and later sets, and the four sets before Fabled rotated out. New sets become legal in sanctioned constructed play on the day of their prerelease in hobby stores. The same rules list no banned cards in Core, and one banned card in Infinity.

Rotation is also why timing matters. A new set changes the field the week it arrives. If your event falls soon after a prerelease, expect new cards and new decks.

Step 2: read the field

The field is the set of decks you expect to face. Three ways to learn it:

• Your weekly play. The decks your store’s regulars play are the decks you will meet. Notice ink pairs and the cards that keep beating people.
• Published lists. Large events often share top decklists. They show what strong players chose, though your local field may differ.
• Ask. Players love talking about decks. Ask what people are testing.

Write down the four or five decks you expect most. That list drives everything that follows.

Step 3: choose your deck

Weigh three things:

1. Strength against the field. A deck that beats the two most common decks is worth a lot, even if it struggles against a rare one.
2. How well you know it. Experience with a deck is worth a great deal. You know its mulligans, its traps, and when to race or control. A slightly stronger deck you barely know often does worse.
3. Whether you can finish matches. If your deck plays long games and you play carefully, you may run into time. Draws hurt in Swiss.

When in doubt, bring the strong deck you have played most.

Step 4: test the matchups

Play matches, not single games, against each deck on your list. Use the best-of-three structure and a timer. For each matchup, log:

• Who won, and whether you played or drew each game.
• What decided each game: tempo, cards, a key card, or a mistake.
• Your mulligan in each game.

After a few matches per deck, patterns appear. You learn which matchups to race and which to control, and whether to play or draw against each.

Step 5: tune, then stop

Tuning means changing a few cards to improve your worst matchups without hurting your best ones. Some guidelines:

• Change two to four cards at a time, and test again.
• Prefer cards that help in several matchups over cards that only answer one deck.
• Do not cut the cards that make your plan work.

Then lock the list, about a week before the event if you can. Changing cards the night before means playing a deck you have not tested. Use the last week to play the locked list as much as possible.

Step 6: register it carefully

Write your list with full card names and versions, and submit it the way the organizer asks, through the Ravensburger Play Hub or on paper. Check the count: at least 60 cards, and exactly the cards in your deck box. A Lore Guide may check your deck against your list at any point in the event.

A note on borrowing lists

Copying a strong list from a big event is fine; many good players start there. But play it enough to understand why each card is in it. A list you understand will beat the same list played by someone who does not.