Greetings, Illumineers! What an exciting week for Disney Lorcana! Today, we'll be going over the experience and results of the first ever North American Championship, held right in DisneyLand's very own DisneyLand Hotel, as well as both the LCQs and the main event! Strap in, because it's going to be one wild ride for sure!
Day 0 Last Chance Qualifier
The NA LCQs operated a bit differently this time from EU LCQs. While EU had both morning and afternoon pods to sign up for, NA only had one set of pods to attend. Given that the LCQ requirements for making it into the main event on Saturday was to go 5-0 in all of your matches in a best of three format, only having the chance to do it once instead of twice is pretty significant, especially for those who unfortunately lost matches early on. Heartbreak is inevitable during high-stakes competitive events, but this was a first for Disney Lorcana, as it continues to navigate the balance of a casual-competitive audience for its first season of events. While many players were eliminated with increased prizing awarded depending on how well they did, ultimately only 32 players earned their LCQ reward of getting access to the main event on Saturday. My heart goes out to those so close to victory, and I wish you better luck and success during your next opportunity.
Day 1 Swiss Phase
The 32 LCQ invitees plus the 96 DLC invitees brings the total to 128 players for the day 1 swiss phase, which featured the two-game match system. These players ultimately battled it out for the top 16 spots, making day 2 of the single-elimination phase that included additional prizing and a shot at an invite to the Disney Lorcana World Championship.
Meta overview
Given Ruby/Sapphire's strong performance leading into the event, it was safe to assume that the deck would be making up the majority of the meta share of this event, which was proven to be the case. A few other deck types also showed up in large numbers, and a bit of some surprising ones as well. Take a look below:

Image courtesy of lorcanaplayer.com
A few standouts include Amethyst/Steel and Amethyst/Sapphire (BLURPLE!) In this set's meta, I'm noticing how strong Amethyst continues to be a great supporting ink for a lot of top performing decks. The draw power alone keeps the pressure on as you are constantly deploying threats turn over turn and eventually other decks not using Amethyst run out of outs. This could be a clear indicator on what to bring to your set champs which are starting this weekend!
Day 1 Finalists
After 7 grueling rounds of Lorcana, we were finally able to determine our finalist from day 1. You might see a couple of familiar faces here as they've earned their status through the season so far:
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One particular player's performance I'd like to call out is Morgan "Mo" Shamblin, performing astonishingly well enough to earn 1st seed on Emerald/Amethyst. Mo brings such great energy to the game and I love following their socials and YouTube content as they do wonderful deep dives into their choices for the deck and mindset of an Emerald/Amethyst player. I'd love to see Mo and Artabax from the EU region face off to determine the true Emerald/Amethyst king!
Day 2 Single Elimination Phase
Day 2 of the Disney Lorcana North American Championship switched it's format to the best of three games, with the top 2 playing in a best of five game, similar to what we saw at the EU Championships.
As these players battled it out, we ultimately ended with one of the most predictable finals for the tournament; Ruby/Amethyst, piloted by Edmond Chiu, and Ruby/Sapphire, piloted by Scott Markeson. Edmond is familiar here, as he was the winner of DLC Dallas/Fort Worth. I will be going into a deeper dive on the highlight of the finals in a future article, but I wanted to make note that Edmond's deck was built specifically with the large pool of Ruby/Sapphire players he expected for this event, and it ultimately paid off in the finals, where he was able to win in game 4, becoming the first ever North American Disney Locana Champion! Congratulations, Edmond, as your performance throughout the season has been nothing but a pleasure to follow along with.
With that all being said, that wraps up our weekly edition of the news in Lorcana. Stay tuned for future articles, as we take a deep dive into some great topics from the event with a lot to learn from. This article was brought to you by CoolStuffInc, where you can get your sealed and singles from not only Disney Lorcana, but other games, such as Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and much more!