If you’re intoDisney Lorcana, you know cards are super scarce. Don’t even get me started on Rise of the Floodborn preorders I’ve already missed out on and refuse to pay scalper prices for — I’m still struggling to complete my collection for The First Chapter. A mixture of overspending at Gamescom and preorders from my local Game store essentially had me sorted for the first set, with a few trades and singles later on ticking off more from my wish list. Yet I’m still missing 13 cards.
Buying Lorcana cards at a reasonable price seems impossible at the moment. Nowhere has them in stock brand new for retail price, so that means you’re either paying over the odds on the likes of eBay or purchasing individual cards on specialist websites like Cardmarket. With my recent trip toEGXin London, I thought maybe,just maybe, I’d get lucky and snag a booster pack or two. Even if the prices were inflated, like what we saw at Gamescom. I was wrong.
The first vendor I went to in the tabletop gameplay area had no new packs on display. I felt almost embarrassed even to ask, thinking they’d laugh at me for expecting them to have something so hard to get hold of. To my surprise, they had some… but with a caveat. They were only selling them to people playing Lorcana at the event, and, while I would have been all for that, I needed to have my deck, and I hadn’t brought that to London with me. I was out of luck.
The seller told me he knew it was an extreme measure, but with how rare Lorcana is, and scalpers ruining it for the rest of us, he wanted to ensure the cards got into the hands of real players. However, he pulled out a binder of some singles for me to check out, but it was slim pickings. Mostly empty, nothing amazing, and certainly nothing I needed.
Next, I hit the proper market stalls, stalking up and down the different aisles and stopping at every stall selling trading cards. One had a Lorcana binder and card sleeves on display, so I was hoping they’d have some cards for sale, but no. The vendor told me they’d brought a few to the event, but they’d already sold out. This was a common answer from the sellers; they’d had a limited quantity, but they sold like hot cakes. A couple said they’d be bringing more the next day, but, alas, I wouldn’t be there to buy them and would be spending three and a half hours on a train back home instead, Lorcanaless.
One vendor I asked told me not to bother trying to find any cards now, and that any I found would be overpriced — either brand new or as singles — and encouraged me to wait until January when the reprints of The First Chapter would be more readily available. I nodded and thanked him for his advice (even though The First Chapter is being reprinted in just a couple of weeks alongside Rise of the Floodborn), then felt slightly guilty as I moved to the next stall over and stood there for 15 minutes going through their extensive box of Lorcana singles, hoping there would be at least one card I needed. There wasn’t.
It was interesting, as other collectors were perusing the cards and discussing how overpriced they were. The box said every card within was 50p each, so I knew at a glance there would be nothing great in there, but I felt like 50p wasn’t that bad of a price for a single card. Later on, I checked some of the cards on the likes of cardmarket and found those other buyers were right to be complaining. Most of the cards were as little as €0.02 online. Of course, you have to pay postage, but buying more than one card from the same seller can greatly reduce shipping costs.
Another vendor laughed when I asked for Lorcana cards and told me she’d had countless people asking at the event and that, unfortunately, the first wave is even more sought after because the second printing won’t be worth as much, so collectors want to snap up the remaining first prints. Which is odd, considering Ravensburger has already confirmed there won’t be any way to tell the difference between printings.
The final card store I came to had a large Lorcana banner proudly on display, and it was the first place I didn’t feel daft asking whether they were stocking the cards. Unfortunately, I was too late once again. They’d all sold out. My quest to find any of the final 13 cards I needed failed, and now I’m back to refreshing the same few sites every day for any new stock of The First Chapter and preorders for Rise of the Floodborn.
