Magic’s Most Versatile Mechanic Comes to Disney Lorcana With a Clever Twist

Ink drops feel like so much more than a new consumable resource

Few Magic: The Gathering mechanics have become as ubiquitous as Treasure tokens. These artifacts can be sacrificed to generate one mana of any color, which means that, regardless of the deck’s colors or strategies, they can help cast more expensive cards ahead of schedule. Or you can stockpile them for a single explosive turn. Treasure tokens have become so common and popular since their debut in 2017’s Ixalan block that they're now less of a specialized mechanic and more a fundamental part of how modern Magic works.

Disney Lorcana is about to introduce its own version in the game’s fourth year. When Hyperia City arrives at local game stores on Oct. 16 for prerelease events ahead of the wider Oct. 23 launch, ink drops will also arrive as a new way to ramp up ink generation. They’re functionally identical to Treasure tokens and can be generated in a variety of ways. Once created, they’re added to the inkwell and can be removed to generate one ink (unlike mana in Magic, ink isn’t color-specific during gameplay).

Having gotten hands-on with various Hyperia City cards provided by Ravensburger, however, I realized ink drops are more than Treasure tokens with a Lorcana makeover. Hyperia City distributes them across all six ink types (but not evenly). The most interesting cards don’t just generate extra resources. They reward each color for producing and spending ink drops in its own particular way. In particular, Hyperia City really wants you to combine two of those strategies into a deck focused on cards featuring characters from 1963’s The Sword in the Stone.

Ink drops are more than temporary ink

Hyperia City treats ink drops as something you can accumulate, preserve, and spend for effects beyond their generic value. Certain cards generate ink drops by questing, challenging, or being banished. Other cards become stronger if you have one in your inkwell when you play them or spend one as part of their cost. An ink drop can help you play a large character early, but using it immediately may mean giving up a more powerful effect later.

Emerald, for instance, connects ink drops to a large collection of “Super” characters from Big Hero 6. If you lean into this kind of typal synergy with lots of other Supers, you can also incorporate older cards from franchises like The Incredibles or Darkwing Duck to develop a more complex strategy.

Fred - Awesome Boss is a real standout from Hyperia City in Emerald. With Shift 4, you can play him on top of other, cheaper versions of the character at a discount. But with the Radical Resources ability, you generate one ink drop every time you play a Super character, including when you play Fred. The strategy here is clear: Play a cheap Fred — like Fred - Mascot by Day from Azurite Sea — then Shift Awesome Boss into play. From there, just play as many cheap Supers as you can to keep generating more ink drops.

Go Go Tomago - Extreme Tester supports the Super theme by generating ink drops when challenged, while Baymax - Lab Assistant generates two when played if you already have two items on the board. There’s also some interesting synergy with that Baymax and the excellent combo of Bobby Zimuruski - Soundboard Whiz and Leaning Tower of Cheese-A. Bobby gives all of your Leaning Towers the ability to exert and generate one ink drop if you pay one ink. If you have four of these cheese towers in play, then Extra Cheesy activates, giving all of your items Ward (opponents then cannot target them with removal).

Steel generates ink drops more aggressively by rewarding players for doing things they already should be doing anyway: playing characters, moving them to locations, questing, challenging opponents, and banishing opposing characters. Kit Cloudkicker - Sure Shot creates an ink drop or deals one damage every time he quests. Shere Khan - Khan Industries CEO generates one every time one of your characters banishes another in a challenge. But Steel also has some straightforward action staples interacting with ink drops. Ink Explosion deals four direct damage and generates an ink drop. Khan Transport draws a card and creates an ink drop. Altogether, these cards make Steel the perfect secondary color for any deck strategy focused on ink drops.

The absolute best approach, however, emerges when you recognize how well Merlin and Arthur work together in Steel-Amethyst.

Merlin and Arthur ink drop strategy

The Steel location Central Station - Transportation Hub generates an ink drop once per turn whenever a character moves there. Then there’s Arthur - Novice Assistant who gets to move to a location for free when played and creates an ink drop (once per turn) when he does so. If you’ve got two locations in play, you can essentially keep moving Arthur back and forth to generate more and more ink drops over time.

That modest Arthur can become the foundation of something larger. Arthur - Jousting Knight can shift onto another Arthur for four ink. Whenever he banishes another character, he generates an ink drop. (Sir Pellinore - Tougher Than He Looks has a similar ability.) Arthur - Novice Blacksmith provides another way to create them when he enters. Remember Shere Khan, Khan Industries CEO? These three combined can generate plenty of ink drops just by consistently challenging.

Steel’s Arthur package would already make an appealing foundation for an ink drop deck, but Hyperia City wants you to pair it with Amethyst’s new Merlin cards.

If you have an Arthur in play, playing Merlin, Bauble Expert generates an ink drop upon entering. You can then Shift Merlin - Ink Drop Tinkerer for five ink onto that character (or another Merlin) to generate two more. Suddenly, a sequence that began with a little boy destined to become a king has produced three temporary ink, allowing you to accelerate your ink resources. Cards like Madam Mim - Resourceful Trickster in Amethyst reward you with card draw when cashing in your ink drops, whereas the Steel action Jousting Match boosts damage dealt if you pay for it with one or more ink drops.

These interactions reveal the clever distinction between ink drops and Treasure tokens. In Magic, Treasure tokens are permanents that synergize with artifact strategies, but the tokens themselves are generally interchangeable. Hyperia City uses ink drops more like a shared vocabulary that’s spoken differently by each ink type. Emerald makes them a tool that superheroes create. Steel produces them through movement and combat. Amethyst uses Shift cards and value engines to multiply them. Ruby, Sapphire, and Amber have much less of a focus on ink drops in Hyperia City, but they make up for it with a wide focus on songs and singing characters.

Because ink drops were designed as something more than just their generic value, that gives them a lot more mechanical potential. Spending your ink drops as soon as possible simply makes Lorcana faster than it was previously. At the same time, you can build entire decks around the idea that hoarding ink drops and spending them at an opportune moment can make individual turns a lot more interesting.

The Merlin-and-Arthur combination feels like the ideal way to explore Hyperia City’s big new mechanic. It isn’t necessarily the strongest competitive deck waiting inside the set; that will take considerably more experimentation to determine. But it is a remarkably clear demonstration of what ink drops add to Lorcana.

Characters Shift into more powerful forms, locations become part of the engine, challenges create new resources, and those resources can either accelerate the next play or strengthen a card already in your hand. By weaving them into Lorcana’s various unique systems like this, Hyperia City gives ink drops a clever identity totally distinct from Magic’s Treasure tokens.