6 best Disney Lorcana song cards in The First Chapter
Something to sing about.
Catchy songs are as iconic to Disney movies as beautiful animation, heroic princesses and talking animals, so it’s only natural that they play a big role in trading card game Disney Lorcana. The very best song cards in Lorcana aren’t just charming references to the tunes we all remember from Disney films, either - they’re seriously powerful effects that can be the crux between winning and losing.
Best Disney Lorcana song cards in The First Chapter
Song cards are a unique gameplay mechanic in Lorcana that lean neatly into the card game’s roots in Disney movies. They can be played just like standard action cards by paying the ink cost in their top-left corner. Alternatively, if you have a character out who has an ink value equal to or greater than the song’s own cost, you can play the song for free without having to spend any extra ink from your inkwell. (Looking to learn how to play Disney Lorcana?)
In a neat twist, this rule isn’t restricted to specific characters or songs - meaning you can mix and match character cards and song cards from across Disney movies in your deck, with Mickey Mouse singing One Jump Ahead from Aladdin or Simba belting out Frozen’s Let It Go, if you want.
More directly, the chance to play them for free makes song cards some of the best Lorcana cards in the game when paired carefully with the right characters, granting you powerful effects on your turn without any additional cost.
With the best Lorcana song cards doing everything from healing your characters and allowing you to add extra ink to your inkwell to banishing your opponents’ cards and returning your banished characters back to your hand, they’re an indispensable arsenal of effects that are essential to claiming victory in the Disney TCG.
We’ve picked out one song card from Lorcana’s debut set The First Chapter in each of the game’s six ink colours below, so you’ll have the best Lorcana song cards in your deck no matter which colours you’re building around.
1. Be Our Guest
Prepare your cards and serve with flair
Based on the toe-tapping culinary cabaret from Beauty and the Beast, Be Our Guest is one of the best song cards in Lorcana for quickly finding the characters you need.
For the low price of two ink - which, like all song cards, is reduced to zero if you have a character on the table worth at least its value - this Amber song card allows you to look at the four top cards of your deck. If you find a character, you can reveal it to your opponent before putting it into your hand. The rest of the cards then go on the bottom of your deck in any order.
While it’s not as outright powerful as some other cards, Be Our Guest’s extremely low cost - you can start playing it for free within just a couple of turns with the right character on the field - lets you quickly start sifting through your deck to find the characters you want early in the game, potentially handing you an early advantage when it comes to challenging your opponent’s characters and questing for the lore you need to win.
On top of all that, the song card can also be added to your inkwell and used to buy other cards, so there’s no real downside to having it in your deck - even if you don’t sing it for free, its cheap price and card draw ability makes it a card worth having in any situation.
2. Friends on the Other Side
The cards will tell the past, the present and the future as well
Memorably sung by Keith David’s villainous Dr. Facilier in The Princess and The Frog, Friends on the Other Side is an extremely simple song card in Disney Lorcana.
For the price of just three ink - or played for free using a character worth three ink or more - it allows you to draw two cards from your deck. (It’s a playful thematic nod to the tarot reading that Dr. Facilier gives Naveen and Lawrence in the movie - here it’s the player able to see into their deck’s own future!)
It’s as simple as that - no caveats or complications. Just play the song and draw two cards. (You can also choose to add the card to your inkwell, if your hand is looking healthy enough.)
While Friends on the Other Side’s effect is straightforward, its fairly low cost and handy card draw ability makes it an essential song card for your Amethyst deck, allowing you to quickly start searching through your deck for other cards you need to get your gameplay strategy in motion. It’s one of the must-have card draw effects in The First Chapter, and one of the best song cards in Lorcana as a result.
3. Mother Knows Best
Keep your characters safe and sound, dear
The unforgettable centrepiece performance of Tangled’s manipulative Mother Gothel as she convinces Rapunzel to remain locked up in her tower - or risk ruffians, thugs, poison ivy, quicksand, cannibals and snakes, among other disasters outside - Mother Knows Best channels the controlling spirit of the Disney villain in its simple but powerful effect.
For three ink - which means both Mother Gothel and Rapunzel can sing it for free, if those cards are paired with your Emerald deck - the song card lets you return one of your opponent’s cards to their hand.
Though it’s not quite as destructive as banishing a character for good, being able to waste your opponent’s ink and actions by sending a character back to their hand - which also means delaying any plans they had to quest or challenge in most cases - is a very useful option, especially if you can do it for free.
Buying some time to build up your own roster of characters on the field or quest without the risk of being challenged, or simply throw a wrench into your opponent’s attempts to quest for lore, is always helpful, making Mother Knows Best a top song card pick. After all, Mother's here to help you.
4. Be Prepared
I know it sounds sordid, but you'll be rewarded
Unveiling Scar’s plan to kill Mufasa and take his throne as ruler of the pride in The Lion King, Be Prepared’s song card in Lorcana is as ruthless as the scheming villain and as crude as his hyena minions.
For the not-inexpensive price of seven ink - making this a late-game play, though one that powerful characters such as Scar, Shameless Firebrand can sing for free - Be Prepared banishes every character currently in play.
The scorched-earth approach - it affects your characters as much as your opponents - is definitely a risk-reward approach, but it’s a seriously powerful board wipe to unleash when you need to cut your opponents down to size.
If you have the ink handy, or don’t mind sacrificing one of your more expensive cards to wipe away your rivals’ line-up, Be Prepared can be an incredibly potent tool in your Ruby deck. Pair it with cards that let you return banished cards to your hand to play the song for free and then spend the saved ink on quickly refilling your side of the field, having cleared away your opponents’ chance at a counterattack.
5. One Jump Ahead
They're quick, but I'm much faster
Showing off Aladdin’s wiles and wisdom as a street rat stealing to survive in the city of Agrabah, One Jump Ahead lends its fast-moving beat to this Lorcana song card.
That pacey feel comes through in its low cost of two ink, allowing it to be played early on in the match - and for free by character cards including Aladdin, Corner Swordsman, if you’re building a Steel and Sapphire deck.
One Jump Ahead is one of the best Lorcana song cards for those looking to ramp up their available ink as fast as possible, allowing you to put the top card of your deck straight into your inkwell. While it enters your inkwell exerted - meaning you can’t immediately spend the ink it provides - from your next turn you’ll have an extra ink to spend, helping you to afford more powerful cards faster than your opponent.
The speed at which you can get One Jump Ahead out and start adding to your ink reserves for free makes it an essential song card for ramp decks built around working towards expensive, powerful characters, but it’s also just a great card to include regardless of your Sapphire deck’s strategy - more ink is never a bad thing to have.
6. Grab Your Sword
The danger just increased
While Grab Your Sword isn’t directly the title of a Disney song, its name comes from the Mob Song sung by Gaston and the villagers as they prepare to siege the Beast’s castle in Beauty and the Beast.
In keeping with its threats of crowd violence, Grab Your Sword is one of the best Lorcana song cards for dealing with rival characters played by your opponents. For five ink - or singing it for free with a character worth five or more - you can deal two damage to each opposing character.
That’s a very useful way of weakening every character if you’re playing head-to-head with a single opponent who has a field full of cards, but becomes even more powerful in multiplayer matches - where its ability will affect every character (except yours) currently in play.
Paired with other aggressive Steel cards like Fire the Cannons! and Smash, which can respectively deal two or three damage to a single character, Grab Your Sword is an effective way of whittling down enemy characters’ willpower before finishing them off with another attack or challenge - leaving the field open for you to quest your way to victory.
Disney Lorcana is planned for release in local game stores on August 18th, ahead of a wide release on September 1st. Disney Lorcana products are available on Zatu.