Written by Citizens of Lorcana
The bright light of Magic the Gathering was shone on Lorcana this past week thanks to the Professor of Tolarian College (the biggest magic YouTuber) weighing in with his thoughts about the future of our game.
And while he created amazing one-liners like “Disney Lorcana is more likely to fizzle than sizzle in the TCG scene.”, it did make me wonder what the average Magic player thought about Lorcana.
Anecdotally, talking to local magic players at my game store….they are giving the game zero chance of success.
They think it will be nothing more than a flash in the pan, like so many TCGs before.
So, I put on my own professor cap and decided to conduct research of my own among magic players.
Yes I created a very unofficial survey, which you can find here.
My methodology was to post a link to the Magic subreddit and on Twitter asking users to participate.
It was going well until the magic subreddit mods removed my post…but still I got 18 respondents to create this very insightful, and very scientifically backed report I will share with you now.
Establishing the Demographics
My first goal was to see if there was a correlation in the amount of time played, money spent, and level of competitiveness, to a potential player’s desire to try out a new game.
Now a quick note…none of the questions were required to answer. So if you see less than 18 responses, the participant chooses not to answer.
The first graph tells us that among this group of magic players (primarily Reddit) 82% have been playing for 5+ years, with the remaining 18% having played 1-5 years.
These are players who have sunk a lot of their time into playing this game.
Graph 2 is designed to see how much a player has financially committed to playing magic.
18% have spent $500-$1000
59% have spent more than $1000
And a whopping 24% selected “more than I care to think about.”
A very vague categorization, but as a very scientific person, I can tell you that this category represents more than a person is probably comfortable with if they were dispassionate about their hobby.
Ok, so far we’ve established that among this group of players (mostly from Reddit) they have played for 5+ years and spent $1000+ on their hobby.
Now question 3 is designed more to look at the level of competitiveness among this group of players.
This actually surprised me, 65% say that they play casually or in Arena. 36% say they play in local tournaments.
My bias would have been to assume that all these players are highly competitive and among the top in the game.
So if they’re just playing casually, perhaps there’s a chance for them to pick up Lorcana?
The next series of questions were designed to gauge interest in a new game, by exploring their card game playing behaviors.
Graph 4 asks if they play any other card game.
82% no.
18% yes.
Not looking good for Lorcana among these magic players.
Graph 5 is actually an interesting graph for Magic. It asks if the players played any other games before taking up magic. If I could talk to these players I would ask them what they played and why they switched.
59% no, 41% yes!
So what makes a player switch games, and why Magic?
Next, I asked if they had heard of Lorcana, to which 100% said yes.
For this next set of graphs I’m actually going to go backwards from chart 9-7. Here is where I gauge their interest in giving Lorcana a try.
Graph 9 is a simple 1-10 scale of how likely the player is to give Lorcana a try.
53% responded with a 1 meaning definitely not.
6% responded with a 10 meaning definitely will.
Overall, 83% responded with a 5 or lower, while only 17% responded with a 6 or higher.
Graph 8 references the Professor of Tolarian College’s video by asking if they agree that the game is more likely to fizzle than sizzle.
I also left an “other” option open to which there were some respondents.
59% agreed it would fizzle.
18% disagreed.
The remainder gave other opinions ranging from “it won’t be a Magic killer but can be successful” (which I agree with)
Another said if it doesn’t ascend into the top 3, or grow big in Japan, the game will fail.
And still, another said it depends on FLGS support.
Chart 7 showed the respondents a picture of the Maleficent card and asked them what they thought when they saw it.
69% said it looked like a magic rip off
19% said it looked interesting
The remaining 12% gave other answers.
Chart 10 asked respondents, regardless of whether they intend to play the game or not, “do you believe Lorcana can succeed in the TCG space, or will it come and go as so many other TCGs before?”
I initially listed the options as yes/no but realized those could be confusing responses and changed the responses to can succeed/won’t succeed.
44% said it can succeed/yes
36% responded won’t succeed/no
And 19% responded maybe.
Finally, as a bonus question, I asked if there were any thoughts they wanted to share on Lorcana. This is what I received:
“I hope it does decent enough to provide market competition.”
“I think the game can become a huge success for its collectability alone. The game doesn’t need to be good to be successful if Disney fans want to collect it”
“There are only so many Disney characters. What happens when they run out?”
“Disney is cringe”
“I give it 18-24 months tops”
Conclusion
Well, let’s be honest there were only 18 respondents to this survey…but the answers do parallel my experience with magic players in my community, and parallel what the Professor said in his video.
Ultimately I think Magic players have been playing for a long time.
They’ve seen games come and go.
Maybe they were even playing some of those games.
And in their view, why will Lorcana be any different?
What are your thoughts? Magic players I’d love to hear from you too.
If you’d like to join me on this journey to Lorcana you can follow my Twitter: Citizens of Lorcana.
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