This weekend, at a launch event for Lorcana’s Into the Inklands at one of my local game stores, the tournament organizer made a bizarre announcement. Before opening the booster pack included in all of our starter decks, we were invited to trade it for a different pack from one of the store’s booster boxes. The store had already sold a number of starter decks to customers, and many, or perhaps allඣ of the packs in the Amber/Emerald ‘Dogged and Dynamic’ deck were mispacked. Instead of having two rare-or-greater cards, the entire pack was filled with commons and uncommons. A friend of mine at the event confirmed that he had 𒅌opened two starter deck packs himself that had no rares.

Throughout the weekend there were many claims of missing rares and other packing issues all over Discord and social media. There are packs from starter decks, troves, and booster boxes that areꦚ missing rares, but there are also booster boxes that seem to be missing legendaries. While the odds aren’t guaranteed, you’ll typically find between three and five non-foil legendary in any booster box. Some have reported opening entire cases of Into the Inklands (four booster boxes) that had no non-foil legendaries at all.

There’s a rumor that certain batch number♛s correspond to mispacked product, but it’s now clear that not every product within a specific batch is defective. Ravensburger wants customers to contact the company through its if they think their purchases have an issue.

Mispacked product is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Lorcana’s quality control issues. Printing issues 🎃plague the game; some that have been a problem for awhile, and some brand new ones for Into the Inklands. One of the most common issues in this set are cards with too much black ink.

In some cases the dark printing can crush some of the detail in the art, but in other cases it can completely ruin a card and make it il💯legible. I pulled a lot of these cards, including a Mr. Snoops and Joshua Sweet that are so smudged with black ink in the corner you can’t even see the card’s cost anymore. A player at one of my local stores has a collection of misprints that .

Then there’s the color variance between cards, which is more pronounced than ever in this set. While past expansions would have copies of the same card that look more or less faded, this one seems to have 🐼a high number of cards with oversaturated colors. The two Robin Hoods below are good examples that show how much things like value and hue can change the tone and intention of the art.

Most disappointing of all, is the discovery of Stitch, Rock Star enchanted cards in the new booster packs. These are meant to be exclusive promos rewarded to Lorcana’s first ever Set Champions at the end of this season, but instead they’r🦩e showing up in packs like any other enchanted card. What was meant to be a highly coveted card is now just out iﷺn the open, making the eventual prize versions of it less appealing.

The misprints are kind of cool looking, and there are people that will pay a lot for that kind of thing. The Jafar is in an auction right now in a misprint group on Facebook, and its current bid is over $200. As far as the color variance, you’ll find stuff like that - at least to some degree - in almost every card game. And yeah, opening a whole case and finding no legendaries stink♈s, and so do the packs missing guaranteed rares, but you could just as well have found a cheap, useless legendary, or a rare you’ll never use. We’re gambling, after all. If you want consistency, buy🌃 singles.

By and large, Lorcana players have been extraordinarily gracious about these issues, whether it be because we’re still in the honeymoon period for the game, or whether us Disney fans are just happy with anything featuring our beloved Michael Mouse. I appreciate the community's willingness to roll with the punches, but I don’t think these issues should be excused either, especially when they seem to be getting worse set after set. Color variance is one thing - different companies have different printers with different settings - but these other issues are completely avoidable.

It’s clear that Lorcana has huge quality control issues at the printing level that need to be addressed. At $6 per pack, this is one of the most expensive TCGs on the market, and it's reasonable to expect a certain level of quality.

I imagine Ravensburger is well aware of these issues. The blank that says “Discard” - the ones that fill spots at the end of a sheet of cards and are meant to be thrown away after they’re cut - used to be black, but with Into the Inklands, they’re bright yellow. I assume this is to make them stand out and help ensure they don’t end up inside booster packs, and yet people are still finding them. These illegible cards covered in black ink might be cool for some collectors, but they never should have made it off the prod💎uction line in the first place, especially at this volume.

We know that production was dramatically increased to🍨 meet demand, and it’s easy to see a connection between rushed production and low-qu🎶ality product. I hope that this is something that can be resolved and not just a necessary evil of having the shelves stocked with product to buy. I’ve enjoyed not having to sleep overnight outside GameStop to get all the packs I wanted to open this time, but it’d be great to actually get what I’m paying for.

Next: These 🦩Underused Lorcana Cards Could Finally Find 🌜A Place In Into The Inklands