Lorcana Palace Heist Review – Phenomenal Cosmic Power
As the wider Lorcana universe struggles under the Reign of Jafar, publisher Ravensburger continue to expand the possibility space of the game in exciting new ways with Palace Heist, a standalone product that caps off the games first major story cycle and pulls double duty as a great entry point.
Falling under the Illumineer’s Quest subseries, Palace Heist is the second product in Lorcana’s dedicated solo/co-op line, the first being Deep Trouble which launched alongside wave four, Ursula’s Return, back in May 2024. These releases are notable for being completely standalone with no prior Lorcana purchase necessary, comprised of two pre-con Single Player Lorcana decks and a third unique deck dedicated to the specific foe – Jafar, in this case – and some extra scenario specific cards dictating difficulty. However, each assumes prior knowledge of Lorcana rules, so jumping into one of the great online tutorials to learn the basics is advisable if this is indeed a first purchase.
Deep Trouble was not something sent to reviewers, at least not as far as I’m aware of, so in the interests of journalism (and not crippling FOMO) I picked up a copy to compare the two. While not the best news for my wallet, I have to give credit to Ravensburger and the Lorcana team for addressing basically every criticism I had with Deep Trouble and making Palace Heist an overall superior package. Firstly, Palace Heist comes in a quality rectangular box, unlike the flimsy ‘expanded pre-con’ box Deep Trouble awkwardly slides back into. I say awkwardly, because the packaging design of Deep Trouble means there’s basically no way to open it without damaging the box and once the contents are removed, it’s an incredibly poor piece of kit left to store three decks, a sad paper mat and a bunch of accursed flimsy pop-out tokens with nary a bag in sight. Palace Heist is positively luxurious in comparison, a sturdy box with full art inside and out, no less than three custom-art cardboard deck-boxes, pre-punched chipboard tokens like those found in Lorcana Gateway and a real fold-out board to hold Jafar and his many accoutrements. It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if a future print-run of Deep Trouble receives some sort of upgrade to this treatment, because Palace Heist shows what it should have looked like at launch.
A small rulebook outlines the main changes in Lorcana gameplay for Palace Heist, much of which centres around the way Jafar’s turns play out and the new oversized Hexwell Crown token that adds an extra twist on top of the usual Lore race – Jafar to 40, players to 20 each. As with Deep Trouble, all player turns happen simultaneously in Palace Heist, making it possible to get some amazing deck synergies and Support effects happening during a turn but it’s the inclusion of the Hexwell Crown that really shakes things up for the better. Functionally an oversized Item card, the Crown is the focal point for the titular heist, granting its owner 2 Lore at the start of each turn. To steal the Hexwell Crown – provided Jafar has no Locations in play to protect it – each player needs to exhaust a Character and then choose who among them receives the Crown token. Oh, and there’s one other thing; players cannot win while Jafar is in possession of the Crown, even if their Lore thresholds have been met. The Crown is also returned to Jafar whenever it’s Removed from the game and many of his cards steal it back from the players, often before they’ve even had a chance to nab the precious 2 Lore from it. It’s a great way to mess with the tempo of the game, pushing and pulling focus to keep players on their toes.
Jafar himself runs off a unique deck of 50 cards, a mixture of Locations, Characters, Items and Actions designed to frustrate and infuriate players. Early game, Jafar will be drawing two cards a turn and, provided he has the required number of Ink in his Inkwell, will play both – if he doesn’t yet meet the Ink cost, the card is instead placed into his Inkwell. Of note, Jafar never actually spends his Ink, so if his Inkwell sits at 3 and he happens to draw two cards that have a 3 Ink cost each, he still plays both. As either the player count or his Lore counter climbs past key points, so too does his card draw, marked with a token on the board that can stretch from a manageable 2 to a devastating 5. This mechanic alongside juggling the Crown are what take the card-play in Palace Heist to the next level, requiring players to manage Jafar’s Lore counter far earlier than they might otherwise, lest his card draw beget more card draw and the Hexwell Crown become irretrievable, protected behind layer upon layer of Location cards. Not just a thematic improvement but an overall gameplay improvement, Palace Heist already has me excited for the third Illumineer’s Quest outing which isn’t likely to appear until mid-late 2026.
Palace Heist’s ‘True Solo’ play feels desperate even on Easy, not to mention swingy in both directions – either the player or Jafar getting a bum run of cards early on can make the snowball effect of the Hexwell Crown and Locations insurmountable or non-existent. In this way Illumineer’s Quest reminds me a bit of Arkham Horror LCG, literally the number one rated co-op card game in the world on BGG, with its many layers of randomness lending itself to nail-biting play or, in some cases, hopeless frustration. Fortunately resetting a game of Palace Heist requires at most shifting some tokens around the board and shuffling a few decks. The included pre-con decks in Palace Heist on average contain less ‘current wave’ cards than their Deep Trouble counterparts did and again feature unique ‘Sand motif’ foils of the two Key Character cards in each deck, namely Pinocchio/Elsa and Bolt/Goofy. When played co-op, these decks working together are robust enough for Easy and Normal mode but no reliable match for anything higher, especially Extreme which again echoes Arkham LCG (or perhaps Lord of the Rings LCG) in demanding deck/s specifically designed to respond to Jafar’s cards. As a rule of thumb, a good co-op game shouldn’t let players win much more than 60% of the time and Palace Heist certainly achieves this goal – from my first six plays I achieved two wins, a good way to keep players returning as there’s nothing more lacklustre than a too-easy co-op experience. I doubt I’ll ever reach the heights of Extreme victory as I tend to be more of a Kitchen Table than Competitive Lorcana player, but there’s easily a dozen games or more left in the box before I consider myself worthy of unwrapping the Secret Card, a mysterious object tucked at the bottom of the box that is awarded to those victorious over Jafar but might cause arguments if this box is being split by multiple Illumineers.
While victory may not be easy over Jafar, Place Heist is surely one for Ravensburger and the wider Lorcana team, providing more ways to engage with the game in a single purchase and has a few bonuses for Competitive and Collector Illumineers alike. A step-up from its predecessor in every way, I hope each Illumineer’s Quest product proves as exciting.
Disney Lorcana Palace Heist was kindly provided by the publisher for review purposes.
