Disney Lorcana Keywords & Abilities Explained

When you pick up a Disney Lorcana card and read its text box, you will spot short bold words like Bodyguard, Rush or Evasive. These are "keywords": standardized abilities with fixed rules that appear on many different cards. Once you know the full keyword list, you read cards faster and play far more smoothly.

This guide explains every official Lorcana keyword in plain language, and recaps the core terms (quest, challenge, exert, lore) so newer players can follow along. If you have never played before, read it alongside how to play Disney Lorcana.

Core terms to know before the keywords

Every keyword builds on a handful of base mechanics. Learn these first and the rest falls into place.

• Exert / Ready: a card in play stands "ready". When it acts (questing or challenging) it is turned sideways, or "exerted". At the start of your next turn it readies again.
• Summoning sickness: a character you played this turn is not yet ready to act, so it cannot quest or challenge the same turn. It must wait until your next turn, unless it has Rush.
• Lore: the game's victory points. The first player to reach 20 lore wins.
• Quest: exert a character to gain lore equal to the lore value printed in its corner.
• Challenge: exert a character to attack an exerted opposing character. Each side takes damage equal to the other's strength. When damage on a character meets or exceeds its willpower it is banished (sent to the discard pile).

Combat keywords: Rush, Reckless, Challenger, Resist

This group is about challenging and dealing or absorbing damage directly.

• Rush: can challenge the same turn it is played, with no need to wait a turn. Great for surprise removal. Note that Rush only covers challenging; questing still waits until your next turn as usual.
• Challenger +N: while this character is the one challenging, it gets +N strength, letting it punch above its weight. The bonus applies only when it is the attacker, not when questing.
• Resist +N: reduces damage dealt to this character by N, whether from a challenge or from an effect, helping it survive longer on the board.
• Reckless: this character cannot quest and must challenge if able on your turn. A double-edged trait: it hits hard but forces you to attack, costing you tempo control.

Protection and evasion: Bodyguard, Evasive, Ward, Vanish

This group changes the rules of "who can target or attack whom", so it matters a lot when planning your defense.

• Bodyguard: it may enter play already exerted, and crucially, while it is in play an opposing character that wants to challenge must choose a Bodyguard character first if able. Think of it as a shield standing in front of your important pieces.
• Evasive: this character can only be challenged by characters that also have Evasive. If your opponent has none, they simply cannot touch it, making it a very durable lore generator.
• Ward: opponents cannot choose this character as a target. So targeted effects, like a forced banish or a bounce to hand, cannot hit it. It can still be challenged normally, however.
• Vanish: when an opponent chooses this character (for example with an effect), it is banished immediately.

Cost and tempo: Shift and Support

These two keywords help you save ink (cost) and pump your teammates, which is the heart of scaling a deck up over the game.

• Shift N: an alternate cost. Instead of paying the full hand cost, you pay only N to play this character on top of another character that shares its name and is already in play. You get the stronger version for less, and the shifted character inherits the ready-or-exerted state of the character beneath it, so if that one was already ready to act, the new one can usually quest or challenge right away.
• Support: when this character quests, you may add its strength to another chosen character until the end of the turn. Perfect for stacking power onto one piece so it is big enough to clear the target you want.

To see how these keywords show up in real lists, read about Lorcana meta deck archetypes and which keyword each strategy leans on.

Songs: Singer and Sing Together

Lorcana has a special kind of action card called a "song". Normally you pay its ink cost to play it, but these two keywords let you "sing" songs for free using characters instead.

• Singer N: a character with this keyword can exert to sing a song with a cost of N or less for free, as if it had N ink available just for singing. This lets you play expensive songs early without spending real ink.
• Sing Together N: a special song that can be sung by exerting any number of characters whose combined cost is N or more. It lets several small characters team up to sing one big song at once.

Remember that singing requires ready, available characters, and singing exerts them, so a character that sang cannot also quest or challenge that same turn. Weigh the tempo trade carefully.

You can read keywords now, what next

Once the full keyword set is in your head, you can instantly tell whether a card plays aggressive, defensive or tempo, and you will plan your turns far more sharply. The trick is to practice reading real cards alongside memorizing the definitions. Browse the categories on the Lorcana card listings and notice which keywords tend to pair with each ink color, for example Steel often leans into challenging while Amber tends to buff teammates.

To go deeper on ink, read the Lorcana ink colors guide, and if rare cards like Enchanted and Iconic interest you, there is a separate guide for those too.

At inkable.shop we stock only authentic Disney Lorcana cards from Ravensburger, condition-check every single card before it ships, and deliver across Thailand, so you get exactly the card you expect, ready for the table.