Lorcana Infinity Format Explained: Rules, Bans and Decks

Bryan Pereira won the Disney Lorcana Challenge in Indianapolis in June 2026 with four copies of Be Prepared, a song from The First Chapter that has not been legal in Core Constructed since 2025. He could, because Indianapolis was played in Infinity Constructed. Put his 60 cards through today's Core rules and 40 of them are out.

That is Infinity in one decklist: Lorcana's non-rotating format, where every card from every main set is playable except one banned card. It has run beside Core since 2025, it hosted Challenges in June 2026, and in the 2026-27 season it has a qualifier slot at Challenge weekends such as London, every CCQ held in a new set's release week, and a December celebration at stores.

This is the reference for it: what the rules say, how big the pool is next to Core, the ban list and its history, what won at the two Infinity Challenges Ravensburger has written up, and where you can play it now.

Sources: Ravensburger's Tournament Rules, effective 14 July 2026, which are still the current version on its resources page on 25 October; its ban announcements of April 2025 and 26 March 2026; its Infinity weekend article (4 December 2025), Dortmund recap (11 June 2026) and Indianapolis recap (25 June 2026); its CCQ term sheet and Hyperia City store kit instructions; and the organizer pages for the Bangkok and London Challenges and the Louisville CCQ. Card counts are from LorcanaJSON's English export of 16 October 2026, which includes Hyperia City, counted by distinct full name and ignoring capitalisation differences between printings.

What the Tournament Rules say Infinity is

The Tournament Rules name two Constructed formats, Core and Infinity (TR 1.3.1). Infinity is defined in one short section, 1.3.1.2, entirely by how it differs from Core:

So building an Infinity deck works exactly like building a Core one. How to play Disney Lorcana covers the 60-card, two-ink, four-copy rules, and Infinity changes none of them. What changes is the pool and the ban list.

Two parts of TR 1.6 matter more here than in Core. Any printing of a legal card is legal, so an Enchanted, a promo and the original all count as the same card. And promos become legal when the set they belong to does, whenever they were actually handed out.

One edge case the Tournament Rules do not mention is the Illumineer's Quest boxes. LorcanaJSON's legality data marks all three, Deep Trouble, Palace Heist and The Great Hunny Rescue, as legal in neither format. Their scenario decks are built for the co-op game, so check with the organizer before you try to register anything from one.

The pool: 2,680 cards against Core's 1,228

Here is how big the two formats are, counted from LorcanaJSON's export:

Infinity's pool is about 2.2 times the size of Core's. The more striking number is the gap between them. The first eight sets printed 1,631 distinct cards. 178 of them have been reprinted from Fabled onward, which keeps them Core-legal under TR 1.6, and one is Hiram. The other 1,452 cards are playable only in Infinity: more than Core's entire pool of 1,228.

Those 1,452 left Core in two batches. TR 1.6.1 records that sets 1 to 4 rotated out with the release of Fabled in 2025, and sets 5 to 8 rotated out with Attack of the Vine!, whose prerelease was 17 July 2026. Ravensburger's own post-rotation deck article in September named Elsa - The Fifth Spirit, Doc - Bold Knight, Sail the Azurite Sea, Maui - Half-Shark, Tramp - Street-Smart Dog and Lady - Decisive Dog as staples that left Core in July and live on in Infinity. The release history behind those dates is in Lorcana sets in order.

From side event to Challenge format

Infinity is younger than most of its cards. It went from an announcement to a Challenge main event in a little over a year:

Ravensburger's Dortmund recap also named Manila, on 11-12 July, as an Infinity Challenge. Its news page has no recap of that event, so this post works from Dortmund and Indianapolis only.

The ban list is one card long

Lorcana has banned two cards in its history, and the same card is on both lists it has ever had:

Hiram is a 4-ink Sapphire character from Rise of the Floodborn. When you play him and whenever he quests, you may banish one of your items to draw 2 cards. Ravensburger's 2025 letter on the Core ban said opponents had no way to interact with him, and that items such as Fortisphere were cashed in for cards before anyone could respond. When it extended the ban to Infinity, co-creator and design lead Steve Warner wrote that Hiram "continues to create an insurmountable resource gap."

Three footnotes:

• Hiram was legal in Infinity for its first months. Ravensburger's December 2025 Infinity weekend article said the format had no ban list yet, so the card banned from Core in April 2025 was playable in Infinity until 26 March 2026.
• Fortisphere was never banned in Infinity. It is a legal Infinity card today. Core's list is now empty, and both cards banned there in 2025 come from sets that have since rotated out of Core.
• Pawpsicle survived the 2025 ban on purpose. Ravensburger's letter says the team discussed banning it too, and kept it because it still served item decks without Hiram. It is a four-of in Pereira's Indianapolis-winning list.

The full story of both bans, and why Fortisphere is the only item ever banned, is in Disney Lorcana items explained.

What won in Dortmund and Indianapolis

Two Ravensburger recaps give the closest thing to a published Infinity metagame. Frank Karsten wrote up Dortmund, where 1,546 players split across a Friday and a Saturday main event. Edmond Chiu wrote the metagame breakdown for Indianapolis, which had over 1,700 players. Both ran with sets 1 to 12 legal. Here are the ink-pair shares each recap gives, with the pairs named in alphabetical order:

Dortmund's Top 8 column combines the two main events' Top 8s, 16 players, so 38% works out to six Amber/Emerald decks. Amethyst/Ruby put nobody into either Top 32.

Three things stand out.

The best deck did not win either event. Amber/Emerald "Dogs", a go-wide list around Tramp - Street-Smart Dog, took 38% of Dortmund's Top 8 slots, had the best Day 2 conversion at Indianapolis by Chiu's account and filled 12 of its Top 32 slots. Both trophies went elsewhere. Alessandro Danesi won Dortmund with Emerald/Amethyst, only 6% of the Day 1 field, which Karsten describes as packed with answers to Dogs. Pereira won Indianapolis with Ruby/Sapphire, whose Liquidator - Iced Over Chiu calls pivotal against Dogs when on the draw.

Diablo - Devoted Herald is the Infinity card to know. Danesi's deck ran four of them, and four copies of three other Diablos to shift them onto, so the Herald could land as early as turn two. While it is exerted, it lets you draw a card every time your opponent draws one on their own turn. It is from Ursula's Return, so it has been out of Core since 2025. Emerald/Steel built on the same engine and took 19% of Dortmund's Top 8 slots from 3% of the field.

Fair decks lost. Karsten's explanation for Amethyst/Ruby's collapse was that it had no Shift lines, no ink acceleration, no removal songs and no free characters. In a format with all of those available, a deck with none of them was too slow.

Pereira's Ruby/Sapphire list shows what Infinity control looks like. It ramps with Sapphire cards that Core lost, then clears the board with Be Prepared, which banishes every character in play and can be sung for free by a character costing 7 or more. How singing works is in Lorcana songs explained.

Most of a winning Infinity deck is gone from Core

Both recaps printed full decklists. Checking each card against LorcanaJSON shows how much of a top Infinity deck you could take into a Core event, then and now:

The July rotation roughly doubled the Infinity-only share of both champions' decks. In June, all four lists were at least half Core-legal. Today only the Dogs list is, with 32 of its 60 cards.

Here is the Indianapolis-winning list, sorted the way the recap printed it, with each card's first set and whether Core allows it today:

That is 14 of its 21 different cards and 40 of its 60 slots that only Infinity accepts.

What has changed since June

Treat everything in the last two sections as a June snapshot, not a current tier list. Three things have moved since:

• Two sets joined the pool. Attack of the Vine! (from 17 July) and Hyperia City (from 16 October) are both Infinity-legal, which brings Hyperia City's ink drops into Infinity too. Lorcana ink drops explained covers how they work.
• Nothing left, and the ban list held. Infinity does not rotate, and the Tournament Rules effective 14 July still list Hiram as its only ban.
• No newer report. Ravensburger's news page has published no Infinity metagame report since the Indianapolis recap, so there is no official read yet on how the new sets change the format.

Where to play Infinity in 2026-27

Bangkok (31 October-1 November) and London (13-15 November) both run Core Constructed main events, according to their organizers' pages. Here is where Infinity does appear:

The release-week rule is the one to plan around. Hyperia City went on sale everywhere on 23 October, so any CCQ in the following week has to be Infinity, and that includes the Louisville CCQ running this weekend, 24-25 October. Into the Inkdark's release week will work the same way. London's page adds one practical catch: a CCQ registration does not include a venue badge, so you also need a main event, Youth Division or attendee ticket to get into the hall.

The store kit pitches the December events as a way to try out the top decks around Worlds, but it does not say what format the World Championship itself uses, and I did not find that on Ravensburger's pages. The full qualifier picture for the season, including both main events and the store Set Championships, is in the 2026-27 Challenge schedule, and the procedure for any sanctioned event is in Lorcana tournament rules.

Is Infinity worth learning?

This part is opinion, built on the numbers above.

1. If you own cards from before Fabled, yes. Infinity is the only sanctioned home for 1,452 of them, and this season's release-week CCQ rule makes any CCQ held in the week after a set's global release an Infinity one.
2. If you are starting from scratch, start in Core. The three winning lists above need cards from sets 1 to 8 for at least 39 of their 60 slots, which means buying into older sets before you play a game.
3. Build from the June lists, then test the new sets in. Dogs, Amber/Steel songs, Ruby/Sapphire control and Diablo were the decks the field had to beat before Attack of the Vine! and Hyperia City arrived. Ravensburger has not published how much those two sets change that.

Quick reference

• Infinity Constructed is Disney Lorcana's non-rotating Constructed format: Core's deck rules (60 cards minimum, two inks, four copies) with every set legal (Tournament Rules 1.3.1.2 and 1.6.1).
• The pool is 2,680 distinct cards, sets 1 to 14, against Core's 1,228. 1,452 cards are Infinity-only.
• One card is banned: Hiram Flaversham - Toymaker, since 26 March 2026. Core currently bans nothing; Fortisphere is Infinity-legal.
• New sets join Infinity at their prerelease, the same as Core. Hyperia City joined on 16 October 2026.
• Ravensburger's last published Infinity metagame reports are from June 2026, sets 1 to 12: Dortmund won by Emerald/Amethyst Diablo, Indianapolis by Ruby/Sapphire, with Amber/Emerald Dogs taking the most Top 8 slots at Dortmund and the best Day 2 conversion at Indianapolis.
• Where to play it in 2026-27: the 216-player Infinity CCQ at Challenge weekends such as London, third-party CCQs (Infinity is mandatory for any CCQ in a set's release week), weekly store play, and the World Championship Celebration from 4 to 20 December.

Format rules are from Ravensburger's Tournament Rules effective 14 July 2026. Card counts and the set of each card are from LorcanaJSON's English export of 16 October 2026, counted by distinct full name; decklists and metagame shares are as printed in Ravensburger's Dortmund and Indianapolis recaps.