You Really Don't Want To Expose The Lorcana Deck Boxes To Sunlight, Trust Me

I took the Lorcana deck boxes outside for a short play session and came back with the stinkiest card holder of all time.

Our comprehensive, 4,000 word review of Disney Lorcana: The First Chapter, is a deep dive into every aspect of the game. If you read it, I’m impressed, first of all. Secondly, you know that I’m not a big fan of accessories, and that I don’t reccomend using any of them other than the playmats. I mentioned that the deck boxes acquired a pungent, rotting pumpkin smell after taking them outside, and some people, rightfully, have been asking me what the hell I’m talking about. Here’s my experience with the stinky Lorcana deck boxes:

It didn’t take much to trigger the smell. I brought my starter decks in the deck boxes outside to play a few games by my pool. We started early in the morning and played for a couple hours, and when the sun came out, we dragged the table into the shade and played one more game. It never got above 70 degrees outside, and I didn’t think anything about the exposure for the few minutes the boxes were sitting in direct sunlight before we moved the table. But later that night, when I pulled my decks out of the boxes again, I was punched in the face with stink.

Related: Disney Lorcana: The First Chapter Review

To me, they smell like rotten pumpkins. It’s a little sweet and slightly floral, but putrid and extremely unpleasant. To be fair, I’ve made a few other people smell the boxes and most of them didn’t agree that they smell like rotting pumpkins - though they all agreed that they smell terrible, and now I’m forbidden from asking them to smell anything ever again, which seems fair.

The odor is so intense that it has infected the cards too, or atleast the sleeves they’re in. The individual cards don’t have much of an aroma, but when I handle the whole deck I can definitely smell the stink of the boxes clinging to them. I left a deck out of the box overnight to see if the smell would go away, and it definitely faded - though the smell in the boxes never seems to go away.

If you’re doubting it's the sunlight that caused the smell, rest assured I confirmed it. For the sake of science I brought the boxes back outside and left them on a table in the shade for a couple of hours, and later that day they smelled worse than ever. I haven’t tried leaving them out in direct sunlight for an extended period of time, because I’m afraid I’d have to move house afterward.

I can’t recommend any of the Lorcan accessories, other than the playmat. The don’t have stitching around the edges (a move some players prefer anyway), but they’re soft and the print quality is great. The Surfing Stitch binder is cute, but a 60-card binder fill up quickly and isn’t even big enough to hold trades. The sleeves are pretty much unusable, they stick together, they can’t be shuffled easily, and the art peels off of them.

The Illumineer’s Trove comes with a couple of paper deck boxes, which work fine as a cheap alternative and, most importantly, don’t stink. If you’re shopping for Lorcana at your local game store, Ultra Pro deck boxes are always easy to recommend. I just left one outside while I wrote this piece and, let me check… yeah, it smells like slightly hot plastic - unlike the Lorcana boxes, which smell like a war crime. And pumpkins.

Next: The Lorcana Robbery Proves Once Again That Shiny Cardboard Brings Out The Worst In People

Eric Switzer is Features Editor that specializes in Pokemon, VR, and tech coverage. He is also the host of TheGamer Podcast, now entering its second year. Eric loves board games, fan conventions, new technology, and his sweet sweet kitties Bruce and Babs. Favorite games include Destiny 2, Kingdom Hearts, Super Metroid, and Prey...but mostly Prey. His favorite Pokémon is Umbreon.