If you've started playing Lorcana recently, you've run into two words that newcomers often blur together: "Glimmer" and "Boost." They're closely related — Boost is a keyword that empowers your Glimmers — but they're not the same kind of thing. One is the identity of your characters; the other is a mechanic for supercharging them.

Glimmer is the term Lorcana uses for its characters, woven right into the game's story. Boost is a keyword introduced in the set Whispers in the Well, where you spend ink to tuck cards beneath a Glimmer and unlock a stronger version of it. Together they're central to how the newest Lorcana decks play.

This guide explains exactly what a Glimmer is, the types you'll encounter, and how the Boost keyword works — what it costs, what it does, and how to build and play around it. Boost is a newer mechanic, so as more Boost cards release, expect the strategy around it to keep developing.

What Is a Glimmer?

In the world of Lorcana, a Glimmer is a magical reflection — an "echo" — of a Disney character, brought to life through the power of Ink. Each Glimmer is a unique manifestation shaped by the type and amount of Ink used to summon it. That's the in-universe reason you'll see so many different versions of the same character: each Elsa, each Mickey, each Stitch is a distinct Glimmer, a different "what if" of that character within the realm.

From a gameplay standpoint, the definition is much simpler: Glimmers are your character cards. They're the cards that quest for lore, challenge your opponent's board, and carry the abilities that win games. They're the heart of every deck and your primary path to 20 lore.

So whenever a card or article refers to a Glimmer, it's just talking about a character. Keeping that straight matters here because the Boost keyword interacts directly with your Glimmers — it's a tool for pouring more Ink energy into a character to make it stronger.

The Types of Glimmer

Glimmers come in a few flavors, noted on the card and rooted in how they were summoned:

• Storyborn — Glimmers faithful to the character's original story.
• Dreamborn — reimagined versions, showing the character in a new light or role.
• Floodborn — Glimmers transformed by the chaotic wave of Ink known as the Flood, often the targets of the Shift keyword.
• Whisper Glimmers — a newer type introduced in Whispers in the Well, with a distinct, stylized border. In the story, these mysterious Glimmers are discovered deep in the Inkwell Caverns, and many of them carry the new Boost keyword.

These types are mostly flavor and the occasional ability reference — they don't change the core rules of how a character quests or challenges. But the arrival of Whisper Glimmers is significant, because they're the cards that brought Boost into the game.

The Boost Keyword

Boost is a keyword first introduced in Whispers in the Well, Lorcana's tenth set. The rules text reads, in essence:

When you do this, the card goes underneath the Glimmer facedown — you don't play it or look at it. As long as a card is sitting under the character "boosting" it, that Glimmer gets its enhanced effect, printed on the card. The ink cost to activate Boost is small, so the main consideration is the card you spend, not the ink.

A clear example is the Whisper Glimmer Ursula - Whisper of Vanessa, which has Boost 1: pay one ink to tuck the top card of your deck under her, and while she's boosted she gains an extra point of lore when she quests and gains the Evasive keyword. One small investment turns an ordinary quester into a hard-to-block lore engine.

What Boost Actually Costs

Boost looks cheap because the ink cost is low, but the real price is the top card of your deck. That card is buried facedown as fuel — you never get to draw or play it. In other words, boosting trades card advantage for board power.

That's a meaningful cost. Every card you boost away is a card you won't draw later, so a deck that boosts aggressively is effectively thinning its own resources to empower its characters. Against a grindy opponent, burning through your deck for incremental buffs can leave you out of gas.

The upside is that the empowerment is persistent and immediate, and the ink cost is genuinely minor. So the question to ask each time is simple: is the boosted effect worth one ink and one card off the top of my deck this turn? When it accelerates your lore or protects a key threat, the answer is usually yes. When it's a marginal buff on a character that isn't doing much, hold off.

What Boost Does

The Boost keyword itself only puts the card underneath — what that does depends entirely on the individual Glimmer. The effects span a range:

• Extra lore and keywords. Some boosted Glimmers quest for additional lore or gain a keyword like Evasive while boosted, as Ursula does — turning them into resilient, accelerated win conditions.
• Stat buffs. Others gain Strength or Willpower while a card is tucked underneath, making them better attackers, better questers, and harder to remove in a challenge.
• Triggered and reveal effects. Some Glimmers trigger an ability when you boost them, and a few even involve revealing the boosted card for a bonus — turning the act of boosting into a small gamble with a potential payoff. Always read the specific card to know what its Boost unlocks.

What Boost Adds to Lorcana

Boost is more than a single keyword — it introduces a new strategic axis to the game. Before Boost, your deck was a fixed pool of cards you drew and played. Boost lets you spend that pool itself as a resource, converting future draws into present board power. That's a genuinely different lever to pull, and it changes how those decks think about the long game.

It also encourages a particular playstyle: a slower, build-up approach where you set a Glimmer up over a turn or two and then ride the empowered version to victory. Decks leaning on Boost tend to reward patience and sequencing — investing at the right moment rather than dumping resources early — which gives them a distinct feel compared to a pure aggro or tempo deck.

For the broader game, Boost adds depth without adding much complexity to the core rules: the act of boosting is simple, but deciding whether and when to spend a card off your deck is a rich, recurring choice. It rewards players who understand the value of a card in hand versus a card on the board — and it fits neatly into the mysterious, build-something-greater theme of Whispers in the Well.

Building & Playing Around Boost

Boost rewards thoughtful deckbuilding and patient play. A few principles to get the most out of it:

• Mind your deck's contents. Because some Boost cards care about what gets revealed or tucked away, building with your Boost payoffs in mind makes those effects more consistent than jamming them into any list.
• Boost on tempo. Since boosting costs ink, weigh it against everything else you want to do that turn. Early on you may prefer to develop your board; once you have ink to spare, a boost is a cheap way to add pressure without playing a whole new card.
• Protect your investment. A boosted Glimmer represents ink and a card spent. If your opponent can remove it, all of that goes with it — so don't over-invest in a fragile character against a removal-heavy deck, and consider a Bodyguard or backup to keep it safe.
• Don't burn yourself out. Every boost thins your deck. In a long, grindy game, count the cost — running yourself low on cards to chase small buffs can hand the late game to a more patient opponent.

Common Mistakes

Glimmer & Boost FAQ

• Is "Glimmer" a keyword like Boost? No. Glimmer is simply Lorcana's word for a character — every character in the game is a Glimmer. Boost is an actual keyword ability that some Glimmers have. The two often appear together, but only Boost changes the rules.
• How many times can I boost in a turn? Boost is "once during your turn" per character that has it — so each Boost Glimmer can be boosted once per turn, provided you pay the ink. You can boost multiple different characters if you can afford to.
• Does the facedown card do anything by itself? On its own it's just fuel — it isn't played and you don't look at it. Its job is to "boost" the character so the Glimmer's enhanced effect is active. Some cards may care about how many cards are tucked underneath, so check the specific text.
• Do all the newest characters have Boost? No — only Glimmers printed with the Boost keyword, which debuted in Whispers in the Well. Plenty of recent characters don't have it at all, so it's a tool for certain decks rather than a universal rule.

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