Wizards of Mickey
Long before Ravensburger's Lorcana became the Disney TCG, there was another fantasy-themed Disney card game in Europe. Launced in Italy in 2008, Wizards of Mickey adapted a wildly popular fantasy comic saga into a competitive, spell-casting card game featuring Mickey, Donald, and Goofy as sorcerers.
Comic Origins
First, some context. Italians didn't suddenly invent a weird card game. They've got a long tradition of pretty wild Disney spin-off comics.
In October 2006, writer Stefano Ambrosio and artist Vitale Mangiatordi debuted Wizards of Mickey in Topolino #2654. This series had Mickey, Donald, and Goofy as apprentice mages entering a competition in a fantasy setting.
While the comic has seen translations in other languages, there's also at least two adaptations: a J2ME phone game, and trading card game.
Card Game
Published in 2008 by New Media Publishing (in collaboration with Disney Italy), the Wizards of Mickey CCG saw players construct decks representing rival teams just like the comics.
While the comic got internationally published, the card game's international release was much more limited. Italian players saw a pretty solid line-up of expansions. I've based the following list on a seller, and I'm not entirely sure of the order in which these sets came out. I've also seen things on eBay that do not fit, like a set of two-players decks called Prima Sfida. If you're an Italian with some more information on these sets, feel free to reach out to me!
| Expansion Title | Cards |
|---|---|
| PreludioPrelude | 21+1 |
| Le OriginiThe Origins | 150+2 |
| Il TorneoThe Tournament | 115+1 |
| Team Decks | 33×3 |
| Età OscuraThe Dark Age | 140+3 |
| Risveglio dei DraghiAwakening of Dragons | 77 |
| Expansion Title | Cards |
|---|---|
| Origines | 211 |
| First Age | 211 |
Outside of Italy, the game’s rollout was far more conservative. A French translation named Origines, and an even obscurer English version called First Age (in very stilted language), were restricted to just the core Origins set, though it's my understanding that this set differed significantly from the Italian original.
This old YouTube video of mine shows me going through the English starter deck, while this Italian video shows the Italian starter decks. Finally, this French video shows a French booster display.
To clearly show the differences, and to actually illustrate this short write-up with some card images, I've got scans of the same card in the three languages. Note how the Italian version has different numbering, and how it uses more symbols.
Other card games?
Yes, even this was not the sole predeccesor of Lorcana! There was a Nightmare Before Christmas TCG in 2005, a Kingdom Hearts TCG released in 2004 (Japan) and 2007 (US), as well as several themed expansions for Weiß Schwarz.
It's not quite a card game, but one favorite of mine was Pirates of the Caribbean PocketModel game, which had you constructing little ships out of booster packs containing punch-out plastic cards. It was a spin-off of the Pirates Constructible Strategy Game.