Riftbound TCG Overview: Is It The Next BIG Card Game? (LoL TCG)

We had a chance to check out the new League of Legends TCG, Riftbound, ahead of their official release at the end of October. As someone who hasn’t played League of Legends in over 10 years and has somehow still not seen Arcane, I had a great time playing it and can’t wait to pick up a structure deck upon the game launch.

Taking inspiration from other TCG’s like Lorcana’s point system, Magic’s combat chain and One Piece’s separated resource system, Riftbound sets out to be an all action, no shuffling experience set within the vast and lore heavy world of League of Legends.

As with all TCG’s, collecting has not been forgotten too, with packs made up of common, uncommon, rares, epic and foil cards with alternative arts for the 12 main champions, as well as runes. With the huge popularity of the League of Legends IP, and Arcane catching some more of the mainstream audience, we expect this to pique the interest of many collectors - especially as other card games like Pokémon are becoming harder and harder to find at retail.

Whilst Riftbound is set in the world of League of Legends, the game does a good job of making itself accessible to newcomers, even if they're not tapped into the lore. With clear card instructions and firmly stated mechanics across the board, it doesn't take long for it to click and to immerse yourself fully into the battle at hand.

Card types, mechanics and how to win:

Cards: 

Riftbound’s playing cards are split up into 8 different types: Legend, Champion Unit, Unit, Signature cards, Gear, Spells, Runes & Battlefields.

Legend: 

The ‘Legend’ card is the leader of your deck, and secures a place in the ‘Legend zone’ at the beginning of the game. Your legend card dictates the colour of the cards your deck can use. Your legend also helps inform your playstyle with its written effect, which remains active throughout the game.

Runes:

Rune cards are used to pay the ‘cost’ of your cards - units and spells alike. Your runes will live in a separate 12-card deck, where you will ‘channel’ them into the game and recycle them back to the bottom of the deck periodically.When a rune is used to pay an energy cost, it becomes exhausted. You can have as many of the same rune in your rune deck as you want. Rifbound currently has 6 different types of runes to play with: The red fury rune, the green calm rune, the orange body rune, the blue mind rune, the yellow order rune and finally the purple chaos rune.

Unit:

Units make up your army and are placed into your base exhausted (unless stated otherwise) All units have an energy cost associated with them in the top left corner, the number indicating how many runes need to be exhausted. The rune icons below indicate which runes and how many need to be recycled in order to play it. The number on the top right is the units ‘might’, which functions as both the health and the attack power of the card.

Champion Unit:

Champion units function the same as regular units, except you’re able to place one of them in your champion zone at the beginning of the game, if the tag matches your legend. Once in the champion zone, you’re able to play it into your base as you would any other unit.

Spells:

Spells are cards you can play during the game to get the edge. Similarly to units, spell cards have a cost, requiring the player to exhaust the runes specified in the top left, and recycle any runes indicated below. Spells can be broken down into three main categories: Base, Action & Reaction.

Base spells, or regular spells, can be used at any point during your own turn.

Action spells can be used during your turn, or in showdowns

And Reaction spells can be played anytime - including after a spell is played, but before it resolves.

Once resolved, all spell cards are moved to the trash.

Signature Cards:

Signature cards are powerful, but legend specific cards that can only be used if the tag matches that of your legend. These cards are made up of both units or spells and each deck can only have a maximum of three inside it.

Gear: 

Gear can be played into your base to give you an advantage in the game. You can make use of the Gear’s effect as long as it is in play. Unlike unit’s, Gear must remain within the base, cannot be sent to a battlefield and don’t enter play exhausted.

Battlefield:

Battlefields set the stage of the battle. Each player will choose one of three battlefields at the beginning of the game to play. These battlefields will activate their effects throughout the game and serve as places of conflict between units.

In the case of a best of three, a battlefield cannot be repeated, and so players must choose a different battlefield at the start of a new game.

Deck building:

Everyone plays with a 40 card main deck. You can only have a maximum of three of the same card in your deck. The champion card you choose to put in your champion zone counts towards both of these.

In addition to the 40 cards deck you’ll have the 12 card rune deck, a champion legend to lead your deck and you’ll choose three battlefields of which you’ll pick one to use at the beginning of each game.

Gameplay:

Riftbound has a point-based system where the first player to reach eight points wins the match. Points our earnt through conquering and holding battlefields. When a player reaches 7 points, they can’t gain the final by point by conquering - unless by doing so they would control both battlefields. If the player is only able to conquer one battlefield, they’ll draw a card instead of gaining a point. As long as they don’t get kicked off, the player would then gain their 8th point upon holding the battlefield at the start of their next turn

At the start of the game, each player draws four cards and then has the opportunity to recycle up to two cards from their hand, drawing a new card for each card recycled this way.

The start of each turn can then be broken down into four sections, A, B, C & D.

A - Awaken. Unexhaust all units and runes

B - Beginning: If any of the player's units are occupying a battlefield at this point then they are ‘holding’ and they gain a point. Any effects that happen at the beginning of the turn should now be activated.

C - Channel: The top two cards of the rune deck are played into the rune zone. If it’s the players first turn, and they’re going second, they will flip 3 runes instead.

D - Draw: The player draws a card from their main deck.

It’s as easy as A,B,C…D

The player then moves onto the ‘Action Phase’ where they can play as many cards as they want, on the condition that they can pay the costs associated. 

Units are played into the base exhausted.

Players can choose to move an unexhausted unit or group of unexhausted units from their base to a battlefield, exhausting it in the process. Units can move from the base to a battlefield of the player’s choosing, but units can’t move from one battlefield directly to another battlefield unless the card has the ‘ganking keyword’.

When a unit moves to a battlefield, a showdown starts. The attacker can now choose to play an action spell. If they do, their opponent can respond with a reaction or let it resolve. When the attacker’s action resolve or if they choose not to play an action, the defender may play an action. This back and forth goes on until all players sequentially pass on playing a spell.

If the attacker enters an empty battlefield, it is an open showdown and everyone can play actions in order starting with the attacker.

After the showdown, if the attacking units are the only ones at the battlefield, they conquer it and gain a point

After the showdown, if the unit was moved to a battlefield with opposing units, the players add up their might. They then split the damage among the opposing units. If a unit is dealt damage that exceeds it’s might, it is killed and sent to the trash. If there are no defending units at the battlefield after combat, the attacker wins, conquers and gains a point. 

If both players have units remaining at the end, the attacking player moves their units back to their base. Units lose all damage on them at the end of combat and the end of the turn.

Our thoughts:

Overall, we feel optimistic about Riftbound’s future, having enjoyed our game a lot. After having some time to digest it, I’ve found myself personally thinking about it a fair bit, even going as far as booting into a League of Legends game - Something I haven’t done for over 10 years…

We found the energy system refreshing, with the game having its own separate ‘Rune’ deck where the players are able to channel a few runes each turn to power up action. Directly contrasting other TCG’s like Pokemon or Magic where you’re left either deck searching or praying to topdeck the resource you need to play the game. The recycling mechanic is also nice to have, ensuring you’ll never run out of energy throughout the game, something that can happen in Pokemon if you’re not keeping tabs on your resources as you play. 

Whilst recycling runes may make the game easier in that specific example, it does also bring its own element of consideration. Recycle the wrong rune, and you may not be able to afford the costs of the next card you need to play - the resource management is different, but a version of it still exists to separate the pros to the rest.

Rune management also plays an interesting role in showdowns, as I found it very easy to play all the cards I could in my turn, leaving all runes exhausted by the end. This meant that I couldn’t afford to play any reaction spells if my battlefield were being conquered. Players are going to need to think well past their turn when strategising to ensure they have all the pieces they need.

Another thing players are going to need to think about is how their resources are spread across the multiple battlefields in play - Put all their eggs in one basket and they could be offering up free points to the opponents in the other battlefield. With the unit’s might combining on shared battlefields, there’s something to be said of strategically placing a spread of units with various mights across them.

We also liked having the champion legends and their respective abilities in play throughout the game. We can see how players personal preferences and playstyles will be reflected by the champion legend they choose to build their deck around. 

This is particularly interesting when it comes to signature spells and units which further lean into these deck playstyles. It feels like each deck is truly going to be an extension of the players personality and playing preferences.

In general, deck building should be fun. In the demo we played Jinx vs Vollibear - Jinx played quite quickly and saw Will gaining some early points - whereas Vollibear is more of a later bloomer with its early game focussing more on ramping out runes and a lot of his cards costing more but hitting harder later. 

The general card style is really nice with a very ancient-fantasy-esque design language. The character arts look great too - especially the champion legends cards. However, it’s worth noting that currently the majority of the art has been recycled from various other League of Legends projects - which feels like a shame. Hopefully as the game continues to develop, we’ll start to see some more original pieces.

Riftbound has an impressive potential audience with League of Legends already holding a lot of fans, and Arcane doing a great job at bringing in some more casual interest into the IP. As well as this, TCG players seem to be taking an interest too. A lot of the people we play Pokemon with have exclaimed their excitement for the prereleases, as well as bumping into some players on the circuit at our early event. 

As a Pokemon player, I speak for Pokemon specifically here, but it feels that Riftbound is launching at the perfect time to capitalize on some of the players disenfranchisement with the game - At the very least mine. With Pokemon cards becoming increasingly more difficult to find and a hard lean in from investor bros - I’m finding myself getting quite jaded with the hobby - and if others are feeling the same then I would expect some to jump ship.

Overall, we had a great time playing this game and I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on a structure deck so me and WIll can play around with it more.