Riftbound Origins Review – Champions League
Riftbound is the hotly anticipated trading card game set in the League of Legends universe from Riot Games, also the creators of digital TCG Legends of Runeterra. Having launched in China back in August, a few minor setbacks saw Riftbound finally hit FLGS’ Australia wide on November 7th with a handful of items as part of the ‘Origins’ wave – Proving Grounds, a 2-4 player introductory set featuring smaller decks that sold out well in advance, three pre-constructed Champion Decks – Lee Sin, Jinx and Viktor, the last of which didn’t quite make it out into general release but is expected by December – and of course, Booster Packs, Booster boxes and some official full art sleeves and playmats.
It’s no secret the TCG landscape is packed at the moment, with IP based heavyweights from both the East and West duking it out for time and dollars. Much like LoL and other GaaS titles, very few players have the capacity to follow more than one TCG at a time and success for one game often comes at the expense of another. As a pre-sold property coming off the back of a proven design in Runeterra, not to mention LoL itself and the Arcane streaming series, Riot are trying their best to make moving over to Riftbound a convincing argument with both their iterative approach to gameplay and beginner friendly product range. I personally have zero experience with League of Legends or Legends of Runeterra, both of which passed me by as someone that hasn’t gamed on PC in close to two decades and because of no prior investment in the property, haven’t watched Arcane. It might be important to keep that in mind to qualify any of my thoughts on Riftbound and how it stacks up against its competition given affection for the characters and world can really engage players who see these elements reflected thematically and mechanically in play.
Riot launched Riftbound with a solid line-up of introductory products, the most economical of which, Proving Grounds, seems impossible to find without having ordered it months in advance or paying exorbitant prices to scalpers until a restock. The trio of Champion Decks provide a logical entry point for those wanting to dip toes in without spending too much, especially if they have some dice and other accessories laying around to fill out the contents of the box. Lee Sin, Viktor and Jinx form Wave one, each box containing a rather study paper playmat, a 14-card booster pack, cardboard deckbox, slim rulebook and a 60-card deck. Riot have forgone the usual pop-out cardboard tokens and other items that are handy for about five minutes before turfing them for any other tracking method, which only rankles for the fact that the overall win condition of Riftbound requires a tracking token. Still, a coin or almost anything at hand will do and I expect it won’t be long before Riot themselves have some deluxe tokens available for purchase. The included deckbox is useful until the cards are sleeved, at which point its better off folded back up and returned from whence it came or recycled. At roughly $35AU per deck, it’s about what I’d expect and is comparable to other TCG price points, while the $60AU Proving Grounds box is stellar value for what’s included and ideal for trying out the higher player count rulesets without needing to double up on a pre-con or straight up build a deck from scratch. Where both products fall are the included rulebooks, neither of which is sufficient to properly teach the game. Awkward and imprecise phrasing, some ambiguity in meaning and a layout than doesn’t follow the flow of the game itself was difficult enough for someone well versed in most of the current popular (and some less popular) TCG’s and LCG’s, let alone someone jumping into Riftbound as their first TCG. The solution is much the same as it has been for complex boardgames for a while now; jump online, watch some videos and read some reddit/forum posts.
There are one or two major points that need absolute understanding for the gameplay to show its best self, and neither is made as clear as I’d like from the materials included. There is a very comprehensive rules document available on the official Riftbound site, but it is more useful as a reference than a learn to play guide. While the ‘two rulebooks’ approach of Fantasy Flight Games like Marvel Champions isn’t popular with all players, it’s one I think might have worked better here, though I suspect the ongoing clarifications and tidying up of rules meant anything printed in time for launch would have already been rendered obsolete. This is a case where I would recommend asking at your local game store for a demo if possible or watching some of the Learn to Play videos put out by Riot and the community to better grasp some of the nuances, most notably the way ‘chains’ work and action/reaction cards resolve.
Important for any TCG entering the market isn’t what it comparably to its competitors, but how it differentiates itself. Riftbound remixes a few familiar TCG gameplay elements and attempts to solve some of the perceived problems that have hung around for three decades in the format with an innovation or two. A race to 8 points as opposed to a Hit Point slugfest, these are gained when a player ‘Conquers’ a ‘Battlefield’, location cards that are placed between each player at the start of a match. If, at the start of their turn, a player has presence at a Battlefield, they will gain a point for ‘Holding’ that location.
In a slight twist, to achieve their final point, a player must successfully Conquer both Battlefields during their turn or be Holding a location at the start of their next turn – a single Conquer at match point will result in a card draw rather than victory. Echoing the ‘lane’ aspect of the main game, the focus on Battlefields is something I quite like as a big fan of other lane battler card games like Omen and Riftforce. Some Battlefields include an ability or effect, such as increasing Unit stats or requiring players to discard and draw, another decision point which enriches the combat and ups the stakes. A two-player 1v1 match is duked out over two Battlefields, while a three or four player free-for-all match has three, mirroring League of Legends itself in terms of lane numbers. Also supporting 2v2 teams, there’s a lot of mileage to be had from Riftbound even with just two Champion decks on hand. The classic head-to-head is quite robust here, although playing a full three game match rather than a single ‘Duel’ is likely to become my go-to as it highlights the impact the different Battlefields have on play as well as helping to develop more effective strategies for the played decks. Kitchen table matches are always fun to run as deck-swap back to backs anyway, so tacking a third run on won’t add much time. Once players get the ruleset down and understand how the more complex timing and tempo elements work, games can become lightning fast.
Riftbound uses a number of card types; ‘Legends’, ‘Champions’, ‘Battlefields’, ‘Units’, ‘Spells’, ‘Gear’ and ‘Runes’. Legends are a sort of permanent ability/effect cards tied to a character in the LoL universe, with a matching Champion Unit placed next to them at setup. Matching in this sense means they share the same name, so in a Jinx deck, the Jinx Legend card must have a Jinx Champion Unit placed next to it before a match starts, and a player’s deck can have up to two more copies of that exact same Champion Unit card in it for a maximum of three. This single Champion Unit technically counts as part of the Main Deck, which is composed of 39 other Unit, Spell and Gear cards. Units are used to Conquer locations and engage in combat with opposing Units, while Spells are single use cards that may deal damage or trigger an effect. Gear cards sit on a player’s board and provide an effect that may be an ongoing passive or have a cost or trigger. The game neatly sidesteps much of the minor mathematics involved in some other TCG designs by having Units and Champions run their Attack and Health from a single number, named ‘Might’ – damage is simultaneous and generally healed at the end of combat.
While other games have their own method to address ‘Mana screw’, in Riftbound it’s mitigated due to Rune cards that form a separate 12 card deck split between two ‘Domains’, the set colour pairing from which a Legend’s deck can be made. The Rune deck can be adjusted to any ratio favoured by the player and the in-game economy is further tweaked by giving players two Rune cards each turn. Many round one turns will still result in a single card played at best, but being able to ramp to 4-6 Runes by a second turn sees things heat up considerably and widen the decision space. Enhancing this are cards that require players to return a specific Domain’s Rune card to the bottom of their Rune deck, a tempo adjustment that means players can’t just steamroll into their most expensive cards by turns 5 and 6, or if they can there is a significant opportunity cost to doing so. To get around the ‘first player problem’ inherent in battling games, the second player draws three Runes on their first turn, a choice which helps to enhance Riftbounds tight mulligan rule of returning and drawing up to two cards for both players – anything more than a cost 1-3 card can be quite a ways away for first player, while second player has a bit more leeway in the 2-4 cost range. Each design choice seems to have been made in service of providing player choice and agency with a relatively straightforward ruleset and the economics of the Rune deck is easily my favourite aspect of Riftbound right now. The intoxicating tempo puzzle it’s offering right out of the gate as part of the Rune deck and card costs which require ‘recycling’ (returning) Rune cards to their deck is just *chef’s kiss* for my brain and is Clowdus-like in the agony it causes me when deciding if the tempo cost is worth the immediate benefit.
No TCG ever makes it big on pre-cons alone, but here they form a necessary base. Deck construction in Riftbound is somewhat involved and is probably best done through purchasing singles rather than Booster boxes for competitive players and kitchen tablers alike. The designers aren’t reinventing the wheel, using a colour/playstyle system here titled Domains; Fury (Red), Calm (Green), Mind (Blue), Body (Orange), Chaos (Purple) and Order (Yellow/Gold). While the six ‘Domain’ aspects are in line with genre norms, Riftbound requires a Legendary card and 1-3 matching Champion Unit cards to even get started, with the Legend allowing two Domains to build from. These two to four cards alone are already a big ask from Booster pulls, let alone then leaving players wanting Signature Spells, complementary Champions and other specific Domain cards to round it out. Rune cards aren’t guaranteed in every Booster either, with a dedicated Rune box expected to release early next year to assist players in ensuring they can keep a number of decks constructed without cannibalising their Runes. From the 8 Booster Packs provided to Player2, the only Champion Deck noticeably upgradeable based on card pulls was Jinx, with both Lee Sin and Viktor left with a few cards to make some minor tweaks. Rather than try to build a new deck from scratch, the sole Legend card pulled was Jinx, a duplicate of that found in the Jinx Champion deck. The elephant in the room around all this of course is the metagame which due to Riftbound’s earlier release in China has seen one particular deck dominate and its cards become valued proportionately on the secondary market. As a casual player myself, this isn’t a huge issue but may be for game stores seeing an influx of new players drawn in by the familiar world and characters. Most of these problems are exacerbated by the game being in its infancy and limited to a handful of pre-con decks on the market, so I expect this to shift significantly by the time the second set of Champion decks releases with the ‘Spiritforged’ wave in early 2026.
One thing that took me by surprise in a pleasant way is just how hefty the cards in Riftbound are. Cardstock is noticeably thicker than many other games, making riffle shuffling more difficult than I’d like and resulting in some softly chipped edges right out of the pack, seeminlgy a result of the cutting process; I suspect Riftbounds printer should be replacing their blades more often than they would for thinner stock and have apparently changed their process for cutting future waves. Such premium stock does have the added bonus of cards not feeling like they require premium sleeves to gain a semblance of playability but given the product and audience, playing a TCG sleeveless is something I don’t see often if at all. These Sir-Mix-a-Lot approved cards may be a result of Riftbound being printed in Japan as opposed to the US where Lorcana, MtG and SWU are produced and cardstock availability isn’t always comparable. As a result of this increased thickness, the card stock seems to stand up better to foil treatments and there is almost no noticeable bend to these cards when compared to foil cards from other games with much thinner stock.
While it has some teething issues to get sorted, I’ve enjoyed every one of my plays of Riftbound, going so far as to pick up products outside of what Player2 was provided by Riot Games and UVS Games so I can dig further in. It takes elements I love from many other systems and combines them together with a few innovations to create a game that offers interesting situations and agonising decisions. To me, that’s the real draw of these types of games – I don’t care about speculative card markets or collectability, I want cards that give me hard choices, either on their own or when combined with others. It’s not a smooth onboarding compared to something like Lorcana, but it’s not necessarily operating in the same audience space either. The Rune deck is the cherry on top everything and I wouldn’t be shocked to see it inspiring another design in the near future. Riftbounds’ second wave is approaching rapidly on the horizon, so players itching for more of their favourite Legends won’t have to wait too long. For LoL fans, finding a Proving Grounds box is the optimal choice to get started but failing that, grabbing a pair of decks from the Lee Sin/Jinx/Victor line-up is a good plan B and likely the better route for experienced lifestyle card gamers keen to dive straight into the full experience.
Riftbound was reviewed using products kindly supplied by Riot Games and UVS Games.
