Riftbound Spiritforged Review – Sophomore Slam
Launching in November last year, Riftbound received a very positive reception here at Player2. Providing an interesting twist on lane battling and trying to solve the ever-present issue of ‘mana screw’, it was a bold move from Riot in many ways given how easily they could have churned out almost anything and made a quick buck off fans of the League of Legends IP. While Riftbound showed a lot of initial promise, there were still a few rough edges to sort out; weak pre-cons that didn’t allow their character to shine and Signature Spell cards that felt rare as rocking horse teeth pushed even kitchen table players towards purchasing singles. These bumps were compounded by the Proving Grounds box, an ideal tutorial set that gave 2-4 players a chance to jump in, being both out of stock AND out of print immediately after launch. With Spiritforged now hitting FLGS’s worldwide, I was eager to see if Riot had managed to address these niggles and what direction Riftbound would take going forward.
Spiritforged launched in the west two months after its Chinese debut, meaning that much like the Origins wave an already developed meta exists and takes away some of the discoverability that accompanies a launch… but if we’re totally honest, the minute a set is revealed the theorycrafting and TTS play goes into overdrive, so it’s hard to fault Riot for this too much. Two new pre-cons lead this wave in Rumble and Fiora, the latter ranking fairly high in competitive play currently albeit with a number of adjustments. Slimming down from three pre-cons in the Origins wave, one of the main complaints was a sense that the decks were hampered at the outset, requiring substantial tweaking to bring them up to a respectable level. Riot have apparently listened to these concerns and made a few tweaks to make the Spiritforged pre-cons more viable out of the box. For a start, each now includes a Signature Spell card by default which is a big improvement for casual and new players to see how these cards can impact a deck.
Kicking off with Rumble – Mechanized Menace, this is a Fury/Mind deck all about buffing Mech units and making more of them whenever possible. Key cards like Assembly Rig, Production Surge, Bubble Bot and Rumble – Hot Headed all work to improve Mech units when both attacking and defending, re-readying already exhausted mech units and sneaking some extra card draw while doing it. Rumble is a perfectly serviceable deck, but the focus on Token creation and overwhelming with Units didn’t quite compare to the other deck on offer this wave. Fiora – Grand Duelist is a Body/Order deck focused on buffing units through equipping Gear, often discounted with cards featuring the Weaponmaster effect. Buffing units to the Mighty status (a Might rating of 5+) will trigger secondary effects via the Fiora- Grand Duelist Legend card, the Fiora – Worthy Champion Unit card and the Show of Strength Spell Card (Draw 1 card for each of your Mighty units). The Riposte Signature Spell card is a banger, played as a Reaction (triggering before Spells and Abilities) which not only counters the chosen spell but adds it’s cost in Energy to the Might of the selected Character – for example, the included Vengeance Spell card in the deck with a cost of 4 – in this way, it’s quite possible to trigger a chain reaction of events, using this combo to Buff a Unit to Mighty status and then keep that chain cascading with more effects. Of the two, the Fiora deck is the one I have enjoyed getting to the table the most, partially because it’s the sort of mechanical interaction I enjoy getting out of card duelling but also because I managed to find quite a few upgrades for it from the box of Spiritforged Boosters we received from Riot, which should appear on the Player2 Instagram shortly. Topping things off, this deck is quite well regarded in the current meta environment, which is great to see from a tweaked pre-con that works well out of the box but can also stand toe to toe with almost anything else in the game with some upgrades.
Alongside new decks come some new tweaks to the gameplay of Riftbound, as Spiritforged formally introduces the ‘Banish’ keyword, which is a mechanic that removes a card from the players deck before executing its effects. Unlike trashing a card, these are much harder to recover and usually come about as a result of a powerful effect, like pulling cards from the deck to play immediately. A few cards managed to slip by the Riftbound QC team and miss Banish in their wording, instead adjusted via official errata. ‘Equipment’ which featured prominently in the Fiora pre-con is a new Gear type card that slides under the Unit it is attached to, showing only the effect of the card in the bottom text box. Equipment initially gets played to the Base area, revealing its presence to the opponent, but then requires the new ‘Equip’ action to be taken; pay a resource cost (usually the specific Domain colour associated with the Equipment card itself) and then attach it to a chosen Unit. There are also two other new Keywords, Echo (Repeat a spell’s effect by paying a listed cost) and Quick Draw (play a piece of Equipment as a Reaction). Each addition to the core game feels quite intuitive to anyone who has played other TCG style games, with Equip increasing the amount of baiting a player can do to their opponent.
One downside that has lingered from the Origins wave is the fact it’s still tricky to find a decent document to learn the game from scratch – the core rules document is both tricky to locate and also has big glossary vibes, while the latest ‘patch notes’ is only available via a post on the official Riftbound website. Videos and a teaching game from a FLGS employee or existing Riftbound player is a valid strategy to build the community I suppose, but without Proving Grounds getting a reprint it’s hard to point interested parties in any other direction despite the rulebook remaining accessible. I also know official playmats are on the way, but I’m the sort of person who prefers a nicely zoned playmat as opposed to purely art, so seeing that become an option would be welcome – maybe Riot could toss in an official point tracking token as well.
I remain impressed with the quality and consistency of the Riftbound artwork, even as someone with no prior connection to the digital IP. Cards are evocative and colourful, the alt art and Overnumbered cards sitting nicely at an intersection of collectability and convenience for players who would prefer card prices be driven by utility rather than scarcity – in this area, I’d say Riot are succeeding at this stage but it does then make me wonder where the ‘pay to win’ line gets drawn with some of these more powerful and popular meta decks. Spiritforged cements many of the elements I appreciate about Riftbound and tightens up a few areas of concern without introducing any new problems, which at this early stage feels like a resounding success.
