Trading card games are in a boom not seen since the early days of Magic: The Gathering. Riftbound is a League of Legends-themed game that is Riot Games throwing its hat in the ring. It’s a saturated market, but the game is now on its third set, called Riftbound Unleashed, and Riot is expanding the product line with this release. I was offered a chance to play with the new cards by the Riftbound team, and I found some very interesting and frustrating things going on with this TCG.
The basics of Riftbound are pretty clear: each player has a League of Legends character leading their deck (called a “Champion Legend” in the rules and only “Legend” on the card), but that card itself is actually just an ability the player has access to and defines what card attributes players can use in the deck.
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These are paired with an actual character card (a “Chosen Champion” unit) that can be played from a special zone at any time. Players then fight over control of territory marked by “battlefield” cards, gaining points for capturing and holding control of them in equal measure. First to 8 points–with caveats on how to get that eighth point–wins.
But learning how to play those basics out is a different story. Opening up the two Unleashed Champion Decks–pre-constructed starter decks–leads to the terrible Riftbound rulebook. This 23-page book is vague in some sections and obtuse in others; it fails to help players identify card types and raises more questions than it answers.
It’s not clear how many times an action can be taken, or if the first turn player can just snag a free point if they manage to have a turn one play. At one point, when looking up what a “buff” is, my friend helping me test read out loud, “Buffing a unit means giving it a buff,” and promptly closed the book, calling it diabolical. Ironically, the rest of the section does explain what a buff really is.
While the game itself can be easy to acclimate to, the rule book needs some simplification.
Many of these gaps seem to be the fault of assumptions: that the player has played another TCG before, has a friend teaching them, or that they’ve played League of Legends enough to pick up on implications. However, even with these factors, it’s still an uphill battle. Between me and those I invited to play with me, there are over 20 years of playing multiple TCGs and League. One of us had already learned Riftbound but struggled to understand Unleashed’s new mechanics.
This issue of learning is worth harping on, because these Unleashed Champion Decks are otherwise one of the best starter products I’ve seen in a long time. Provided one actually does learn the basics, they offer an excellent introduction to Riftbound’s gameplay in general and Unleashed’s mechanics in specific.
These two decks highlight two very different play styles: an aggressive deck built around Vi of Arcane fame and a slower defensive deck centered on the gloomy champion Vex. Vi’s deck leverages the new Ambush mechanic, which allows players to deploy Units, characters, and minions that can capture battlefields, directly into battle from the hand.
On the other hand, Vex’s deck softens the hits from the aggressive player while accruing a new resource called XP. Having more XP grants more effects to Vex’s cards, and XP can even be spent for further payoff.
With careful curation, mostly using cards from the Unleashed set, these decks play back and forth very well. They create memorable moments that teach further nuances of gameplay, such as in an instance where I deployed Vi and two other characters directly from my hand with Ambush to overwhelm my opponent, only to have all of their attacks stunned.
Countering opponents comes naturally in Riftbound Unleashed.
Riftbound has a lot of counterplay that reveals itself naturally. Then, there’s a booster pack inside waiting to take players to the next step. That said, the Vex deck is easily the better of the two and the one worth getting.
Using other cards from Unleashed, I identified some straightforward next steps. The new Vault product works like Magic’s bundles or Pokémon’s Elite Trainer Boxes–giving some booster packs, storage, and an inventory of resource cards called “Runes.”
It’s a simple but handy expansion to the line, though the storage box is much narrower than its competitors’. Nonetheless, I was able to use these and other booster packs to upgrade the Vi deck’s consistency and build an entirely new deck around the sword-wielding Master Yi.
Unleashed is poised to be a strong onboarding set for new Riftbound players. The starter decks are curated with a quality experience in mind, and upgrade paths are clear. Looking at secondary market pre-orders for Unleashed, it also seems that supply may indeed meet demand this time around. These are all good things for existing and potential Riftbound players. But I do still have some hesitation.
Riftbound isn’t Riot Games’s first attempt at a card game. Legends of Runeterra was a digital collectible card game in the vein of Hearthstone, the juggernaut in that space. It also borrowed heavily from Magic, something that its designers were very open about.
However, Legends of Runeterra is effectively defunct – Riot downsized its team and hasn’t released an expansion since 2024. It’s hard not to think about LoR’s history when looking through the Unleashed set and trying to learn how to play.
Riftbound Unleashes excels through multiplayer and player interactions.
Too often, Riftbound is leaning on familiarity. There’s a lackadaisical approach to core rules that resembles more of a patching cadence for League than thoughtful design. The side effect is that things aren’t as intuitive as they could be. Equipment exists in this game, functioning almost identically to how they do in Magic, and reading the rulebook definition would lead a franchised player to that conclusion.
However, it doesn’t fall off when a unit is defeated, which is not how things work in Magic. Damage is similar; sometimes damage can defeat a unit, and sometimes it can’t, entirely dependent on context. The rulebook doesn’t clarify any of these, despite being critical information for playing the Champion Decks.
Despite the rulebook’s insistence that it is written from a 1-on-1 perspective, it constantly slides in references to 4-player games. Considering aspects like a Champion Legend character focus and having color identity, Riftbound is targeting Magic’s extremely popular Commander format specifically. Other TCGs like Disney Lorcana and One Piece Card Game also borrow some of these aspects, but Riftbound insists upon multiplayer so much that it’s difficult to believe anything otherwise.
Even if Unleashed didn’t make me a full Riftbound convert, I am significantly more warmed up to it now. There’s a lot of interaction and strategy offered just within the confines of Unleashed’s card list that other TCGs like the aforementioned One Piece and Lorcana shy away from. The Champion Decks from Unleashed do a great job showing that compelling gameplay. With care and refinement, Riftbound can absolutely become something special.
Riftbound Unleashed is available now in game stores and via Riot Games.
