How to Get Started with Riftbound: A Guide for New Players

The trading card game ecosystem has become very crowded in recent years. Longtime stalwarts, like Pokemon and Magic: The Gathering, have been joined by One Piece, Disney Lorcana, and Gundam all in the last three years, and more companies are entering the space quickly. The most recent name to throw its cards on the table is Riot Games with Riftbound, a trading card game centered around the champions and worlds of the ultra-popular League of Legends. Its first set, Origins, released late last month, and has already been deemed a massive sales success. Yet based on the recent Riftbound PAX Unplugged panel, it seems as though this is just the beginning of Riot's big plans for the game moving forward, and they want everyone to be a part of them.

According to Riftbound head designer Dave Guskin, there's one simple reason why Riftbound is so appealing and easy to play for new players: It was designed for everyone. "We designed Riftbound, first and foremost, to be an easy game to get into with your friends," Guskin said. "It's really welcoming to those who are familiar with other TCGs, and if you love League, we have done a lot to try to make the champions feel here the way they feel there."

With a massive pool of Champions to pull from, and four future sets already confirmed to be in production, it seems Riftbound is here to stay, so now is a great time to jump in. Whether you're a TCG enthusiast, a League of Legends veteran, or you just like to collect shiny cards, Riftbound has something for you.

A typical game of Riftbound supports between two and four players, each with the same goal of conquering and holding Battlefields. Successfully conquering a battlefield will earn you one point, and holding it until your next turn will earn you another. The first player to score eight points wins the game.

Each deck in a Riftbound game must include the following: A Champion Legend, which is the Champion the deck is themed around and starts the game in a special Legend Zone with its power always able to be activated. The main deck will include 40 cards, and it can be any combination of Units, Spells, and Gear cards. Each card in the deck must share one of the two Domains, or colors, on the Champion Legend card. A Rune deck serves as the deck's resource base, where channeled runes provide the Energy to cast spells or summon units and gear. Each deck must include three separate Battlefield cards. At the beginning of a game, each player will choose one of their three Battlefields to be active throughout the match. A Chosen Champion is a special Unit card that features the same League character as the Legend that the deck is themed around. This can be placed in the special Champion zone, and summoned from that zone once per game.

Players draw four cards in their opening hand, then decide who goes first by flipping a coin, rolling dice, rock-paper-scissors, or any other method they desire. Unlike in Magic, whoever goes first still gets to draw a card on turn one. To make up for this advantage, the player going second gets to channel an additional rune on their first turn of the game.

As mentioned before, the first player to reach eight points through conquering or holding locations wins. However, there are two important caveats to remember when it comes to scoring the final point: A player can only score that last point by either conquering both battlefields in a single turn, or successfully holding a battlefield until their next turn while at seven points.

Longtime players of other card games might balk at the idea of adding a second or third game to their rotation. There's only so much space in an office or game room for card storage, after all. However, if Riftbound appeals to those types of players at all, now would be a good time to try the mechanics out and see if it's for them. For starters, the overall card pool is the smallest it's ever going to get. Its inaugural set Origins is the only set currently available, and features a manageable total card pool of 298 unique cards including tokens and Battlefields. The second set, Spiritforged, is coming in February, making now a perfect time to jump in and become acquainted with the current meta before it ultimately shifts.

Speaking of the meta, Riftbound being less than a month old means it is still fluid and trying to find a foundation. A few deck archetypes have shown to be more popular than others. Kai'Sa builds, for instance, made up 38 percent of the entries in a recent 400-player $10K tournament in Las Vegas, while Master Yi accounted for 16 percent. However, both of these champions combined only made up one of the top four finishers, as a Sett deck and a pair of Annie decks rounded out the finalists. Getting in on the ground floor of a card game, especially while the first set is the only active one at the moment, is a rare thing for TCGs. This makes it all the more exciting and opportune to be a part of the experiment, and help shape the game's meta yourself.

On the flip side, say you've never picked up a Pokemon or Magic card in your life but you have hit Master rank or higher in the Nexus. Riftbound has you covered too, as the way these Champions are implemented into the game was deliberately designed to reflect how they play in League of Legends. Darius, for instance, is a massively powerful Fighter and Tank who can dish out a ton of damage. His Champion card, Darius, Trifarian, gains strength whenever you play two cards in a single turn, so the more moves you make, the stronger you become. Miss Fortune, meanwhile, has an in-game ability that increases her movement speed, while her Champion card gives you a perk the first time you move her to a battlefield each turn.

A few of Riftbound's key terms directly reference the terminology of League of Legends too, which could give you an advantage against those who aren't as familiar with the lingo. Ganking, for example, is when a unit moves from one battlefield to another. Some units also have the Tank ability, which means they'll take combat damage before their allies, just as Tanks are meant to absorb damage in a League match. Many Champion cards use official League of Legends art as well, so if you have a favorite piece of art for your preferred Champion, you may see that art on a Riftbound card.

Speaking of cool art, those who just like to collect shiny pieces of cardboard won't be left in the dust either. Earlier we mentioned that there are 298 cards in the Origins set, but that was a bit of a white lie. There are actually 308, but 10 of them are ultra-rare Overnumbered variants of existing cards with exclusive art. The term Overnumbered refers to their set numbers, written as 299/298, 300/298, and so on. There's also variants of these variants, as some of the Overnumbered cards feature the signature of the artist who drew the featured artwork on the card. These are the rarest of the rare, the chase cards of the set, and definitely something TCG collectors should keep an eye out for.

It's still in its infancy, but the roots of a successful trading card game are falling into place for Riftbound. If you're interested at all in checking it out, now is the time.