Posted in: Card Games, Games, League of Legends, Riot Games, Tabletop | Tagged: Riftbound, UVS Games

We Got To Try Riftbound: League Of Legends Trading Card Game

We visited the Riot Games studios to play their new game, Riftbound: League Of Legends Trading Card Game, check out cards, and more

Before all of the insanity of Summer Game Fest, we were invited by Riot Games to check out their latest title, Riftbound: League of Legends Trading Card Game. We headed out to the Riot offices in Santa Monica for a special event where we were given a proper introduction to the game with reps from Riot and UVS Games (who they have partnered with to create this new TCG), as well as the chance to playtest some pre-made decks, and then build our own to play against others. We were joined by fellow journalists, as well as streamers and content creators in the realm of tabletop, to get one of the first lengthy gameplay sessions to see how it plays, and many of the cards that will be revealed over the course of 2025.

The Riftbound event we attended was three-fold for us to get a proper introduction to the game. The first part was an explanation as to how the game works, the second was to play it (many there doing it for the first time) with pre-constructed decks, and the third was to build our own deck however we saw fit to play more with customized additions. First off, the game has a pretty cool and unique structure and play system where games are quick and don't last excessively long. The design is to get you right into playing the game, playing cards immediately if possible or at least by your second turn you have something cooking, with gameplay that has been designed to be anywhere from 10-20 minutes per game. Most of the games we ended up playing finished in short order as we were able to figure out the rules pretty quickly and were able to get rounds going instantly after a shuffle.

Riftbound has you working with a 40-card deck, which includes one Legend based on a character from the game, a special ability for them to do, a Battlefield card, and 12 Runes as your resource system. The goal of the game is to earn eight points. You do this by controlling one or both Battlefields in play at the start of one of your turns. The first seven points you earn by just having one or both, but the final point can only be earned by controlling both Battlefields, which mimics the way you play League of Legends by fighting over different lanes until one of you wins everything. To do this, you'll use the Runes to cast spells and bring our support units to control a Battlefield on your turn, which every deck we encountered had a pretty decent balance of the two, as well as Items that can help you out as you go. Each deck has been catered to one of the Legends in the game, of which they revealed the twelve they will be starting out with at launch, which includes Kaisa, Sett, Miss Fortune, Jinx, Volibear, Darius, Lee Sin, Teemo, Leona, Yasuo, Ahri, and Viktor.

The setup for Riftbound is pretty well constructed, and the team putting it together even admitted it went through a few different incarnations and trials before they found one that worked. The biggest piece of the action economy that players will need to get used to is the Runes and Recycle system. Every turn, you play two Runes (which serve as your Land or Power for those who play other TCGs), with every deck containing two different colors for each hero. As the game goes on, some of the cards you play will have an icon in the corner indicating that you must Recycle that much power of a certain color back into your Rune pile. This has been designed so that most of the bigger things you want to do come at a cost, and it makes it so neither player is overpowered after just six turns. Its a clever mechanic where you technically get some or all of that power back every turn, but you're not becoming someone who is just hoarding power waiting to screw with your opponent. And yes, I am thinking about that one toxic player you've run into at tournaments; this system will curb that.

As the game goes on, you'll find that unless you are completely screwed on what cards come into your hand (which you can pull a mulligan at the start to get a better hand), both Riftbound players should be evenly matches and neither one has an advantage over the other. After getting a grand explanation of the game and its mechanics, we sat down and played several rounds with pre-constructed systems. I got a mix of playing Lee Sin (who uses a ton of buffs), Volibear (a raming deck that makes him a killing machine), Viktor (a unit-building machine), and Yasuo (a mesh of spells and interactive elements). I had a lot of fun playing with Viktor, as you can crank out a ton of support units in a short amount of time to take over and control a Battlefield in a short amount of time. Volibear also basically is an end-game force of destruction that comes off like he might not be that formidable, but then just explodes and can be a game-changer in a heartbeat. Every deck has options for you to be a surprise victor if you manage to play them right with no waiting game or being forced to get the right colors together to do what you need to do.

The second round of Riftbound gameplay gave us a chance to go build our own decks in any way we saw fit. They gave us a complete list of every character's primary pre-constructed setup, as well as all of the cards available at launch to go build our own decks in whatever way we saw fit. Now I could have taken this opportunity to go get something powerful and make them overpowered, but this is a test system with sample cards that I won't be able to use in legal play when it launches, so I decided to have some fun. I built a Teemo deck! Which, based on the way he's set up, it's mainly a trap deck designed to mess with players, as you can play specific cards face down on Battlegrounds, creatures, and just out in the open, waiting for them to be activated when your opponent does something on or to them. If you're devious enough, you can fool people into thinking something terrible is sitting on a Battlefield, when in reality, the trap just gives you two cards to draw immediately. He was fun to play with against several opponents and gave me a fun advantage that paid off more than not.

Overall, I thought Riftbound was a pretty fun game to play. The few issues I had came in the action economy and the order in which to do things, which weren't entirely made clear as to what I could do and at what point and in what sequence things needed to be taken care of. The crew I was with were all seasoned TCG players, so it's not like we were sticklers for rules, as we were all learning it as we went. But it is very clear that a precise order of what needs to be done when you start your turn needs to be laid out, which I'm sure will be synced up when they're ready to launch the game. Compared to others I've played in the past five years, this one seems to have a pretty good idea of what it wants to be, which is both a collector's set for hardcore League of Legends fans, and a tournament-ready game fo those who wish to compete against people and go on conquer the world in this all-new take on the company's biggest video game.

Speaking of which, while a launch date has not been set in stone, we do know that they are going to release the set in a few different ways. Starting with Preview Sessions that will include card reveals from several different sources, including us here at Bleeding Cool, all the way until July 18. Followed by a break before they launch the game in China in late Summer/early Fall, with the first set being called Riftbound: Origins. China will have a three-month lead on North America and other parts of the world, as we're looking at October 2025 for our launch. For those looking to get into the game, the Proving Grounds set will be the place to go for new players, which will run you $30 for four standard decks where you can play against friends and learn the game, followed by Booster packs that will help make those sets more robust or give you the ability to build one from the ground up.

We will be revealing about half the set of cards tonight, featuring over 100 different designs, as well as more info on how they'll be making some special cards to add to the mix, and their plans for tournaments.

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