Riftbound: League of Legends TCG

Riot's physical card game, set in Runeterra, and the first mainstream TCG in years to throw out the life total entirely. There is no "reduce your opponent to zero". Instead there are battlefields on the table, and you score points by taking and holding them.

If you have played the MOBA, that will feel immediately familiar: this is a game about contesting objectives, deciding which fight to commit to, and knowing when to let one go. Units fight over locations, and the scoreboard, not a health bar, is what you are watching.

• A Legend card represents you and shapes your deck. Champion cards are the heroes you play.
• Runes are a separate resource deck, so your main deck never draws a dead resource card.
• Battlefields are shared objectives on the table. Control them at the right moment and you score.
• Designed from the start for more than two players, which almost no other TCG can say honestly.

• Legend: your identity for the game. Sets your colours and gives you an ability.
• Champion: the League characters. Powerful units, usually with a cost tied to your Legend.
• Unit: the rest of your board. Cost, might, and abilities.
• Spell: one-shot effects, some playable in reaction.
• Gear and Rune: equipment for your units, and the resource cards in your separate rune deck.
• Battlefield: the objectives you fight over, laid out on the table at the start of the game.

1. 1

   Awaken and channel

   Ready your cards and channel a rune from your rune deck, growing the resources available to you.

2. 2

   Draw

   Draw for the turn.

3. 3

   Main phase

   Play units, champions, spells and gear. Send units to battlefields to contest them.

4. 4

   Combat at battlefields

   Where both players have committed units, they fight. Winning a contest is how you take or hold a location.

5. 5

   Scoring

   Holding a battlefield at the right moment scores you points. Points, not damage, are the win condition.

6. 6

   End

   End-of-turn effects, then pass.

Because the win condition is positional, the interesting decisions are about commitment. Every unit you send to one battlefield is a unit not defending another, and overcommitting to a fight you were going to win anyway is the classic way to lose the game.

• A Legend, a main deck, and a rune deck built to match your colours.
• Copy limits and deck sizes are set by the current official rules, and they differ from Magic's conventions.
• Curve matters, because runes accumulate over the game. Have early plays that can contest a battlefield on turn two.
• Include reach: ways to win a contest you are losing, or to move units after commitments are made.

• Constructed 1v1 is the competitive default.
• 2v2 and multiplayer free-for-all are supported formats rather than afterthoughts, which is genuinely unusual.
• Sets are released in numbered waves with starter and booster products.
• The card pool is small right now, which is the best possible time to start.

League of Legends has spent fifteen years building a world: Runeterra, a continent of regions with clashing cultures. Demacia's rigid order, Noxus' brutal meritocracy, the ingenuity of Piltover above the chemical rot of Zaun, the ghost tide of the Shadow Isles, the spirit magic of Ionia.

• Champions are the characters from the game, and each carries an established story that the card art assumes you may know.
• Arcane, the animated series, is the same world and is the best possible entry point for someone who has never touched the MOBA.
• Because colours map to regions, deckbuilding is also a statement about which part of the world you like.
• Runeterra's magic system, runes and the World Runes, is where the game's title comes from.

Riftbound on this platform is collect-only: real cards from real sets, pulled through the apitcg feed.

• Open packs from the card shop in Discord.
• Cards land in your public binder on the website.
• Duplicates feed trading and set completion.
• Bolts only. Nothing here costs real money.

• Riot's official Riftbound site for the current rules, product releases and organised play.
• Watch a recorded game before your first one. Objective scoring reads much more clearly in motion.
• Ask in our Discord. Half the server has League opinions and will happily inflict them on you.