I've long wanted to recapture my carefree days playing Hearthstone as a teenager with a competitive card game. Magic: The Gathering was the obvious choice for years, but I never had the heart to try to play “catch up” to players who had decades more experience than me. I'm competitive by nature, so casual formats like Commander don't really appeal to me.
Then… came Riftbound. As an avid League of Legends player, a TCG set in Runeterra was exactly what I was looking for. I attended a pre-release event for the first set, Origins, at my local game store and was instantly hooked. Now, after attending several weekly events and pre-release events for Riftbound's second set, Spiritforged, I am convinced that the energy surrounding this game is something special.
Perfect atmosphere
During the pre-release event, each player will receive a “pre-rift kit” containing a champion legend, a champion unit, and fifteen cards to complement your champion. This set has six different variations, and which champion you end up pulling is completely random. You will then receive several booster packs to fill out your deck before being released into a closed tournament.
The pre-release event offers a unique combination of factors that make it very exciting to attend. First you get to open packages. There isn't a single TCG player who doesn't love opening decks and drawing cards, especially decks with NEW ones.
You will then be able to use said new cards and potentially discover new strategies or interesting interactions. We can all read what the cards do before the set is released, but that's no substitute for actually playing the cards and seeing how they perform against another player.
Riftbound's pre-rift events also have an improved ruleset that allows you to incorporate a third color into your deck. This allows players who have opened a really great card to play those cards without having to worry about matching the color of their champion legend.
Finally, you're playing in a tournament where the decks are unoptimized and the players' knowledge is likely incomplete. I love playing Standard, but playing in an unpredictable meta where your opponents may not have the right answers to your cards is very exciting.
I may not have been a regular Magic: The Gathering player, but ask any seasoned player what types of events are their favorites and I bet they'd tell you that the atmosphere of a pre-release event is hard to beat. In my opinion, Riftbound was set up to succeed on the same front.
My local event took place on a sleepy Sunday afternoon and had 22 players. My friends and I grabbed a table for the deck building portion of the event, which takes about 45 minutes. There was a sense of anticipation in the room, and the occasional shout of excitement echoed through the shop as someone pulled an exciting card.
The right balance between casual and competitive
Players always have their biases about these things. “This is the best pre-rift set to draw” and “these are the best cards to draw from decks.” It is still a competitive event and players come with reasonable preparation.
Absolutely no one wanted to pull Renata Glasc for Spiritforged. Her ability is too uncommon and nearly impossible to use effectively in a deck that isn't optimized. I desperately wanted Lucian, probably the easiest legend to use effectively, and a champion that would allow for the aggressive playstyle I enjoy playing.
Of course the gods of Runeterra answered my prayers and I opened the lucian set before the rift. I built a deck based around the new gear mechanic and used the tricolor ruleset to incorporate purple gear like Boots of Swiftness and Doran's Ring.
One debatable aspect of these events is that they are designed for best-of-three games, rather than the best-of-three that usually occurs during the weekly Nexus Nights. This means that instead of playing between eight and twelve games, you only play three. This is partially offset by the time spent building the deck, but the event is relatively short compared to typical Riftbound events.
My purple Lucian deck saw me win all three games, hopefully proving that the pre-event champion strength predictions were correct. At my local location, each participant received two participant packs (with additional packs for the top eight), but this will vary from store to store.
Everyone then hung out to open decks and compare moves. It was a typical trading card game experience: opening packs, playing games, and enjoying the social aspect of the board game. Ironically, the atmosphere of playing Riftbound is almost the opposite of playing competitive League of Legends, the game that inspired it. At my age I think I prefer the laid back vibes of Riftbound and I can see myself playing for a long time.
- Original release date
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2025
- Designers
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Dave Guskin (Game Director)
