What Is Riftbound, Riot Games’ New Trading Card Game?

LoL Contributor

Publish Date: November 26, 2025

Riot Games has just released Riftbound, a new trading card game based on League of Legends. What is Riftbound? Why is Riot Games releasing another card game after Legends of Runeterra? Is Riftbound doing well? Who are the Riftbound champions? Find out everything, and more, below!

What is Riftbound, and how does it work?

Riftbound is Riot Games’ brand-new trading card game. It was released on October 31, 2025, as Riot’s third physical game, following Mechs vs Minions and Tellstones: King’s Gambit.

This card game can be played by 2, 3, or 4 players, and a Best of 1 game lasts 20 minutes on average. In Riftbound, players have a deck of 40 cards containing units, spells, and other items from the League of Legends and Runeterra universe. These units can be champions as well as any nameless character from Runeterra, and all cards are separated into six colors.

Turn by turn, the players use mana generated by runes to play their cards. The players then use these cards to seize battlefields, with or without combat. Conquering or controlling a battlefield awards points, and the first person to reach 8 points wins the game.

Riftbound takes inspiration from existing TCGs, mostly Magic: the Gathering and Legends of Runeterra.

Similar to MTG:

Decks are built around a champion legend, and only cards from that champion’s colors can be put into the deck.
Units remove their damage after each combat and turn.
Dedicated cards generate mana of different colors.

Similar to LoR:

Players gain new mana runes each turn.
Spells and their timings function akin to their LoR counterparts

Flagship League champions Ahri, Jinx, and Yasuo, are already playable in Riftbound. Image Source: Riot Games

Why did Riot Games create a new card game after Legends of Runeterra?

Legends of Runeterra and Riftbound are two entirely different games with different objectives.

Riot Games intended LoR to be a competitive digital TCG. However, it failed to achieve its goals. It couldn’t win over a Hearthstone that was too established as a digital game, and couldn’t beat MTG, which had the advantage of a physical version and more complexity. Combined with too generous monetization, LoR was never profitable, and Riot decided to remove its competitive aspect.

Legends of Runeterra is now at its most popular as a digital, PvE-focused game. Additionally, be it PvE or PvP, Riot would never have been able to port it to paper.

On the other hand, Riftbound is a paper-only card game with a focus on competition, going through local game stores. Its gameplay and mechanics are almost fully different from Legends of Runeterra’s, and this was not Riot’s attempt at creating LoR 2. Rather, they wanted to find a spot in the paper TCG market and had ideas for it.

What is the Riftbound monetization?

Riftbound has the same monetization as the other paper trading card games. Players can purchase pre-constructed decks, boosters, and derived products. As of now, those derived products are only League-themed playmats, but one can expect sleeves or dice to follow suit. Singles aren’t sold officially and have to be either found in boosters or through the secondary market.

Is Riftbound doing well?

Short answer: Yes and no.

Riftbound has had tremendous hype. League players and game store enthusiasts alike were looking forward to that game’s release. Seeing as the enthusiasm isn’t waning, Riot has delivered on the quality.

Not on the quantity, however.

Stores are sold out and have been sold out for weeks. Players who want to purchase packs or their first deck have to wait at least a few days for restocking. Initiation sessions – relying on the store having decks available – have to be booked several weeks in advance in popular game stores.

At first glance, this sounds great. The game is a success, and reviews are high! Store owners don’t see it the same way, though, and have expressed their concerns. This creates a first bottleneck, with people not being able to make their start into the game. Initiations are booked, and so are the other in-store events for people who want to play more.

The second bottleneck is card availability. As people aren’t able to buy packs to find the cards they need, stores authorize the use of proxies instead. As a result, players can bring full-proxy decks, which have a much higher power level due to not being restricted by card price. This orients the game fully towards tryharding and cuts away the more fun and casual aspect.

Store owners are worried that the hype will lose steam faster than the stocks can refill. There is a chance that Riftbound ends up flopping, and it will be as a result of Riot Games mishandling the distribution.

Riftbound’s upcoming set, Spiritforged, will soon add an extra 12 champions to the game. Image Source: Riot Games

Which League of Legends champions are in Riftbound?

Currently, Riftbound has a single set, Origins. The 16 champions depicted in Riftbound Origins are:

Ahri
Annie
Darius
Garen
Jinx
Kai’sa
Lee Sin
Leona
Lux
Master Yi
Miss Fortune
Sett
Teemo
Viktor
Volibear
Yasuo

All champions also have several varieties, including skins.

Riot Games has already scheduled a second set for Riftbound, Spiritforged, bringing 12 new champion legends. The Riftbound: Spiritforged release date is December 12 in China and February 13 in English. The sets Unleashed, Vendetta and Radiance will then follow later in 2026. Riot has also announced 14 Riftbound regional qualifiers over the course of 2026.

Featured Image Source: Riot Games (via