Riftbound, Riot Games' League of Legends trading card game (TCG), recently celebrated its one-year anniversary on August 1 during GenCon. Since its launch late last year, the game's undergone dozens of changes, errata, rules updates, and even card bans. In its first of three State of the Game updates this week (and second overall this year), Riot broke down some of the biggest changes coming to Riftbound starting in January of 2027 with the release of the game's sixth set, Legacy.
Two State of the Game update articles were released today on Riot's site. One was an in-depth conversation with Riftbound brass Dave Guskin, Chengran Chai, and Nik Davidson, penned by the game's Editor-in-Chief Trick Jarrett, in which they discussed how they felt about the game one year in, and some of the biggest learnings the team has experienced in that time.
Regarding banning cards, Riftbound Game Director Dave Guskin explained that the team doesn't set out to ban cards, but will when absolutely necessary, citing the powerful "Miracle" package from Spiritforged. "I don’t regret making powerful things," he said. "We want you all to have cool stuff to experiment with! But as we learn the nuances of making Riftbound (which is something we are doing right alongside you all, our extremely intelligent players) we’ve learned there’s still room to grow in how we approach designing the six domains and gauging the true power of certain game mechanics."
Last week's release of Riftbound's fourth set, Vendetta, brought along three preemptive bans in an effort for the team to get ahead of the set's release and ensure it has a healthy competitive meta on day one. The team also confirmed that they will continue to monitor powerful strategies and infinite combos going forward.
The other article detailed new products still to come in 2026, and offered a glimpse at the first half of 2027's set releases. What's most interesting from this article is Riot's breakdown of some big changes coming when Legacy launches on January 29. A few of these changes have been desired by the community for months (myself included), and Riot is making it a priority to listen to players and build the game with them. Riftbound will "continue to be reactive to player feedback as it grows," the article read. Guskin went on to explain that the team "will always try to clearly communicate as we improve our process and learn lessons we apply to the game in the future. Building this game together with the community is vitally important to us".
One of the biggest changes coming to the TCG affects booster pack contents. Usually, packs of Riftbound contain 14 cards; seven commons, three uncommons, two rare or higher cards, a foil card of any rarity, and a token or Rune. Legend cards, which are required to build your decks and play the game, have occupied a Rare slot since launch. Riot has said in the past that their goal is to make these cards very easy to come by, and that's been the case, but occupying the Rare slot means players miss out on more, actual rare (read: hard to find) cards. Starting with Legacy, Legend cards will be taking up a common slot, leaving room for the promised two rare or better cards, and bringing the amount of commons in a pack from seven to six.
The next big change has to do with the card templates and text itself, offering a clearer explanation of how cards and how they resolve. Also starting with Legacy, Riftbound will be introducing an arrow icon to signify the effect a triggered ability has.
Next, cards with specific targets will have that word set to a gray background to make sure it's obvious which word on the card is the intended target of a spell or ability.
Finally, one of the biggest changes is all about what the term "play" actually means. Since the game came out, "play" has always referred to making a token appear, placing a card on the chain, finalizing a spell, or resolving an ability. The article explains that these aren't exhaustive enough, so changes are being made to clarify that definition of "play." To start, finalizing a spell or playing a card from your trash pile is unchanged. But moving forward, cards that make tokens will swap "play" out with "create," and cards that say "when you play me" will be changed to "when I enter," meaning their effects are triggered when they resolve in play.
Today's articles kick off the first of three days of Riftbound's State of the Game updates, so expect more news and announcements throughout the week.
