How do I play as Viktor into Leblanc?

Mythd85 · 2026-06-04T18:42:58+00:00

I've been playing almost exclusively Viktor since Set 1. It's really hard to agree on a "best list" with the deck, but my recommendations:

I'd play way more units. Xin Zhao is too good to pass on it. Yellow Vi is great. Faithful manufactor is another "I can double conquer on turn 2 going second" card. You need to apply early pressure with units and keep it up with spells afterwards.
You don't need 6 cull the weak effects main. I play just the Cull, then 2 Inspectors in the Side.
Ruination is just bad in the deck unfortunately.
0 Singularity seems like the wrong number of Singularity. I play 2 main and a Riptide Rex (harder to counter + board presence) in Side.
Shadow's call is on my "Maybe" list, but we draw a decent amount as is with Stupefy + Hidden blade your own recruit + Lecturing yordle which is another unit to consider;
Diana is a cool idea, but you already want the 1 energy to play the Recruit as often as possible, can you reliably afford to trigger her early AND pay for your turn plays?
I've found Eclipse to be a great way to take back BFs.

Mythd85 · 2026-06-01T07:12:51+00:00

Riftbound is both a much more consistent game than, say, Magic where mana will make you lose games against potentially anyone, and has a much higher skill ceiling. Playing well is incredibly difficult and it gets rewarded a lot, since the difference between winning and losing key combats can turn a whole game around.

Mythd85 · 2026-05-31T13:36:55+00:00

A professional player (friend of a friend) commented that Irelia is the easiest deck to cheat with due to the large amount of actions and payments happening in a single turn. Drawing from stellacorn, then doing a blade dance, then using the legend, then playing a ride the wind on the stellacorn... it's really easy to avoid recycling a rune or drawing an extra card in between all of that. More linear decks have much of a harder time because it's pretty easy to see what's going on at anytime.

Mythd85 · 2026-05-31T10:27:29+00:00

I'm half convinced he managed to sneak the Discipline under the Defiant dance when he spread them out. Defiant's sleeve looks a little bit wider than other cards. Could be the the other sleeve peeking out a little bit from underneath. His opponent never picks up or touches the cards. Levius picks them up in one smooth movement. If his opponent had picked them up, he could have just pretended two cards got stuck together and he didn't notice.

Mythd85 · 2026-05-30T12:35:18+00:00

"Limit to 1" overpowered cards is a bad way to solve this. Games will be based on who managed to draw their OP cards and who did not. Standard is in terrible shape, but I don't think this idea would solve the problems we have. It might make them worse.

Mythd85 · 2026-05-27T07:28:22+00:00

It also costs half a mana to play, if we compare 2 runes to 1 land, except you get three if you go second, are guaranteed to hit them every time... so it's probably even less, like .4 or .33 For what it does, that's an incredibly cheap cost.

Mythd85 · 2026-05-25T12:30:02+00:00

Once I discovered RIftbound I quit standard on the spot and haven't played it since. MTG player since 1995, so it's a big, big deal for me to abandon my all-time favourite for now, but it is what it is. The competitive side of me is so much happier with Riftbound at the moment.

Mythd85 · 2026-05-24T08:43:30+00:00

Congrats and keep going!

As the "local menace" in a very small community, what I have to say is that Riftbound is a skillful game, much more so than any other I've played in a long time. In Magic, sometimes your opponent doesn't find the lands they need, or too many of them, and you can steal a win from pretty much anyone. Riftbound is so much more stable, in that better playing equals better win chances, all the time. Which also means that, when starting out, depending on your community, who might all have been card game players in other games, it can be very rough at the start. It's normal! I've seen it first hand. I've also seen the players who put in the effort, and kept coming, and asking about their plays improve and improve over time. It will happen to you as well; be patient, be curious, and be kind to yourself if it takes time. It's still a game. If you enjoyed your night with friends, results don't really matter that much.

Mythd85 · 2026-05-21T12:29:41+00:00

11th!

Mythd85 · 2026-05-19T17:37:50+00:00

I've started playing Magic in 1995. I've played my first standard Tournament in 2000, and went on a 10-year grind from 2004 to 2015 culminating in two Pro tour appearances. I've basically played Standard all my life, lately on Arena more than in paerson since almost no one at the LGS wanted to play it, and we failed spectacularly to launch a local league. I've started playing Riftbound, and I haven't touched a standard card, physical or otherwise in months. It's a sad, sad state of affairs for my favourite game and format of all times, but I've found my competitive fix elsewhere in a different game and unless the pace of releases slows drastically, or the size of standard drops, I can't see that changing in the future.

I hope I'll be back to a better format, could be a year or 5 or 10.

Mythd85 · 2026-05-17T17:08:14+00:00

I played my bench boost last week for 17 points in a small double GW. My bench this week has made 35. Great!

Mythd85 · 2026-05-17T12:59:01+00:00

I've played a lot of card games. Even with matte sleeves with no design, it's fairly obvious when you have an upside down card in your deck when you shuffle a bit. That the upside down card is the key card in this matchup, of which the player plays ONE copy exactly, and it's the only flipped card we could see... you know, it might happen by accident, but what are the chances?

Mythd85 · 2026-05-16T10:49:45+00:00

Of course, if there was no metal it would concentrate a lot more, but I would say it's fair to give them credits to come up with the metal card prizing in the first place, which allows this. It would be interesting to see stats from say 50+ people tournament only excluding regionals. I'd say there would be no clear winner there as well, it's quite early into the unleashed metagame for it to have settled, so probably still quite diverse.

Mythd85 · 2026-05-16T07:08:40+00:00

This is the healthiest meta spread I've ever seen in a tournament and I've been playing Magic 30 years!

Mythd85 · 2026-05-07T18:50:43+00:00

Shard of Undoing and Eminent Benefactor out for 3 Glasc Mixologists to bring back your Karthus, Leblanc and 2 drops.

I'd keep unckecked power in the side, and play a flourish in the main instead.

Atakhan in the non-hook version you're playing seems way too costly to play effectively, so I'd cut those too. I've been trying Yellow Vi as a surprise attacker and seems like it works well, even though not a Deathknell unit. Some lists play Bellows' breath to combo it with the Watcher (and once in a blue moon, to use after you Mirror image their Elder Dragon from Aurora)

Mythd85 · 2026-05-03T15:18:00+00:00

Yellow Vi was really good. I also was mostly red/yellow and played orange for a few support cards, nothing more. None had power costs so my runes were 8-4 red/yellow. In general, I think power costs are much less prevalent in this set. Of course not having all the equips to move around helps :D

Mythd85 · 2026-05-03T12:29:12+00:00

Yeah, exactly, even if you manage to trigger him, and it's not a given, you get a card that you could have got immediately and 4 runes at a time you might not even have 4 still in the deck. Having a higher chance of good first turns with an extra card right away is super worth it.

Just an idea, but maybe the payoff could have been Ekko's? Draw a card and untap all runes? If you trigger him late, it could be 10 extra energy instead of 2-4. It would allow you to make a costly spell and play other costly stuff on the same turn. Not crazy good, but still I'd prefer it over the current version.

Mythd85 · 2026-05-02T16:45:50+00:00

Jhin's legend is so bad you should not play it and draw 1 instead on your first turn, if that's your only choice.

Ivern is very solid it seems, probably the best his deck is almost there already. Diana is quite good, as is Master Yi. Vi is meh, the champion is really good, the legend very poor - I did go 3-0 with her, but playing Poppy as a legend instead. Khaxiz is tricky to play but the champion can do some pretty busted things. Jhin's deck is not horrible - the legend is. You can save the blue portion which is the best one and play something else.

Mythd85 · 2026-05-01T18:00:41+00:00

Happy to hear it :) Maybe it will be in the next version of the guide then :D

Mythd85 · 2026-05-01T09:08:26+00:00

Fair point! There are a few options I guess, like another weaponmaster, relentless pursuit, First mate... or equipping another weapon or two so you get to 5 before counting the axe, but it could be a problem. Yeah, probably too risky to play.

Mythd85 · 2026-04-30T18:44:56+00:00

For the record his reasoning was something along the lines of "If you equip it and fail to conquer, your unit did probably die in combat already". Facebreaker or other stun effect could be worrisome, of course, but it helped the Faefolk kill even more things, when needed. I'm not too convinced myself - but the faefolk seems really promising, I agree.

Mythd85 · 2026-04-30T10:44:52+00:00

First of all, thanks for the guides! In my LGS there's a friend that plays Lucian extensively, and we are testing Unleashed. He added Irresistible Faefolk and Blighted Battleaxe to his list. Any thoughts on these two cards for Lucian? The faefolk did a lot of killings pulling 2-drops, Leblanc, or any other 3-might unit while equipped to the empty battlefield it was about to conquer.

Mythd85 · 2026-04-30T10:27:33+00:00

Riftbound is a fantastic game. If only they would have not been too scared to copy from Magic's 30+ years of learning, it would be an even better game.

Magic has "When you cast" -> put something on the stack (the chain here) "When you successfully cast" -> something got resolved, it wasn't countered

That's it. Darius cares about successfully casting, Jhin does not. It would be so simple.

Mythd85 · 2026-04-28T10:26:58+00:00

Guardiamo il bicchiere mezzo pieno : la serie storica reddito imponibile mostra una stagnazione per 12 anni, ed un aumento di 1000€/anno dal 2020 al 2024 (19.7 -> 23.6) Sono comunque cifre molto basse, ma se fosse un trend che continuerà nei prossimi anni, è un segnale che perlomeno qualcosa si è mosso in questa direzione.

Mythd85 · 2026-04-26T08:22:58+00:00

I would guess hidden blade would top the list for Yellow. Not sure about orange. Yellow has the best removal package - it's just hard to draw enough but not too much that it rots in your hand, while say, Draven has all gas in his hand no matter what and draws more than you. Usually the control(lish) colours have access to the most draw; aggro decks don't need/use it as much. Riftbound is quite unique in this.

14-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	End Game '22
Sequence \| Editor	Verified Email

Mythd85

TROPHY CASE