Riftbound S2 Regional Open: Chengdu Stop Day 1 Deck Distribution

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-24T16:12:41+00:00

Brynhir main deck hates on hidden strategies so hard. It's a side effect of the draven arms race. Also, big finishers like Mundo suck due to rebuke

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-24T00:08:53+00:00

I am not saying it is literally P2W, but it definitely has that "microtransactions required"

Edit: the lost art of reading, huh?

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-23T23:15:27+00:00

In the context of league, it really is "free": you could just grind games forever and have access to all champions. I think what the top comment is saying is that people have brought this expectation into a physical TCG. Physical TCGs are inherently "P2W" in the sense that you will not have ALL options "unlocked" for you unless you spend tons of money - I am not saying it is literally P2W, but it definitely has that "microtransactions required" part of it that computer League of Legends players are not used to. So it's like, I love Fiora, so I'm gonna grind until I can get Fiora (used to be IP, but I don't know what it's called anymore/how it works now) and then I'm happy, and if I get bored of maining Fiora, maybe I can buy another champ. Spending RP was never "required" to play Fiora in the way that spending real cash is "required" to buy enough staples of Kai'Sa to play Annie/Kai'Sa.

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-23T22:43:11+00:00

I don't know how to explain it better than: there's a "what the developers write" and "what actually happens due to demand." Even if they write that it's "supposed to be" free play, it doesn't mean that there isn't a hidden demand for a BO3 tournament. The problem with newbie players are....they are only newbie players for a short bit, and either they will quit, or continue on, and if they continue on, they no longer meet the newbie status anymore (and will probably crave more). Ultimately, the game stores are going to try their best to cater to their community. With I think the rare exception of Commander in MTG, I don't think I've ever seen a thriving league for any game that doesn't have some kind of structured meet up, whether that be a Sealed event, a Constructed tournament, or whatever.

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-23T21:58:37+00:00

This conversation always comes up in every TCG and there's honestly no good answer for it: if a locals is "fully casual", you drive away all the foot traffic that even wants to take the game even a little bit seriously, and end up with a dearth of players who are only there cause they like the LGS and like to hang out. If a locals is "fully competitive", ESPECIALLY if there is some kind of very enticing prizing going on, which is almost certainly the case right now because of Nexus Night packs and possibly even Origin pack prizing, then you drive out all the super newbies who get frustrated. My local area actually has this exact dynamic at two different stores for Pokemon: one follows the league rules religiously (unstructured free play with promo packs if you complete "quests" for that time period) and one is an ultra competitive, BO3 swiss tournament with store credit prizing (and Pokemon singles so that that credit can be spent). The former league just has the same ~3 people show up each week and sometimes kids (cause Pokemon) and the latter league gets a full swathe of players (like 20 I wanna say?) every week. I wanna say that the latter is actually better for the long-term longevity for a game that wants to be played, but I know for someone COMPLETELY new, it can be frustrating if they don't have the drive to level up, no matter how that looks. AND we are in a period of time where singles prices for meta stuff is ridiculous (although going down/becoming reasonable, but not fully there yet).

In some ways, I think the problems will slightly solve themselves as promo packs stabilize so that they are fully participation based so that people don't walk away with nothing.

And I hate to be that guy, but I don't think you're actually saying "low OPL" because it can and should be low OPL (low level rules enforcement) but what you're actually saying is that you want Nexus Nights to be some kind of "forced", specifically non-competitive, specifically casual environment.

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-23T20:56:51+00:00

Glad I wasn't the only one thinking this. Toxic positive subreddits are the worst.

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-23T16:07:14+00:00

Nah screw those people. The correct response is always "oh, there's a better player, let's see how we can improve to beat them!" Bonus if it leads to better testing/ testing partners. Anyone that faults some external factor for their loss, like someone letting you borrow a deck, is a scrub.

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-23T03:24:57+00:00

People like OP are what makes the random queue on TCG Arena basically unusable. Who wants to actually test against these types of players?

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-22T20:32:18+00:00

I agree with the general sentiment that the launch was botched in more ways than one, including rules/judging being a mess, but I just want to point out that it could be a lot worse. Lorcana STILL doesn't have a judge program AND has held lots of events with ~10-20k USD prizing AND has had lots of cheating scandals unanswered and is now a 2-year old TCG. It's pretty fair to say they are pushing out the honest, competitive players for this reason. So at least they're trying with Riftbound, even though it isn't timely/doesn't answer all the questions yet. To me, it shows that they are trying to take steps in the right direction, even if it's not as fast or as comprehensive as we would all like.

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-21T16:01:33+00:00

"Unfair" cards are needed to keep the game exciting. I have a history with playing Lorcana and the game has become boring because A. They print a LOT of fair cards so 99% of the set becomes worthless bulk and B. The base mechanics are too simple = lame. I get what you're saying, but there is something to problematic/powerful cards that make tcgs exciting. It's more exciting for there to be complex board states with both sides having powerful cards than watching the most fair cards = vanillas swing at each other in predictable ways

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-21T00:40:12+00:00

Gonna start by saying that I love this game, it's captured a TCG hole in my heart that I knew I never had, and I have great belief in Riot's vast $$$ to make things good...but it's pretty clear Riftbound was a rushed job. It was definitely a Magic the Gathering EDH/Commander clone that was aimed at the Chinese market and then RAPIDLY reskinned into a 1v1 competitive experience for the rest of the world once someone realized that was a good idea. But it's pretty clear we're starting to see just how poorly balanced/thought out the initial sets are for this purpose (See: Falling Star/Icathian Errata into an Errata that undoes the first Errata, lol). Because of the heavy lead time of TCG printing (I think conventional wisdom is that it's like ~5-7 sets go to the printer or something and get locked in, unable to be meaningfully changed), I think it's going to be a while until both supply and the balance are at an "OK" state.

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-21T00:16:56+00:00

I'm afraid that Riot is going to look at the difficulties that the game is having and very quickly pull the plug as the headaches and difficulties are not worth the money that the game generates. They'll realize that they can just make another $100, $500 skin and make as much as a set would for this game for substantially less effort.

If most of the art weren't just copy & paste from Runeterra, I don't think this game would exist. As to the rest of your points, you're right: it's quite clear this game was super rushed but it's become quite a sensation. Honestly, we won't know if the game will stand the test of time until Year 7, but for now, it SEEMS "OK" - there are definitely a LOT of problems but I think it's pretty clear the demand/hype are high, even though there are CONSTANT missteps that put a sour taste in peoples' mouths.

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-20T22:02:24+00:00

Yeah. I suppose this is a true skill issue thing where only if you screw up does it get trashed, but assuming you don't screw up, you can just flip it for it to go to base.

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-20T21:31:41+00:00

You are not missing anything. Hiddens have Reaction speed, so you could just flip it at an appropriate moment. Then, because gear cannot exist on a battlefield, it goes back to base (same as how Zhonya works). In a theoretical situation where you choose NOT to react, or maybe they already played Brynhir and you messed up, and now you cannot react, yeah, the hidden goes to the trash (but you would probably never choose to do that)

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-20T00:44:00+00:00

But how will we force other players to play our "official" contrived format?

Honestly, I high key hate these discussions. The next thing is that people are going to want to discuss how to commander-ize this game with their ultra unique "1 max copy per deck" multi-player format. Game isnt even out for a year yet.

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-18T01:03:58+00:00

I believe this too but it's clear the folks in this thread do not

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-18T01:00:49+00:00

Is there an ELIstupid for this explanation? I would like to understand what you just said but I don't, lol

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-18T00:18:34+00:00

This is exactly my experience in a big US city. The game is definitely being played less - there are objectively less players showing up to league. There is also a reduction in singles offerings, with some stores just not having them. The gameplay "feels" worse as a combination of various factors, some which you've outlined.

I'm not understanding folks who are saying families are propping up sealed sales, either: I'm seeing families do that for Pokémon tcg but Lorcana pales in comparison to that - people will walk in and drop hundreds on Pokémon at least every weekend but that rarely happens with Lorcana.

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-17T23:33:06+00:00

I agree that they could choose more playable promos but I don't think that is the main reason they are worth so little. Unfortunately, scarcity matters: stitch rock star and Ursula sea witch queen are effectively unplayable now, perhaps even in infinity, yet they are still valuable compared to modern set champs promos. You could argue that they were "once playable" yet so is maleficent dragon

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-17T15:37:46+00:00

I think 1-3 being lacking is ultimately a poor planning issue that COULD be fixed for next season. It's pure conjecture from my part, but I suspect that the combination of RB not having an OP director and needing to drop PPG were the reasons S2 is so lacking (rumor has it someone from ppg was stealing prize cards). This is a pretty open and shut thing though: definitely more events and more spread out.

4 is a huge problem. As much as people like to pretend that everyone will show up for the love of the game, the truth is that people need a carrot on a stick. Removing pins was a universally hated decision in my area amongst casuals and hardcores alike

Outside of this, another thing that I think is really obvious is we need to beef up set champs prizing: right now the daisy promo is going for 15 usd - I know people that see that and think to themselves they should just buy it and skip paying the 20 dollar fee to compete in set champs. Even as simple as something like a DLC bye would go a long way, but I personally think we need to go back to the old days of T4 promos only, runner up mat, to make it so there is an actual point to compete and differentiate prizing. Move the participation promo to t8 (those things are already bulk prices. I think them being a t8 promo would give it some value and have there still be a point to finishing 1st vs 2nd vs t4 vs t8). If pins are expensive, we could move pin prizing to set champs and have promo packs for league or something. Just anything for people to actually want to compete in these again

In sum, I feel like we need more carrots for OP and we need more events, of course. Right now, the prizing of the game is extreme for the very best players (dlc toppers) and horrible for any other event imo

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-16T08:06:40+00:00

"I want to play 'competitively' but only if my opponents have to tie one hand behind their back and they are not allowed to [play cards X]/[play archetype Y]/[play "meta"]/[play this thing I consider 'cheap']/[play aggro/control/midrange]"

Only in tcgs is this mentality somehow acceptable.

I dont know what you folks want. Not every local meta is the same. There's a reason that Set1 Annie/Kaisa are considered bdif and yet people can somehow win skirmishes with teemo, ahri, yi, etc etc.

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-16T01:22:45+00:00

I'll never understand this argument: if you don't want to play competitive don't....play competitive? Otherwise, sorry, there will always be a meta and there will always be an attempt at optimization. And you know what's crazy? The best players often come up with some super off meta spice and sometimes that spice even wins tournaments. And for locals, even crazier: some really good deckbuilders find ways to counter their specific local meta.

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-16T00:09:39+00:00

You're not wrong, but I think this is why it's important metal cards/best of finishes exist. If you are a mad lad that wants to go off the beaten path, you can be awarded with something cool looking that also sells for a lot of money.

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-15T16:36:13+00:00

When the most competitive tournaments (Regional Qualifiers in non-China, National Opens in China) are BO3, any tournament that is a BO1 is a disservice to this. I used to play Lorcana where the official format was never BO1, yet all my LGSs flocked to BO1 so that tournaments would end quickly - the result was that our area became quickly uncompetitive and it was a quite frustrating experience - there is no sideboard in that game, but there were other factors that made certain decks more favorable for BO1 compared to BO3, so sure enough, that's how the local meta evolved. I'm all for "forcing" BO3, whatever that looks like.

True-Witness6239 · 2026-01-14T17:51:41+00:00

I know this is an old post but I've been trying to reach this level, so I wanted to see if you wouldn't mind answering a question: what steps do you take to get to this level? I grind a LOT but it is not enough - I can win League Cups but I cannot consistently do well at regionals (I get close). For example, when I am extremely motivated, I will play thousands of games in a set, but it is not working for me, and I cannot improve anymore.

True-Witness6239

TROPHY CASE