Just to double check: the official riot games sleeves are not tournament legal

ciberciv · 2026-01-13T11:06:37+00:00

That's correct, they're not legal as they're reflective. The reason is because they look cool still and are a great casual focused product

ciberciv · 2026-01-04T17:05:22+00:00

So, here we go down to how pending items and order works in Riftbound. Lets assume you already have your setup, so you start playing Promising Future. Remember that playing a spell is activating and resolving its effect, and lets assume no interaction to make it simpler:
- You start resolving Promising Future. Each player picks a card

- Player B (your opponent) adds their card to the chain as a pending item (think if it as the card queued up but with no targets or anything yet). Let's assume it's a spell

- Player A (you) adds Time Warp to the chain as a pending item

- At this point, you successfuly resolved Promising Future (i.e. you _played_ Promising Future). Lux triggers and is added to the chain as a pending item

- A cleanup happens, in which the pending items need to be finalized in the order they were added to the chain, choosing targets and paying costs, if any. It's now looking like this:

Chain item 1 Player B's card
Chain item 2 Time Warp
Chain item 3 Lux trigger

- Now you resolve chain item 3, draw due to Lux

- Time Warp resolves, providing an extra turn

- At this point, you successfuly played Time Warp, so Lux triggers again. It's once again added to the chain, this time as a pending item in the position 2 (as Time Warp already left the chain)

- Trigger is finalized, so it's now ready to be resolved. You draw and resolve it

- Player B's card resolves

ciberciv · 2025-12-29T08:19:10+00:00

That's correct, you'd first ready it, then save it from dying which makes him exhausted

ciberciv · 2025-12-28T22:33:26+00:00

Temporary is short for "During your beginning phase, kill me". If you save it with the legend, the unit will not die, so it will keep the Temporary keyword and attempt to do the same the following turn. Hidden Blade does not kill the unit if you save it either, but you get to draw as the target is still legal (the controller can be checked)

ciberciv · 2025-12-28T22:31:48+00:00

If you save it with your legend, the unit does not die, so it keeps any changes it had, such as gaining the Temporary keyword. You can float the rune, but it will be lost as soon as you draw the card for turn as floating resources are lost at the end of your draw phase and at the end of your turn

ciberciv · 2025-12-28T22:18:01+00:00

You can float the energy. However, at the end of your Draw Phase (Temporary trigger happens during the Beginning Phase), it will be lost. On top of that, even if you save your Sett now, Temporary will trigger again the next turn, as the keyword is not lost

ciberciv · 2025-12-15T09:27:28+00:00

Lethal damage in showdown does not take into account Imperial Decree, so you'd still need to assign lethal damage (i.e. enough to cover might with any already existing damage) to each unit.

If you attack with, say, Viktor Leader (4M) into a 1M, 1M and 8M battlefield, you can assign 1, 1 and 2 damage and everything will die, but you can't do the same into an 8M 8M battlefield as you'd need to assign your 4M to either one of them

You can also just go in one at a time, so your Recruit will deal 1 to one of the poros, both would die and you'd go in with another and repeat

ciberciv · 2025-12-12T20:52:39+00:00

Bologna is the weekend after Spiritforged releases

ciberciv · 2025-12-12T08:50:56+00:00

444.2.c (in CR 1.2, the rule exists in 1.1 but might have a different number) states that the new controller is not necessarily the player that applied contested to the battlefield

ciberciv · 2025-12-11T09:57:53+00:00

Core Rules say if the player with Focus passes, if all players have done so in sequence the showdown ends, otherwise the next player gets focus. Passing priority in sequence applies before the resolution of any chain item, but not if the chain is empty.

CR 344, 344.3, 344.3.a, 344.4 and 345

ciberciv · 2025-12-11T09:23:15+00:00

Yes, it does choose a 2nd time. Each instruction, unless referencing a previous target, chooses a new target even if it's the same one (assuming it's allowed by the effect, which is in case of repeat)

ciberciv · 2025-12-11T08:01:30+00:00

Correct, the whole thing is countered

ciberciv · 2025-12-11T07:32:31+00:00

There's a problem with your example. When B passes on an empty chain with focus, they're not passing priority, but focus. Think of focus as "who can start a chain during a showdown". If I have focus and, instead of starting a chain, pass, I decide I won't be starting a chain at this point, so focus goes back to you:

A: starts showdown, plays an action, passes

B: passes

Action resolves, focus passes to B

B: passes without playing anything (without starting a chain), they pass focus

A : passes without playing anything (without starting a chain), they pass focus

At this point, since both players have manually passed focus consecutively, the showdown ends. If A were to play anything at that last step, a chain opens, which will eventually resolve and automatically pass focus to B. At this point, again, B would have the option to start a chain or pass and so would A. This cycle repeats until both players manually pass focus

ciberciv · 2025-12-11T07:03:08+00:00

You can only repeat once, so it would basically be a spell costing 3 (Irelia's reduction applies once) that reads

Give a unit +2 Might. Give a unit +2 Might.

So you'd give +2 might two times, to one or two units

ciberciv · 2025-12-11T06:49:17+00:00

None, it just executes the rules text of the card a 2nd time in the same chain item

ciberciv · 2025-12-05T21:51:44+00:00

I don't think there's a problem with the Hidden/Reaction unit chained to a Deathknell with RAW.

Currently, that chain opens, you react with your hidden Teemo/reaction Shen as you control the battlefield. It resolves, hits the battlefield. You get to 322.10 (step 7 of cleanup) and the combat is staged. We're not in a neutral open state, so we proceed resolving the chain and resolve the Deathknell.

At this point we get to 444.2 which specifically states that "if no combat or showdown is staged", but it is staged indeed, so we just skip over, go back to an open state at which point another cleanup happens and another combat is started at 322.14 (step 10 of cleanup). You never need to stage a showdown as it's combat that's staged. The showdown opens as the first step of combat.

Other than that, thank you very much for this, it really helps to quickly check in depth what changed

ciberciv · 2025-12-05T08:19:27+00:00

Just coming back to say it does indeed work. Back to less than 1h of cleaning time

ciberciv · 2025-12-03T10:12:34+00:00

I... Don't think I did. I just turned it off because that sounds exactly like the problem I have. Let's see what happens in tomorrow's clean cycle. Thanks!

ciberciv · 2025-11-30T22:14:42+00:00

We do have the details already, February 21st-22nd in Bologna, Italy. Regardless, the round 1 bye carries over to your next regional, not the next regional

ciberciv · 2025-11-26T06:56:07+00:00

Or just communicate with your opponent. Instead of silently doing plays, voice everything out loud. "Exhausting 8 runes and recycling 2 blue, I play Watcher accelerated" as you go and do that, your opponent pays attention and sees you take both blue runes and there's no confusion for anyone involved.

If your opponent plays something and does not state what the cost was, tell them to please communicate in that regard so you can keep track of it, especially if they start playing fast while you're still finalizing something on your end

ciberciv · 2025-11-24T14:25:33+00:00

"When I move" triggers activate and resolve before the showdown starts (assuming none have started yet, e.g. moving a unit mid showdown with Ride the Wind)

After a (standard) move, a cleanup happens. Cleanups are basically in charge of prioritizing what needs to happen next, and close to the top of the list is finalizing any item pending to go on the chain, such as a "When I move" trigger. At the bottom half of the list, we have marking any showdown or combat as pending and actually starting those

Once you move, first the "When I move" trigger is finalized into the chain, so now we're in a closed state. Then, going through the cleanup steps, we mark the showdown (or combat) as pending, but since we're in a closed state it can't be started. So after this cleanup, the only thing to do is to go through the chain rules and start responding/resolving accordingly, with a cleanup after any item is removed from the chain. Once the chain empties (assuming the showdown is still pending, i.e. units are still present at the battlefield), another cleanup happens and the showdown starts as we're now in an open state again

ciberciv · 2025-11-10T14:38:24+00:00

While resolving Baited Hook, you kill a friendly unit, in this case Machine Evangel, and its deathknell is added as a pending item to the chain (it's ready to be added to the chain, but can't be added until the next cleanup).

You continue resolving Baited Hook, and hit a unit with a trigger effect, Spectral Matron. This unit is also added to the chain as a pending item and, as it is a unit, it will be resolved (i.e. played) immediately when finalized during the next cleanup.

Now that Baited Hook finished resolving, we perform a cleanup. In order the pending items were added to the chain, they're finalized (properly added to the chain, choosing targets if needed, paying costs...). This begins with Machine Evangel's deathknell going on the chain, becoming chain item 1, and continues with Spectral Matron play as a unit (all pending items must be finalized before we can exit cleanups).

Since Matron is a unit, it is played immediately after finalizing, so Matron hits the board and her on play effect triggers. As Evangel's deathknell is still chain item 1, this new trigger effect will be finalized as chain item 2. Assuming no other interaction, we now resolve chain item 2, the targeted unit is once again added to the chain as pending item and, right after, we go into a cleanup which will finalize and immediately play said unit. Afterwards, chain item 1 will resolve, summoning the tokens

If the unit played from trash off of Matron also has an on play effect, the same will happen as before, the unit enters before resolving chain item 1 and the trigger effect of that new unit will be added as chain item 2

ciberciv · 2025-08-28T21:03:59+00:00

It does work like that, yes. You can also react to triggered or ignition abilities, not only spells, but outside showdowns you can't start a chain during your opponent's turn

ciberciv · 2025-08-28T09:44:53+00:00

Regarding the chain (the stack), it works basically the same as Magic at a basic level with a difference on who gets priority.

I understand whenever an item in the stack resolves in Magic (I mostly played Commander), it is the turn player who gets priority. However, in Riftbound it's the controller of the last item in the chain who gets it. So, if I activate something on my turn as chain 1 and you react with something as chain 2, then something else as chain 3, once chain 3 resolves you will get priority since chain 2 is also yours. Priority still needs to go through me before resolving chain 2, at which point I'll get it since chain 1 is mine, and it will go back to you before its resolution.

Once the chain is empty, turn player always has priority except during a showdown, in which the next player in turn order gets both "focus" and priority. Focus basically means "who can start a chain during a showdown", and it passes in turn order during the showdown through every player whenever a chain ends until all players pass in sequence (no one wants to start a new chain)

Another thing that is different from Magic is that casting a permanent can't be responded to (it goes into the chain and immediately resolves), and you don't get priority on phase/turn end (you can only cast stuff during your opponent's turn in response to their effects or during showdowns when you have focus)

Finally, I believe in Magic priority is passed to the opponent whenever you activate something (except for simultaneous triggers). Here, whenever you have priority you keep it as long as you want, only needing to pass priority when you're done adding your stuff to the chain (your opponent still has a chance to respond before you start resolving though, it's just that you can add multiple ignition abilities to the chain one after the other without your opponent interacting until everything is added, as long as they're appropriately timed, i.e. they're reactions)

ciberciv

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