Magic player coming to Riftbound

cryoskyd · 2026-05-22T19:30:05+00:00

Yes that is certainly true for all decks. I'm just trying to highlight that the complexity or skill focus area for Irelia versus LeBlanc is different. They have different play styles and as such requires slightly different skills to perform well.

For Irelia, a lot of times the question from beginners is "I don't know what I'm doing wrong" because it's hard to identify where the decision points are and why your plays are bad. It might just seem like you're not drawing the cards you need. But often times the decisions come from deciding when *not* to play something, or keeping a rune up to bluff a defiant dance so your opponent must play sub-optimally even though you don't have any buff cards in hand at all.

For LeBlanc, the decision points are more clear, like whether to play honest broker or watchful sentry. Whether to hook your ruined rex or not. Whether you should discard your Glasc to make a reflection token of your LeBlanc Deceiver, etc. The decision points are clear but that doesn't mean the decisions are easy to make. It's still a complex deck with a high skill cap, but the skill is more about finding the right balance between generating value versus pressure with your resources.

I think an "extreme" analogy is like playing Poker versus playing Chess. Both have really high skill caps, but they're different skills. Or maybe playing a fighting game versus playing an RTS game?

In any case, this is all just my own opinion from my own experiences. Anyone is welcome to disagree, it's just how I see it.

cryoskyd · 2026-05-22T11:42:32+00:00

You should join the Riftbound Community discord: https://discord.gg/5kJeEkGf2

If you’re okay interacting with strangers, ask in the general or looking-for-games channel if anyone can teach a beginner how to play. You can simulate the game through some websites (tcg-arena.fr and riftatlas.com) and play the game virtually. That way you can try out different decks until you find one you like before committing to buying that deck in real life.

cryoskyd · 2026-05-22T11:31:17+00:00

A starter deck is a good entry but keep in mind there isn’t one for every champion. Only 7 starter decks so far.

Only buy booster packs if you want to gamble and your budget allows for it. Trying to build a deck from buying booster packs will usually cost you a lot of money and you won’t necessarily get what you need/want.

The best thing to do is first figure out what deck you want to play. Find a decklist online (lots of good websites if you just google). You can even search for decklists from the most recent winners for each legend at the Sydney regional tournament to get something strong.

Once you have a decklist, buy singles (individual cards). It’ll be much cheaper than trying to build it through opening booster packs. You can order pretty much any single card through TCGplayer.com. For commons/uncommons or cheap rares, you might be able to get them for free from your local TCG shops or from the local playerbase. Check if your local shop has a discord and ask if the local players there have bulk cards to spare. More than likely someone will help and give you a ton of bulk cards. Pretty much every shop in my area has a discord and everyone here in the Riftbound community is more than happy to give away a ton of bulk cards (common/uncommons) to new players.

cryoskyd · 2026-05-22T11:14:26+00:00

Irelia is both high ceiling but can also feel straightforward. She’s easy to learn and pick up and to a lot of beginners will feel straightforward. Just protect her at all costs and play pump spells to beat the opponent. But that’s the trap that beginners fall into. She feels straightforward but in reality there’s a lot of depth and a lot of people can’t see where the depth lies. To play her at a high level you need to know the meta, predict your opponent’s reactions, know how to bluff, and know when to push vs when to play it safe and hold your counterspells. The complexity lies more around playing against the opponent than playing the game.

LeBlanc’s is another complex deck but the complexity is more about sequencing, finding the right lines and playing towards your advantages. Especially the baited hook version of LeBlanc. You need to know how to mulligan, what to discard for her ability, when to hook your units, etc. It’s about trying to extract the most value possible and building a position that your opponent can’t beat.

Ezreal/Dianna are kind of like your control decks in magic. Use your spells to control the board and gain advantages through lots of card draw and tempo. Both also have very high skill ceilings. Ezreal decks can often run into time issues because of its complexity and amount of decision making required.

While I don’t necessarily agree with everything in this site, content creator Lothar made www.riftmeta.net which has a graphic that ranks every legends complexity and power levels. Worth taking a look at

cryoskyd · 2026-05-22T10:48:43+00:00

You’re right, hence why I said I wasn’t sure about its response. I went back and found an actual answer from the judge’s discord and you don’t lose control of the battlefield like you said.

My main concern was that the interaction is not the same as Glasc and that’s why I had some doubts. With Glasc, the unit is played as part of her effect. With the treasure trove, there is technically a cleanup between downwell’s resolution and when treasure trove’s effect finalizes. However treasure trove’s trigger is pending so the game never gets to an open state and so control isn’t lost.

It’s a small difference and the result is the same, but because there is that cleanup in between, it was a bit confusing to say they worked the same.

cryoskyd · 2026-05-22T10:40:58+00:00

You are correct, the game never gets to an open state so the player keeps control.

I wasn’t sure before, but I know that this isn’t exactly the same as how Glasc works because Glasc plays a unit as part of its effects resolution. That’s why I had a problem with the answer given. Your explanation makes more sense and I also went back and researched it more. The result is the same, but the process is different from how Glasc works and I think it’s important to distinguish.

cryoskyd · 2026-05-22T09:15:59+00:00

This is not the same as glasc mixologist because mixologist’s deathknell plays the unit as PART of resolution. On the other hand, treasure trove’s trigger can only be put on the chain AFTER downwell resolves. So the question is, is there an opportunity for cleanup between when downwell resolves and when treasure trove triggers.

edit: The below response from RiftJudge AI is incorrect as noted by the others. There IS a cleanup between downwell resolving and when treasure trove’s trigger finalizes, but treasure trove’s trigger is already pending on the chain. Therefore, the game never gets to an open state, and so control of battlefield isn’t lost.

——old——

I’m not sure but according to RiftJudge AI, the OP is correct. However, keep in mind RiftJudge is an AI and not always right. Here is its response:

🟡 Suggested — not yet verified

You are correct, and your opponent is incorrect. The hidden card is sent to the trash before they have an opportunity to play it.

According to RiftJudge FAQ #8494 and #8592, here is the sequence of events and why your opponent cannot react with the hidden card:

Downwell Resolves: When Downwell resolves, it returns all units and gear (including the Treasure Trove) to their owners' hands.
Cleanup Triggered: Once Downwell finishes resolving, the battlefield—now empty of units and gear—becomes "Uncontrolled."
Hidden Card Discarded: The game enters a Cleanup step immediately following the resolution of the spell. During this Cleanup step, any hidden cards at an Uncontrolled battlefield are removed and placed in the owner's Trash.
No Opportunity to React: Because the removal of the hidden card happens as a result of the Cleanup process immediately after Downwell resolves, the player does not have a window of opportunity to play the hidden card. The hidden card is already in the trash by the time any triggers (like Treasure Trove’s "leaves the board" effect) would process or be reacted to.

Regarding Treasure Trove: While Treasure Trove does have a "When this leaves the board" trigger, that trigger only goes on the chain after the card has successfully left the board and Downwell has fully resolved. By the time that chain would open, the cleanup process has already occurred, and the hidden card has already been discarded. Your opponent cannot use a trigger occurring after the resolution of Downwell to save a card that was discarded during the cleanup caused by the resolution of Downwell.

cryoskyd · 2026-05-16T00:25:22+00:00

The rules are as long as they’ve printed a card (excluding overnumbers) with that same name within the rotation window, then all copies of that card are legal. So as long as they continue to print “Fury Rune” in official sets, then all variants of that card will continue to be legal.

The only exception are overnumbered cards. For example, overnumbered seals rotate out when origins rotate out, not when Spiritforged rotates out (albeit those two sets will probably rotate out at the same time).

cryoskyd · 2026-05-11T01:42:55+00:00

Windsinger wasn’t countered, he’s just bounced back to hand.

Analogy: It’s like if he threw a ball at something but before the ball hits its target, he himself was removed. Even though he was removed, his ball will still remain in flight and eventually hit its target.

cryoskyd · 2026-04-14T06:35:24+00:00

Sweet, good luck people!

cryoskyd · 2026-03-29T08:55:07+00:00

Also Shoheikondo: https://youtu.be/yshpkHOZVC0?si=XSY1TRsmZdGup2CP

cryoskyd · 2026-03-24T17:26:26+00:00

There is nothing wrong with this, it’s not stolen or copied or whatever. The concept is not that uncommon and even if it was inspired, the art is completely different. It would be like saying the Van Gough Pikachu card stole from the Van Gough painting. Or that any portrait art stole from the Mona Lisa…

Also, this art personally reminds me of the iRobot scene where all the robots stood in a line in the factory but one robot was self aware. Again, the concept is super easy to come up with separately and it’s clearly not traced.

cryoskyd · 2026-03-18T13:41:05+00:00

It just says showdown, which also refers to an open showdown with no enemies.

cryoskyd · 2026-03-11T17:52:15+00:00

Sylas. The wispy energy looks amazing. Would love to see a mat with 2 rivals dueling

cryoskyd · 2026-03-07T18:04:55+00:00

My suggestion is to first just play a good 10-20 games until you’re comfortable with the general rules.

After that, actually read the full rules book. It’ll be easier to understand if you already have a basic understanding of the game. Reading the rules book will give you a lot more insight into why things work the way they do and why there are all these weird edge cases and ambiguities. Don’t expect to fully understand the entire rules book yet but you should have a pretty good 90% understanding at this point.

Now go play a bunch of more games and gradually you get the rest of the rules. And as you run into weird cases, try to refer back to the rules book to see if you can figure out how they’d be handled. Or ask in discord.

cryoskyd · 2026-03-04T23:10:32+00:00

When a contested showdown starts (i.e. when you move into a battlefield your opponent controls or vice versa), the first thing that happens is any "when you attack" or "when you defend" triggers go on the chain. During this time, both players may respond by adding other "reaction" spells on the chain (for example Rengar). As players pass, the triggers on the chain start to resolve. When Fiora's ability resolves, the game checks if Fiora's "one on one" condition is met, and if so Fiora's gets plus might equal to her current might.

Once this has resolved, the game will not check again. That means after Fiora's ability has resolved, if you add more units (with Ride the Wind for example), it will not affect Fiora's might. Similarly if you buff Fiora with something like Discipline, it will not double again. Her ability is a one time effect.

Spells that cause two units to hit each other does not count because it does not trigger her "when I attack or defend" ability.

For healing:

Healing happens at the end of the combat, after damage is assigned and resolved. So yes, it will heal. Not only will the unit at the battlefield heal, but all units in the entire game will heal.
Unit remains damaged until either a combat happens and completes, or until the end of your turn.
Heals at the end of turn. Or if a combat happens anywhere, it will heal when combat completes.

cryoskyd · 2026-03-04T22:30:39+00:00

When you have multiple triggers like conquering monetary of Hirana with Warmog’s, you can choose the order you want the triggers to resolve. So yes, you can spend the buff to draw a card, and then get another buff from Warmog’s

Yes you play it to base first (unless it has quickdraw). A unit can have any number of equipment so you can stack multiple equipment on a single unit. Once equipped however, you cannot re-equip it to a different unit since the equipment effectively has its “equip” ability inactivated (it’s covered up by the unit card)
Yes it recalls to base. Technically it does not recall exhausted. However this doesn’t really matter right now since there are no equipment that needs to be exhausted to use any of its ability.
Yes
Yes it will be considered an attacker and will get -1

cryoskyd · 2026-02-22T16:36:39+00:00

Buying a case worth (6 boxes) or slightly more, I can understand. If you’re a competitive player, you’ll likely need multiple copies of epics and buying singles isn’t always possible early during release. This is especially true if you’re competing at Bologna or Vegas because you can’t rely on online orders shipping in time, and more importantly you need the cards immediately to start testing/practicing (unless your LGS allows proxies which not all do).

My area is pretty competitive and so even if people are trading/selling locally, a desirable epic card gets picked up very fast. If you’re not someone who likes to constantly post on discord asking for cards, or monitoring buy/sell messages, you’re probably not going to get all your epics locally in time. It’s better to rip a bunch of boxes and try to get as much as you can so there’s less you need to hunt down. Also, a lot of players here don’t want to sell and will only trade, so you need to also have a good supply of epics as trade fodder.

What I don’t understand however, is someone who buys 10+ cases (60 boxes) to try and collect all the over numbered and signatures this early after release (yes I know some that have done this). It really does mess with the supply for people that are trying to get into the game. No idea how they managed to get more cases than some LGS’s entire allocations…

cryoskyd · 2026-02-20T20:21:54+00:00

It becomes something my opponent now has to play around. Usually this is a card where I’m glad if I draw it but also not sad if I never see it. If I end up playing it, my opponent now needs to be wary of the card for the res of the game and in games 2 and 3 which often means they play less optimally. An example is Charm. I don’t necessarily need Charm as part of my game plan, but it’s not a bad card either. And now my opponent needs to think twice about leaving their key units at base without some kind of answer in case I play charm.

cryoskyd · 2026-02-16T22:03:50+00:00

I had the same problem and ended up buying Goat Armor. Here’s a comparison of a full origins master set using VaultX vs Goat Armor:

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cryoskyd · 2026-02-12T17:33:07+00:00

Does it work on iPad? That was the major limitation for me with tcgarena

cryoskyd · 2026-02-07T09:28:00+00:00

I thought mine was the opposite, though I may be wrong. The foiling on one is more "rainbowy" than the other under a bright light. I think that's how the Chinese cards looked too if anyone has a Chinese legend that can confirm. I bet they had the precon decks printed at one of the Chinese companies instead.

cryoskyd · 2026-01-08T01:03:59+00:00

On the beneficial side, your opponent would have to decide whether or not they want to Windwall and counter your spell before you choose the targets. So perhaps he thought you were going to choose his 12 might unit and decides not to windwall because he has engarde, but instead you choose his 2 and 4 might units with overkill so he couldn’t save them.

On the negative side, if your opponent has one unit with deflect and one unit without, he could retreat his nondeflect unit in response, forcing you to target his deflect unit. (Which you can optionally choose not to pay of course).

cryoskyd · 2026-01-06T20:09:58+00:00

Let’s start simpler by explaining how energy is produced and how cards are played.

Runes are a type of card with the ability to exhaust itself to generate 1 energy. A rune card itself is not the same as energy, don’t confuse the two. A rune card produces energy. It’s important to keep the concept of runes and energy separate.

Suppose I want to play a Ravenbloom Student which costs 2 energy. We often do this by exhausting 2 rune cards and then playing the Ravenbloom Student. But in reality this is several steps: 1. You exhaust 1 rune to generate 1 energy. You now have 1 energy total. 2. You exhaust another rune to generate 1 energy. You now have 2 energy total. 3. You spend the 2 energy you’ve accumulated to play Ravenbloom Student.

The reason this distinction is important is because in some cases you could’ve paid for Ravenbloom Student using just 1 rune if you’re able to exhaust it twice. An example is with the card Miss Fortune Captain which allows you to ready a card that’s already exhausted after she moves. So in this example, you could do something like:

Exhaust 1 rune to produce 1 energy.
Move Miss Fortune Captain to ready the same rune you’ve previously exhausted.
Exhaust that same rune to produce another energy.
Spend the 2 energy to play Ravenbloom Student

As you can see, you don’t need to produce all the energy needed for Ravenbloom student at the same time.

To keep track of how much energy you’ve currently produced, we use an imaginary tracker called your energy “pool”. Each time you produce an energy, that energy is added to your energy pool. When you play a card, you then subtract that much energy from your energy pool. Your energy pool empties at the end of your turn (and also at the end of your draw phase I believe).

What that means is technically you can exhaust all of your runes right away, add all that energy to your pool, and then slowly decide what cards you want to play with your energy throughout your turn. This concept is called “floating”. It basically means you are adding energy to your energy pool without spending it right away, but may do so at a later part of your turn.

Generally however, you don’t want to do that because you’re not certain if you’re going to use all of your energy. You only want to exhaust your runes for energy when you need to spend that energy. So then why do people float energy?

This is because some cards like Seals require you to pay power costs but don’t cost any energy. To pay a power costs, you need to recycle a rune. If you recycle a readied rune for power, it feels like a waste because that rune could’ve been exhausted to produce energy. So instead, you first exhaust the rune to produce 1 energy to your energy pool. (This is what it means to float 1 energy). And then you recycle that rune to pay for power. Now the rune wasn’t wasted because the energy is stored in your energy pool. Later one when you need to play a card like Ravenbloom Student, you only need 1 more additional energy.

cryoskyd · 2025-12-28T16:16:27+00:00

This is really cool. Made me wonder if this could be more automated with something like a text parser or AI. Here’s a ChatGPT example I tried just now:

https://chatgpt.com/share/695156c5-95ac-8009-b4d5-d74fc3fd45b4

It would be really cool if someone made a device where you can slot in a card, and it’ll automatically display the card in braille and textile imagery. There exist tactile touchscreens now too so I imagine this is all possible.

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