Riftbound, the League of Legends trading card game, launched in late October to an incredible fan reaction. Packs, themed decks, and an all-in-one tutorial game called Proving Grounds quickly sold out, and the competitive scene is starting to come into its own with tournaments popping up all over the country.
PAX Unplugged served as the launching pad for the game’s second set, Spiritforged, which will launch in early 2026. New cards, mechanics, and Champions were debuted during an hour-long panel led by Dave Guskin, the lead designer for Riftbound at Riot Games, and previews of new cards have popped up around the internet since then.
We sat down with Dave Guskin at PAX Unplugged to learn more about internal reactions to Riftbound’s release, as well as what the team has planned for Spiritforged and beyond. We also have an exclusive card from Spiritforged to reveal, with Guskin giving his thoughts on how this new Champion can best be used in battle.
Lessons Learned
Riftbound’s first set, Origins, has been in the wild for a month now, and Guskin says the team is feeling good, despite a few speed bumps. The biggest of those, both fans and the design team can agree, is getting the product out to those who want it. Guskin assured me that the team has been “doing as much as we can to get cards to the players,” but acknowledges that demand is high.
When planning the first run of Origins, the team had a decision to make: Do they overprint and risk product sitting on shelves, which may make potential players think the game isn’t selling well or cause logistical issues for the stores selling them, or do they underprint and risk discontent from fans looking for a product that’s sold out everywhere? Guskin admits it was a challenge, but the team did have a strategy.
“We tried to hit as close as we could to having enough product, but we knew that no matter what we did, we were going to fall short,” Guskin says. “We wanted to make sure that we got cards to our players, but we also wanted to do [so] while not making choices that could hurt the long-term viability of the game, both for players and for the market. I’d say we played it on the safe side.”
Those who did open the first run of packs might have found an odd problem, in that some packs were reported to only have one rare card instead of the usual two. While the team was disheartened to hear about this, with Guskin specifically pointing out how it may have impacted the experience of opening those first packs, the team is trying to make things right with those customers.
“We have done some due diligence in figuring out how that happened and how it can be prevented in the future,” Guskin confirms, “Getting that feedback, having players show us those packs, was really helpful, and led us to analyze our processes and find ways to get better.” Guskin also mentioned a “rare replacement pack” program that was recently launched, where affected players can sign up to receive a randomized rare card.
Now that the first run has been released, the early competitive scene has begun to develop, with names like Annie and Sett emerging at the top of recent high-profile tournaments. While the design team knew some decks would be strong–Guskin also named Champions like Kai’sa, Ahri, and Teemo among top performers–they didn’t really know how the first competitive metagame was going to shake out.
“It’s hard to predict, because millions of players around the world in aggregate are much better at exploring the game and finding powerful strategies than our little design team,” he explained. “In general, I think we knew the relative strengths, but I wouldn’t say that we knew exactly what specific builds would be strong, because it’s the sort of thing that you just have to see players in the wild come up with.”
“Overall, we’re really happy with the decks people are finding, and the excitement for Nexus Nights at local game stores,” Guskin said. “We were excited for launch, but now that we’re past it, we’re on to the next thing.”
