We Talk With Riot Senior Designer Jon Moormann at PAX East

“There are always cards that we think will be impactful or differently impactful than we think they are. In internal testing with various champions, we play things in different ways than other people do. The current Miracle deck is an interesting one. In internal testing we had a deck that was maybe 80% of what we see now at tournaments. That’s an archetype where, if you’re 20% off, that’s a really big difference in what the deck is. Whereas if you’re 20% off on a deck that’s more straightforward like a beatdown strategy . . . the deck plays mostly the same. But something with such a tight synergistic package as [Miracle], being slightly off means a big difference in player experience. We kind of have to round up on our expectations for what the deck will look like during live”. A live deck is an internal term that refers to a deck currently part of the public meta.

I’m fascinated by design timelines, and wanted to know about the testing process behind current meta decks when mixed with upcoming set releases, citing the powerful combo of Dazzling Aurora with Unleashed cards like Baron Nashor and Elder Dragon. Moormann confirms that the team does indeed test these situations extensively, both with and without sideboards — not everybody will be playing a best-of-three match, so it’s important to explore all avenues. If you’re unfamiliar, many popular TCG games are played through best-of-three matches. A sideboard is another collection of cards (eight in Riftbound) that you can exchange for cards in your main deck in between games. This is to help give yourself an edge if you’re facing a particularly bad matchup or certain cards in your deck aren’t as effective.

Moving away from the competitive side of things, we wanted to gain a bit more insight into how Legend cards are chosen for any given set.

“We kind of just start with a loose theme for the set. For Origins we were like alright, we’re making a TCG, we want to do iconic League of Legends characters and also iconic TCG strategies, like a token deck for Viktor. Unleashed was a much more firm theme — we’re doing the Jungle, so we wanted to do iconic Jungle champions.”

Unleashed, Riftbound’s upcoming third set, takes the idea of the Jungle in the online game and translates it perfectly to tabletop, thanks to its inclusion of popular Jungle characters and new card mechanics. Rengar likes to hide in the Jungle and jump out trying to kill people, evident with the new Ambush mechanic, which allows units to be played at Reaction speed to any Battlefield you have units at. Master Yi likes using the Jungle to farm those neutral monsters to grind for XP and play the late game, and his new Legend card depicts this very accurately. In Riftbound, XP is gained primarily through the new Hunt keyword, which nets you XP whenever you conquer or hold a Battlefield. With Master Yi, Wuju Master, grinding XP unlocks powerful static abilities that are perfect for aggressive strategies.

Like the new Master Yi, Wuju Master Legend, which marks the first time in Riftbound a preexisting Legend card got a new, mechanically-unique version, we asked Moormann if they would eventually plan to release Legend or Champion cards using different Domains, to which he confirmed that “yes, many Champions fit into more than just two Domains, and it will be interesting to see how we approach that in the future”, seemingly teasing future plans for Legends with three Domains instead of the standard two.

Riftbound is a brand new TCG, and as such there can be a barrier to entry to get started, both for new TCG players and tabletop veterans. We asked if the team is surprised by the game’s complexity creating said barrier, or if it’s what they expected.

“It’s about what we expected. We wanted to thread this needle of like, we want it to be accessible enough to where you can teach your friends – we’re a League of Legends card game, we’re [going to be] be getting a lot of people who haven’t played card games because they’re interested in League – but we also want to make sure it has depth enough that it’s a lasting and durable game.”

Moormann does admit, however, that while it’s what they expected, the barrier to entry is a little higher than the team would want, but that allows them to operate with a really high ceiling that, for the ultimate longevity of the game, is more important. But introductory products like Proving Grounds, which the team has since moved away from despite a big reprint initiative happening soon, and Champion Decks are still the best ways to get in on the action.

Whether you’re a casual player looking to play group games with friends or a competitive grinder on the hunt for your next victory, organized play events are the backbone (and lifeblood) of any successful trading card game, and Riftbound is no different. But there is a general demand for more, in terms of both the amount of events and their size, with even base spectator passes selling out within minutes. We asked if the team had plans to address this in the near future, and Moormann was only able to offer that the team is very aware of the situation, is looking into it, and can’t speak to specifics quite yet. But looking to the future, Moorman did emphasize that there are plans to introduce an eternal, non-rotating format into Riftbound once the first Standard rotation happens at the start of 2028 with the game’s 10th set, something the team has confirmed since the game’s launch.

Finally, I wanted to know just how far in advance a set begins development. Moormann gave some great insight here; “We’re like 6 sets ahead, and that development cycle is very long. The process going from like, what is the ideal theme of the set into which Champions we’re picking, and then down to which archetypes and which cards are included involves a lot of time and testing. Because of that, we have a ton of preexisting art from lore and we’re trying to get more original Riftbound art [included], and we don’t want to rush the artists”.

This next bit of information makes a lot more sense now that we know they’ve decided to ban three Battlefield cards from competitive play. Moorman continues, “the design space around Battlefields can be super complicated and one of the things we learned most about over the course of the game. They exist in a very particular space where they come out at the start of the game, they’re almost impossible to interact with, and they do something for free”.

Riftbound’s third set Unleashed launches April 10 in China and in English on May 8, so you won’t have to wait too long to get your hands on the brand new cards.