The wait is finally over for Riftbound’s Vendetta booster set, as its release is now just around the corner. This will be the League of Legends TCG’s fourth big drop with pre-release events at local stores starting July 24th with the global release on July 31st. That’s right! With the game having about a year under its belt now, fans finally have a synced-up release with both English and Chinese languages for the first time. Not only is this great for the meta, but players will also have some new deck combinations to mess around with as the set introduces new legends with opposing colors or domains and, of course, new mechanics like Flow to give some extra options out of hand. Not to mention, some overnumbered cards are getting a sleek take on rivalries, with diptychs or cards that can be displayed side-by-side to show a full art piece. From what I’ve seen so far, Vendetta is looking to be a fun set as players get deep into deck brewing with what could be one of the freshest meta for the game to date.
With new keywords brings some form of power creep, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see new staples in every deck of this upcoming meta. First and foremost, there’s the Flow keyword, which allows players to play cards from their discard pile and remove them from the game. This is great as a surprise move if opposing players forget to check what’s in your trash. Even then, it’s a good threat to have even if they are paying attention. Either way, it’s an easy way to keep your options open if your hand size gets too small. As long as you have enough resources to pay the cost, Flow can really turn the tide of a showdown. For example, the signature spell Public Execution allows the player to kill an opposing unit if it has less might than a chosen friendly unit for the spell. When it’s in the discard pile, you can pay the heavy cost of five runes and recycle two runes to play it again and remove it from the game. Playing from the discard is a huge advantage, so it makes sense that they never stay in the discard pile after use in that way. The Public Execution spell is a signature of the legend Ambessa, and one of her new champion units, Ambessa The Wolf, fits with this quite well. If empowered or upgraded, Ambessa The Wolf gains +3 might and can’t be dealt damage unless in combat. With a total might of seven, Ambessa at base can use Public Execution to safely take one unit out of the equation during showdowns as other units go on the offensive. Whether it’s to conquer or defend a battlefield, using cards via Flow are game changing.
Speaking of Empowered, it’s another new keyword that enables the upgrade of certain cards for the rest of the time that they’re on the field, unless otherwise reversed or negated. For instance, Helm of Suppression is a gear that can be empowered with a cost of 4 runes and one calm recycle. Its basic form applies a one-rune tax to opposing players’ spell cost, but when Empowered, it adds an additional tax of one rune recycle. That’s pretty devastating when spells are so often used to support units during a showdown. If not careful, players can be greatly limited in their options as long as an opposing Helm of Suppression stays on the field. Not to mention, it seems to be rare to disempower gear specifically so players will need some gear removal if you want to tech against this taxing helm. Another cool card showcasing Empowered is Kharox. When Empowered, an opponent Burns or discards three cards from the top of their deck. After doing this, the owner of Kharox may play a unit in their opponent’s trash onto the field while ignoring its cost. So essentially as the Kharox player, you’re rolling the dice by forcing cards into your opponent’s trash to then steal control of one of their units. If you’re lucky, you might be able to steal a 10 cost/10 might Corrupted Dragon in your favor. Empowered has some really cool effects with some cards gaining powerful passive abilities, while others have strong one-time uses for every instance of being Empowered.
That leads us to the last new keyword briefly mentioned already, Burn. For the most part, it goes hand-in-hand with Flow, since players need cards in the trash to even use Flow in the first place. With this keyword, a typical TCG player’s mind would go to a mill deck, but running out of cards in a deck is not a lose condition in Riftbound. Instead, running out of cards in a deck initiates a Burn Out, where the player shuffles their trash back into their deck and awards the opposing player a point. In some ways, a mill deck could win, but it’s not instantaneous like other TCG games. With that said, Burn seems to be most fitting with purple/chaos decks like the new Kennen and Zed Legends, since those chaos cards tend to have discard and now Burn. Red/Fury is also another consistent route to get more cards in your trash, with past cards already allowing discard. If you choose to only use one of these domains for a Burn/Flow deck, the Shadow Temple battlefield is helpful with Burn 3 if you hold it. These keywords have been quite fun to strategize around with so far, with Burn and Flow being the most impactful based on my experience.
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