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Riftbound\u2019s final set of the year, Radiance, is finally upon us, and I went hands-on with the cards at a very<\/em> early Pre-Rift tournament. This marks the League of Legends TCG\u2019s fifth set, and features musically-inspired designs and brand new mechanics poised to disrupt the meta. <\/p>\nI also had the chance to talk with Chengran Chai, the executive producer of Riftbound, to get some insight about the set straight from the source in a joint interview with Temple of Geek\u2019s Myles Obenza. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\nRadiance’s booster display and booster pack.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/output><\/p>\n
First, a quick recap of the new mechanics being introduced in Radiance, with some of Chai\u2019s commentary: <\/p>\n
New Radiance Keywords: Disarm, Show Off, Deploy<\/h3>\n Disarm <\/strong>is the simplest of the new mechanics: When your unit with Disarm attacks<\/strong>, it reduces the might of an enemy unit at that battlefield, usually by one. It immediately made me think of Ahri\u2019s original abilities, which is fitting, since the new green (Calm) Ahri, Confident, comes with Disarm. Her unit has a built-in buff when you reduce the Might of an enemy unit, gaining +1 Might herself. The promising new blue (Mind) Kai\u2019sa, Rebel, has both Disarm and <\/em>gives spells Reaction speed when in a showdown. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n
Riftbound: Radiance Disarm Cards<\/h3>\n<\/span><\/output><\/p>\n
Show Off <\/strong>is a mechanic that might be familiar to you if you\u2019ve played other popular TCGs. Cards with Show Off gain an additional effect if you \u201cShow Off\u201d a qualifying card to your opponent as you play it. We\u2019ve only seen four cards in Radiance with Show Off so far\u2013two units and two spells\u2013and they each grant totally different effects. The 5-cost yellow (Order) Spell Rousing Display (clearly part of the Legend Seraphine\u2019s kit) plays four<\/em> 1-Might Recruit Tokens to your base instead of just one if<\/em> you Show Off a card with Energy cost 7 or more. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n
Riftbound: Radiance Show Off Cards<\/h3>\n<\/span><\/output><\/p>\n
Chai said that Show Off is a trade off\u2013you\u2019re giving away information in exchange for something, but TCGs are very much a game of information. \u201cIf I\u2019m planning a spell heavy deck, whether you have Defy or not in your hand matters a great deal to me,\u201d Chai explained. \u201cShow Off basically opens up another dimension to the kind of like, 3D, 4D chess\u2013that\u2019s 5D.\u201d
Deploy <\/strong>is a keyword specifically for Gear, allowing you to deploy<\/em> that Gear straight to a Battlefield. While there, it\u2019ll provide an effect, but will be killed if your opponent holds the Battlefield it\u2019s at. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n\n
Riftbound: Radiance – Deploy Cards<\/h3>\n<\/span><\/output><\/p>\n\n\nToken Gear – Bomb<\/strong><\/p>\nThere\u2019s also a new Token Gear<\/strong> as well, called Bomb. This Token Gear has Deploy, and when it \u201cdies,\u201d it explodes, dealing two damage and triggering the other Bombs at the battlefield. Like other deployable gear, Bombs \u201cdie\u201d when an opponent holds the battlefield they\u2019re at, but you can always kill it yourself in various ways to trigger the effects. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/output><\/aside>\n<\/section>\n
\u201cI think Deploy is probably the one that will disrupt [the meta], because historically, you don’t think of just going straight to a battlefield,\u201d Chai said. \u201cAnd now you have, like, Jarvan IV\u2019s E-Q, you have Ziggs just tossing bombs onto battlefields, and it’s going to change the way people think about Defending quite a bit.\u201d Orianna’s Legend ability allows you to turn a friendly Gear into a Gear Unit at the start of your Main Phase, a pretty tricky and cool thing you can do to steal some points with Deployable Gear! Her Signature Gear, The Ball, is especially interesting as it also gains Ganking, <\/em>allowing it to roll back and forth between battlefields each turn. Chai seemed to be especially high on Orianna along with Deploy, noting her Legend and The Ball as playable cards he’d want to showcase from this set. <\/p>\nBoth Show Off and Deploy up the complexity of Riftbound. But, Deploy and Disarm seem to be mechanics that will absolutely<\/em> disrupt defensive Hold strategies the most, which is especially scary for me as someone who\u2019s playing Akali and Vex with Astral Heron hold strategies! <\/p>\nRadiance Pre-Rift and Sealed Hands-On<\/h3>\n Last time I got to play with a set early, it was strictly with a preconstructed showcase deck behind closed doors, and I didn\u2019t have more than thirty minutes to actually play with the cards. This time, however, we got a Pre-Rift tournament plus packs to take home to tinker with. So, I played Radiance with one seeded Pre-Rift deck and built two \u201cSealed\u201d decks to test out\u2013some of which were more successful than others! <\/p>\n
<\/p>\nMy Pre-Rift Kit components at the Radiance Summit at Riot Games HQ. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/output><\/p>\n\n\nWhat is a Pre-Rift? <\/strong>third color<\/em>, enabling combos that couldn\u2019t exist outside of the sealed format.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<\/section>\nIn my Radiance Pre-Rift Kit, I got the orange (Body) and yellow (Order) Jarvan IV, Exemplar of Demacia Legend. Jarvan\u2019s Legend ability makes use of the new Deploy keyword: \u201cWhen you play a gear with [Deploy], you may exhaust me and pay [1 Power] to move a friendly unit to that battlefield.\u201d <\/p>\n
I threw in plenty of Gears with Deploy, cards with Gear synergies, plus a couple purple (Chaos) cards that made Bombs, drew cards, and generated Gold so I\u2019d have a decent supply of Power to activate Jarvan IV\u2019s Legend Ability. I removed the 7-cost Jarvan IV, Royal Heir as my chosen Champion Unit, though, and replaced it with the K\u2019Sante, Courageous I pulled. High-cost chosen champions aren\u2019t generally the best move, especially in the speedy Pre-Rift format, and though K\u2019sante still costs a pretty hefty 5 runes, having a Unit with Accelerate at my fingertips in the late game proved to be invaluable. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\nMy Pre-Rift deck at the Radiance Summit at Riot Games HQ. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/output><\/p>\n
I can\u2019t say I was thrilled at opening Jarvan IV at first (I was hoping for Riven or Evelynn), but after playing just a few turns, the deck strategy clicked spectacularly for me. I was also lucky enough to get a new battlefield called Hunter\u2019s Circle, which reads, \u201cFor each player, the first unit or gear they play here on their turn costs 1 less,\u201d which goes super <\/em>well with Deployable Gear, since you can play them to the battlefield whenever you want on your turn! <\/p>\nIn my first game, a test match, I went second. I played Concert Poster to Hunter\u2019s Circle for free, allowing me to then play Skystrike Squadron for a reduced cost of 3 for returning Concert Poster to my hand. A 4-Might Unit with Reflect on my first turn: Not bad! <\/em>On my next turn, I was able to create two Recruits with Concert Poster and<\/em> Buff a Recruit and my Skystrike Squadron with Pillaged Armory. Maybe some godlike luck allowed for this to happen, but it felt pretty dang nifty! <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/output><\/p>\n
With this build, I have <\/em>to shoutout Portable Portal, a 2-cost orange (Body) Gear with Deploy. When I showed this card to someone, they said they knew it\u2019d be a menace just because Teemo is on it. When you play it, you can pay one orange (Body) power to ready a Unit. Friendly units at that battlefield with Portable Portal also<\/em> have Ganking. These abilities paired with the Jarvan IV Legend allowed for double conquering in one turn, or allowing for a Gank and then a retreat with Jarvan\u2019s ability, protecting my Unit. It\u2019s a rare card, though, so pulling it in a Pre-Rift isn\u2019t exactly guaranteed! <\/p>\n\n\nWhat is Sealed? <\/strong><\/p>\nSealed is a format where each player opens six 14-card booster packs and builds a 25-card deck with the cards they pull from those packs and nothing else\u2013a great activity to do if four friends want to split a booster box! This format is way less consistent than Pre-Rift without a pre-seeded deck, but is still quite fun. If you don\u2019t get a Legend or Chosen Champion you want to use, you get the bonus of drawing an extra card for each on your first turn, which is true in Pre-Rift, too. <\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<\/section>\n
In my two Sealed games, one of the decks had no<\/em> discernible theme besides trying to make Seraphine work (I did not). In the other, I tried for a Ziggs \/ Bomb build because I happened to pull his Legend and his Epic-rarity red (Fury) Unit, Ziggs, Short-Fused. Let me tell you, the Bomb strategy is pretty tricky to hold together if you don\u2019t have a very reliable way to detonate them on your opponent\u2019s turn. Usually, they explode, dealing two damage per bomb when your opponent holds the battlefield they\u2019re deployed at. <\/p>\nI found it fairly difficult to get enough bombs on a battlefield to matter in one turn unless I held with Explosimian, which lets you play three Bomb gear tokens to a single battlefield. Of course, this still does nothing for protecting you if you\u2019re trying to hold your bomb-ridden battlefield. However, the Pre-Rift Seeded decks with the Ziggs Legend includes the 4-might purple (Chaos) Champion Unit Ziggs, Explosive, which allows you to kill a friendly gear when he defends! <\/em>If you have enough Bombs, you could potentially wipe your opponent before they can even touch you. And if they can, well, Ziggs, Explosive gets +2 Might if he killed a friendly gear that turn!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/output><\/p>\n
Unfortunately, I did not have this Ziggs Unit in my Sealed game, so a different strategy was in order. We determined it\u2019s likely best to load Bombs up one battlefield, leave them alone, and then build a strong Hold at the other Battlefield, forcing your opponent to choose to deal with either a battlefield fortified with Units or fortified with Bombs. <\/p>\n
The Unit Reckless Innovator and Gear The Good Stuff, both The purple (Chaos) cards, also proved to be very<\/em> useful in just about every thrown together deck I or my opponent played. I have a lot more opinions, but it\u2019d be absurd to expect you to read my ramblings, so we\u2019ll end it at that.<\/p>\nOverall, the Sealed and Pre-Rift formats for Radiance were very fun, and the new ideas this set brings to Riftbound add an even higher level of complexity to the existing pool. As for Radiance in a vacuum for Sealed, it seemed to allow for a good variety of unique deck-building options. This is of course by design. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe want the base set to have a rich enough playing set,\u201d Chai said. \u201cSuch that Sealed events are fun\u2026 all by itself.\u201d <\/p>\n
Radiance\u2019s Rarest Cards<\/h3>\n <\/p>\n\n
Riftbound: Radiance – Music ONs, SPs, and Alt Runes<\/h3>\n<\/span><\/output><\/p>\n
With the playing set determined, that\u2019s when the Riftbound team layers collectibility on top of it with Alt Art, Overnumbered, and SP cards. Some of the rare standouts for Radiance are Riot Games Music crossovers, including the Overnumbered Heartsteel cards, SP K\/DA cards, and Overnumbered Ekko, Revolutionary, which features Ekko\u2019s original True Damage skin. The Overnumbered cards also come in the Signature variety, which are the rarest pulls besides the single Ultimate Rare in this set. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew Riot as a whole would have a music moment towards the end of the year, so very early on, we said we would lean into that,\u201d Chai said. However, as a physical game, the Riftbound team needed to finalize many card details before the songs were even composed and the new character designs were finished. \u201cThat is why you see\u2026 for the K\/DA and Heartsteel cards, it is very much their K\/DA All Out and Heartsteel 1.0 versions, because the 2.0 versions just weren\u2019t quite ready,\u201d Chai said. \u201cBut we thought it would be a great way to showcase Riftbound\u2019s participation\u2026 and leverage the broader music moment to allow more fans to see and experience Riftbound as well.\u201d <\/p>\n
This original plan didn\u2019t even include teasing Heartsteel\u2019s Riftbound cards in Heartsteel\u2019s new Live My Life music video\u2013the Riot Music Team actually initiated that easter egg, asking the Riftbound team if they wanted the cards in the music video. Of course, they said yes. <\/p>\n
Though Riftbound has been very supported from within Riot since the beginning, the somewhat unexpected explosion of its popularity has given Riftbound even more opportunities to be a part of Riot-wide moments. Another example of this is the Riftbound easter egg in Valorant\u2019s Aeris Flex cosmetic. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\nA photo of the Heartsteel Overnumbered signature cards at the Riftbound Regional Qualifier (RQ) Los Angeles, intending to show the foiling. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/output><\/p>\n
The Heartsteel Overnumbered cards feature a very unique design, akin to K-pop photo cards, complete with bright motifs, stickers, and Y2K elements. Playing into the photo card inspiration even more, the Heartsteel Overnumbered Signature cards are “signed” by the characters <\/em>themselves–not the artists like on other Signature cards! Riot Games\u2019 senior Manager of creative development Michelle Mauk spoke about the design process during the Radiance panel at the Riftbound Regional Qualifier (RQ) in Los Angeles<\/u>, which I highly recommend you watch if you\u2019re interested. <\/p>\n I always feel like renders of Overnumbered cards don\u2019t do them justice, and that\u2019s certainly the case for the Heartsteel cards, too. The texturing and foiling on Riftbound\u2019s most coveted cards are always so impressive to behold in person. <\/p>\n
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Radiance\u2019s Ultimate Rare ties well into the heavy music theme but is, shockingly, a Battlefield: Packed Amphitheater. This card will be the rarest card in all<\/em> of Riftbound\u2019s main sets, only appearing in about 0.025% of booster packs. That\u2019s a huge rarity uptick from the only other Ultimate Rare, Baron Nasher from Unleashed, with a 0.1% pack rate. The in-person foiling and texturing you can’t see in a render does a lot a lot of heavy lifting for this one\u2013and you can get a better look at it, and see some creators\u2019 reactions, in this official PlayRiftbound reel. <\/u><\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
Riftbound: Radiance Overnumbers<\/h3>\n<\/span><\/output><\/p>\n
There are other Overnumbers and Alt Art cards to chase that aren\u2019t musically inclined, too, like the Overnumbererd Mordekaiser Legend IGN exclusively revealed last week<\/u>. <\/p>\n
Radiance Pre-Rifts start at local game stores near you on Oct. 16, and I really can\u2019t wait to play some more. With the complexity Radiance introduces, this might not be the best<\/em> first set to get into, but it\u2019s great for existing players craving more variety and creativity in their deck building. That being said, the Riftbound community has always been nothing but welcoming and helpful at every store I\u2019ve played at, too, so don\u2019t be shy. Otherwise, Radiance booster boxes, packs, and vaults will be available to purchase on Oct. 23. <\/p>\nCasey DeFreitas is the deputy editor of guides at IGN and is playing three more Riftbound Radiance Pre-Rifts this weekend at a local game store, because they’re just that much fun. Catch her on socials <\/em>@ShinyCaseyD<\/em>. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n