Riftbound Guide

If you have been looking at the Riftbound Diana champion deck guide and wondering whether this is the deck for you, here is what you need to know up front: Diana just won the biggest Riftbound tournament ever played. RQ Vancouver, 1,833 players, and she went 14 wins, 0 losses, 2 draws to take first place. She is the most dominant champion in the Unleashed format right now, and there is no debate about it.

One thing to say clearly before anything else: Diana is not a pre-built Champion Deck. There is no box you can buy with her name on it. She is built entirely from singles, which means you will need to source her cards individually, mostly through TCGPlayer. That sounds more complicated than buying a Vex or Vi deck, but I will walk you through exactly which cards matter, in what order to buy them, and what the whole thing costs. It is more accessible than it looks.

Who Is Diana?

Diana, Scorn of the Moon is a Mind/Chaos legend from the Unleashed set. Mind is the blue domain, Chaos is the purple domain. She does not play like the aggressive red or yellow decks you might have seen. Diana is a control and tempo champion: she wins by staying ahead on points while making it very difficult for her opponent to fight back effectively.

Her legend ability is simple but powerful. During a showdown, you can exhaust Diana to add 1 Energy. That extra Energy, only available in combat, lets Diana’s deck do things in showdowns that other decks cannot. It fuels reaction spells, it enables bigger plays at exactly the moment it matters, and it creates a decision problem for your opponent every single time you threaten to use it.

In League of Legends, Diana is the champion who rejected the moon goddess Leona and embraced the darkness of the night sky. That identity carries into the card game. She waits, she gathers strength, and when the fight comes she has exactly what she needs to win it.

Why Diana Is Winning Right Now

Diana placed Top 4 at RQ Sydney (May 15-17), then won RQ Vancouver (May 29-31) with CTG AlanZQ going 14-0-2 across the entire event. Both tournaments were Unleashed format. Both had well over 1,000 players. Two consecutive Regional Qualifier Top 4 appearances, including a win, is the clearest Tier 1 signal possible in competitive Riftbound.

The broader context matters here. Mind and Chaos are the dominant domain pair in the Unleashed format. Chaos took 7 of 8 Top 8 slots at RQ Sydney. At Vancouver, the Top 8 included Diana twice, Irelia twice, Rengar, Master Yi, Sivir, and Azir. Diana was not the only strong deck in the room, but she was the one that won it all.

What makes Diana particularly interesting is how she wins. The Vancouver Top 8 included Irelia (also excellent at converting Day 1 to Day 2), Master Yi (a fast, aggressive XP-farming deck), and Rengar (a bruiser that made the final). Diana beat all of them. She is not a one-trick deck that only handles one type of opponent. She is a flexible, reactive strategy that can adapt to what is across the table.

How Diana Plays

Diana is a spell-heavy control deck built around one central engine: Hwei, Brooding Painter. Hwei is a unit who draws and discards when he moves, then does something different depending on what you discarded. Discard a spell and draw another card. Discard a gear and ready up to 2 runes. Discard a unit and give Hwei himself +3 Might for the turn. This flexibility means Hwei is almost never a dead card. Whatever situation you are in, moving Hwei gives you something useful.

The game plan works like this. Diana gets into combat early, uses her legend ability to gain extra Energy in showdowns, and leverages a suite of cheap interaction spells to control what her opponent can do. Gust bounces small units back to hand. Moonfall is her signature spell: it can pull an enemy unit into a battlefield where you have units, then reduces all enemy units there by 2 Might. This creates situations where Diana’s units survive fights they should not. Stupefy and Acceptable Losses give her even more ways to disrupt opposing boards.

The deck uses Fizz, Trickster as a recycling engine. Fizz can replay a spell from your discard pile, which means your two copies of Moonfall can effectively become three, four, or more throughout a long game. Star-Crossed works alongside Fizz: it bounces a unit back to its owner’s hand, which can remove a threat or reset Fizz himself to generate another loop.

Vex, Apathetic provides disruption that forces your opponent into impossible decisions. While Vex is on a battlefield, any unit your opponent plays there enters stunned, which means it cannot move or deal combat damage that turn. Combined with Diana’s ability to control combat through her legend ability and Moonfall, Vex makes life very uncomfortable for any deck trying to build board presence.

What I found most interesting researching this deck is how the battlefield choices reinforce the strategy. Abandoned Hall is a battlefield that gives a unit a buff when it moves to that location. This turns any unit, including Hwei, into a harder-to-kill threat. Ravenbloom Conservatory rewards having a spell-heavy deck, which Diana absolutely is.

The whole package is genuinely complex. Diana rewards players who know their deck, read board states well, and understand when to spend their legend-generated Energy and when to hold it. I will be direct about this: she is not a beginner’s first deck. She is a deck for players who have a handle on the basics and want something that rewards deeper play.

The Vancouver Winning Decklist

This is the exact list CTG AlanZQ used to win RQ Vancouver, verified from RiftDecks. 64 cards total.

The deck also ran a sideboard of 8 cards for the best-of-three rounds: extra copies of Turn to Dust, Moonfall, Star-Crossed, Vex Cheerless, plus two Singularity and two Baron Nashor. Sideboards are used in competitive play to adjust your deck between games in a match.

Key Cards to Acquire

Not all cards in this deck cost the same, and not all of them are equally essential. Here is where I would focus your spending, in priority order.

Once you have Moonfall, Vex Apathetic, and Hwei locked in, you have the core of what makes Diana work. Everything else is available at low cost and can be filled in as you go.

If you are ready to start building, TCGPlayer is the best place to source Diana’s singles. Multiple sellers compete on price, and the condition filtering makes it straightforward to find the cards you need.

What Does the Deck Cost?

The full Vancouver winning list comes to approximately $190 at current TCGPlayer market prices. That is a meaningful investment, and I want to be direct about where that cost sits.

The most expensive cards are Moonfall ($21.50 each, so $43 for two), Vex Apathetic ($14.50 each, so $29 for two), and Stacked Deck ($7.50 each, so $22.50 for three). Those three card types account for roughly half the deck’s cost. Almost everything else is $5 or under.

For context: the Vex and Vi pre-built Champion Decks are $19.99 each at retail. A fully built Diana deck costs about the same as four or five pre-built decks. If you are coming to Diana as your first Riftbound purchase, that is a lot to commit to before you have tested whether you enjoy the game. If you already play Riftbound and want to compete at a high level in the Unleashed format, this is what that entry point looks like.

One honest note: card prices in Riftbound move quickly, especially after strong tournament results. Diana just won Vancouver. Prices on her key cards may be higher right now than they will be in three to four weeks as market supply adjusts. If budget is a concern, there is no harm in waiting a short period before buying.

A Note on the Community Ban Watch

Dazzling Aurora (OGN-160) has been under community ban discussion following the Chaos domain’s dominance across two consecutive RQs. It is worth knowing about if you are interested in the competitive scene. However, the good news for Diana players specifically is this: the Vancouver winning Diana list does not include Dazzling Aurora. AlanZQ’s deck is not built around it.

This is meaningful. Diana won the largest event in the game’s history without running the card that is at the centre of the ban debate. Whatever happens to Dazzling Aurora, it does not affect the core of this deck.

If you want to follow the ban situation closely before making any purchases, our ban list guide tracks all confirmed bans and community watch items. Always check the current ban list before spending on any card for competitive play.

Is Diana Right for You?

Diana suits a specific type of player. If you like having options, reading your opponent, and winning through smart sequencing rather than raw aggression, this is a deck that will reward you. The legend ability adds a layer of tension to every combat: your opponent never quite knows whether you are going to spend that extra Energy, and that uncertainty is a weapon in itself.

Diana does not suit players who are new to Riftbound, prefer a clear and linear game plan, or want to pick up a deck on Friday and be comfortable with it by Saturday. She has a real skill ceiling. The first few games piloting her will feel overwhelming compared to a pre-built deck with a single clear strategy. That is not a criticism of the deck. It is an accurate description of what you are taking on.

If you are already comfortable with the basics of Riftbound, have played a pre-built deck for a few weeks, and want to step into competitive singles territory, Diana is one of the strongest places to put that investment right now. She has tournament results that prove it.

If you want a competitive but more forgiving entry point, the Vex Champion Deck is the closest pre-built option to Diana’s playstyle. Vex is also Mind/Chaos-adjacent, uses disruption and control, and shares Vex Apathetic as one of the most impactful cards in the format. Starting with Vex and upgrading toward Diana is a legitimate path that spreads the cost over time. The singles acquisition guide walks through how that process works from scratch.

For readers who want a competitive constructable guide to compare, the Irelia champion deck guide covers the other dominant legend in the Unleashed format, for a different playstyle altogether.

Final Verdict

If you play Riftbound to compete, enjoy controlling the pace of a match, and are comfortable building a deck from singles, Diana is the best deck in the format. The Vancouver result was not a fluke. 14-0-2 across 1,833 players is the kind of result that defines a meta, and she is backed up by a Top 4 finish at Sydney before it. She costs around $190 to build fully, she rewards experience over aggression, and she is not reliant on any card under ban discussion.

If that describes you and your budget, build this deck. There is not a stronger place for your money in the current Unleashed format.

If you are newer to the game or want something you can play straight out of the box, our deck buying guide will point you toward the right pre-built starting point. You can always upgrade toward Diana later once you have the foundations down.

Where to Buy Diana’s Singles

TCGPlayer is the best option for Diana’s singles. Multiple sellers compete on price, shipping is fast across North America, and condition filtering makes it easy to find cards in the state you want.

If you want to start with a pre-built deck and upgrade toward Diana’s playstyle over time, the Vex Champion Deck is the natural starting point. It introduces the Mind/Chaos domain and includes Vex Apathetic, one of Diana’s best support cards.

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