If you’re wondering how to start playing Riftbound, here’s everything you need in one place: what the game actually is, what it costs, and how to play your first turn.
Page last updated: August 2026.
What Is Riftbound?
You build a deck around one League of Legends champion. You use that deck to fight your opponent for control of two battlefields on the table. Whoever reaches eight points first wins. The one thing that catches most new players off guard: both players get to play cards and react during every fight, not just on their own turn.
Is It Worth Getting Into?
A Champion Deck costs $20 and gives you a complete, playable game the moment you open the box. You don’t need to buy boosters, singles, or anything else to play a full match. If you’re wondering whether this is going to turn into an expensive hobby before you’ve even decided if you like it, it isn’t. $20 is the actual cost of trying Riftbound properly.
The core rules take one sitting to learn, genuinely. I went from reading the rulebook to playing a full game in under an hour, and most of the confusion in that first game cleared up within a couple of turns. The game has real depth once you start exploring domains, keywords, and combat timing, but none of that is required to enjoy your first few games. You can learn as you go.
What Do You Need to Start?
One Champion Deck. That’s the whole answer. Not boosters, not sleeves, not singles, not a deck box. A single Champion Deck contains everything you need to play a complete game: the champion card itself, a full set of units, spells, and gear, a rune deck, three battlefield cards, tokens, and a rulebook.
Two players, $40 total. Grab one Champion Deck each and you can play a full game tonight. Nothing else required.
How Much Does It Cost?
Entry level, meaning your first game, costs $20 per player for a Champion Deck. Casual play, where you’ve picked up a handful of extra cards to tweak your deck, runs $50 to $100. A genuinely competitive singles build sits between $150 and $400. At the far end, Collector pricing for Signature cards can reach $3,000 or more, but that tier is entirely optional. Nobody needs a $3,000 card to win a game of Riftbound.
Which Champion Should I Start With?
Rather than comparing every champion here, think about which kind of player you already are. If you like closing games out fast and hitting hard, look at aggressive champions. If you’d rather survive the early turns and grind opponents down, look at defensive champions. If you enjoy setting up combos and using your resources efficiently, look at resource-focused champions. For a full breakdown of what each Champion Deck actually plays like, see Riftbound for Complete Beginners, and if you want to know which of the newest Vendetta champions suits you, Which Vendetta Legend Should I Play breaks all nine down.
How a Game Works: Your First Turn
- You channel two runes at the start of your turn to generate resources.
- You spend those resources to play cards from your hand: units, spells, and gear.
- You move units to battlefields to challenge your opponent’s units.
- Combat happens when your units meet the opponent’s: both sides play cards, then both deal damage at the same time.
- You score points by controlling battlefields, and first to eight points wins. How you score that final point matters:
- If you score through Hold, you win immediately.
- If you score through Conquer, you only win if you have also scored both battlefields this turn (the one you just conquered and the other one, through either Hold or an earlier Conquer). If you only scored one battlefield via Conquer, you draw a card instead and the game continues.
That’s genuinely enough to sit down and play. Everything below fills in the detail.
Ready to sit down and play? The step-by-step first game walkthrough covers setup, every turn, combat, and scoring. So you can play tonight without reading the rulebook.
Resources: Energy, Power and Runes
Energy is the number printed on a card, and any rune generates energy. Power is the coloured symbol on a card, and only a matching domain rune generates that specific Power. Wild runes generate any type of Power, and there’s no maximum hand size to worry about.
For the full explanation of how resources work, see Energy and Power Explained.
How Combat Works
A Showdown begins the moment your units meet an opponent’s units on a battlefield. Both players get to play cards during the fight, with whoever is attacking going first.
Damage is dealt simultaneously once both players are done playing cards and pass. Any unit with damage equal to or greater than its Might is destroyed. Every unit that survives heals up fully afterward, so nothing carries into your next fight.
If your units are the only ones left standing at the battlefield, you conquer it. That’s the whole loop: fight, clear the way, take the battlefield. For the complete combat guide, including Tank, damage assignment, and Equipment, see How Damage Works in Riftbound.
Keywords You’ll See Immediately
Tank: this unit has to take damage before any of your other units can.
Assault: this unit gets bonus Might while attacking.
Shield: this unit gets bonus Might while defending. Those three will show up in your very first game. For every keyword in the game, see the Riftbound Keywords page and the visual keyword reference on RiftboundSymbols.com.
Domains: Why Your Champion Shapes Your Deck
There are six domains in Riftbound: Fury, Calm, Mind, Body, Chaos, and Order. Every champion has two of them, and your entire deck has to be built from cards in those two domains. That’s the only domain rule you need for your first game.
Roughly speaking, Fury and Chaos lean aggressive and unpredictable, Calm and Order lean defensive and controlled, and Mind and Body sit somewhere in between with a focus on resources and durability. For a full explanation of all six domains and how they shape the way a deck plays, see Riftbound Domains Explained.
Where to Find Other Players
Local game stores run regular Nexus Night and Summoner Skirmish events, and the official store locator will show you what’s running near you. PlayRiftbound.com also lists upcoming events if you want to look further afield.
Where to Buy
A Champion Deck is the right first purchase. Boosters and singles can wait until you’ve played a few games and know what your deck needs. On TCGPlayer, search results will show everything Riftbound has to offer, so look for the individual Champion Decks priced around $20 each.
| Retailer | Buy |
|---|---|
| TCGPlayer | Browse Riftbound on TCGPlayer |
| Amazon US | Shop on Amazon US |
| Amazon UK | Shop on Amazon UK |
What to Do After Your First Game
Once you’ve played your first game, there are a few directions to go. Want to understand your champion more deeply? Check out the deck guide for whichever champion you picked. Ready to upgrade your deck with a few extra cards? Singles vs Booster Packs breaks down where to spend next. Thinking about competing? How to Qualify for a Regional Championship covers what that path looks like. And if you want to keep an eye on what decks are actually winning, RiftDecks.com tracks the current meta.