Riot warns that League of Legends TCG Riftbound's next set may be missing rares, admits launch "missed the mark"

Some things feel inevitable when major videogames launch. Servers crashing when a new multiplayer hit goes live; massive queues as players all scramble to play at once. But when a new TCG launches, it's pretty natural to expect something interesting to go awry, and while Riot has weathered the Riftbound release storm with grace and transparency, it knows that the card game's debut was far from smooth. In a new blog post, the League of Legends developer confirms that the rarity issues that left some packs without top-tier cards will impact Riftbound Set 2, Spiritforged, and that it's working as fast as it can to ship preorders to waiting customers.

In an extensive November 10 blog, Riot notes that "the excitement and demand" for the League of Legends TCG "greatly surpassed our wildest expectations." This has left many waiting on preorders, while others sit frustrated because they didn't even get the chance to buy any Riftbound products in the first place.

At the time of writing, every Riftbound deck is sold out on Riot's storefront, and while you may get lucky in your local game store, mine had no stock the last time I checked. If you're willing to brave the second-hand market, then you'll probably have to deal with inflated prices, so it's probably better to just wait.

"We missed the mark on demand and we know availability is making it harder for players to get everything they want, especially at MSRP," Riot says. "We have a couple of fixes on the horizon around supply including more Riftbound: Origins products arriving to local game stores between now and the end of the year. We'll continue to keep an eye out to ensure Riftbound: Origins is available to players at a reasonable price." It does clarify that "the exact timing of product arriving will vary by region," however.

If you've preordered anything Riftbound-related, then Riot is hoping to "get those [orders] out as quickly as possible," noting that you may receive different items across multiple shipments as, to decrease wait times, it's now sending everything separately.

But, perhaps most importantly, if you opened a booster pack and didn't receive any rare cards, Riot has outlined a refund strategy. There is, however, a limit. Only three cards can be refunded, with a total of six per household, presumably to ensure people don't attempt to cheat the system by simply leaving a pack's rare cards out of the redemption image. If your packs have been missing top-tier cards, you can fill the form out here.

Riot does confirm that Spiritforged, the game's second set, has also been impacted by this packing issue, and that things will steady out by set three. "We've determined that the rarity distribution issue will still be happening for some Spiritforged booster packs, and won't be fully corrected until our third set," it writes. "Due to how they're packed, Origins and Spiritforged Booster Boxes all contain the correct number of rares, but we'll be doing a similar replacement card program for impacted and individually purchased Spiritforged Booster Packs when those are released next year." Obviously that's disappointing, but the card refund system will still be in place when that set launches.

There are a few other bits and pieces in the blog, including confirmation that some cards released with rougher edges than they should have. My Proving Grounds box did have a few of these, but none of them were damaged beyond repair. The wider production issue has already been resolved, and if your cards are unusable, you can contact UVS for a refund.

Speaking of Proving Grounds, several of the cards from the beginner set are in high demand, so Riot has plans to roll these out in Nexus Nights promo packs, with some new foil versions that aren't in Proving Grounds. "In the long-term, we're exploring ways to incentivize partners and provide them rewards for engaging in player-first behavior including reasonable pricing," it says.

Now all of this is positive news, bar the rarity issue affecting Spiritforged. Obviously not having your preorder sucks, but when it does arrive, trust me when I say it's worth it. The game itself is a lot of fun, and it has the shiny 'new' factor, so getting a few rounds in at your LGS is pretty easy. As a longtime LoL player, Riftbound is the breath of fresh air I needed - especially after some time away from the game - and I'm absolutely loving it.