League of Legends TCG Riftbound is the best thing Riot's done since Arcane, but I'm not convinced it has MTG's staying power

When Riot announced that its mysterious Project K was, in fact, a League of Legends card game known as Riftbound, I approached it with, to borrow game designer Jonathan Moorman's words, "some trepidation." I've been pretty open about my complex relationship with LoL: it's the game I've sunk the most hours into and absolutely the one I love the most, but from around mid-2024 into 2025, it feels, in many ways, unrecognizable. Its characters and gameplay are the same, but having blitzed through a few games in a post-Worlds spree, it doesn't quite elicit the same emotions that it used to. In many ways, we've grown apart (it's not you, it's me), and I was hoping that Riftbound would reignite that spark.

For those of you who haven't had a chance to play yet, Riftbound is reminiscent of TCGs like Magic: The Gathering. You pick your Champion Legend (or commander), Chosen Champion (a second card that has to be the same character as your Champion Legend, but grants different buffs), and then your Battlefield, which has its own unique traits. So if you're running the Master Yi deck from Proving Grounds, for example, you have Master Yi, Wuju Bladesman as your Champion Legend, then one of Master Yi, Meditative, or Master Yi, Honed as your Chosen Champion. You score points by conquering and holding battlefields, which is achieved by placing units on them and winning skirmishes (known as 'Showdowns'). First to eight takes the win. Easy, right?

Don't worry, I snorted, too. While Riftbound is marketed as "easy to learn," having played Magic for years, I wouldn't use the word 'easy.' While Riot has succeeded in making it simpler than League of Legends' CCG sibling Legends of Runeterra, there's a lot to get your head around. Proving Grounds includes four decks - Annie, Garen, Lux, and Master Yi - who each embody different, complicated deck types. If you're completely new to card games, then Annie and Lux are your best call, but Garen and Master Yi both felt quite intimidating, even to someone who's played a lot of TCGs.

But what I will say is that Riot really nails the unique feeling of each champion. Lux relies on burst spells (Demacciaaaa!), which fits perfectly with her in-game identity, while Garen, well, tanks - don't think I need to explain that any further. Annie wants to deal damage fast while remaining mobile, while Master Yi slips and slides around the battlefield while providing buffs to solo defenders and attackers (we all know Master Yi players ride solo).

The demo decks that I played (Jinx, Viktor, Volibear, and Yasuo) were similar: Jinx plays hard, fast, and recklessly, while Viktor machinates and builds up armies of robots. Volibear starts off slow but becomes a monster by the late-game, while Yasuo's slipping and sliding from base to battlefield and back is reminiscent of the character's reliance on mobility, and will probably lead to several 0/10 powerspikes.

All of this gives Riftbound's decks a unique feel. While Magic decks are often built around specific mechanics, they can sometimes feel like a collection of disparate, min-maxed parts more than entities in themselves. I'm sure that, as Riftbound evolves, we'll see a lot more deck variation, but I'm impressed with how well the initial sets embody their characters.

It is worth noting, however, that some decks feel much stronger than others. In the Proving Grounds kit, Lux's ability to casually drop extra Runes (think lands in MTG) to spell-based abilities means that you can fire off top-level powers very quickly, oftentimes with quite low recycle costs. Using the demo decks, Jinx initially feels very strong, but gasses out hard into the late game, which is an easy stomp for Volibear and Viktor. Moormann does note that the demo decks were designed to give players "a cross-section of what Riftbound can be," stating that the team "tuned the Jinx [demo] deck to be faster without quite as much of a late game" for showcase purposes. Expect the full deck to have a little more staying power, then, but I'm still unsure how viable it'll be.

I also found that games sometimes go quite long, especially as you add more players. A single game with my partner ran for around 30 minutes, but another with three extra pals ran closer to an hour (another mate's game ran closer to two). Obviously, that's great if you've got a late-game deck, but if you're a fast, aggro player, that's going to get real tiresome real fast. "They're definitely not meant to go on that long," Moormann laughs, noting that the eight-point cap should help keep things relatively neat. I'm yet to play as a four-stack again, but I did feel sorry for the people who'd booked the table we were playing on.

All in all, Riftbound achieves what it sets out to do. It's a fun, League of Legends-themed TCG that has impressive complexity (verging on too much) and a unique feel. But it is entering a saturated market - one that Magic: The Gathering lords over. I don't see it being an 'MTG' killer in any way, and reckon it'll probably float around with the more niche card games like One Piece, Star Wars: Unlimited, and Square Enix's Final Fantasy TCG. That, of course, leads to questions of longevity - while decks are selling quickly now, how does that look a year down the line, especially when there's been frustrations over lack of product and missing rare cards? If Riftbound's launch had been relatively seamless, perhaps I'd have a little more hope, but for now I still approach with "trepidation."

Riftbound Set 1, Origins, is out now, but is currently sold out both online and in most local game stores. While there are various cards available via the second-hand market, I'd always advise waiting a while before splashing all of your cash - you'll get a Kai'Sa one day.