Considering I wasn't conceived until six years after Magic: The Gathering was first released, I wasn't even around when the trading card game first exploded in popularity. However, I was a first-time player of Valve's short-lived Artifact card game, and as you can imagine, that time investment didn't pay off.
There was always a desire within me to play competitive games from the beginning. Before the knowledge barrier and average skill become too great for new players to overcome. As a 12-year League of Legends veteran, I was immediately ready to jump into Riftbound when Riot announced the actual TCG. I wanted to play it from the beginning instead of getting lost in the noise years later.
My friend and I decided to attend the launch event at our local game store. For a fee, you can receive a pre-built (pre-con) deck and three booster packs. The format was a sort of mini booster draft. We were able to replace the cards in the precon with cards from booster packs as well.
Playing a card game on your first day is surreal. As you might expect, there were a lot of questions about the rules and nuances of card interactions. Everyone has made an effort to educate themselves before a tournament, but there is only so much information you can absorb without actively playing the game a couple of times.
Riftbound launched in August in China and on Halloween overseas. Those few months of Chinese exclusivity informed the meta of our first tournament, which was hilarious. We were asked to choose a precon (Viktor, Jinx or Lee Sin) and at least 85% of attendees chose Viktor (including me). Because the conventional wisdom was that Viktor was the best of the three decks available. I guess we all watched the same video.
In this respect, the Internet can be a double-edged sword. This is a great equalizer of knowledge, but in situations like this, perfect information can stifle creativity. If everyone is net decking, no one is theorizing. In my case, I've always been timid when it comes to building decks, so having an existing pool of knowledge to tap into was perfect for me.
While I did my research the night before, some of my opponents went further and reviewed almost every Chinese VOD of the various local tournaments held in that area. Ironically, even though the game had only been out for a few days, I was already at a low knowledge level.
Another one of my opponents started scouring the statistics of his deck's winnings in Chinese tournaments, which I thought was hilarious. Kai'Sa quickly became a dominant force in the meta, winning most tournaments. From what I've read, locals from all over the world are flooded with Kai'Sa players every week.
Net decking starts early
It quickly became clear that the tiered list culture of competitive multiplayer games also applied to trading card games. I'm not necessarily against it. Everyone wants to be the best player. However, the quick adaptation among players to the new game has been interesting to witness first-hand.
From the first game, I immediately realized that Riftbound's skill ceiling comes from a balancing act between playing on two battlefields. You can rush into the battlefield to score easy points, but you must be ready to take on your opponent's powerful mid-range units. Otherwise, there will never be enough manpower to challenge the enemy's control of the battlefield.
I lost the first game of Riftbound 0-2, and also lost the first game of the second series. However, after three games against Viktor, I started to understand the nuances of mirror matchups and won the next game to tie the series (there was no time to end the series before the next round).
My third and final game was against Lee Sin, a deck I had never seen before. I made the mistake of playing too quickly while my opponent was powering up his cards, which left me unable to win mid-game against a ton of cards. I ended up going 0-1-2 in my first Riftbound tournament and realized I had a lot to learn about the game.
I also realized that Viktor might not be the deck for me in the long run. At heart I am a zoo player. I don't like spending multiple turns setting up the perfect combo. I want to score early on the board and keep the pressure on my opponent from the first turn. My booster deck has some good pools for this kind of playstyle, such as Warwick and Miss Fortune.
Riftbound is a fun game, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops in the coming months.
- original release date
-
2025
- designer
-
Dave Guskin (Game Director)
