We're just one day away from the official release of Riftbound's newest set, Unleashed. After a week of pre-rift time and a month of play in China, players are already forming strong opinions about which cards are the most powerful in the set.
Vex, Apathetic, 4 Energy Unit with Deflection It's a purple unit and the card text reads: “If your opponent plays a unit while you are on the battlefield, stun it. It cannot move this turn.”
Vex, Apathetic is punishing and efficient.
The advantages of this card are clear. You don't need to recycle energy to use this card, and placing this card on an occupied battlefield prevents your opponent from playing acceleration units. This means your potential options for getting the tempo back on the next turn are severely limited.
Vex, Apathetic also fully responds to Unleashed's new ambush mechanic, which allows players to play specific creatures directly onto the battlefield during a confrontation. For example, using a creature with Ambush to move a Vex from its base to a battlefield where the player wants to keep it will completely disrupt their plan because all incoming cards will be stunned and deal no combat damage.
In some Chinese tournaments we've seen, Vex has been automatically included in every Chaos (Purple) deck because of how much chaos it can cause. All this for the low price of 4+0.
Online players in the Riftbound community are already well aware of how frustrating Vex, Apathetic is to play against, expressing their frustration in a recent Reddit thread titled “This card's absolute war crimes are already automatically included in every Purple deck. It's like Kai'Sa (Survivor) is to Red.”
Riftbound's Unleashed set introduces new mechanics: token battlefields, experience, and ambushes.
Riot has revealed a new mechanic coming to Riftbound, and it's a game changer.
Riftbound has a few cards, like the aforementioned Kai'Sa, Survivor, and Thousand-Tailed Watcher, that are so effective and efficient that they're included in almost every deck of that color.
“Let’s Deflect for no reason,” Begthemeg wrote. Including Deflect makes Vex, Apathetic, very expensive to remove. Especially considering that Chaos (purple) has access to two counterspells: Hard Bargain and Abandon.
Many decks run a single copy of Vex, Apathetic for counter decks that rely on acceleration units like Rengar or Lillia. Typically deck-specific counters only appear in the sideboard, but a 4-on-4 force with Deflect of the Vex is efficient enough to run in the main deck as well.
It will be interesting to see how the meta shapes up in Unleashed. Early signs suggest that Master Yi, LeBlanc, and Vex could be one of the strongest decks in the set.
- original release date
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2025
- designer
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Dave Guskin (Game Director)
