Spoiler season for Riftbound's upcoming set, Unleashed, is about to end. Following yesterday's reveal of Vault Breaker, TheGamer is revealing another card today: Safety Inspector.
Pick out the weak with a stick
The Safety Inspector is a command (yellow) unit with 5 energy and 1 power, with a strength of 3. The card text reads: “To play me, you can spend 3 XP at an additional cost. When playing me, each player must kill one of his units. If you paid the extra cost, you cannot kill a unit this way.”
This unit is similar to Cul the Weak in that it forces the opponent to kill a unit without having to explicitly target anything. 5+1 is expensive, but once the ability resolves you have the tempo of a 3-might unit on the board.
However, unlike Culling the Underdog, it cannot create a '1:0' deal because the Safety Inspector's ability is already on the board when it resolves. This means that if you play a safety inspector on an empty board, you have to pay the experience cost or immediately kill that inspector.
In terms of experience collection, the only yellow legend with an experience mechanic is Poppy, who gains 1 experience through holding. Poppy is the Half Body (orange), which is the area that contains most of the units that generate experience.
Riftbound's decentralized ruling is hurting the game.
There's no need to dig into old Discord threads to understand interactions.
But there are a few in yellow too. The Enchanted Guardian has Hunting (gaining experience to conquer or hold the battlefield), and the Watch Sergeant has the card text: “Gain 1 XP for each friendly unit when you play me.” Since there are more cards yet to be revealed, yellow will have more XP generating cards, especially since Poppy is so dependent on the mechanic.
Safety Inspector is a control card that can be used to steal tempo, especially if you have experience. Like Cull the Weak, I think it would be effective against decks that rely on a few large units. It's also a soft counter to Baron Nashor. Because even though she can't be targeted, she can still force the opponent to kill her.
Unleashed will be released on April 10th in China and May 8th internationally. This will be the final Riftbound set with out-of-sync releases.
- original release date
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2025
- designer
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Dave Guskin (Game Director)
