What are alternate art cards?

Many cards of Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game come in a second printing with a different picture. Jinx, Demolitionist is card 030 of Origins, and its alternate art printing is 030a/298: the same card with Jinx in one of her League of Legends skins, a gold gem and a richer foil. Alternate art cards are among the easiest showcase printings to pull from a booster pack, and in a game they do exactly what the standard card does.

How do you recognize an alternate art card?

The foot of the card gives it away. The collector number keeps the number of the card it reprints and adds a lowercase a, so the alternate art Jinx, Demolitionist reads OGN · 030a/298. Next to it, the gold hexagonal gem of the showcase printings takes the place of the square gem of a Rare or the pentagonal gem of an Epic. The artist changes with the picture: the standard Jinx, Demolitionist is by Kudos Productions, the alternate art one by the League Splash Team.

Rares and Epics are foil already, and Riot describes the alternate art printings of Origins as having a more intricate foil treatment. The name, the cost, the Might, the domain and the text stay the same. The alternate art Baron Nashor from Unleashed even leaves out the reminder text in parentheses that the standard Baron Nashor prints, but its abilities are word for word those of the standard card.

Which cards get an alternate art printing?

In every main set, the champion units of the set's own Legends get one. Each Legend comes with two champion units of its champion, one Rare and one Epic, and both are printed again with alternate art. A champion without a Legend in the set gets none: Sona, Harmonious is a champion unit of Origins, but Sona has no Legend there, so Origins has no alternate art printing of the card. The Proving Grounds starter box has no alternate art cards at all.

Unleashed is the one set so far to add units that are not champions: its six Epic monsters from League of Legends, such as Rift Herald and Vilemaw, have alternate art as well. Radiance, the fifth main set, with its release on 23 October 2026, gives alternate art to the champion units of its Legends too, such as Seraphine, Not Alone. The row below shows one alternate art unit from each set after Origins: Irelia, Fervent from Spiritforged, Vilemaw from Unleashed, Zed, From the Shadows from Vendetta and Seraphine, Not Alone from Radiance.

What do the alternate art pictures show?

Most of them show the champion in a skin, one of the alternate looks a champion can wear in League of Legends. Riot described the alternate art cards of Origins in just that way, and most alternate art units from Origins to Vendetta credit the League Splash Team as their artist. A few take their picture from Wild Rift, the mobile game of League of Legends, such as Ahri, Alluring and Kennen, Storm of Shuriken. The monsters of Unleashed get a new painting of the same creature, and the alternate art Seraphine, Not Alone of Radiance, a set with a musical theme, sings into a microphone among musical notes.

Are there alternate art runes?

Yes. The basic runes get alternate art as well, and they come in the last slot of a booster pack, which otherwise holds a token or a plain rune. Origins has one for each of the six domains, from the Fury Rune at 007a/298 to the Order Rune at 214a/298, and Riot said they would turn up very rarely. Riot's overviews of Unleashed, Vendetta and Radiance list an alternate art rune in the last slot of their packs as well, and the overview of Radiance calls its runes musically inspired. They work exactly like any other rune of their domain. The runes from Nexus Night promo packs are promos instead, numbered with a b, such as the Spiritforged Fury Rune R01b.

The row below shows the Fury Rune and the Calm Rune of Origins next to the Fury Rune and the Calm Rune of Radiance.

How rare are alternate art cards?

About one booster pack in 12 holds one, going by the published pull rates. Riot's rate for Origins is about two alternate art cards per booster display of 24 packs, and Riot's page for the Spiritforged display says more than two on average. Riot has published no separate rate for the later sets, but its overviews of Vendetta and Radiance say that their special cards turn up about as often as alternate art. An alternate art card takes the place of a Rare or an Epic in a rare slot. In an Unleashed or Vendetta pack either of the two rare slots can hold one, while a Radiance pack, as Riot's overview describes it, has only one slot that can hold a showcase printing.

One particular card is much harder to find. The 24 alternate art units of Origins share about two cards per display, so a named one, such as the alternate art Jinx, Demolitionist, turns up about once in 12 displays. Riot gives every rate as an average over the whole print run, not as a promise for a single display.

Packs are a slow way to find one particular alternate art card, so a player who wants one usually gets it as a single card instead. Single cards come from local game stores and from online marketplaces: Cardmarket in Europe, TCGplayer in the United States and CardTrader on both sides of the Atlantic. Today the standard Jinx, Demolitionist sells for $0.28 and its alternate art printing, 030a/298, for $4.11.

Do alternate art cards play differently?

No. The Core Rules, which Riot publishes on its Rules Hub, say that the illustration of a card conveys no gameplay information (rule 139.1), and a card is known by its name (rule 132.1), so an alternate art card counts as a copy of the standard card. A main deck may hold up to three copies of a card with the same name (rule 103.3.b): one standard Jinx, Demolitionist and two alternate art ones is fine, four in all is not. An alternate art champion unit can also be a deck's chosen champion (rule 103.3.a.2). At tournaments it is legal wherever the standard card is, since the Tournament Rules allow any card with the same name as a card from a legal set (rule 601.2.a).

How is alternate art different from overnumbered, special and promo printings?

All of them print a card again with new art, but each is numbered and found in its own way. Zed, From the Shadows from Vendetta has two of them.

• Alternate art keeps the number of the card with an a after it, like Zed, From the Shadows at 023a/166.
• Overnumbered cards take a number past the end of the set, like Zed, From the Shadows at 169/166, with artwork made for Riftbound. Riot put them at about one per three displays in Origins, far rarer than alternate art.
• Special cards are numbered SP, apart from the set, and dress champions in one skin line: Crystal Rose from Wild Rift in Vendetta, such as Ahri, Inquisitive, and K/DA in Radiance. Riot calls them special alt art cards.
• Nexus Night promos with new art come from the promo packs of store events, not from booster packs, and take a b, like Teemo, Scout at 197b/298.

Where can you see every alternate art card?

The alternate art cards page lists them by set, the newest first, and each card's own page shows its standard printing next to it with its prices. The rarity guide sets all the showcase printings side by side, and the pack opener opens packs at Riot's rates. For the gem itself, read what the Showcase gem means, and for the other showcase printings, read what overnumbered cards are and what special cards are.