What is a battlefield card?

A battlefield card stands for a place in Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game. Legends, units, spells, gear and runes lead a deck, do its fighting and pay for it, while a battlefield is a location from Runeterra where the fighting happens, such as Targon's Peak, Zaun Warrens or Piltovan Forge. Battlefields are never drawn or played. They start the game in the middle of the table, and almost every point in a game is scored by conquering or holding one of them.

What is printed on a battlefield card?

A battlefield is printed sideways. The type line with the word Battlefield sits above the name on the left, and the rules text runs along the bottom edge. The same text is printed again upside down along the top edge, so that the player across the table can read it too. The set code and number, the rarity gem and the artist's name sit at the foot, as on every card.

A battlefield has no Energy cost and no Power cost, because it is never played, no Might, because it never fights, and no domain symbol, which makes it Colorless. Its back is the one battlefields share with Legends, not the back of the main deck cards or the runes. In its text a battlefield calls itself "here". Altar to Unity from Origins reads "When you hold here, play a 1 Might Recruit unit token in your base." Gardens of Becoming from Unleashed lets every unit there exhaust to gain 1 XP, and Black Rose Sanctum from Radiance, the fifth set, with its release on 23 October 2026, gives each player a Recruit in their base the first time each turn one of their non-token units dies there.

How many battlefield cards does a deck need?

A Constructed deck needs three battlefields with different names, in every mode Riot sanctions. The Core Rules count them as one of the four parts of a deck, beside the Legend, the main deck and the rune deck, so they do not count toward the 40 cards of the main deck. A battlefield has no domain, so any battlefield fits any deck. And since the names have to differ, a Constructed deck never uses more than one copy of a battlefield.

In a one-on-one Duel each player picks one of their three at random, so a game is played over two battlefields. In a best-of-three Match each player chooses one for each game, and a battlefield used in a game that someone won cannot be chosen again in that match. Whether a deck is legal depends on all four of its parts at once, so the article on what makes a legal Riftbound deck lists their sizes side by side.

What can a battlefield's ability do?

Every battlefield in the main sets has an ability, and it works for whoever controls the battlefield, not for the player who brought it, as the article on how battlefields work in a game explains. Many trigger when a player conquers or holds the battlefield, others change what the units there can do or what cards cost, and a few bend the rules of the game itself.

• The Grand Plaza from Origins wins you the game when you hold it with seven or more of your units there.
• Forgotten Monument from Spiritforged cannot be scored by a player before their own third turn.
• Cosmic Vista from Radiance gives you one more point when you hold it while your rune deck is empty.
• Kinkou Temple from Vendetta gives +1 Might to the units there with Tank.

How many battlefield cards are there?

The five main sets of Riftbound hold 74 battlefields between them, counting the ten of Radiance, with its release on 23 October 2026: 24 in Origins and ten or fifteen in each set since. Proving Grounds, the starter box, has no battlefields of its own, since its decks use battlefields from Origins.

How rare are battlefield cards?

Every standard battlefield is an Uncommon, with the triangular Uncommon gem. A booster pack holds three Uncommons, so battlefields turn up often, and since a deck needs only one copy of each, they are among the easiest cards to collect. Every Champion Deck so far comes with three battlefields, and each of the four Proving Grounds decks comes with one, printed as an oversized card.

Only one battlefield has a printing rarer than Uncommon so far. Packed Amphitheater from Radiance, which gives the champion units there +1 Might, is printed a second time as the set's Ultimate Rare, Packed Amphitheater numbered 184/167, and Riot calls it its first showcase battlefield. Riot says an Ultimate Rare will turn up in about 0.025 percent of Radiance packs, roughly one pack in 4,000. Both printings play exactly the same. The only earlier Ultimate Rare, Baron Nashor from Unleashed, is a unit. Today a standard battlefield such as Targon's Peak sells for $0.26, and the Ultimate Rare Baron Nashor sells for $1,828.46.

Riot announced on 3 August 2026 that from Legacy, the first set of 2027, with its release on 29 January 2027, one Common slot in each booster pack will hold a Legend or a battlefield, each about half the time. Showcase battlefields will stay in the slots of the overnumbered cards.

What is a battlefield token?

A battlefield token is a battlefield that another card brings into play. Unleashed has two of them. Baron Pit is added to the board by the unit Baron Nashor as he is played, and Brush is put in place of a battlefield you conquer or hold by Green Father, the Legend of Ivern. A token can never be one of your three battlefields, as the text of Baron Pit itself reminds you. Both are listed on the tokens page.

Can every battlefield be played?

Not in Constructed. Riot's banned list, as it stood after the update of 18 September 2026, names five battlefields, all of them from Origins: Aspirant's Climb, Obelisk of Power, Reaver's Row, The Arena's Greatest and The Dreaming Tree. Riot keeps the current list on its Rules Hub, and the reasons for each ban are in the article on how cards are banned or changed.

Sealed and Draft, the Limited formats, work differently. A player there uses the battlefields they opened or any number of blank battlefields, which have no text at all. At Casual events a blank battlefield can be shown by anything all players in the game agree on, and at Competitive and Professional events by an official Riftbound card in an opaque sleeve with its back facing outward. A battlefield that is banned in Constructed may still be used in Limited, unless that format bans it as well.

Every battlefield is on the battlefields page, the newest set first, and the deck builder checks that a deck has three different battlefields and none of the banned ones. A battlefield matters most once a game starts, and the article on how battlefields work in a game shows how one changes hands and scores points. When you build a deck, the article on how to choose the battlefields for a deck shows which abilities help your plan and which would help your opponent.