What is a champion unit?

Most units in Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game are the soldiers, beasts and machines of Runeterra. The champion units are the League of Legends champions themselves, and more than a hundred champions have at least one, counting the champions that first appear in Radiance, with its release on 23 October 2026. A champion unit is played, moved and fought with like any other unit. What sets it apart is a role in deckbuilding that no other card can fill: it is the only kind of card a deck can set aside as its chosen champion.

How can you tell a champion unit from other units?

The type line above the name tells you. On a champion unit it reads Champion Unit, followed by the champion's name and often a region as tags. The name has two parts as well: the champion, and a subtitle under it. For every rule the full name is both together, so Jayce, Man of Progress and Jayce, Brilliant Inventor are two different cards, and a deck may hold up to three copies of each.

Rarity is a second clue. Every champion unit shown so far is a Rare or an Epic in its standard printing, which makes champion units harder to pull from a booster pack than most other units. Many of them come again as alternate art, overnumbered or signed printings, and those play exactly like the standard card.

The four cards below belong together. Defender of Tomorrow is the Legend of Jayce, in Mind and Body, and the other three are the champion units of Jayce: Jayce, Man of Progress from Spiritforged, and Jayce, Brilliant Inventor and Jayce, Hammer in Hand from Vendetta.

Does a champion unit play differently from other units?

No. The Core Rules describe Champion as a supertype that applies only to units and changes the rules for deckbuilding. Once it is in a game, a champion unit costs Energy and Power paid with runes, moves to battlefields, fights with its Might and dies like any other unit. Very few cards look at the supertype itself. One is the battlefield Packed Amphitheater of Radiance, with its release on 23 October 2026: it gives every champion unit there +1 Might, whichever champion it shows and whoever controls it.

A champion unit is also not the same as a signature unit. Tibbers from Proving Grounds carries the tag Annie, but its type line reads Signature Unit, not Champion Unit. The Core Rules use it as their own example: Tibbers can never be a chosen champion, even in an Annie deck. Signature cards follow rules of their own, such as a limit of three in a whole deck, explained in the article on signature cards.

How does a champion unit become your chosen champion?

A champion unit can be your chosen champion when its champion tag matches the tag of your Legend. Defender of Tomorrow has the tag Jayce, so a Jayce deck may choose any of the three Jayce units, including Jayce, Man of Progress, which was printed in Spiritforged before Jayce had a Legend at all. The tag is what links them, not the set.

Before the game you take the chosen champion out of your Main Deck and put it face up in your Champion Zone, and you can play it from there as if it were in your hand. It still counts as one of the cards of your Main Deck and as one of the three copies of its name. Other copies with the same name count as your chosen champion too, but a unit with a different subtitle does not: if you chose Jayce, Brilliant Inventor, a Jayce, Hammer in Hand in your hand is not your chosen champion.

A chosen champion that dies goes to the trash like any other unit, and only a card that says so can return it to the Champion Zone, such as the battlefield Hallowed Tomb, as the article on the chosen champion explains.

The rule is looser in Sealed and Draft. In those formats the Tournament Rules let any champion unit within the deck's domains be its chosen champion, even one whose champion tag does not match the Legend.

Can a deck play champion units of other champions?

Yes. A champion unit goes into any deck whose domains it fits, up to three copies, just like any other unit. It only cannot be that deck's chosen champion. A Jinx deck plays Fury and Chaos, so it may run Vayne, Hunter as a Fury unit, while its chosen champion has to be a Jinx unit.

Many champions have champion units but no Legend so far. Tryndamere, Barbarian, Vayne, Hunter and Caitlyn, Patrolling from Origins are three of them, and each one can go into other champions' decks as an ordinary unit. Neeko, Blending In from Radiance goes one step further. She has no domain, which makes her a colorless card that fits every deck, but no Legend carries the tag Neeko so far, so in Constructed no deck can set her aside as its chosen champion.

How many champion units does a champion have?

Every champion whose Legend is in Origins, Proving Grounds, Spiritforged, Unleashed or Vendetta has two champion units at least. Each of those Legends came out together with two new champion units of its champion in the same set: one Rare and one Epic, one in each of the Legend's two domains. Loose Cannon, the Legend of Jinx, is Fury and Chaos, and Origins gave Jinx a Fury Rare in Jinx, Demolitionist and a Chaos Epic in Jinx, Rebel.

Later sets add more. Radiance will add a third Ahri unit, Ahri, Confident, for Nine-Tailed Fox, the Ahri Legend from Origins. Master Yi has four champion units, the most of any champion so far, and both of his Legends, Wuju Bladesman and Wuju Master, can choose from all four. A choice between two or more champion units is one of the decisions that make two decks of the same Legend play differently.

Every champion unit is on the units page, where the Class filter picks out the champion units, and the champions page shows each champion with their Legend, champion units and signature cards together, as on the page of Jayce. To see how those cards work as one deck, read how a champion's Legend, units and signature cards fit together.