Which rarities do Riftbound cards come in?

Every card of Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game has a small gem in the middle of its bottom edge, and the shape of that gem is the rarity of the card. The rarity tells you how often a card turns up in a booster pack. Riot also uses it to sort cards by how complex they are, but it never changes how a card plays.

Four rarities cover every standard card: Common, Uncommon, Rare and Epic. A fifth gem, the gold hexagon of the Showcase printings, marks a collector version of a card that also exists at one of those four rarities. Since Unleashed, a set can also hold an Ultimate Rare, the hardest card of all to find.

How do you tell the rarity of a Riftbound card?

You tell the rarity by the gem between the collector number and the name of the artist. Riot gives each rarity a shape of its own, and the frame of the card changes with it.

• Common cards have a round gem and a bronze frame.
• Uncommon cards have a triangular gem and a silver frame.
• Rare cards have a square gem and a gold full-art frame.
• Epic cards have a pentagonal gem and a slim gold frame that leaves more room for the art.
• Showcase printings have a gold hexagonal gem. Alternate art, overnumbered, signed and special cards all carry it.

The four cards below show one gem each. Brutal Hunter from Vendetta is a Common, Hexdrinker from Spiritforged is an Uncommon, Jinx, Demolitionist from Origins is a Rare and Seraphine, Not Alone from Radiance, with its release on 23 October 2026, is an Epic.

Which kinds of card come at each rarity?

Some kinds of card always come at the same rarity, and Riot explained what it puts at each one in its article on collectability in Origins.

• Commons are meant to be simple, clear and useful, each with an obvious job in a deck. Riot says plainly that a Common is not a weak card. Most Commons are units and spells. The basic runes and the tokens carry the round Common gem as well.
• Uncommons tend to be a little more complex, narrower in use or built around a synergy. Every standard battlefield is an Uncommon, which Riot chose so that players can get battlefields easily.
• Rares are meant to be exciting and powerful. Every Legend printed so far is a Rare, so the card a deck is built around stays within reach. Champion units are Rares or Epics, and Riot says the other Rares are mostly Rare because of how complex they are.
• Epics are the highest rarity that matters for play. Most of them are champion units and signature cards, and every signature card printed so far is an Epic.

The four Origins cards below follow these rules. Loose Cannon, the Legend of Jinx, is a Rare, and her signature spell Super Mega Death Rocket! is an Epic. The Fury Rune is a Common, and the battlefield Hallowed Tomb is an Uncommon.

How many cards of each rarity does a set have?

A main set of Riftbound has about as many Commons as Uncommons and Rares, and between half and two thirds as many Epics as Rares. The table counts the cards that each of the first four main sets numbers within the set, without the Showcase printings.

The Commons of Origins include its six basic runes and four tokens. From Spiritforged on, tokens are numbered apart with a T, and the basic runes of the later sets with an R, so they are not counted here. The last column is the size of the set, the number printed after the slash on each of its cards, and how many cards a Riftbound set has depends on whether you also count the runes, tokens and Showcase printings that come on top.

How often does each rarity turn up in a pack?

A booster pack holds seven Commons, three Uncommons and two slots of Rare or better, so a single Common turns up far more often than a single Rare, although a set has about as many of one as of the other. The pack also holds one foil card of any of the four rarities and one rune or token.

Most of the time the two rare slots hold two Rares. Riot put the chance of an Epic at about one pack in four for Origins, which comes to about six Epics in a booster display of 24 packs. Rarity also decides the finish: in booster packs every Rare and Epic is foil, while a Common or an Uncommon is foil only when it lands in the foil slot. The Showcase printings turn up far less often than Epics, and the pull rates of a booster pack put a figure on each of them.

Riot announced in its plans for the sets into 2027 a change for Legacy, the sixth set, with its release on 29 January 2027. In Legacy and the sets after it, one of the Common slots will hold a Legend or a battlefield instead, so a pack will hold six Commons.

What does the gold Showcase gem mean?

The Showcase gem marks a collector printing of a card, not a new card. A Showcase printing has the same name and text as the standard card, with new artwork and a collector number of its own. There are four kinds: alternate art, overnumbered, signed and special printings.

A Showcase printing can reprint a card of any rarity. Seraphine, Not Alone is an Epic in Radiance. It comes again as an alternate art card and as a K/DA special printing, and both carry the Showcase gem. Pouty Poro is a Common of Origins, and Unleashed printed it again as an overnumbered card. In a pack, most Showcase printings take the place of a Rare in a rare slot, while an alternate art rune comes in the rune slot.

What is an Ultimate Rare?

An Ultimate Rare is the rarest printing of a set, and Riot introduced the Ultimate rarity with Unleashed in its overview of that set. The first one is Baron Nashor at UNL 238/219. It reprints the Epic unit Baron Nashor at UNL 147/219 and turns up in fewer than one Unleashed pack in 1,000.

Radiance, with its release on 23 October 2026, has the second: the battlefield Packed Amphitheater at RAD 184/167. It reprints the Uncommon battlefield Packed Amphitheater at RAD 164/167, and Riot puts it at about one pack in 4,000 in its overview of Radiance. A pack never holds more than one Ultimate Rare, and Riot has said that not every set will have one. On the card, an Ultimate Rare carries the same gold hexagon as the other Showcase printings, so the gem alone does not tell it apart from an overnumbered card. The row below shows both Ultimate Rares next to their standard printings.

Does a rarer card play better?

Not always. Rarity says how often a card turns up in a pack, and a rarer card is not always a stronger one. The Core Rules do not mention rarity at all. A card is known by its name (rule 132.1), its illustration conveys no gameplay information (rule 139.1), and a deck may hold up to three copies of a card with the same name, whatever their printing (rule 103.3.b). One Ultimate Rare Baron Nashor and two copies of the standard Baron Nashor make three copies, the same as three standard ones.

When you build a deck, judge a card by its text rather than its gem. Many useful cards are Commons and Uncommons, and the Showcase printings are made for collectors: they play exactly like the standard cards.

The rarity guide shows every gem with example cards and the odds of each printing per set, and the pack opener lets you open packs of every set to see how the rarities fall. The Ultimate Rares, overnumbered cards and alternate art cards each have a page of their own. Whether a card is foil depends on its rarity and also on where it comes from, since the starter box and the promo packs follow rules of their own, and which Riftbound cards are foil goes through each case.