What are the tags on a card?

Every card in Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game has a type line just above its name, and on most units that line holds more than the card type. The words after the type are the card's tags. They tell you who or what the card is, and they are the handles that the deck rules and other cards use to find it.

A tag does nothing by itself. The Core Rules say so plainly: a tag has no rules meaning of its own and only matters when a game rule or a card effect refers to it.

Where are the tags printed on a card?

Tags are printed on the type line, after the card type and its supertype, if it has one. Rumble, Hotheaded from Spiritforged reads Champion Unit, Rumble, Bandle City, Yordle, Mech: one supertype, one card type and four tags. Stalwart Poro from Origins has a single tag, Poro, and the gear B.F. Sword has the tag Equipment.

Not every card has a tag. Almost every unit carries at least one, and every Legend carries the name of its champion. A spell carries a tag only when it is a signature spell, gear usually only when it is Equipment or a signature card, and runes and battlefields carry none. Void Seeker, a spell from Origins, has nothing on its type line after the word Spell.

What kinds of tags are there?

The Core Rules describe the tags of a unit as the champions, regions, factions or species it belongs to. In practice the tags on Riftbound cards can be sorted into five groups.

• Champions. The name of a League of Legends champion, such as Jinx, Garen or Rumble. These are the champion tags, and they are the only tags the deck rules use.
• Regions. The places of Runeterra, called regions, such as Demacia, Noxus, Ionia, Bandle City and the Shadow Isles.
• Groups. Factions inside a region, such as Pirate on First Mate from Bilgewater and Trifarian on Captain Farron from Noxus. Garen, Rugged reads Champion Unit, Garen, Demacia, Elite, so he carries a champion, a region and a group at once.
• Creatures and peoples. What a unit is, such as Poro, Dog, Cat, Bird, Dragon, Spider, Yordle or Mech.
• Equipment. A tag on gear that can be attached to a unit with Equip, which then gets the gear's Might bonus and effect text.

Tokens carry tags as well: the Recruit token has the Recruit tag, the Mech token the Mech tag and the Sprite token the Fae tag.

What does a champion tag do?

A champion tag ties a Legend to the champion units and signature cards that belong to it, and it is the one kind of tag that decides what a deck may hold. Loose Cannon, the Legend of Jinx, carries the single tag Jinx. A deck led by it picks its chosen champion from the champion units with the same tag, such as Jinx, Rebel or Jinx, Demolitionist, and every signature card in the deck must carry the tag Jinx too, such as Super Mega Death Rocket!

The tag alone is not always enough. Tibbers carries the tag Annie, but it is a signature unit and not a champion unit, so it can never be the chosen champion of an Annie deck.

In Sealed and Draft, the Tournament Rules let a deck choose any champion unit within its domains as its chosen champion, even one whose tag does not match its Legend.

How do other cards use tags?

Cards use tags to reward a deck that brings several cards of the same kind. On a card, "your Dragons" or "your Mechs" means the units you control with that tag.

• Herald of Scales makes your Dragons cost 2 Energy less, to a minimum of 1. With the Herald in play, Direwing, a 7 Energy Dragon that enters ready if you control another Dragon, costs 5.
• Mechanized Menace, the Legend of Rumble, gives your Mechs Shield, and Rumble, Hotheaded gives them Assault. Rumble, Hotheaded is a Mech himself, so both apply to him.
• Friendship gives a unit +1 Might for the turn for each of the tags Bird, Cat, Dog and Poro found among your units, so up to +4.
• The List asks you to name a tag as you play it, and when you exhaust it, it gives a unit with that tag -2 Might for the turn. Its own examples are Miss Fortune, Demacia and Poro: a champion, a region and a creature.

A player asked to name a tag must name one that exists on Riftbound cards or tokens, and the Core Rules print the full list, well over a hundred tags, for that purpose.

Can a card gain a tag during a game?

Yes. An effect can give a card a tag that is not printed on it, and from then on the card counts as having that tag. Ivern, Friend to All from Unleashed lets you choose Bird, Cat, Dog or Poro as you play him, and he gains that tag. When he conquers or holds, he scores you 1 point if your units have all four of those tags among them, so the tag he gains can fill the one your board is missing.

In the Core Rules, text that says a card is, are or becomes something changes its traits, tags included. Their example is a permanent that says "Other friendly units are Yordles": while it is in play, each of those units has the Yordle tag.

Does a tag limit which deck a card can go in?

No, apart from the champion tag. The cards in a deck have to match the domains of its Legend, and a region, group or creature tag plays no part in that. Origins alone has a Poro in four domains: Pouty Poro in Fury, Stalwart Poro in Calm, Mystic Poro in Chaos and Daring Poro in Order. Captain Farron is a Noxus unit, yet it fits a Jinx deck, because it is a Fury card and Jinx plays Fury and Chaos.

Tags have nothing to do with flavor text either. Void Seeker carries a quote from Kai'Sa, but it has no Kai'Sa tag, so a card that looks for Kai'Sa does not count it.

Where can you see every card with a tag?

Every card page on this site lists the card's tags, and each tag leads to all the cards that carry it, such as every Poro, every Dragon or every Mech. The advanced search of the card list has a field for tags too, and each of the champions pages, such as Rumble's, gathers a champion's Legend, champion units and signature cards. A tag only says what a card is, while the collector number in the bottom left corner says which card of which set it is.