What is a unit in Riftbound?

Units are the cards that do the fighting in Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game. A unit can be a champion such as Jinx, a soldier, a monster or a poro, and once you play it, it stays on the board until it dies or a card removes it. Units are also the only cards that can take a battlefield and keep it. Since almost every point you need to win a game comes from the battlefields, the units of a deck decide most of its games.

The Core Rules, which Riot publishes on its Rules Hub, call units and gear permanents, because they remain on the board after they are played. A spell works the other way: it does what its text says and then goes to the trash.

How do you recognize a unit?

A unit has the word Unit on its type line, and it is the only kind of card with a Might number in its top right corner. Its cost sits in the top left corner: an Energy cost, and on many units a Power cost of one or more domain symbols under it.

Vanguard Sergeant from Origins is a unit at its plainest. It costs 4 Energy, has 4 Might and has no rules text at all, only a line of flavor text. Mega-Mech has 8 Might for 7 Energy and no rules text either. Most units carry rules text as well as their Might, such as Plundering Poro from Spiritforged, which plays a Gold gear token when it conquers a battlefield.

Where does a unit go when you play it?

Normally you play a unit from your hand during your own Main Phase, while no showdown or combat is going on, and you pay its cost with your runes. You choose where it enters: your base, or a battlefield you already control. Your chosen champion is played the same way, straight from the Champion Zone.

A unit enters the board exhausted. In most cases it can neither move nor use an ability that exhausts it until your next turn, when your Awaken Phase readies it. Some units get around this wait.

• Accelerate lets you pay 1 more Energy and one Power of the unit's domain to have it enter ready. Legion Rearguard costs 2 Energy, or 3 Energy and one Fury Power if you want it ready at once.
• Some units always enter ready, such as Arena Kingpin from Unleashed.
• Ambush lets a unit be played as a Reaction to a battlefield where you already have units, even during a fight or on your opponent's turn. Nidalee, Cat Form has it.

What does a unit's Might do?

Might is a unit's strength and its toughness in one number. In combat, each side deals damage equal to the total Might of its units at the battlefield, and a unit is killed as soon as the damage on it is equal to or greater than its Might. Vanguard Sergeant deals 4 damage in a fight and dies to 4 damage. Damage does not stay on a unit for long, because every unit heals after each combat and at the end of each turn.

Might changes during play. Spells and abilities give a unit extra Might for a turn, Assault adds Might while a unit attacks and Shield while it defends, and a buff adds 1 Might until it is spent. A unit with 0 Might, such as Scuttle Crab, adds nothing to the damage its side deals and dies to any damage at all, but it can still conquer and hold a battlefield.

How do units score points?

Units score by taking battlefields and staying there. In your Main Phase, a ready unit can exhaust to move from your base to a battlefield or from a battlefield back to your base, and several units can move together. Units that arrive at an empty battlefield open a showdown, and if they are still alone there when it ends, you conquer the battlefield, which usually scores a point. Units that arrive at a battlefield where enemy units stand start a combat instead.

You keep control of a battlefield for as long as you have units there, and the units you leave behind defend it on your opponent's turn, exhausted or not. If they are still there at the start of your next turn, you hold the battlefield and score it again. That is why a unit is worth what it can take and keep: a small unit standing alone on a battlefield scores just as well as a big one.

What else can a unit do?

Most units have abilities in their text, and these come in a few kinds.

• Abilities that trigger. They are worded with "when", "at" or "the first time" and work on their own. Plundering Poro plays a Gold gear token when it conquers, Guardian of the Passage lets you return a unit or gear from your trash to your hand when it holds, and Scuttle Crab draws you a card when you play it.
• Deathknell. This keyword does something when the unit dies. When Scuttle Crab dies, an opponent you choose reveals their hand and you gain 1 XP.
• Abilities you activate. They are written as a cost, a colon and an effect, and you use them in your Main Phase unless they have Action or Reaction. Ultrasoft Poro exhausts to play two 1 Might Bird unit tokens while it is at a battlefield. A unit that exhausts for an ability cannot also move that turn unless something readies it.
• Keywords. A keyword says in one word how a unit plays. Tank makes a unit take lethal combat damage before its controller's other units that lack Tank, Ganking lets it move from one battlefield to another, and Deflect makes it cost more for an opponent to choose it with a spell or ability.

Which kinds of unit are there?

Most units are plain units, with nothing printed before the word Unit on the type line. Three other kinds follow rules of their own.

• Champion units carry the supertype Champion and a champion's name among their tags, such as Jinx, Demolitionist. Every deck sets aside one champion unit that matches its Legend as its chosen champion.
• Signature units belong to one champion without being that champion. Tibbers carries the tag Annie, so only a deck whose Legend is Annie may play it, under the rules for signature cards, and it can never be the chosen champion.
• Token units are created during play by other cards. Viktor, Innovator plays a 1 Might Recruit unit token in your base when you play a card on an opponent's turn. A token unit follows every rule for units, but it is not a card, so it stops existing as soon as it leaves the board.

How many units does a deck play?

The deck rules set no number of units, apart from the champion unit every deck sets aside, but Riot's ready-made decks show how central units are. The Zed Showdown Deck of Vendetta plays 31 units in its main deck of 40, and the Spiritforged Champion Deck: Fiora, which also plays 10 gear, still has 20. Units are the only cards that can take battlefields, which is why how many units, spells and gear a deck runs matters even though no rule sets the number.

Every unit of every set is on the units page, and the deck builder checks your deck against the rules while you build it. Which unit a deck sets aside as its chosen champion depends on its Legend: only a champion unit whose tag matches the tag of the Legend can fill that place.