Should you grade your Riftbound cards?

Grading a card means sending it to a grading company, which examines it, gives it a grade from 1 to 10 and seals it in a hard plastic holder with a label. Collectors of Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game grade their cards for two reasons: to keep a valuable card safe for good, and to show a buyer exactly what condition it is in and that it is genuine. Whether grading is worth it depends on the card, its condition and what you mean to do with it.

What happens when you grade a card?

A grading company checks the card and sums up its condition in one number. CGC Cards, one of the large graders, says on its page of cards it grades that it grades virtually every trading card game, and Riftbound is not on its list of cards it does not grade. CGC grades on a 10-point scale with half grades and judges four things: how well the picture is centered between the borders, the corners, the edges and the surface. Its top grade, Pristine 10, is for a card that is virtually flawless to the naked eye, and Gem Mint 10 for one that falls just short of it.

The graded card is then sealed in a welded plastic holder. The label describes the card, shows its grade and carries a unique certification number, which anyone can look up on the grader's website with its certification lookup. Grading also checks that a card is genuine: CGC rejects a card of questionable authenticity and gives it no grade. A genuine card that has been altered, for example by recoloring or trimming, gets no number either, only the grade Authentic Altered.

Which Riftbound cards are worth grading?

The cards worth grading are the rare collector's printings, where condition moves the price the most. In Riftbound these printings carry the gold Showcase gem, and the strongest candidates are the four below.

• Overnumbered cards, such as the Jinx Legend Loose Cannon at 301/298. In its article on collecting Origins, Riot put them at about one per three booster displays of Origins, and it has said that it will never reprint an overnumbered card with the same art and frame.
• Signed cards, which are overnumbered cards with the artist's signature in foil across the art, such as the signed Loose Cannon at 301*/298. In Origins, about one overnumbered card in ten is signed.
• Ultimate Rares: Baron Nashor from Unleashed, which Riot's overview of Unleashed puts in fewer than one pack in 1,000, and the battlefield Packed Amphitheater from Radiance, with its release on 23 October 2026, which Riot's overview of Radiance puts in about one pack in 4,000.
• Alternate art cards, such as Jinx, Rebel at 202a/298. At about two per display in Origins they are far more common than the other three, so only the ones that sell for a high price are worth a grade.

A good rule is to grade a card only when, ungraded, it is already worth many times the full cost of grading it. A card whose price is small next to the fee cannot earn it back, however perfect it is. Today the standard Rare Loose Cannon sells for $0.32, the overnumbered Loose Cannon for $150.70 and the signed Loose Cannon for $1,355.35. The alternate art Jinx, Rebel sells for $3.53 and the Ultimate Rare Baron Nashor for $1,828.46. The one exception to the rule is a card that matters to you, such as the first overnumbered card you ever pulled: a holder keeps it safe whatever it is worth.

What does grading cost and how long does it take?

Graders charge a fee per card, and the fee rises with the value of the card and with how quickly you want it back. The table shows three of the tiers on the price list of CGC Cards on 13 October 2026.

Sending the cards safely to the grader and back costs extra, and at the cheapest tier the wait runs to several months. CGC also warns that a card not yet in its database can take longer, because it has to research the card first. That can slow down the newest cards, such as those of Radiance. Fees and waits differ from one grader to the next, so compare the current price lists before you send anything.

What should you check before you send a card?

Look at the card under a bright light before you pay for a grade, because a flaw you can see means it will not get a top grade. Check the four things a grader checks: borders of even width on all sides, four sharp corners, clean edges without white chips and a surface without scratches, dents or marks. Foil cards need the closest look, since a foil surface shows scratches easily, and in Riftbound every Rare and Epic in a booster pack is foil, as is every showcase printing.

Origins cards deserve an extra look at their edges. In November 2025 Riot said that a small share of Origins cards had rougher edges than they should, because the thick, premium card stock wore down the cutting tools faster than expected. Riot added that showcase cards, including alternate art and overnumbered cards, were not affected, and that it changed the cutting process for Spiritforged and the sets after it.

A card meant for grading is best put in a soft sleeve straight from the pack and kept out of play. A toploader over the sleeve keeps it flat and protects its corners, as the article on how to protect your Riftbound cards describes. Sellers describe ungraded cards in conditions such as Near Mint, and a card that is already below Near Mint will not get a top grade.

Can you still play with a graded card?

No. A graded card stays sealed in its holder, and the only way to play it again is to break the holder open, which ends the grade. A card in a rigid holder cannot be shuffled with the rest of a deck, and the Tournament Rules ask that, when a player sleeves a deck, every card goes into identical sleeves in the same way, with the same number of layers (rule 422.2). Proxies, which are unofficial stand-ins for a real card, are not allowed at Riftbound competitions of any level (rule 419.2), so a stand-in cannot take the place of the card in the holder either.

In practice this costs a player little, because every collector's printing plays exactly like its standard card: the Core Rules say that the illustration of a card conveys no gameplay information (rule 139.1). A player who grades the alternate art Jinx, Rebel can play the Epic Jinx, Rebel at 202/298, which has the same rules. Grade the copy you want to keep, and play with a copy you do not mind wearing out. Playing copies are single cards, which come from local game stores and from online marketplaces: Cardmarket in Europe, TCGplayer in the United States and CardTrader on both sides of the Atlantic.

When is it better not to grade a card?

Leave a card ungraded when you play with it, when it is worth only a little, when it already shows a flaw or when you need the money soon. Buyers pay the most for the top grades, so a card that comes back a step or two below the top may not earn back its fee and postage. An ungraded card kept in a sleeve and a toploader stays in the condition it came out of the pack in, and it can still go in for grading later.

The overnumbered cards, signed cards and Ultimate Rares pages list every card of those kinds, and your collection keeps track of the cards you own. Because grading only pays off for a card that is already worth much more than the fee, it helps to know what decides the price of a Riftbound card before you send anything.