How do you keep track of a Riftbound collection?

A collection of Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game grows quickly. Every booster pack adds 14 cards, a Champion Deck adds 56 at once, and the same card can turn up in several printings and in two finishes. A list of what you own tells you which decks you can build, which cards you still need and what the collection is worth.

The list can live in a spreadsheet or in the collection on this site. Either way, it is only useful if it tells cards apart the way their prices do: by printing and by finish, not by name alone.

What should you record for each card?

Record each card by its collector number, its finish and the number of copies you have. The collector number is the code in the bottom left corner of the card, such as OGN · 119/298 on Ahri, Inquisitive: the set code, the number of the card and the size of the set. The number is a better key than the name, because one name can stand for several printings that collectors value very differently.

Ahri, Inquisitive shows why. The Epic from Origins is OGN · 119/298 and its alternate art printing is 119a/298. Spiritforged reprinted her as the overnumbered SFD · 227/221, with a signed printing at 227*/221, and Vendetta added the special card VEN · SP3/006. All five printings carry the same name and rules text, and each one belongs on a line of its own. Today the Origins Epic sells for $5.81, its alternate art printing for $12.62, the overnumbered printing for $663.31, the signed printing for $3,334.49 and the special card for $66.27.

Promo cards need a note too. A Nexus Night promo usually keeps the number of the card it reprints and adds a small PROMO banner over the rarity gem, so a list that records only the number would mix it up with the copy from a booster pack. If you trade or sell cards, also note the condition and the language of each copy, since both change what it sells for.

Why count plain and foil copies apart?

Plain and foil copies need separate counts because many cards come in both finishes, and each finish has a price of its own. Riot has said that every Rare and every Epic in a booster pack is foil, so those cards need only one count. Commons and Uncommons fill the plain slots of a pack, while the one foil slot of every pack usually holds a foil Common or Uncommon. A foil Common has the same number as the plain one, and the shine is the only thing that tells the two apart.

Pouty Poro shows how many lines one card can need. The Origins Common at OGN · 013/298 comes plain and foil from booster packs. A foil promo printing with the same number came in the Nexus Night packs of the Origins season, and Unleashed brought an overnumbered printing at UNL · 220/219. That makes four lines for one small poro: plain, foil, promo and overnumbered. Today the plain copy sells for $0.11, the foil copy for $0.32, the promo printing for $1.08 and the overnumbered printing for $215.52.

Can you keep the list in a spreadsheet?

Yes. Give the spreadsheet one row for each printing and finish you own, with columns for the set code, the number, the name, the printing, the finish and the number of copies, and sort it by set code and number. Enter new cards right after you open a pack or finish a trade, before they go into a deck box or a binder, and the list stays true. The weak side of a spreadsheet is the work around it: you look up every price yourself, and checking a deck against your cards means counting by hand.

How does the collection on this site work?

With an account on this site, the collection keeps the count for you. Open any card and set how many copies you have with the counters in its details: one for plain copies and one for foil copies, or only the one for the finish the card comes in. Each change is saved as you make it.

Your collection page lists your cards alone, with the same search, filters and sorts as the full card list. Sorting by card number groups the cards by set in the order of their numbers, and the Printing filter picks out the alternate art, overnumbered, signed or promo cards. In the full card list and on the page of each set, every card you own shows the number of your copies in its corner. A collection is private until you share it with the Share button on its page, which also lets you choose which of your binders appear beside it.

Can you add a whole deck or box at once?

A product whose cards are all known goes into the collection in one step. The product page of a Champion Deck, of the Showdown Decks or of the Proving Grounds starter box has a button that adds every card it holds. The page of Origins Champion Deck: Jinx adds its 56 cards, and the pages of the Vendetta Showdown Decks and of Proving Grounds work the same way. Pressed again, the button adds a second copy of each card, for a player who opened the same product twice. Any deck on the site works the same way through the Add to collection button on its page.

Booster packs are different, since their cards are random. Each Champion Deck also comes with a booster pack of its set, and those 14 cards go in one by one. To enter a pile of opened packs quickly, sort the cards by set and number first, then work through the set's page in the card list from the lowest number up.

How do you see what your collection is worth?

A collection is worth every copy at the market price of its printing and finish, added up. The collection page does the sum for you and shows it as the estimated value above the cards, in TCGplayer prices in US dollars or Cardmarket prices in euros, chosen with the Settings button. Copies that have no price yet add nothing, and the page says how many there are.

The value follows the filters, so picking one set shows what your cards of that set are worth. Treat the figure as an estimate: it prices every copy at the going rate for the card and its finish, and it cannot see the condition of your own copies. The marketplace matters as well, because the same card rarely has the same price on TCGplayer and on Cardmarket, as the article on how their prices differ shows, and each price follows what decides the price of a Riftbound card, above all its printing and the decks that play it.

How do you find the cards you are missing?

For a deck, the deck page finds them for you. When you are signed in, every deck page says how many of its cards you still need and about what they would cost, and opens a list of them with a button to add each card once you have it. The page counts every printing of a card toward your copies, as the game does: a main deck may hold up to three copies of a card with the same name (Core Rules 103.3.b), whatever their printing.

For a whole set, open its page in the card list, such as Vendetta, and look for the cards without a count in their corner. Whether the printings with a letter, a star or a number past the end of the set count as gaps depends on what you collect, since a complete set usually means one copy of every numbered card and a master set adds every showcase printing, as the article on what it takes to complete a set explains.

Single cards that fill the gaps 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.

Your collection and your binders need an account. The binders on the site lay your cards out page by page, and the simplest order for them is by set and collector number, which gives every standard card one fixed pocket, as the article on how to sort a binder shows. Condition changes what a copy sells for, so the cards need care once they are on the list: how to protect your cards covers sleeves and safe habits, and how to store a large collection covers boxes and the split of a big collection.