Which starter deck should a new player pick?

The easiest way into Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game is a deck that comes ready to play. Riot makes three kinds of ready-made decks: the Champion Deck with one deck, the Showdown Decks with two decks made to face each other, and Proving Grounds, the starter box with four. Each deck is built around one Legend and holds everything a game needs, so the choice depends less on which deck is strongest than on who you will play with and how much the deck asks of you.

Which kind of ready-made deck suits you?

The right box follows from the number of people who will learn with you.

• Two to four people who learn together do best with Proving Grounds. Its booklet teaches the game step by step, and apart from the Legend, the runes and the battlefield, its decks hold only units and spells. The box launched at $29.99, and the reprint of 2026 at $39.99. Today the box sells for $53.13.
• Two people who want decks by the full rules do best with a Showdown box. It holds two complete decks of 56 cards, each with the three battlefields a Duel asks for, at a launch price of $34.99. The Vendetta Showdown box sells for $15.14 today.
• One player who wants to join the games at a local store does best with a Champion Deck. It is one complete deck of 56 cards with a launch price of $19.99, ready for a store event the day it is opened.

Proving Grounds is the gentlest start, but its decks are made for the box. Each one brings a single battlefield, while a deck for a Duel under the official rules brings three with different names (Core Rules 487.4.a and 103.5.c). Riot's deckbuilding primer names the Champion Decks as a place to start for players who are new to building decks, and suggests changing them card by card from there.

Which Champion Deck is the easiest to learn with?

The easiest Champion Deck is the one whose champion you like, because it is the deck you will play most in your first weeks. If you have no favorite, look at the Legend, since it acts in every game. Three of the seven Champion Decks of Origins, Spiritforged and Unleashed have a Legend that asks almost nothing of you.

• Mechanized Menace, the Legend of the Rumble deck, gives your Mechs Shield at all times. Nineteen of the deck's 22 units are Mechs, so its plan is easy to see. The Rumble deck sells for $25.21 today.
• Loose Cannon, the Legend of the Jinx deck, draws you a card at the start of your Beginning Phase when you hold one card or none. The Jinx deck sells for $33.02 today, and it has a catch of its own, explained below.
• Gloomist, the Legend of the Vex deck, draws you a card when you hold a battlefield, for nothing more than exhausting it. The Vex deck has something else to track instead: nine of its 26 units gain XP, which switches on its Level effects. The Vex deck sells for $21.16 today.

The other four Legends ask for a decision or wait for a condition. Blind Monk of the Lee Sin deck and Herald of the Arcane of the Viktor deck cost 1 Energy each time you use them, and a new player has to weigh that Energy against the cards in hand every turn. Grand Duelist of the Fiora deck channels an extra rune when one of your units becomes Mighty, with 5 Might or more. Piltover Enforcer of the Vi deck readies a unit when you conquer after assigning 3 or more excess damage. Grand Duelist and Piltover Enforcer reward a plan that you learn by playing it.

The cards beside the Legend matter as well. The Fiora deck holds ten pieces of equipment, gear that you attach to your units, which is twice as many gear cards as any other Champion Deck of the first three sets. It suits a player who wants to learn equipment early, but it makes a busier first game. A Legend whose ability asks for nothing is easier to learn than one that asks for Energy or a plan, and how to pick a Legend applies that test beyond these decks.

What is the catch with the Jinx Champion Deck?

The Jinx Champion Deck holds three cards that are now banned in Constructed: the spell Fight or Flight, the gear Scrapheap and the battlefield Reaver's Row. At home the bans change nothing. At casual store events such as Nexus Night, the Tournament Rules let you play the deck with all three, as long as it matches the box card for card (rule 601.2.d.2).

The allowance for an unchanged ready-made deck ends the moment you change a single card or add a sideboard, and it never applies at Competitive or Professional events. A player who plans to improve the deck then has to replace all three banned cards at once, a new third battlefield included, so another Champion Deck is the easier start for that player. For a player who only wants to play the deck as it comes, the Jinx deck is as good a pick as any.

Which side of a Showdown box suits the newer player?

The two decks in a Showdown box are made for each other, but they are not equally simple. In the Vendetta Showdown Decks, Shen has the plainer plan. His Legend, Eye of Twilight, gives a friendly unit Tank for the turn without costing any Energy, and several cards in his deck reward having exactly two of your units at a battlefield. Zed's Legend, Master of Shadows, works in two steps: it becomes Empowered when you banish a card you own, and only then can you give up the Empowered state to discard a card and draw one. When one of the two players is newer to card games, that player is best off with Shen.

The Radiance Showdown Decks, with their release on 23 October 2026, set Seraphine against Evelynn, and judging by their Legends both sides ask for planning. Starry-Eyed Songstress makes a spell 2 Energy cheaper only when you exhaust it together with three of your units. Agony's Embrace draws a card once each turn when you play a card from face down, the way cards with Hidden are played, and then discards a card if it is not your turn. Two players who have never played a trading card game may find the Vendetta box or Proving Grounds an easier first step.

Which Proving Grounds deck should you play first?

The Garen deck is the simplest of the four Proving Grounds decks to start with. Its Legend, Might of Demacia, draws two cards when you conquer a battlefield with four or more of your units there, and the deck holds 29 units to make that happen. The Annie deck asks the most of a new player, who has to keep runes back for spells on the opponent's turn. Whichever deck you start with, swap decks for the second game, because the four Proving Grounds decks do not play alike and each one teaches a different plan.

Is a deck from an older set still a good pick?

Yes. Every set Riot has released so far, from Origins and Proving Grounds to Vendetta, is legal in Standard, the Constructed format of organized play (Tournament Rules 601.3.c), and Radiance joins them with its release on 23 October 2026. A Champion Deck of Origins therefore goes to the same events as the newest decks, and the champion matters more than the set. Riot has announced more ready-made decks: Legacy, the sixth set, with its release on 29 January 2027, brings Champion Decks for Tryndamere, Ashe, Lux and Garen, and Proving Grounds, 2nd Edition, with its release on 19 February 2027, brings four new decks. A player who wants to start now gains nothing by waiting for them, because the rules a first deck teaches are the same in every box.

The decks sold in a box are on the decks page card for card, and the products guide shows what else comes in each box. A box comes from a local game store or from Cardmarket in Europe, TCGplayer in the United States and CardTrader on both sides of the Atlantic. Once your deck feels familiar, you can change it a few cards at a time, and how to upgrade a Champion Deck says which cards to add first. Booster packs and the other products are weighed against a ready-made deck in which product to get first.