How do you build your first Riftbound deck?

A deck for Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game has four parts: one Legend, a Main Deck of 40 cards, a Rune Deck of 12 runes and three battlefields. Building your first one means making a handful of choices in a fixed order, because each choice narrows the next: the Legend, then the chosen champion and the signature cards, then the rest of the Main Deck, and the runes and the battlefields last.

That order follows the deckbuilding primer that Dave Guskin wrote as game director of Riftbound in July 2025, and the rules of thumb below come from it. They are for a Constructed deck of your own cards. At Sealed and Draft events you build from the packs opened at the event, under looser rules.

Should you start from a ready-made deck?

Most new players should start from a ready-made deck. A Champion Deck, with a launch price of $19.99, is a complete deck of 56 cards built around one Legend, and changing a deck that already works teaches more than filling an empty list. Riot's primer gives the same advice: start with a deck Riot built and adjust it card by card until it plays the way you want.

The three Champion Decks of Origins hold a single unit of their champion and none of its signature cards, and those of Spiritforged and Unleashed hold one signature card each, so more copies of both are the obvious first additions. Single cards come from local game stores, from Cardmarket in Europe, from TCGplayer in the United States and from CardTrader on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Origins Champion Deck: Jinx, which sells for $33.02 today, also holds cards that are now banned: Fight or Flight, Scrapheap and the battlefield Reaver's Row. At casual events such as Nexus Night the deck may be played exactly as it comes in the box, but once a single card changes, the banned cards have to go.

Which Legend should your deck be built around?

Build around a champion you like, because the Legend is on the table in every game you play with the deck. It also sets the deck's two domains, its champion units and its signature cards. A Legend whose ability works on its own is easier to learn with than one that asks you to plan several turns ahead.

This article follows one Legend through every step. Loose Cannon, the Legend of Jinx, is Fury and Chaos, and at the start of your Beginning Phase it draws you a card if you hold one card or none. The ability points to a clear plan: empty your hand quickly and let the Legend refill it. Read a Legend's ability for the plan it points to before you pick a Legend.

How do you choose the chosen champion and the signature cards?

Choose the champion unit that suits your Legend's plan best. It has to carry your Legend's champion tag, and it starts every game in your Champion Zone, where you can play it as if it were in your hand. A Jinx deck can choose Jinx, Demolitionist, a 3 Energy Fury unit that makes you discard two cards when you play it, or Jinx, Rebel, a 5 Energy Chaos unit that readies with +1 Might for the turn whenever you discard. Both suit a deck that wants an empty hand.

The primer advises more copies of the chosen champion in the Main Deck, since opponents will try to remove the first one, and under the copy limit a deck may hold three in all. It also advises three copies of your Legend's signature card, the most a deck may hold under the signature limit, unless you have a good reason to play fewer. For Jinx that is Super Mega Death Rocket!, a spell that deals 5 damage to a unit and can return from your trash to your hand when you conquer, at the cost of a discard. A single copy of this spell sells for $2.64 today. In a Jinx deck led by Loose Cannon, three copies of Jinx, Demolitionist or of Jinx, Rebel and three copies of Super Mega Death Rocket! settle six of the 40 cards.

How do you fill the rest of the 40 cards?

Fill most of the remaining slots with units, then add the spells that win fights. The primer gives three rules of thumb.

• Nine or more small units. Play at least nine units that cost 2 to 4 Energy, so that you draw one by your first or second turn. You need units to take the battlefields that score points.
• Six or more interactive spells. Play at least six spells that make your units stronger, make enemy units weaker or remove them, so that you draw one by the middle of the game. A signature spell that does this counts toward the six.
• Not too many spells and gear. Spells and gear support the units on the battlefields. When in doubt, play another unit.

For Jinx, Chemtech Enforcer, a 2 Energy unit, makes you discard a card when you play it, which empties your hand faster, and Traveling Merchant discards and draws a card each time it moves. Flame Chompers lets you pay one Fury Power to play it when you discard it. Void Seeker and Gust deal with enemy units. All five are Commons or Uncommons from the Jinx Champion Deck.

The seven Champion Decks of Origins, Spiritforged and Unleashed each run 20 to 28 units, 9 to 16 spells and 2 to 10 gear, which shows how wide a sound mix of units, spells and gear can be. Each also holds at least 16 units that cost 2 to 4 Energy, the cheap plays of a good Energy curve.

How many runes of each domain should you bring?

Start with six runes of each of your Legend's two domains, so a Jinx deck brings six Fury Runes and six Chaos Runes. Every Champion Deck, both Vendetta Showdown decks and all four Proving Grounds decks split their 12 runes this way.

Change the split once you see which domain your cards lean on. A rune recycled for Power gives Power of its own domain only, so when the cards of one domain need several Power each and those of the other need little, the primer suggests trying eight and four in favor of the heavier domain. Counting the Power symbols of each domain across the 40 cards shows which domain is the heavier one, the first step in deciding how many runes of each domain to bring.

Which three battlefields should you pick?

Pick three battlefields with different names that all help your plan, because each of them can end up in play. In a Duel, one of your three is picked at random before the game. In a best-of-three Match you choose one for each game, and the battlefields of a game someone won cannot be chosen again in that match. Every battlefield printed so far is Colorless and fits any deck, although five are banned in Constructed.

The primer suggests three questions for choosing battlefields: which battlefields do the most for your plan, which would hurt you most in your opponent's hands, and which help you a little more than your opponent. For Jinx, Zaun Warrens is a natural pick, since conquering it makes you discard a card and draw one.

How do you check and test your first deck?

Check the deck against the rules, then play it and change a few cards at a time. The deck builder counts the 40 cards, the 12 runes and the three battlefields, checks the domains, the copy limits and the banned list, and names whatever still keeps the deck from being legal. The shared decks include the decks sold in a box, and the Create copy button on each one opens it in the builder as a starting point.

Riot's primer calls the first version a rough draft: play it against friends or at a local store, note which cards were strong and which were weak, and improve the next version. Keep the Main Deck at exactly 40 cards, since every extra card makes your best cards less likely to turn up and the Tournament Rules ask for exactly 40 at Constructed events. Changing a few cards at a time also keeps the cost down, as in a strong deck built on a budget.

Every Legend is on the Legends page, and the champions page shows each champion with their cards. If you would rather build around a different champion than Jinx, how to pick a Legend reads the abilities of several Legends for the decks they ask for.