How many runes of each domain should a deck bring?

Every deck for Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game brings a Rune Deck of exactly 12 runes, and the rules let you split them between the two domains of your Legend in any way you like. Six and six is legal, and so are seven and five, eight and four, or all twelve from one domain. The rules leave the choice to you, and the cards in your Main Deck are what should make it.

The split matters because of Power. Any rune can be exhausted for 1 Energy, whatever its domain, but a rune recycled for Power gives Power of its own domain only. A card that asks for two Calm Power usually needs two Calm Runes on the board, and the split decides how often you have them in time.

Why is six and six the usual split?

An even split is Riot's own advice for a start. The How to Play booklet of the Proving Grounds box calls six and six a good place to start, and Riot's deckbuilding primer of 28 July 2025 agrees, adding that you should adjust it as you play when one domain keeps coming up short. The Champion Decks of Origins, Spiritforged and Unleashed, the four decks of the Proving Grounds box and the two decks of the Vendetta Showdown box all hold six runes of each domain.

Six and six suits a deck whose two domains ask for about the same amount of Power, and a deck that asks for little Power at all. The Zed deck of the Vendetta Showdown box asks for only eight Power across its 40 cards, so its split hardly matters.

When should a deck bring more runes of one domain?

A deck should lean toward one domain when its cards of that domain ask for clearly more Power than its cards of the other. Riot's primer suggests trying eight and four when the cards of one domain need little or no Power and the cards of the other need several. To see where your deck stands, count the Power symbols of each domain across all 40 cards, every copy included. Leave out cards with both of your domains or with none, since any of your runes can pay them, and give more weight to the cards you want to play in your first three turns.

The Spiritforged Champion Deck: Fiora, led by Grand Duelist in Body and Order, is a clear case. Counted copy by copy, its Body cards ask for 18 Body Power, including two for each Punch First, a spell that costs only 1 Energy. Its Order cards ask for 5 Order Power, four of them for its two copies of Vengeance. The deck comes with six runes of each domain, which is fine for learning it, but a player who keeps playing it has good reason to try seven or eight Body Runes.

How likely are you to have the runes you need in time?

You never pick the runes you channel. They come off the top of a shuffled Rune Deck, two in each of your turns, so the split sets your chances rather than a promise. An eight and four deck reads the row for 8 for its main domain and the row for 4 for the other.

When you go first, six and six gives you two runes of a domain by your second turn about three times in four. Eight and four lifts that to 93 in 100 for the main domain but drops the other to 41 in 100, which is the price of a skewed split. Cheap cards with two or three Power symbols test it most: Falling Star costs 2 Energy and two Fury Power, Premonition 2 Energy and three Mind Power, and Hush 1 Energy and two Calm Power. Hush is a card of Radiance, the fifth set, with its release on 23 October 2026. Before you go below five runes of a domain, check that its cheap cards ask for one Power at most.

Which costs do not depend on the split?

Energy never does, because a rune of any domain can pay it, and several Power costs can be paid with runes of either domain as well.

• Hidden. Hiding a card with Hidden costs one Power of any domain, and the card is later played without paying its cost. Played from your hand, Switcheroo costs 2 Energy and two Chaos Power, but hidden it needs one rune of any domain.
• Signature cards. A Power symbol on a card with both of your Legend's domains can be paid with either of them, as on Defiant Dance, the Calm and Chaos signature spell of Irelia.
• Colorless cards. A Power symbol on a colorless card, one with no domain, can be paid with any domain, as on Neeko, Blending In, also a card of Radiance.

One cost works the other way. Accelerate asks for 1 Energy and one Power of the unit's own domain, so Blazing Scorcher, a Fury unit with no Power cost at all, still needs a Fury Rune to enter ready.

Can other cards make Power of a domain?

Yes, and the six Seals of Origins, one for each domain, are the plainest example. Take Seal of Rage for Fury, Seal of Insight for Mind and Seal of Strength for Body: each is a gear that costs 0 Energy and one Power of its domain. Gear enters the board ready, so you can exhaust a Seal at once to add that Power back, and again on each of your turns after that, without losing a rune. Riot's primer points to Seals for a deck with many cards that need the Power of one domain, but each Seal takes a slot in the Main Deck.

Can you change the split during a tournament?

Not in Constructed. The Tournament Rules on Riot's Rules Hub fix the runes, the Legend and the battlefields once a deck is registered (rule 403.4.b), and a sideboard only swaps Main Deck cards, so settle the split in testing before the event. Sealed and Draft are different: a deck may use three domains, its runes may come from any source as long as they match, and between games you may change the Rune Deck along with the domains and the Legend.

How do you settle on a split for your own deck?

Start from six and six or from your count, play a few games and note each time a card waits in your hand for runes of one domain, then move one rune at a time. A Champion Deck holds six runes of each of its domains, so a different split needs a rune or two more of one domain: from a second deck, from booster packs, whose last slot sometimes holds a rune, or from a Vault such as the Vendetta Vault, which holds six of each basic rune.

Single runes 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. Today the Vendetta Vault sells for $47.84 and a single Fury Rune for $0.10.

Every card page on the card list shows its Power cost, and the deck builder checks that your runes fit your Legend. The runes are the last choice when you build a deck, after the Legend and the Main Deck, and how to build your first Riftbound deck takes the choices in that order.