How do you upgrade a Champion Deck?

A Champion Deck of Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game is a complete deck of 56 cards built around one Legend, ready to play the day it is opened. It is also meant as a starting point. Upgrading it means swapping its weakest cards for stronger ones, a few at a time, while the deck keeps to the deck rules.

Riot's deckbuilding primer recommends this path to new players: start with a deck Riot built and adjust it card by card. Riot added that the instruction books included with its Champion Decks hold tips for upgrading them with stronger cards. Seven Champion Decks have come out so far: Jinx, Viktor and Lee Sin with Origins, Fiora and Rumble with Spiritforged, and Vi and Vex with Unleashed. Each had a launch price of $19.99 and comes with one booster pack of its set.

What should you add to a Champion Deck first?

Add more copies of the deck's champion and of its signature card. A Main Deck may hold up to three copies of a card with the same name, the chosen champion included, and up to three signature cards of its Legend's champion (Core Rules 103.3.b and 103.3.d). Riot's primer advises more copies of the chosen champion, since enemies will sometimes deal with the first one, and three copies of the signature card unless you have a good reason to play fewer.

The three Origins decks hold a single unit of their champion and no signature card, so they gain the most. Their signature spells are Super Mega Death Rocket! for Jinx, Siphon Power for Viktor and Dragon's Rage for Lee Sin. The decks of Spiritforged and Unleashed already hold three or four units of their champion but one copy of their signature card, such as Riposte in the Fiora deck and Hextech Gauntlets in the Vi deck, so two more copies come first. The Zed and Shen decks of the Vendetta Showdown Decks also hold one signature card each.

Which cards should come out of a Champion Deck?

Take out any banned card first, then the cards that do least for your Legend's plan. Only one Champion Deck holds banned cards: the Origins Champion Deck: Jinx, with three Fight or Flight, three Scrapheap and the battlefield Reaver's Row. At casual events such as Nexus Night the deck may keep them while it matches the box exactly (Tournament Rules 601.2.d.2), but as soon as you change one card, all seven have to go.

That makes the first upgrade of the Jinx deck six Main Deck cards and a battlefield. One way to fill the six places is three Super Mega Death Rocket!, two more copies of Jinx, Demolitionist, the deck's chosen champion, and a third Void Seeker, a spell that deals 4 to a unit at a battlefield and draws a card.

After that, cut the cards you are least happy to draw, while keeping the primer's rules of thumb for the mix of units and spells: at least nine units that cost 2 to 4 Energy, and at least six spells that make your units stronger, weaken enemy units or remove them.

Where do the new cards come from?

The new cards come from the booster pack in the box, from other ready-made decks and from single cards.

• A second copy of the same deck. Two copies of a Champion Deck turn its single copies into pairs, but they add no signature card to an Origins deck.
• A ready-made deck in the same two domains. Every card in it fits your deck, apart from its Legend and its signature cards. The Viktor, Lee Sin and Fiora decks share their domains with the Lux, Master Yi and Garen decks of Proving Grounds, in that order.
• Single cards. The signature cards of all seven champions are Epics, and Riot puts the odds of an Epic at about one Origins booster pack in four. Trading for one particular Epic, or getting it as a single card, is usually quicker than opening packs for it. Single cards come from local game stores, from Cardmarket in Europe, TCGplayer in the United States and CardTrader on both sides of the Atlantic, and from trades with other players. Super Mega Death Rocket! sells for $2.64 as a single card and Riposte for $3.35. On a budget, add the Epics and Rares one at a time, once you know the deck needs them.

The Jinx deck has two partners that share both of its domains. Its Legend, Loose Cannon, is Fury and Chaos, and so are Master of Shadows, the Legend of the Zed deck in the Vendetta Showdown Decks, and Dark Child, the Legend of the Annie deck in Proving Grounds. A deck that shares only one domain helps less: its cards of that domain fit, while a card with two domains fits only a deck that has both.

Should you change the runes and the battlefields?

Change them once the Main Deck has settled. Every Champion Deck holds six runes of each of its Legend's two domains, an even rune split of six and six. When the cards of one domain need more Power, the primer suggests trying eight of that domain and four of the other. The extra runes come from a second deck, from booster packs or from a Vault, which holds six of each basic rune.

Choosing battlefields is open to every set: every battlefield printed so far is Colorless, so a battlefield from any set fits any deck, as long as the three have different names and none is banned. Swap one when another does more for your plan, or when your opponents gain more from it than you do, because a battlefield works for the player who controls it, not for the player who brought it (Core Rules 190.6.d).

How do you know an upgrade worked?

You find out by playing, and testing a deck works best one small change at a time. Change two or three cards, play a few games against friends or at a Nexus Night, and note which new cards earned their place. Keep the Main Deck at exactly 40 cards: organized events ask for exactly 40 (Tournament Rules 601.1.b), and every extra card makes your champion and signature cards less likely to turn up.

The shared decks include the decks sold in a box, and the Create copy button opens one in the deck builder, which checks the copies, the signature cards, the domains and the banned list while you change it. With an account, Add to collection puts the cards of a boxed deck in your collection, and your upgraded copy then shows how many cards you still need.