What are the Regional Championships and the Continentals?

Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game has a ladder of tournaments, and in 2026 the Regional Championships are its highest step below the World Championship. They are the first Riftbound events where a player needs an invitation to play the main tournament, and the eight best players of each one earn a place at the first Riftbound World Championship.

From 2027 Riot replaces the Regional Championships with the Riftbound Continentals. They are still big weekends for the strongest players, but they come four times a year, and any player can fight their way into the main event on the first day.

Which Regional Championships does the 2026 season have?

The 2026 season has three Regional Championships: one in Europe, one in North America and one in China.

• The European Regional Championship is the first Regional Championship of the game, and it takes place in Hall H of Messe Stuttgart in Germany from 6 to 8 November 2026.
• The North American Regional Championship is part of Convergence Fest, a weekend in Las Vegas for fans of Riftbound and Teamfight Tactics, from 11 to 13 December 2026.
• The Chinese Regional Championship takes the place of China's Radiance Major. It has a main event for 256 invited players and an open tournament beside it for more than 1,500 players. Riot's announcement of the three championships does not give its date.

The European and the North American championships are played one on one with Constructed decks in the Standard format. Radiance, the fifth set with its release on 23 October 2026, is legal at both. When Riot first set out its plans for organized play in July 2025, it placed the Regional Championships at the Professional level of the Tournament Rules, the strictest of the three levels. Around the main tournament, both weekends have side events for the players who did not qualify.

How does a player qualify for a Regional Championship?

Every player who finished in the Top 64 of a Regional Qualifier, one of the big open tournaments of Riftbound, earned an invitation to a Regional Championship. The last Regional Qualifier of 2026 was held in Los Angeles from 25 to 27 September 2026.

An invitation from a Regional Qualifier is not tied to a region. A player who qualified in Singapore may play in Stuttgart or in Las Vegas, and a player who qualified at more than one Regional Qualifier may play both.

The Showdown Series and Le Rift Tour are two smaller ways in. A Showdown Series event, an open tournament run by a partnered organizer, gives one to four invitations, depending on how many players it draws. Le Rift Tour, a one-time circuit of French game stores with its final at Paris Games Week, sends its two finalists to the European Regional Championship. The Chinese Regional Championship is different: Riot has said that it will tell Chinese players in a later update how they can win one of its 256 places.

How does a Regional Championship run over its three days?

The European and the North American Regional Championships share the same structure. Friday has six Swiss rounds, in which each player meets an opponent with the same record where possible and nobody is knocked out by a loss. The players with 12 or more match points after those six rounds go on to the second day.

Saturday has six more Swiss rounds, and then the Top 8 go on to a single-elimination playoff. In Stuttgart the quarterfinals, the semifinals and the final are all played on Sunday. In Las Vegas the quarterfinals are played on Saturday, which leaves the semifinals and the final for Sunday. Each player registers their deck before the first round and cannot change it afterwards, as the article on the rules at a Riftbound tournament explains.

What do players win at a Regional Championship?

Every player at the European and the North American Regional Championship gets a participation package, and the prizes grow with each step of the event. Riot's page on the European championship shows its prizes in pictures: three promo printings of the Radiance champion unit K'Sante, Courageous, each with its own art. Riot's page on the North American championship lists the same prizes without pictures.

• Every competitor gets a commemorative playmat and a K'Sante promo with art by Pixelverse.
• Every player who reaches Day 2 also gets a second K'Sante promo, with art by HXY.
• The Top 8 also get a third K'Sante, with art by TUTU and a TOP 8 stamp, and a playmat of their own.
• The champion gets a playmat and a promo of their own, which Riot kept for a later reveal.

Best-Of prizes come on top. At a Regional Qualifier and at a Showdown Series event, a Best-Of prize goes to the best-placed player with each Legend. Riot has not yet said how the Best-Of cards of a Regional Championship are handed out. It has said that only players who reach Day 2 can get one, and that every legal Legend has a plated Best-Of card with overnumbered artwork. The four Legends of Proving Grounds get brand-new art for these prizes, while every other Legend carries the art of its overnumbered printing, such as Nine-Tailed Fox, the Legend of Ahri, Fire Below the Mountain, the Legend of Ornn, Scorn of the Moon, the Legend of Diana, Rogue Assassin, the Legend of Akali, and Starry-Eyed Songstress, the Legend of Seraphine.

Each of the two championships also pays out a prize pool of $50,000, spread over the Top 64.

The biggest prize is a place at the top of the ladder. The Top 8 of each Regional Championship earn an invitation to the first Riftbound World Championship.

What changes when the Regional Championships become Continentals?

Riot announced on 4 August 2026, in its August 2026 State of Play, that the Regional Championships become the Riftbound Continentals from 2027, and it calls them the cornerstone event of each set. A Continental differs from a Regional Championship in three ways.

• The Continentals are spread over the year. The Regional Championships come at the end of the year, while there are four Continentals a year, each tied to a set and held in a different city around the world.
• Every player can reach the main event. A Continental lasts three days, and its first day is an open qualifier for every player who does not have an invitation yet. The players who come through it join the invited players in the main event on Saturday and Sunday.
• The invitations come from Riftbound Regionals. Riftbound Regionals, the new name of the Regional Qualifiers, qualify players for the Continentals, and an invitation to a Continental is among the prizes of a Regional's top cut.

For a player who has never qualified for anything, the open first day is the most interesting change. The main event of a Regional Championship is closed to every player without an invitation, while at a Continental one good Friday is enough to get into it. Riot also promises side events and chances to meet creators and members of the Riftbound team for the players who do not play in the main event.

When and where is the first Riftbound Continental?

The first Continental is Riftbound Continental Dallas, at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas, on 26 to 28 March 2027. It belongs to the season of Legacy, the sixth set, with its release on 29 January 2027. Two Riftbound Regionals come before it in the same season, in Madrid on 5 to 7 February 2027 and in Philadelphia on 12 to 14 February 2027, and Riot has said that a third Regional, in Oceania, will be added once its details are settled.

Riot has not yet named the cities of the other Continentals of 2027, the number of players in a main event, the prize money, the Organized Play Level or how the Continentals lead on to the World Championship. In September 2026 it said it would come back within a few months with a deeper look at its plans, and its announcement of the first events of 2027 on playriftbound.com is the place to check for new dates.

Where can you follow the championships?

The major events page lists the Regional Championships of 2026 with their dates, beside the Showdown Series events and the Pre-Rift weeks, and Riot posts its own news about them in the organized play news on playriftbound.com.

A Regional Championship is one step of a longer ladder. Its invitations come from open tournaments such as the Regional Qualifiers, which become Riftbound Regionals in 2027, its Top 8 go on to the Riftbound World Championship, and the kinds of Riftbound tournament shows how every step from a game store to Worlds fits together.