How does Draft work?

Draft is the format of Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game in which each player builds a deck from cards picked one at a time at the table. Each player opens a booster pack, keeps one card and passes the rest on, and the packs go round until every card is taken. After three packs, everyone builds a deck from their picks and plays it against the others.

Draft is a Limited format, like Sealed: the event hands out every card a player needs, so nobody brings a deck. The difference is the choosing. Every card in your deck is one you took on purpose, and every card you passed may end up in an opponent's deck.

What do you need to take part in a Draft?

Each player gets three unopened booster packs from the event, and the players sit at random in groups as close to eight as possible (Tournament Rules 602.4.b.1 and 602.4.b.2). Only cards handed out at the event may go into a deck, with two exceptions. Basic runes may come from any source (rule 602.1.a.2), so runes from your own collection are worth bringing, and blank battlefields may stand in for battlefields (rule 602.1.a.3).

The drafted cards are yours to keep. Even a player who drops out of the event early owns the cards they hold at that moment (rule 414.5).

How does the drafting work, pick by pick?

The draft runs in a fixed order, set out in rule 602.4.b.2.

1. Open. Every player opens a pack, takes out the rune or token, which they may keep, and checks that the other 13 cards are undamaged and have the right mix of rarities. A judge replaces a faulty pack where possible.
2. Pick. Each player chooses one card and puts it face down on a single pile in front of them. A picked card cannot go back.
3. Pass. The rest of the pack goes face down to the player on the left, who picks one card from it and passes it on, until no cards are left.
4. Repeat. The second pack is passed to the right, and the third to the left again.

Three packs of 13 cards give every player 39 cards, whatever the size of the table. At a table of eight, your first pack comes back to you after eight picks with five cards left, and the cards missing from it show what the players around you are taking.

What may you do, and not do, during the draft?

Keep the faces of your picks and of the pack in your hands hidden, and never try to see the faces of other players' cards. That counts as cheating, though seeing the backs of their cards is fine (rule 602.4.b.2.g). The other limits depend on the level of the event.

• At Competitive and Professional events, players may not talk about the draft, show cards they have seen or picked, take notes on a device or get help. They may look through their picks only in breaks between packs that a judge allows. A Professional draft is always timed, and at a Competitive event the head judge decides.
• At Casual events, where most Riftbound events are played, the head judge may allow devices, help and open talk, and players may look through their picks whenever they hold no other cards. The draft is untimed, but every player should pick at a reasonable pace.

How do you build a deck from your picks?

A Draft deck follows the same loosened deck rules as a Sealed deck, apart from its size (rule 602.4.b).

• The Main Deck holds at least 20 cards, so about half of your 39 picks make the deck.
• The deck may use any three domains, or one domain next to the two domains of its Legend.
• Any champion unit within those domains can be the chosen champion, and a signature spell fits whenever all of its domains are among the deck's own.
• There is no limit on copies, and the Unique keyword does not apply. A player who drafted ten Pouty Poro may play all ten.
• A deck may go without a Legend or a chosen champion. Its player then draws a card at the start of their first Beginning Phase in each game.
• The Rune Deck holds 12 runes in the deck's domains. Battlefields come from your picks, or you use blank battlefields, which have no rules text.

In a Draft of Radiance, the fifth set, with its release on 23 October 2026, a player who picks Exemplar of Demacia, the Body and Order Legend of Jarvan IV, can add Fury as a third domain. That deck may take Heimerdinger, Academy Instructor, an Order champion unit, as its chosen champion, although its Legend is Jarvan IV. It may play Realm of Death, the Fury and Order signature spell of Mordekaiser, but not Hexplosive Minefield, the Fury and Chaos signature spell of Ziggs, because Chaos is not one of its domains.

Every card you drafted and left out forms your sideboard, so a deck of 20 cards leaves 19 of your 39 picks there. Between games you may swap those cards in without trading them one for one, and even change the domains, the Legend and the chosen champion, as long as the deck still keeps the rules above (rule 602.4.b.8).

How do you draft a good deck?

A few habits help at a first Draft.

• Early in the first pack, take the strongest card you see, such as a strong unit or a spell that removes enemy units, and keep your domains open.
• Watch which domains still reach you late in a pack. In the first and third packs your cards come from the player on your right, and in the second from the player on your left.
• Settle on two domains during the second pack. Add a third only for a few cards that are worth it, since three domains split the 12 runes three ways.
• Keep taking units, because units conquer and hold battlefields, which is how a game is won.

When you build, keep the deck close to 20 cards, so that your best cards turn up more often.

Where can you play Draft, and what changes with Legacy?

Draft is still rare at game stores. Riot's store programs are played in the other formats: Pre-Rift events are Sealed, Summoner Skirmish is Constructed and most Nexus Nights are Constructed. A store that wants a Draft organizes it itself, and it may list the event as Open Play. Two-versus-two events are played Constructed or Sealed, not Draft (rule 603.6).

At home, one booster display of 24 packs makes a full table of eight, with three packs for each player. Displays are sold in local game stores, and unopened displays are listed on Cardmarket in Europe, TCGplayer in the United States and CardTrader on both sides of the Atlantic. The Vendetta display sells for $139.71 today.

Legacy, the sixth set, with its release on 29 January 2027, is the first Riftbound set that Riot built for drafting. In its announcement of 3 August 2026, Riot named three changes that support Draft.

• Signpost cards at lower rarities, seen often in packs, show drafters which strategies the set supports.
• A Legend or battlefield slot takes the place of one Common in every booster pack from Legacy on, so a pack holds six Commons instead of seven.
• Minions are a new unit card that Riot is adding to the Rune Kits stores receive. Players take them the way they take runes, to fill out a Draft deck when their picks fall short.

The event finder shows the events near you with their format, and the pack opener opens packs of any set for practice. The full Draft rules are rule 602.4.b of the Tournament Rules on Riot's Rules Hub.