How does Sealed work?

Sealed is a format of Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game in which nobody brings a deck. Every player opens booster packs at the event, builds a deck from the cards inside and plays it against the other players. Everyone starts from a fresh pile of random cards, so a large collection gives no advantage, and the skill that counts is building a good deck quickly.

The Tournament Rules call Sealed a Limited format, one in which everything a player needs is handed out at the event, and the players keep the cards they open.

What do you open at a Sealed event?

Each player gets six unopened booster packs (Tournament Rules 602.4.a.1). A booster pack from Origins, the first set, to Vendetta, the fourth, holds 14 cards: seven Commons, three Uncommons, two Rares or better, one foil card and a rune or a token. A pack of Radiance, the fifth set, with its release on 23 October 2026, holds 14 cards too. Six packs therefore give each player a card pool of 84 cards, and a deck of about 25 uses less than a third of them.

Only cards handed out at the event may go into the deck, with two exceptions: basic runes may come from any source, and a player may use as many blank battlefields as they need. The head judge can keep a promo card given out at the event out of the pool, and a pack with missing or damaged cards goes to a judge, who may replace it.

A Pre-Rift kit is a little different: it holds five booster packs of the new set, a pack of 15 cards with a Legend and a champion unit, and a promo card.

How does a Sealed event run?

Every player receives the packs at their seat and opens them. At Competitive and Professional events the pool is registered first: each player writes down the pool of the player across the table, and the owner checks the list. The Tournament Rules recommend 20 minutes for registration and 30 minutes for building the deck, and up to 45 minutes for building at Casual events where the cards are new to everyone, such as Pre-Rift and release events (rule 602.4.a.8.k).

The organizer then pairs the players for rounds of one-on-one matches and sets the number of rounds. Most Riftbound matches are the best of three games, and some events play single games. Even a player who drops out early owns the cards and unopened packs they hold (rule 414.5).

Which deck rules change in Sealed?

A Sealed deck follows the deck rules of the Core Rules with a few changes, all set out in rule 602.4.a of the Tournament Rules.

• Size. The Main Deck holds at least 25 cards and may hold more. A Constructed tournament deck holds exactly 40.
• Copies. The limit of three copies of a name does not apply, and neither does the Unique keyword. The Tournament Rules give the example of ten Pouty Poro in one deck, from a pool that held ten.
• Domains. A deck may use any three domains, or one domain next to the two domains of its Legend.
• Chosen champion. Any champion unit within the deck's domains can be the chosen champion, even one whose name does not match the Legend.
• Signature spells. A deck may play any signature spell whose domains all fall within its own, even without that champion's Legend.
• Legend. A deck without a Legend or without a chosen champion is still legal. Its player draws a card at the start of their first Beginning Phase in each game, and only one card when both are missing.
• Runes. The Rune Deck still holds 12 runes, and every rune must match one of the deck's domains.
• Battlefields. A deck uses battlefields from its pool or blank battlefields, which work like battlefields without rules text. At a Casual event anything the players agree on can stand for a blank battlefield.

Riot gave an example of the domain rule in its guide to the Pre-Rift events of Unleashed, the third set. A deck led by Bashful Bloom, the Calm and Mind Legend of Lillia, can take Rengar, Trophy Hunter, a Body unit, as its chosen champion and play Alpha Strike, the Calm and Body signature spell of Master Yi. That deck's three domains are Calm, Mind and Body.

A card banned in Constructed may still be played in Sealed, unless it is banned in that format as well (rule 602.1.b).

Can you change your deck between games?

Yes, and more freely than in Constructed. Every card of the pool that is not in the deck forms the sideboard, and between the games of a match a player may swap cards in and out without trading them one for one. The player may even change the domains, the Rune Deck, the Legend and the chosen champion, as long as the deck still keeps the Sealed rules (rule 602.4.a.7).

At a Casual event, such as a Pre-Rift, no deck has to be registered, and players may change the deck between games and between matches unless the head judge says otherwise. At Competitive and Professional events, each player registers a starting deck, plays it in the first game of every match and returns to it before the next match. In every Sealed match, each copy of a battlefield can be used only once.

How do you build a good Sealed deck?

Riot's guide to the Unleashed Pre-Rift and guide to the Vendetta Pre-Rift give a simple plan.

• Play at least 15 units, because units are the main way to score points, by conquering and holding battlefields.
• Give about five of those units a cost of 2 Energy, so the deck has plays in its first turns, and spread the rest over higher costs.
• Add gear and spells that give your units Might, and a few spells that remove enemy units.
• Cards with a Power cost tend to be stronger, so choose the runes with the Power costs of your Main Deck in mind.

The Commons revealed for Radiance show the plan at work. Entrenched Boar and Lingering Animus are units that cost 2 Energy, and Hold 'Em gives a unit +3 Might for the turn. Scorched Earth splits 5 damage among the units at one battlefield, and Parallel Convergence deals 5 damage to a unit at a battlefield, at the extra cost of returning a friendly unit to its owner's hand.

Start by sorting the pool by domain and finding the two domains with the most useful units; a Legend in those two domains is a strong reason to play them. Add a third domain only for a few cards that are worth it, because three domains split the 12 runes three ways. Keep the deck at or near 25 cards, since every card above the minimum makes your best cards turn up less often.

Where can you play Sealed?

• Pre-Rift events in the week before each new main set are played Sealed with a kit for each player. The Radiance Pre-Rift events are dated 16 to 22 October 2026, the week before the release of Radiance on 23 October 2026.
• Nexus Night, the weekly store event, can be Sealed, since UVS Games lets each store choose between Constructed, Sealed and Modified Champion Deck in its dates and details document for stores.
• Two-versus-two events can be played Sealed, with the two players of a team sharing a pool of eight packs (rule 603.6).
• At home, a booster display of 24 packs makes four Sealed pools of six packs each.

Draft is the other Limited format: each player opens three packs and passes them around a table of about eight, picking one card at a time, and builds a deck of at least 20 cards.

The event finder shows the store events near you, and the pack opener lets you open packs of any set to see what a Sealed pool can look like. The full Limited rules are rule 602 of the Tournament Rules on Riot's Rules Hub. A player who would rather bring a deck built at home plays Constructed, in which every tournament deck holds exactly 40 cards.