How does Riftbound compare to Magic, Pokémon and Lorcana?

Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game belongs to the same family as Magic: The Gathering, the Pokémon Trading Card Game and Disney Lorcana. In all four games, each player brings a deck of their own, builds up a resource during the game and sends creatures or characters into fights. A player of any of them will recognize much of Riftbound.

Riftbound is the youngest of the four: Magic dates from 1993, the Pokémon card game from 1996 in Japan and Lorcana from 2023, while the first Riftbound set came out in English on 31 October 2025. Its rules differ most in how a game is won, how cards are paid for, how a deck is built and what you can do on your opponent's turn.

How do the basic numbers compare?

The table puts the basic numbers of the four games side by side, with Magic in its Standard format.

A Riftbound main deck is smaller than the others and allows three copies of a card instead of four. Magic's basic lands and Pokémon's basic Energy cards have no copy limit at all.

Only Riftbound keeps its resource cards out of the main deck: its 12 runes form a rune deck of their own. Magic's lands and Pokémon's Energy cards are resource cards too, but they are shuffled into the main deck and take up some of its places. Lorcana has no resource cards as such, since any card of the main deck with the inkwell symbol can be put down as ink.

How is winning different in Riftbound?

You win Riftbound by scoring 8 points from battlefields, not by hurting your opponent, since a Riftbound player has no life total. In a one-on-one game two battlefields stand between the players, one brought by each. You score a point when you conquer a battlefield and another for each battlefield you still hold at the start of your turn.

In Magic, you win by bringing your opponent from 20 life to zero, and creatures that are not blocked deal their damage to the player. In Pokémon, you take Prize cards for Knocking Out your opponent's Pokémon, and the first player to take all six wins. In Lorcana, characters go on quests to gain lore, and the first player to reach 20 lore wins.

Riftbound is closest to Lorcana, since both games are races for points, but a Lorcana character quests wherever it stands. Every Riftbound point comes from a place on the table where your opponent's units can stand in the way, so you score by winning the fight there or by keeping the battlefield through your opponent's turn. Some battlefields bend the race: nobody can score at Forgotten Monument before their third turn.

How do you pay for cards in Riftbound?

You pay for cards in Riftbound with runes, which come from a rune deck of exactly 12 kept apart from the main deck. You channel two runes into play at the start of each turn, so no draw is ever spent on a resource. A rune pays in one of two ways: you exhaust it to add one Energy, or you recycle it to the bottom of the rune deck to add one Power of its domain. Jinx, Demolitionist costs 3 Energy and one Fury Power, so playing it usually means recycling a Fury Rune, which then leaves play until it is channeled again.

In Magic, lands are shuffled into the deck and you play one a turn, so a hand can hold too many lands or too few. In Lorcana, once a turn you may put a card with the inkwell symbol from your hand face down into your inkwell, where it counts as one ink. In Pokémon, cards are played without paying a resource, and the one Energy card you may attach each turn pays for attacks.

How is a Riftbound deck built differently?

A legal Riftbound deck is built around its Legend, a League of Legends champion that starts the game in play. The Legend's two domains decide which cards the deck may hold, much as the commander's colors do in the Commander format of Magic. A unit of the same champion waits beside the Legend as the chosen champion, ready to be played as if it were in your hand. Around them come a main deck of at least 40 cards, a rune deck of 12 runes and, for a one-on-one game, three battlefields.

Loose Cannon, the Legend of Jinx, is Fury and Chaos, so a Jinx deck plays Fury, Chaos and colorless cards only. Jinx, Demolitionist can be its chosen champion, Fury Runes and Chaos Runes fill its rune deck, and Grove of the God-Willow can be one of its battlefields.

Lorcana players will find the domain rule familiar, since a Lorcana deck may also hold cards of no more than two of the six inks. A Magic deck in Standard may mix any colors, and a Pokémon deck has no color rule, although each attack needs Energy of the right type.

Can you play cards on your opponent's turn?

Yes. A Riftbound spell with Action can be played during a showdown on any player's turn, and a spell with Reaction can be played then and also while a spell or ability waits on the Chain, on any player's turn. On your opponent's turn you still need such an opening, because while their Main Phase runs with no showdown and nothing on the Chain, only they may play cards. A showdown opens when units move to a battlefield their player does not control, and the players then take turns playing spells, starting with the one who moved in, until everyone has passed in a row. Spells wait on the Chain and resolve newest first, so Wind Wall, a Calm spell with Reaction, can counter a spell before it takes effect.

Magic players will feel at home, since Reaction works much like an instant and the Chain like the stack. In Pokémon and Lorcana, you play cards only during your own turn, so players of those games have to learn when each spell may be played.

How does combat in Riftbound differ?

Riftbound units fight at battlefields, and each unit has one combat number, its Might. Each side deals damage equal to the total Might of its units, and a unit dies when its damage reaches its Might, so Might is both how hard a unit hits and how much it can take. Magic splits these into power and toughness and Lorcana into strength and willpower, while a Pokémon has Hit Points and attacks that deal their own damage.

As in Magic, damage wears off at the end of every turn. As in Lorcana, a new unit has to wait: it enters play exhausted, so unless it has Accelerate, like Jinx, Demolitionist, it usually cannot move on the turn you play it.

Which of the three games is Riftbound most like?

Riftbound plays most like Magic, with a race for points that is closer to Lorcana. Magic players will recognize exhausting a card as tapping it, Reaction spells as instants and the Chain as the stack, and mainly need to learn the rune deck and the battlefields. Lorcana players already know the race for points and the deck of two inks, and the new part for them is acting on the opponent's turn. Pokémon players have the most to learn, from paying for every card to playing on the other turn, but the habit of building around a favorite character carries over to a game where every deck has a champion.

Like the others, Riftbound comes in booster packs and ready-made decks, and many stores that sell it run a weekly event called Nexus Night. A player coming from any of these games can start with one ready-made deck, and the article on how to start playing Riftbound names the decks that suit a first game. The Legends page shows every Legend a deck can be built around, and the deck builder checks a deck against the deck rules while it comes together.