What is the difference between conquer and hold?

There are two ways to score a battlefield in Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game. You conquer a battlefield when you take control of it, and you hold a battlefield when it is still under your control as your turn begins. Both of them count as scoring, and each one is worth one point toward the Victory Score, which is 8 points in a one-on-one game.

The two differ in when they happen and which cards care about them. Conquering is something your units do during a turn. Holding is the reward for keeping a battlefield through your opponent's whole turn.

What does it mean to conquer a battlefield?

You conquer a battlefield when you gain control of it and have not scored it yet that turn. In practice this means moving units there in your Main Phase and being the only player with units left there at the end. Conquering usually happens on your own turn, because that is when your units move.

How it plays out depends on what is already there. If the battlefield is empty, one unit is enough. A showdown opens there first, which gives your opponent a chance to answer with spells and abilities, and if your units are still the only ones there when it closes, you take control and conquer. If enemy units are there, a combat starts instead. You conquer only if your attackers are the only units left after combat damage. If any defender survives, your surviving attackers are sent back to your base and nobody scores.

Winning a fight on defense is not a conquer. When your opponent attacks a battlefield you control and you beat them, you keep the battlefield, but you score nothing at that moment, because it was already yours. The point for that battlefield comes later, when you hold it.

What does it mean to hold a battlefield?

You hold a battlefield when you still control it at the start of your turn. Holding happens in the Beginning Phase, the second phase of every turn, right after your cards are readied in the Awaken Phase. Effects that happen at the start of the turn come first, and then you score one point for every battlefield you control.

You control a battlefield for as long as you have at least one unit there, so to hold it, a unit of yours has to stay there through every attack, spell and ability your opponent uses on their turn. The order inside the Beginning Phase matters too. A unit with Temporary is killed at the start of your Beginning Phase, before scoring, so a Temporary unit standing alone on a battlefield will not hold it for you.

A battlefield you conquer on your turn and keep through your opponent's turn scores twice: once for the conquer, and once more when you hold it at the start of your next turn.

Can a battlefield score twice in the same turn?

No. Each player can score each battlefield only once per turn, whether by conquering or by holding. Suppose you hold a battlefield at the start of your turn, and later in that turn your opponent kills your only unit there with a Reaction spell. Moving another unit in takes the battlefield back, but it does not count as a conquer, because you already scored that battlefield this turn.

In a one-on-one Duel there are two battlefields in play, so scoring can give you at most two points in a turn. Cards that give you points directly, such as Ahri, Alluring below, come on top of that.

Why is holding the surer way to score the winning point?

The final point rule limits conquering and leaves holding alone. When you are one point away from the Victory Score and you conquer a battlefield, you get the winning point only if you have scored every battlefield that turn. If you have not, you draw a card instead. A battlefield you hold at the start of your turn is not limited in this way, so it can give you the last point on its own. A conquer that the rule turns into a card draw still counts as a conquer, and abilities that trigger when you conquer still trigger.

Which cards reward conquering, and which reward holding?

Many units carry an ability that starts with "When I conquer" or "When I hold", and that ability triggers when the unit is at the battlefield as it is conquered or held. These abilities say a lot about the deck a card belongs in.

• Kai'Sa, Survivor draws you a card when she conquers. With Accelerate she can enter ready, so she can move to a battlefield on the turn you play her.
• Plundering Poro plays a Gold gear token when it conquers, which you can later kill to add one Power of any domain.
• Ahri, Alluring gives you one extra point when she holds, so the battlefield she stands on is worth two points at the start of your turn.
• Dunebreaker draws you two cards when it holds.
• Master Yi, Tempered has Hunt 2, a keyword from Unleashed that gives you 2 XP when he conquers and also when he holds.

Battlefields reward the two ways of scoring as well. Zaun Warrens lets you discard a card and draw one when you conquer it, while Grove of the God-Willow draws you a card each time you hold it. Reckoner's Arena joins the two: when you hold it, the conquer abilities of the units there trigger as if they had just conquered.

The ability of a battlefield works for the player who controls it, not for the player who brought it to the game. A strong conquer ability on a battlefield your opponent chose is therefore a good reason to go and take it. Radiance, with its release on 23 October 2026, adds gear with Deploy, which is played to a battlefield and is killed when an opponent holds that battlefield.

Should you play to conquer or to hold?

Most turns contain both: you hold the battlefields you kept, then try to conquer the ones you lack. The balance between the two is still a good way to think about a deck. A deck built to conquer plays cheap units that enter ready or move quickly, and it scores early but leaves its units exposed to the counterattack. A deck built to hold plays units that are hard to remove, such as those with Shield or Tank, and lets the opponent come to it.

Before you move, ask whether you can keep what you take: a conquer that leaves too little Might behind gives you one point, while a conquer your units can keep through the next turn gives you two. Never move your last unit off a battlefield you want to hold, because without a unit there you lose control of it. Near the end of the game, plan to hold for the winning point rather than conquer for it.

The battlefields of every set, with their conquer and hold abilities, are on the battlefields page, and the units page lists the units that do the conquering and holding. Against enemy units, winning the combat for a battlefield is what lets you conquer it, so count the Might on both sides before you move units in.