How do Equip, Quick-Draw and Weaponmaster work?

Equip is the keyword that turns a piece of gear into a weapon or a piece of armor for one of your units in Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game. It works in two steps: first you play the gear like any other card, then you pay its Equip cost to attach it to a unit. Equipment came into the game with Spiritforged, the second set. Unleashed and Vendetta have each added more, and Radiance, the fifth set, with its release on 23 October 2026, adds more.

What is Equipment?

Equipment is gear with the Equipment tag, and it has two parts that other gear lacks. Below the rules text sits a second box called the effect text, and in the lower right corner sits a Might bonus, such as +2. Both are switched off while the gear stands in your base and start to work only when it is attached to a unit.

Doran's Blade has a Might bonus of +2 and an empty effect box, so it simply makes a unit stronger. Doran's Shield gives +1 Might and Tank, and Boots of Swiftness gives +2 Might and Ganking, which lets the unit move from one battlefield to another. Guardian Angel gives +1 Might and saves the unit once: if the unit would die, Guardian Angel is killed instead, and the unit is healed, exhausted and sent back to its base.

How do you equip a unit?

You pay twice to equip a unit. First you play the Equipment from your hand for its Energy and Power cost, and like all gear it enters your base ready. Then you use its Equip ability, defined in rule 818 of the Core Rules on Riot's Rules Hub: you pay the Equip cost and choose a unit you control, in your base or at a battlefield, and the gear is attached to that unit.

Most Equip costs are a single Power of the gear's domain. Doran's Blade costs 2 Energy to play and one Body Power to equip. A few Equipment ask for Energy as well, such as Skyfall of Areion with an Equip cost of 1 Energy and one Fury Power, and some ask for something other than runes.

• Blade of the Ruined King gives +4 Might, and its Equip cost is one Order Power and killing one of your own units.
• Shepherd's Heirloom from Unleashed gives you 1 XP when you play it and is equipped by spending 1 XP.
• Blade of the Exile, a signature gear of Riven from Radiance, is equipped for one Power of any domain or by exhausting one of your units.

You can use Equip only in your own Main Phase, while no showdown or combat is going on and nothing waits on the Chain, as rules 151.2 and 381.1 say. It goes on the Chain like a spell, so your opponent may answer it with a Reaction. If they kill the unit you chose before the ability resolves, the gear stays in your base and the cost you paid is lost.

What does an equipped unit get?

An equipped unit adds the Might bonus of each attached Equipment to its own Might and gains the abilities in their effect text. A unit can carry several Equipment at once, while each Equipment is attached to one unit only. The gear goes wherever the unit goes: when the unit moves to a battlefield or is sent back to your base, its Equipment goes with it.

The bonus counts for everything that looks at Might, combat included. A unit is Mighty while it has 5 Might or more, so a unit with 3 Might and Doran's Blade attached is Mighty. Brutalizer gives +1 Might and another +2 in the turn it was attached, and the unit Gearhead doubles the base Might bonus of every Equipment attached to it.

While a gear is attached, its own rules text is switched off, so the abilities in its upper text box stop working until it comes off again. Spinning Axe, a signature gear of Draven, has Temporary, which kills it at the start of your Beginning Phase, but only while it is not attached. Attached gear is still gear, though, and a spell such as Detonate, which kills a gear, can still choose it.

What happens to Equipment when its unit dies?

The Equipment stays on the board. When a unit leaves the board, everything attached to it comes off and stays where the unit was, as rules 719.5 and 436.4 say. Gear left alone at a battlefield is sent back to its controller's base during the next cleanup. From there you can pay its Equip cost again in your Main Phase and attach it to another unit.

This is what makes the double cost worth paying: a removal spell aimed at the unit takes the unit, not the gear. The exceptions are Guardian Angel, which is killed in the unit's place, and gear your opponent kills on its own with a card like Detonate.

Can you move Equipment from one unit to another?

Not with its own Equip ability. Once a gear is attached, its Equip ability is switched off with the rest of its rules text, and Riot's notes on the Spiritforged rules say plainly that an Equip ability cannot be used while the gear is attached to something. Other cards can move it.

• A unit with Weaponmaster lets you equip one of your Equipment to it as you play it, for one Power less than the Equip cost, even if that gear is already attached to another unit. Veteran Poro, Lucian, Merciless and Riven, Shattered all have Weaponmaster.
• Angle Shot is a Reaction spell that attaches an Equipment to a unit with the same controller, or takes it off that unit, and draws you a card. It works on enemy gear too.

Can you equip a unit in the middle of a fight?

Yes, with Quick-Draw. Quick-Draw gives an Equipment Reaction, and when you play it, it attaches itself at once to a unit you control without paying the Equip cost, as rule 819 says. You can play Long Sword during a showdown, or on your opponent's turn when they play a spell, and put +2 Might on a defender before combat damage is dealt. Cloth Armor and Sterak's Gage work the same way.

Quick-Draw only changes when the card can be played from your hand, and the Equip ability keeps its usual timing. Jax, Unmatched gives Quick-Draw to your Equipment everywhere, in your hand as well as on the board.

Which decks are built around Equipment?

Any deck can play the Equipment of its domains, but a few Legends ask for it. Grandmaster at Arms, the Legend of Jax, can exhaust to move one of your attached Equipment to another of your units, or attach one that sits loose for 1 Energy and an exhaust. Purifier, the Legend of Lucian, makes each of your Equipment give Assault to the unit it is attached to. Emperor of the Sands, the Legend of Azir, gives your Sand Soldier tokens Weaponmaster.

A piece of advice for a first Equipment deck: every new unit costs the Equip cost again, so put your gear on units that are hard to remove rather than on your cheapest one. Every Equipment card is on the gear page with the other gear of every set. Equipment takes a slot that a unit or a spell could fill, so how many units, spells and gear a deck should run decides how much Equipment fits.