Who goes first, and is it an advantage?

In every game of Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game, one player takes the first turn, and the rules adjust that first turn in each mode of play. In a one-on-one game the player who goes second gets an extra rune on their first turn. With three or four players, the player who goes last gets the extra rune, and the first player also skips their first draw.

Who goes first is settled during the setup, before anyone draws a card, as the article on setting up a game shows step by step.

How is the first player chosen?

The first player is chosen at random. Rule 115 of the Core Rules asks only for a fair random method that every player agrees on, so a coin toss or a roll of a die will do. The How to Play booklet in the Proving Grounds box uses the cards already on the table: shuffle the battlefields the players picked, take one at random, and the player who brought it goes first. With more than two players, turns then go clockwise from the first player unless the mode of play says otherwise.

Turn order is fixed before the opening hands are drawn, so each player knows whether they go first or second when they decide on a mulligan.

What does the player who goes second get?

In a one-on-one Duel, and in each game of a best-of-three Match, the player who goes second channels an extra rune in their first Channel Phase, three runes instead of two. Both players still draw a card in their first Draw Phase, so in a two-player game the first player keeps their first draw.

The extra rune is more than a one-turn bonus. Runes stay on the board until they are recycled, so on each of their opening turns the second player has one rune more than the first player had on the same turn of their own. The lead lasts until each player's Rune Deck of 12 runes is empty, which happens on each player's sixth turn if runes come in only through the Channel Phase and none is recycled.

The extra rune opens plays that the first player cannot make. Legion Rearguard costs 2 Energy and has Accelerate, so for 1 more Energy and one Fury Power it enters play ready. With three runes, one of them a Fury Rune, the second player can play it on their first turn, move it to an empty battlefield and conquer it before the first player's units have had a turn to move. The price is the rune itself: the Fury Rune is recycled for its Power, which leaves the second player with two runes on the board.

Is going first an advantage?

The rules do not say whether going first is better, so this part is advice rather than a rule. For most decks, going first is the better seat, even though the second player has the extra rune. Two things favor the first player.

• The first move to the battlefields. Units enter play exhausted and a move costs an exhaust, so without a card like Legion Rearguard the first player's units reach the battlefields on their second turn, before the second player's can. The first player is then the first who can conquer a battlefield and the first who can hold one.
• The first chance to win. The game ends the moment a player wins, so when the first player wins on their sixth turn, the second player has played only five turns.

Riot sees an edge for the first player too. Its July 2026 ban update calls the battlefield The Arena's Greatest particularly strong for the player who goes first, an advantage that Riot did not want to reinforce so consistently.

The second player has the extra rune on every opening turn and sees where the first player's units go before committing their own. A deck full of cheap units that wants to take battlefields early should go first when it has the choice. A deck that leans on expensive cards may reasonably go second, since with the extra rune it can play a card that costs 3, 5 or 7 Energy before the first player can play a card of the same cost. Every deck plays in both seats over a match, so Riot's announcement of the first bans says that decks want an assortment of Energy costs, and the article on a good Energy curve shows what that looks like.

Do the battlefields change the first turns?

Some battlefields change the opening turns, and in a Duel they are already in play when the first player is chosen.

• Obelisk of Power makes each player channel 1 rune at the start of their first Beginning Phase, so the first player has three runes on their first turn and the second player has four.
• The Arena's Greatest gives each player 1 point at the start of their first Beginning Phase, so the first player scores a point before the second player has taken a turn.
• Forgotten Monument lets no player score there before their third turn, so taking it early brings no point until then.
• Forbidding Waste gives a unit that defends there alone 2 less Might, which makes a single early unit easier to beat.

Riot banned Obelisk of Power in March 2026 and The Arena's Greatest in July 2026. Both are on Riot's banned list for Constructed, so a Constructed tournament deck cannot bring them, while Sealed and Draft decks still may.

Who chooses at a tournament?

At a tournament one player chooses whether to play first or last, under what the Tournament Rules of 9 October 2026 call the Play First Rule, rule 407. It belongs to the match procedure that the article on the rules at a Riftbound tournament sets out.

• For the first game of a match, a random method that all players agree on picks the player who makes the choice.
• In the playoff matches after the Swiss rounds of a Competitive or Professional event, the higher-ranked player from the Swiss rounds makes the choice for the first game.
• In every later game of the match, the loser of the previous game chooses. After a drawn game, the same player starts again.

Most tournament matches are the best of three games, and each player chooses their battlefield before the first player is settled. From the second game on, both players know that the loser of the last game will make the choice, so a player can pick a battlefield that suits the seat they expect, as the article on choosing the battlefields for a deck also advises. In two-versus-two events a random method decides which team picks the starting player, and the losing team picks in later games.

How does the first turn change with three or four players?

With more than two players, the rules adjust the first turn in two ways at once.

• Skirmish, for three players: the player who goes first does not draw a card in their first Draw Phase, and the player who goes last channels an extra rune in their first Channel Phase.
• War, for four players: the same two changes apply, and the player who goes first puts none of their battlefields into play.
• Magma Chamber, for two teams of two: the same changes as in War apply, and turns alternate between the teams.

The players in between, such as the second player in Skirmish, play their first turn as normal. Apart from these adjustments, the first turn of the game runs like every other turn, through the Awaken, Beginning, Channel and Draw Phases and then the Main Phase, as the article on what happens in a turn shows. The battlefields page lists every battlefield in the game, and the units page shows the units to plan your first turns around.