How do Hidden cards work?

Hidden is a keyword in Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game, and it lets you set a trap. On your turn you pay a small price to place a card facedown at a battlefield you control, and on a later turn you turn it over and play it from there without paying its cost. Your opponent can see that something is waiting at that battlefield, but not what it is.

Hidden appears on spells, units and gear, with a short reminder on each card: hide it now for one Power, and react with it later for nothing.

How do you hide a card?

You hide a card by paying one Power of any domain and placing the card facedown at a battlefield you control. The Power does not have to match the card's domain, so you can recycle any one of your runes to pay it. Hiding happens on your own turn, at a moment when nothing is waiting to resolve on the Chain, which in practice is usually your Main Phase.

The card has to come from your hand, or from your Champion Zone when your chosen champion has Hidden. Each battlefield normally holds only one facedown card, and you can hide a card only at a battlefield you control yourself.

Hiding a card is not the same as playing it. Hiding does not open a Chain, so your opponent gets no chance to answer it, and effects that trigger when you play a card do not trigger. A few cards count hiding on its own: Katarina, Reckless readies whenever you hide a card.

When can you play a hidden card, and what does it cost?

You can play a hidden card from the next turn on, and both its Energy cost and its Power cost are ignored. In a one-on-one game the next turn is your opponent's, so a card hidden on your turn is ready for theirs. You cannot hide a card and play it in the same turn.

While it waits facedown, the card gains Reaction. You may play it at any moment a Reaction could be played: in your own Main Phase, and on either player's turn during a showdown or in reply to a spell before that spell resolves.

In every other way, playing a hidden card is a normal play. The card is turned face up, it opens a Chain, and your opponent may reply with Reactions of their own. Additional costs still apply. Pyke, Dockside Butcher lets you pay one Fury Power as an additional cost to ready him and give him +2 Might for the turn, and you may still pay it when he comes out of hiding.

Where can a hidden card be played, and what can it target?

A hidden card is tied to the battlefield where it was hidden. A hidden unit must be played to that battlefield, and so must hidden gear, even though gear is otherwise played to your base. A hidden spell must choose its targets at that battlefield, and a spell with no legal target there cannot be played from facedown at all.

Three cards show the rule at work.

• Hidden Blade, an Order spell, kills a unit at a battlefield, and that unit's controller draws 2. Played from facedown, it can only kill a unit at its own battlefield.
• Sudden Storm, a Fury spell, deals 2 to a unit at a battlefield, or 4 if that unit is attacking. Hidden at a battlefield you expect to defend, it punishes the attacker.
• Teemo, Scout is a 1 Might unit who gives himself +3 Might for the turn when he is played. Played from facedown while his battlefield is under attack, he joins the defenders with 4 Might.

The same restriction covers abilities that trigger when a hidden unit is played. Blastcone Fae gives a unit -2 Might for the turn when you play it, and from facedown it has to choose a unit at its own battlefield. Only a choice whose own wording rules that battlefield out, such as a unit at a different location, may be made somewhere else, and the rest of the card's text works as usual.

What can your opponent see, and what happens if you lose the battlefield?

Your opponent sees that a facedown card sits at the battlefield, but only you may look at its face, and other cards cannot see anything on its front, not even its Hidden keyword. The card is shown to every player when it leaves its place or when the game ends. Hiding a card that does not have Hidden is against the rules, and at a tournament it is a Facedown Card Error that earns a Warning.

A hidden card stays only as long as you control its battlefield. If you lose control of the battlefield, the hidden card goes to its owner's trash without being played. So the usual moment to play a hidden card is the fight for its battlefield: when an opponent attacks, you can play it during the showdown, while the battlefield is still yours.

Which cards are built around Hidden?

Hidden cards are found in all six domains. Chaos has the most of them and Body the fewest, counting the cards of Radiance that Riot has revealed so far. Several champions have it on their units: Teemo, Strategist and Teemo, Scout from Origins, Pyke, Dockside Butcher, Pyke, Returned and Evelynn, Entrancing from Unleashed, and Kennen, Keeper of Balance from Vendetta. When one of them is your chosen champion, you can hide it straight from the Champion Zone. Other cards reward hiding, or playing cards from facedown.

• Swift Scout, the Legend of Teemo in Mind and Chaos, lets you pay 1 Energy instead of one Power to hide a card.
• Agony's Embrace, the Legend of Evelynn in Body and Chaos, draws you a card once each turn when you play a card from facedown. When it is not your turn, you then discard a card.
• Bandle Tree is a battlefield card that lets you hide an additional card there.
• Evelynn, In Control scores you 1 point when she holds a battlefield where you control a facedown card.

Agony's Embrace and Evelynn, In Control both come from Radiance, with its release on 23 October 2026. A few cards work against Hidden as well. Noxus Saboteur says that your opponents' Hidden cards can't be revealed at its battlefield. Mystic Vortex is a battlefield where cards with Reaction cost one more Power during showdowns, and hidden cards have Reaction.

When should you hide a card instead of playing it?

A card with Hidden never has to be hidden. You can always play it from your hand for its full cost at its normal timing, and then its targets are not limited to one battlefield. Hiding is the better choice when you have one Power left over late in your turn and a battlefield you expect to defend. The card then costs nothing on the turn you need it, and your opponent has to guess what it is.

Playing from your hand is better when you need the card now, when its best target is at another battlefield, or when the battlefield may fall before you can use it. A spell that already has Reaction, such as Lotus Trap, gains less from hiding than a spell with Action, since the saved Energy is most of what hiding gives it.

The cards with Hidden are among the spells, units and gear on the site, and the Teemo and Evelynn pages show two of the champions who use it. The full wording of the keyword is rule 811 of the Core Rules on Riot's Rules Hub.