How do you set up a game of Riftbound?

Setting up a game of Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game takes a few minutes and follows the same steps every time. The Core Rules give those steps in a fixed order, from putting the Legend on the table to the first turn of the first player. From one mode of play to another, mostly the battlefields and the first turn change.

Each player needs a complete deck of their own: a Champion Legend, a Main Deck of at least 40 cards with the chosen champion among them, a Rune Deck of 12 runes and three battlefields with different names. Apart from the decks, a game needs only a table and a few objects to keep count with, such as coins, dice or spare cards.

What are the steps of setting up a Duel?

The Core Rules set out the setup of a Duel, the standard game for two players, in eight steps, rules 111 to 118.

1. Place the Legend. Each player puts their Champion Legend face up in their Legend Zone, where it stays for the whole game.
2. Place the chosen champion. Each player takes their chosen champion out of the Main Deck and puts it face up in their Champion Zone, beside the Legend. It can be played from there later, like a card in hand.
3. Pick the battlefields. Each player picks one of their three battlefields at random and leaves the other two out of this game. Both chosen battlefields go into the middle of the table at the same time.
4. Shuffle both decks. Each player shuffles the Main Deck and the Rune Deck separately and puts each one face down in its own zone.
5. Decide who goes first. The players use any fair random method they all agree on.
6. Draw the opening hand. Each player draws 4 cards from their Main Deck.
7. Mulligan. In turn order, each player may replace up to two of those cards.
8. Start the game. The first player begins their first turn.

The Showdown Decks of Vendetta, two decks made to face each other, show the first two steps. Each deck holds more than one champion unit for its Legend, and its player picks one of them as the chosen champion. A Zed player who picks Zed, Without a Sound puts the Legend Master of Shadows in the Legend Zone and that unit in the Champion Zone. A Shen player who picks Shen, Leader of the Kinkou Order does the same with the Legend Eye of Twilight.

How are the battlefields picked?

In a Duel, each player picks one of their three battlefields at random, for example by shuffling the three face down and turning one over. The Zed deck of Vendetta brings Shadow Temple, Threshold of the Gray and Zaun Warrens, and the Shen deck brings Grove of the God-Willow, Kinkou Temple and a Threshold of the Gray of its own. One of each player's three is used, so two battlefields stand between the players.

In a Match, the best of three games, each player chooses one of their three battlefields instead. Both Legends are already face up by then, so each player can pick the battlefield that suits their deck best against that opponent. After a game that someone won, the two battlefields used are out for the rest of the Match.

The four decks of Proving Grounds, the starter box, hold one battlefield each, so with those decks each player simply puts their one battlefield in the middle.

How do you decide who goes first?

The Core Rules ask only for a fair random method that every player agrees on, such as a coin toss or a roll of a die. The How to Play booklet of Proving Grounds uses the cards already on the table: shuffle the chosen battlefields, take one at random, and the player who brought it goes first. With more than two players, play then goes clockwise from the first player, unless the mode of play says otherwise.

In a Duel, the player who goes second channels three runes instead of two in their first Channel Phase, while both players draw a card as usual in their first Draw Phase.

How do the opening hand and the mulligan work?

Each player draws four cards, and then each player may take one mulligan, the first player before the second. To mulligan, you set aside up to two cards from your hand, draw as many new cards, and then recycle the cards you set aside, which puts them on the bottom of your Main Deck. Because the new cards come first, you cannot draw back a card you have just set aside. The mulligan is optional, and every player starts with four cards either way.

A good opening hand holds cards you can play in your first two turns. In a Duel the first player has two runes on their first turn and the second player has three, so expensive cards are the usual ones to send back. You never have to keep cards to reach your champion, because the chosen champion already waits in the Champion Zone.

What is on the table when the first turn begins?

When the setup is done, each player has their Legend and chosen champion face up, two decks face down and four cards in hand, with two battlefields in the middle. A Main Deck of exactly 40 cards has 35 left, since one card went to the Champion Zone and four went to the hand. No runes, units or gear are on the board yet: all 12 runes are still in the Rune Deck, and nobody has scored.

The first player then begins their turn with the Awaken Phase. In a Duel they channel their first two runes and draw a fifth card, as on any other turn.

What changes with three or four players?

With three or four players, every player sets up in the same way, and the changes come in the battlefields, the first turn and, in one mode, the turn order.

• Skirmish, for three players, has each player pick one battlefield at random, so three battlefields are in play.
• War, for four players, and Magma Chamber, for two teams of two, also have three battlefields. The player who goes first puts none of theirs in play, so the first player is decided before the other three pick their battlefields.
• In Magma Chamber the turn order alternates between the two teams.

In all three modes, the player who goes first skips their first draw, and the player who goes last channels an extra rune in their first Channel Phase.

Is setting up different at a tournament?

Setting up at a tournament differs only a little, since the Tournament Rules keep the setup of the Core Rules. Each player shuffles both decks and presents them to the opponent, who may shuffle them again, and at Professional events the opponent has to. Most tournament matches are the best of three games, with the battlefields chosen as in a Match.

For the first game of a match, a random method picks one player, who chooses whether to play first or last. In the playoff matches after the Swiss rounds of a Competitive or Professional event, the higher-ranked player from the Swiss rounds makes that choice. In every later game, the loser of the previous game chooses, and after a drawn game the same player starts again.

The quickest way to learn the setup is to do it once with a ready-made deck on each side of the table, such as the two decks of the Vendetta Showdown Decks. The products guide shows the ready-made decks, the battlefields page lists every battlefield, and the deck builder checks that a deck of your own has every part the setup needs.