How does Skirmish, the three-player mode, work?

Skirmish is the three-player mode of play of Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game. Every player plays for themselves against two opponents, with no teams, and the game is played to 8 points, as a one-on-one Duel is. Each player brings the same deck they would bring to a Duel. The rules change in only a few places: the number of battlefields, the first turn and the way fights work when three players share the board.

The Core Rules call the mode FFA3, short for a free-for-all of three players, and set it out in rule 489 as one of the sanctioned modes of play.

How do you set up a game of Skirmish?

Each player sets up as in any other game, except for the battlefields. Every deck brings three battlefields, and each player picks one of their three at random. The other two stay out of the game, and the three picked battlefields go in the middle of the table, so a game of Skirmish has three battlefields in play where a Duel has two.

The first player is chosen by any fair random method that all three players agree on, such as a roll of a die, and turns then go clockwise around the table (rule 115). Each player draws four cards and may take a mulligan, in turn order, as in a Duel (rules 116 and 117).

The Proving Grounds box is an easy way to try the mode. Each of its four ready-made decks plays with one battlefield, so three players can take a deck each and put the three battlefields of those decks in the middle.

How is the first turn different with three players?

The player who goes first skips their first draw, and the player who goes last channels an extra rune in their first Channel Phase (rule 489.7).

• The first player channels two runes and draws no card.
• The second player plays a normal turn, with two runes and one card.
• The last player channels three runes and draws one card.

In a Duel, only the player who goes second gets an extra rune, and the first player draws as usual. The extra rune gives the last player one more Energy to spend on a first turn than the other players have, as the article on who goes first shows with examples from a Duel.

How do you score and win in Skirmish?

You score the same way as in a Duel: one point when you conquer a battlefield, and one point for each battlefield you hold at the start of your turn. You win when, in a cleanup, you have 8 points or more and more points than both opponents (rule 474). If two players reach 8 with the same score, the game goes on until one of them is ahead (rule 194.2.b).

The final point rule makes the last point harder to conquer with three battlefields than with two. With 7 points, a conquer gives you the winning point only if you have scored all three battlefields that turn, and otherwise you draw a card instead (rule 473.1.b). Points from holding are not limited this way, so plan to take the last point by holding a battlefield.

Holding also takes more work than in a Duel. Between two of your turns, both opponents play a full turn, so a battlefield you want to hold has to survive the attacks of two players before it gives you a point.

How do fights work with three players at the table?

A combat is always between exactly two players (rule 464). A unit cannot move to a battlefield where units of two other players already stand, and while a combat is staged or going on at a battlefield, the third player can neither move units there nor play units there (rules 449.2.a, 451.2 and 464.2). A card that would put the third player's unit there sends it to its controller's base instead (rules 449.2.c and 464.2.a).

The third player still has a say in the fight. In every showdown, Focus, the turn to act, passes around the whole table in turn order, and the showdown ends only when all three players have passed in a row (rules 346 to 348). So the third player may play a spell with Action or Reaction during a combat between the other two, for example to slow down the player who is closest to winning.

The How to Play booklet in the Proving Grounds box still lets only the two fighting players act unless they invite the third. Riot removed that rule from the Core Rules in the rules patch it published on 24 October 2025, so every player can now act in every showdown.

Which cards play differently with two opponents?

Card text that says "each opponent" counts both of your opponents, and text that says "choose an opponent" lets you pick one of them. A few cards show the difference well.

• Blind Fury, an Action spell from Origins, has each opponent reveal the top card of their Main Deck, and you choose one, banish it and play it, ignoring its cost. With two opponents you choose between two cards. Drakehound Packmaster, a unit from Radiance, the set with its release on 23 October 2026, does the same when you play it.
• Card Sharp from Spiritforged lets you and each opponent play a Gold gear token exhausted, and you play one more for each opponent who did. With two opponents it can give you three.
• Draven, Audacious makes you choose an opponent when he dies in combat, and that opponent scores 1 point. In Skirmish you can choose the opponent who is furthest from winning.
• Tianna Crownguard stops both opponents from gaining points while she is at a battlefield.

Burning out gives the same choice: a player who has to draw from an empty Main Deck burns out and chooses which opponent gains 1 point (rule 432.2.c).

What happens when a player concedes in Skirmish?

The game goes on for the other two players. A player may concede at any time, and when one of three players concedes, the rules remove that player and the game continues (rules 650 to 652). Their runes, permanents and facedown cards are banished, and the battlefield they brought is replaced by a token battlefield with no abilities, so three battlefields stay in play. The units of the remaining players at that battlefield stay where they are, and the two remaining players play on to 8 points.

Is Skirmish the same as a Summoner Skirmish event?

No. Summoner Skirmish is a competitive store tournament, not a mode of play, and it is played one on one in best of three matches. The two share a word, so check the format of an event before you sign up for a three-player game. Riot announced on 4 August 2026, in its August 2026 State of Play, that the Summoner Skirmish events end after Radiance and that the Riftbound Challenge Series takes their place as the first rung of the competitive ladder.

The battlefields page lists every battlefield your deck can bring, and the deck builder checks that a deck of your own has all three. Riftbound also has a four-player mode, War, which keeps three battlefields in play because the player who goes first removes theirs (rules 490.4 and 490.4.b). The rule numbers in this article are those of the Core Rules of 9 October 2026, which Riot publishes on its Rules Hub.