What happens in a turn of Riftbound?

Every turn of Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game follows the same fixed order. Four short phases make up the start of the turn and mostly run on their own: your cards stand up again, you score the battlefields you still control, you get two new runes and you draw a card. Then comes the Main Phase, where you make nearly every decision of the turn, and a short Ending Phase that clears away the damage and the effects of the turn before the next player begins.

Players take turns one after the other until someone reaches the Victory Score, which is 8 points in a one-on-one game. The Core Rules, which Riot publishes on its Rules Hub, call the player whose turn it is the turn player.

What are the phases of a turn?

A Riftbound turn has six phases, always in this order. The Core Rules group the first four together as the start of the turn, and the How to Play booklet of Proving Grounds marks them A, B, C and D so they are easy to remember.

1. Awaken Phase. You ready everything you control, so your exhausted units, runes, gear and Legend turn upright again.
2. Beginning Phase. Abilities that work "at the start of your Beginning Phase" happen first. Then you score one point for each battlefield you control, which is called holding.
3. Channel Phase. You channel two runes: the top two runes of your rune deck go onto the board, ready to use.
4. Draw Phase. You draw one card from your main deck.
5. Main Phase. You play cards, use abilities and move units, in any order and as often as you can pay for it.
6. Ending Phase. Effects that happen at the end of the turn take place. Then every unit heals, effects that last "this turn" end, and any unspent Energy and Power is lost.

The order of the phases never changes, but cards can change what happens inside a phase. The booklet calls the Main Phase the Action Phase, and both names mean the same part of the turn.

What happens at the start of your turn?

The four phases at the start of your turn ask no choices of you unless one of your cards does. The order inside the Beginning Phase matters most: everything that happens "at the start of your Beginning Phase" comes before scoring, so a battlefield can be lost before you get to hold it.

Loose Cannon, the Legend of Jinx, draws you a card at the start of your Beginning Phase if you have one card in hand or none, before your normal draw. The battlefield Frozen Fortress deals 1 damage to each unit there at the start of every player's Beginning Phase, so on your turn a unit of yours with 1 Might standing there dies before you can hold the battlefield. Units with Temporary, such as the Sprite tokens, are killed at the start of their controller's Beginning Phase, before scoring.

Other cards change a phase outright. Firebrand Raider is a unit in Radiance, the fifth set, with its release on 23 October 2026, and it stops units from readying in the Awaken Phase. Sandstone Chimera makes every player channel one rune instead of two while it stands at a battlefield, and the gear Endless Riches makes you skip your Draw Phase.

If your main deck is empty when you have to draw, you burn out and an opponent of your choice gains 1 point.

What can you do in your Main Phase?

In your Main Phase you may do anything your cards and runes allow, in any order and as many times as you can pay for it. The phase has no set steps, and these are the things that fill it.

• Play cards. You play cards from your hand, and your chosen champion from the Champion zone. Units enter play exhausted, at your base or at a battlefield you control.
• Pay with runes. You exhaust a rune to add 1 Energy, or recycle it to add 1 Power of its domain. The same rune can do both, and the Energy and Power it adds pay for your cards.
• Use abilities. Your units, gear and Legend may have abilities, many of which you use by exhausting the card.
• Move units. You exhaust a unit to move it from your base to a battlefield or back again. Moving onto a battlefield you do not control starts a showdown, and if enemy units are there, a combat.
• Hide a card. A card with Hidden can be placed face down at a battlefield you control for one Power of any domain, to be played later without paying its normal cost.

Because units enter play exhausted and a move costs an exhaust, a unit you play this turn usually cannot move until your next turn. After a showdown or combat your Main Phase carries on, and when there is nothing more you want to do, you say that you are ending your turn.

What happens when you end your turn?

When you end your turn, the Ending Phase first carries out every effect that happens "at the end of your turn" or "at end of turn". Dark Child, the Legend of Annie from Proving Grounds, readies up to two of your runes at this point, and Sona, Harmonious readies up to four friendly runes if she is at a battlefield. The spell Hostile Takeover lets you take control of an enemy unit at a battlefield, and at the end of the turn the unit goes back to your opponent and is sent to their base.

Then the game cleans up, in a step the Core Rules call the Expiration Step. Every unit heals, so the damage marked on units during the turn is removed. Every effect that lasts "this turn" ends at the same moment, such as extra Might from a spell, and stunned units stop being stunned. Any Energy and Power still in a rune pool is lost. The next player in turn order then starts their own turn with their Awaken Phase.

Can your opponent act during your turn?

Your opponent can act during your turn, but only at certain moments and only with certain cards. In the normal course of a turn, only the turn player can start playing cards and using abilities. When you play a card or use an ability, your opponent may answer with a card that has Reaction, which resolves before yours. During a showdown or a combat, the players take turns to play cards with Action or Reaction.

This is why it pays to think about your runes at the end of your turn. Your runes ready again only in your own Awaken Phase, unless a card readies them, so the runes you leave ready when you end your turn are the ones you can spend during your opponent's turn. A Legend like Dark Child lets you spend freely and still keep an answer up.

Is the first turn of a game any different?

The first turn of each player uses the same six phases, with one small change that depends on the game mode. In a one-on-one game, the player who goes second channels three runes instead of two in their first Channel Phase. In Skirmish for three players and in War and Magma Chamber for four, 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.

Where can you read more about each phase?

The Core Rules define the phases of the turn in rules 315 to 317, which anyone can read on Riot's Rules Hub. Which of your cards can act in a turn depends on exhaust and ready, the two positions that every card on the board switches between. What your opponent can do in answer depends on Action and Reaction, the two keywords that decide when a card may be played.

On this site, the runes page lists the runes of every domain, which pay for everything you do in the Main Phase, and the battlefields page shows every battlefield, many of them with abilities that work at a set moment of the turn.