What is in Vendetta, the fourth Riftbound set?

Vendetta is the fourth main set of Riftbound: the League of Legends trading card game. Its cards carry the set code VEN, and it came out in English and Chinese on the same day, 31 July 2026. The French edition of Vendetta has its release on 23 October 2026, the same day as the release of Radiance, the fifth set, as Riot's French roadmap sets out.

The theme of Vendetta is rivalry: old friends who became enemies, foes who never die and families divided against themselves.

Which rivalries are at the heart of Vendetta?

Riot's overview of Vendetta gives Shen against Zed and Mel against her mother Ambessa as examples of the rivalries in the set. Shen leads the Kinkou Order of Ionia, and Zed, who trained in the same order, killed Shen's father and founded the Order of Shadow. The brothers Renekton and Nasus of Shurima, who face each other on the front of the booster display, are in the set as well.

The rivalry runs between the domains too. Vendetta treats three pairs of domains as opposites: Fury and Calm, Mind and Body, Chaos and Order. Three of its Legends join such a pair, which no Legend had done before: Rogue Assassin for Akali in Fury and Calm, Defender of Tomorrow for Jayce in Mind and Body and Heart of the Tempest for Kennen in Chaos and Order. Since Vendetta, every one of the fifteen pairs of domains has at least one Legend.

A cycle of six Rare spells, the Decrees, makes the same point. Each domain has one, and each Decree strikes at the cards of the opposite domain. Decree of Rage is a Fury spell that cannot be countered and deals 4 to an enemy Calm unit, and Decree of Unity is an Order spell that kills an enemy Chaos unit or gear.

Which champions are in Vendetta?

The nine Legends of Vendetta belong to Akali, Ambessa, Jayce, Kennen, Mel, Nasus, Renekton, Shen and Zed. Each of them comes with two champion units, one Rare and one Epic, and an Epic signature spell. Zed, for example, has Master of Shadows as his Legend, Zed, From the Shadows and Zed, Without a Sound as his champion units and Death Mark as his signature spell.

Six more champions have a single Rare champion unit in the set and no Legend there: Gangplank, Illaoi, Kayle, Morgana, Riven and Swain. Riven has a Legend of her own in Radiance, the fifth set, with its release on 23 October 2026. Of the fifteen champions in Vendetta, only Shen and Jayce had cards before, Shen in Origins and Jayce in Spiritforged, so thirteen champions came into Riftbound with this set. The champions page shows every champion with all of their cards, such as Zed.

Which new mechanics does Vendetta add?

Vendetta adds three mechanics: Empower, Flow and Burn. Riot's patch notes for the set call Empower its tentpole mechanic.

• Empower is a cost that upgrades a card on the board. Once you pay it, the card is Empowered, and its text that begins with Empowered works until the card leaves the board or is disempowered. Shadow Fiend is a 2 Energy unit that gains Assault 3 once you Empower it for 2 Energy and one Fury Power.
• Flow lets you play a spell again from your trash for its Flow cost, after which the spell is banished. Perfect Execution readies a unit and gives it Assault 3, and once it is in your trash you can play it a second time for 3 Energy and one Fury Power.
• Burn puts the top cards of a Main Deck into the trash. Some cards burn your own deck to fill your trash for Flow: Kennen, Storm of Shuriken burns 2 when you play him. Others can make an opponent burn, like Blade Twirler, which makes a player of your choice burn 1 the first time it moves each turn. A player who has to burn more cards than their Main Deck holds burns out.

Vendetta also brought the first card with two card types. Patched Porobot is a Unit Gear, so it enters exhausted and moves like a unit, and an effect that kills a gear can kill it too. Two new unit tokens come with the set: the 0 Might Shadow Clone that Zed's cards play and the 1 Might Tentacle that Illaoi, Prophet of the Great Kraken plays.

How many cards does Vendetta have?

Vendetta numbers 166 cards, from 001/166 to 166/166. The six basic runes, numbered R01 to R06, and the tokens are numbered apart and are not counted in the table.

By rarity, the set has 48 Commons, 46 Uncommons, 45 Rares and 27 Epics. Vendetta has no Ultimate Rare. With 166 numbered cards, Vendetta is the smallest of the five main sets: Origins has 298, Spiritforged 221, Unleashed 219 and Radiance, with its release on 23 October 2026, 167. Printings such as overnumbered cards come on top of those numbers, so how many cards a set has depends on what you count.

Which products does Vendetta come in?

Vendetta comes in four products, all dated 31 July 2026. The set has no Champion Decks. In their place it brought the first Showdown box, two ready-made decks that are built to play against each other.

• The Vendetta Booster Pack holds 14 cards: seven Commons, three Uncommons, one foil card, two cards of Rare or higher and one token or rune. Its launch price is $4.99.
• The Vendetta Booster Display holds 24 booster packs, with a launch price of $119.99.
• The Vendetta Showdown Decks set a Zed deck in Fury and Chaos against a Shen deck in Calm and Order. Each deck has 56 cards, counting its Legend, battlefields and runes, and the box adds two booster packs and two paper playmats. Its launch price is $34.99.
• The Vendetta Vault is a storage box with six booster packs and a set of basic runes, with a launch price of $34.99.

Stores held Pre-Rift events for Vendetta from 24 July 2026, a week before the release. Each player got a Pre-Rift kit with five booster packs, a themed pack for one of the nine new Legends picked at random and, while supplies lasted, a promo Riven, Shattered.

Which special printings does Vendetta have?

Vendetta has 31 overnumbered cards, numbered from 167/166 to 197/166. Nine of them are its Legends with new art, and each of those nine also comes as a signed printing with the artist's signature and a star after the number, such as Master of Shadows. The other 22 are champion units drawn in pairs of rivals, whose two pictures join into one when the cards lie side by side. Not all of them are Vendetta champions: Vi, Destructive and Jinx, Demolitionist are Origins cards, and Rengar, Trophy Hunter and Kha'Zix, Evolving Hunter come from Unleashed.

The set also has 18 alternate art cards, one for each champion unit of its nine Legends, and six special cards numbered SP1 to SP6 that show champions in Crystal Rose skins from Wild Rift, such as Ahri, Inquisitive. Every special printing plays exactly like the standard card.

Which Vendetta cards changed tournament play?

Kennen's Legend left the biggest mark on the tournaments after the release. Heart of the Tempest is Empowered whenever you play a card from anywhere other than your hand, and Kennen decks fill their trash with Burn and play spells from it with Flow. At the Regional Qualifiers of the Vendetta season, Kennen was the most played Legend in Barcelona and in Singapore, and Akali, with Rogue Assassin, won in Singapore. Both decks are among the strongest decks of the Vendetta season.

From 18 September 2026, Riot banned Stacked Deck, an Origins spell, as its September ban list update set out, because together with Kennen's signature spell Lightning Rush it let Kennen decks go through their deck too quickly. No Vendetta card is on that banned list.

Every card of the set is in the Vendetta card list, and the deck builder lets you try its Legends. Vendetta cards are legal in Standard together with the cards of Unleashed, the third set, and, once it joins Standard with its release on 23 October 2026, those of Radiance, the fifth set.