Radiance reveals of 7 October: Mordekaiser, Ziggs and Jarvan IV

Seven cards on 7 October, and three of them are champions with a showcase each. That sounds like a big day for new faces, but none of the three is new to Radiance. Mordekaiser already had Mordekaiser, Dominating, Jarvan IV already had Jarvan IV, Martial Paragon, and Ziggs has his Legend and Ziggs, Short-Fused. What Wednesday really showed is each champion's second option, and the three second options are not equally good.

Mordekaiser, Twice Slain is the card that lives up to its name. He costs 7, sits at 5 Might, and once a turn, when he would die, you may kill another unit of yours to heal him and send him back to your hand. So he never really dies, but every return costs you a unit and another 7 energy to replay him, which is slow even with Accelerate. On the board he is an 8-Might attacker thanks to Assault 3 and a plain 5 on defence. That is a card for the long game against decks that spend removal on big units, and a liability against anyone who simply ignores him and races. Next to Mordekaiser, Dominating, who kills something every time he attacks, Twice Slain looks like the second choice for most Fury decks.

Ziggs, Explosive is the opposite: a 4-cost unit that does the Legend's job for less. Hexplosives Expert pays an energy and a rune to drop a Bomb; Explosive drops one for an energy alone, every turn, and then has a second line that eats his own work. Bombs are gear, so when he defends you can blow up the Bomb at his battlefield for +2 Might, and the Bomb deals its 2 damage on the way out. With Ziggs, Short-Fused on the table for Bonus Damage and Hexplosive Minefield to replant the Bombs at end of turn, the Bomb deck went from a cute idea to a real plan on 7 October. This is the best card of the day.

Jarvan IV, Royal Heir is the safest of the three. Seven energy for 7 Might is the going rate in this set, Dune Devourer and Heartening Soul pay the same, and Jarvan gets Assault and Tank on top, plus a free move for one of your units every time he attacks. That move is the real text: Order likes to attack wide, and bringing a second body along without paying for the move is a swing that an opponent cannot plan around. One small oddity: both printings were shown in Simplified Chinese, so the English card itself is still unseen.

The quieter story of the day is Party Crasher. It costs 9 on paper and one less for each exhausted unit you control, so the line is to attack with everything first and then drop a 6-Might Tank for 5 or 6 as the wall behind your attack. That joins a theme Radiance has been building for a week: Riven, Deserter exhausts your units to ready others, Seraphine, Not Alone grows with each exhausted unit, High Note shrinks an enemy by the same count, and Life from Stone from the same day is a 1-cost Reaction that exhausts one of your units to draw a card and channel a rune. Exhausting your own units is turning into a cost this set wants you to pay on purpose.

Scrutinizing Scope is a guessing game. For an energy a turn, your opponent names a card type and you either draw the top card or lose it to the bottom of your deck. The catch is that a deck full of units is easy to guess, so the Scope only pays off in a deck that is balanced across units, gear and spells, which is not how most Riftbound decks look. Fun, and probably fringe. One-Two Punch rounds the day off as an honest 3-cost combat trick, a Buff and a Stun in one card. What the day did not bring is the card everyone keeps asking about, Riven's Legend, which is still the biggest gap in the set.

Card by card

• Mordekaiser, Twice Slain, RAD 020 (champion unit), from ScreenRant.
• Mordekaiser, Twice Slain, RAD 020a (showcase), from ScreenRant.
• Ziggs, Explosive, RAD 112 (champion unit), from Game Informer.
• Ziggs, Explosive, RAD 112a (showcase), from Game Informer.
• Jarvan IV, Royal Heir, RAD 133 (champion unit), from 游研社 on WeChat.
• Jarvan IV, Royal Heir, RAD 133a (showcase), from 怕烫的火拳 on Bilibili.
• Party Crasher, RAD 122, from Snnuy on X.
• Scrutinizing Scope, RAD 064, from Arcane Academy on YouTube.
• Life from Stone, RAD 029, from 符文战场 on Bilibili.
• One-Two Punch, RAD 121, from 符文战场 on Bilibili.

Riot named seven partners for the day. Breakflip had not published its card when this was written; it joins the Radiance Reveals page as soon as it appears.

Every card here is a preview. It is unreleased, and what is printed on it can change before Radiance releases on 23 October. The Radiance Reveals page shows every card by the day it was revealed, with what is still to come, and the Radiance card list holds the cards themselves. A card the official gallery does not list yet is shown as it was revealed until Riot lists it.