Radiance reveals of 8 October: Seraphine, Orianna and the Angler Wyrm

Fifteen cards on 8 October, two of them champions with a showcase each, and for once the champions are not the story. Seraphine, Inspiring and Orianna, Exquisite are both fine cards, but they are each the third unit of a champion the set had already covered. The real news is in the commons and uncommons: three themes Radiance has been hinting at for two weeks got their cheap pieces on the same day.

Seraphine, Inspiring is still the best card of the day, because of what it does next to her Legend. Starry-Eyed Songstress exhausts herself and three friendly units to take two energy off a spell, and Inspiring turns exactly that motion into a card every turn. A 4-cost unit with Disarm 2 that draws when you cast your big spell is the engine that deck was missing. Seraphine, Not Alone wants a board of exhausted units and Inspiring wants a hand, and since one is Order and the other Mind, the Legend can run both. One oddity: the showcase printing was out in Simplified Chinese about sixteen hours before Riot showed the English card.

Orianna, Exquisite is a cousin of Galio, Indefatigable: four Might for three energy, Shield on top, and no combat damage unless there is a friendly gear at her battlefield. Galio never gets to hit. Orianna does, as soon as the deck plays what Lady of Clockwork wants anyway: The Ball is a Deploy gear, Orianna, Mechanical Marvel makes gear cheaper, and Resource Extractor from the same day is a 1-cost Deploy gear that pays a Gold token every turn you hold its battlefield. In that deck she is a 3-drop well above the rate of the set. Outside it she is a wall that cannot swing back.

Resource Extractor is the best common of the day. The Waters' Wage and An Offer You Can't Refuse hand out Gold once and are done, while the Extractor keeps paying for as long as you hold, and a 1-cost Deploy gear has Jarvan IV, Royal Heir, Jarvan IV, Martial Paragon and Exemplar of Demacia to lean on. The sneakier theme of the day is hidden cards. Bushwhack Trap lets the player holding its battlefield hide one card more, Demon Shade is a hidden move spell for Fury, and Gutter Guardian is a hidden unit that pays its own rune back when you show off another hidden card. With Bedeviling Stranger, Momentary Companion and Elnuk Herd already revealed, a deck built around face-down cards is no longer a thought experiment. It is Chaos with a Fury splash.

The third theme is playing something that costs seven or more. Forbidden Technique readies a unit for two energy and then comes back from the trash whenever you play a 7-cost card, and Sanctum Conservator readies itself on the same trigger. That makes four cards for the theme with Meticulous Restorationist and Rousing Display, and Radiance has no shortage of top end to trigger them: both Mordekaisers, Jarvan IV, Royal Heir, Clocktower Guardian, The Empyrean, and from this day Wrath of the Freljord and Angler Wyrm. Forbidden Technique is the best of the enablers, because a 2-cost Reaction that readies a unit is playable with no 7-drop in sight. Wrath of the Freljord is honest at nine energy and enters ready, but Mordekaiser, Dominating costs the same and kills something. Angler Wyrm is the fun one: a Deflect 8 for 8 that drags an enemy unit into its own battlefield, which is either removal by combat or a defender pulled off the battlefield they were holding. It is also the third 8-Might unit at eight energy in the set, so that slot is getting crowded.

Hush is the card that will be argued about. A counter for one energy is cheap, but it only hits spells with a Power cost of two or more runes, so it answers Zero Point Inflection and Primordial Roar and sits in your hand against a deck of cheap spells. Lilting Lullaby costs one more and counters anything. Antagonistic Apparatus is a 6-cost unit that enters ready and brings a ready 3-Might Mech with it, which is six Might across two bodies on the turn you play it, and with Heimerdinger, Academy Instructor and Industrious Mechsmith the Mechs are starting to add up in this set too. Stoic Ferryman is the quiet one: a Shield 3 body that sends another unit home when it lands, useful for saving a champion, and probably filler everywhere else.

Card by card

• Seraphine, Inspiring, RAD 065 (champion unit), from Riot Games on X.
• Seraphine, Inspiring, RAD 065a (showcase), from RiftboundCN on X.
• Orianna, Exquisite, RAD 042 (champion unit), from Lothar on YouTube.
• Orianna, Exquisite, RAD 042a (showcase), from Lothar on YouTube.
• Angler Wyrm, RAD 113, from Riot Games on X.
• Forbidden Technique, RAD 010, from MaryMaybe on X.
• Stoic Ferryman, RAD 031, from Sigils on X.
• Gutter Guardian, RAD 103, from Nitheal on X.
• Hush, RAD 041, from 符文战场 on Bilibili.
• Resource Extractor, RAD 052, from 符文战场 on Bilibili.
• Bushwhack Trap, RAD 108, from 符文战场 on Bilibili.
• Demon Shade, RAD 102, from 符文战场 on Bilibili.
• Antagonistic Apparatus, RAD 009, from 符文战场 on Bilibili.
• Sanctum Conservator, RAD 030, from 符文战场 on Bilibili.
• Wrath of the Freljord, RAD 077, from 符文战场 on Bilibili.

Riot named twelve partners for the day, four in the West and eight streamers in China. The cards from China reached the Radiance Reveals page through 符文战场's daily video, and Riot's own channel added Seraphine and the Wyrm.

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.