Riftbound Exclusive Champion Unit Revealed and What's Next for Popular League of Legends Spinoff Game

Riftbound, the League of Legends trading card game, launched at the end of October to an overwhelming response from fans. Game packs, themed decks, and an all-in-one tutorial game called Proving Grounds sold out quickly, and the competitive scene began to take off as tournaments popped up across the country.

PAX Unplugged is the launch pad for the game's second installment, Spiritforged, which will launch in early 2026. The new cards, mechanics, and heroes were debuted during an hour-long panel moderated by Riot Games Riftbound lead designer Dave Guskin, and previews of the new cards have been popping up all over the internet ever since.

We sat down with PAX Unplugged’s Dave Guskin to learn more about the internal reaction to Riftbound’s release, as well as the team’s plans for Spiritforged and beyond. We're also shown an exclusive card from Spiritforged, with Guskin giving his thoughts on how to best use the new champion in combat.

Lessons learned

Riftbound's first game, Origins, has been out for a month, and Guskin said the team is feeling good despite some obstacles. Fans and the design team agree that the most important of these is getting the product to those who want it. Guskin assured me that the team has been “doing everything we can to get cards to players,” but he also acknowledged that demand is high.

When planning the first run of Origins, the team had a decision to make: Would they overprint and risk the product sitting on shelves, which might make potential players think the game didn't sell well or create logistical problems for stores selling the game, or would they overprint and risk disgruntled fans looking for sold-out products everywhere? Guskin acknowledged it was a challenge, but the team did have a strategy.

“We were trying to get as close as possible to having enough product, but we knew no matter what we did, we were going to fall short,” Guskin said. “We want to make sure that we can deliver cards to players, but we also want to do that without making choices that could harm the long-term viability of the game, both for players and the market. I would say we're doing it on the safe side.”

Those who open the first batch of card packs may notice an odd issue, as some packs reportedly only have one rare card instead of the usual two. While the team was frustrated to hear the news, with Guskin specifically noting how this might impact the experience of opening the first batch of packages, the team is working hard to resolve the issue with these customers.

“We've done some due diligence to figure out how this happened and how to prevent it in the future,” Guskin confirmed. “Getting feedback and having players show us the packs has been extremely helpful and led us to analyze our processes and find ways to improve.” Guskin also mentioned ““Rare Replacement Pack” Program This was recently launched and affected players can sign up to receive a random rare card.

Now that the first round of matches has been released, the early competitive scene has begun to develop, with names like Annie and Seth rising to prominence in recent high-profile tournaments. While the design team knew some decks would be powerful—Guskin also named champions like Kai'Sa, Ahri, and Teemo among the top performing decks—they didn't really know how the first competitive metagame would play out.

“It's hard to predict because millions of players around the world are collectively better at exploring the game and finding powerful strategies than our small design team is,” he explained. “Overall, I think we know the relative strengths, but I wouldn't say we know exactly which specific builds are going to be stronger because that's something you'll have to see players in the wild come up with.”

“Overall, we're very pleased with the decks people are discovering and excited about Nexus Nights at local game stores,” Guskin said. “We were excited about the launch, but now that we're behind that, we'll move on to the next thing.”

Go to Spirit Forge

The PAX Unplugged panel took the wraps off Riftbound’s second full set of Spiritforged, and the new potential strategies that come with it. The 12 legendary cards will offer a variety of new deck-building ideas, some featuring returning champions like Ahri, while other champions like Azir and Ezreal will make their Rift debuts.

Meanwhile, the biggest mechanical additions are equipment cards, which can be attached to friendly units and provide power buffs and other benefits. Veteran TCG players can probably imagine how these equipment cards would work, but there are some key differences from Riftbound's approach.

“Our equipment cards are slightly different in that once you attach it to a unit, you can't remove it,” Guskin revealed. “The unit won't drop it until it dies, which creates an interesting situation: Do I equip it now and get the benefit immediately, or do I hold it and wait for a more powerful unit to attach it to it?” Guskin also confirmed that there will be spells and other effects that allow you to switch gear between units, which could open up a whole new way to build decks.

Equipment cards have been part of Riftbound's development from the beginning, but as Guskin explains, there was a key reason for delaying the mechanic until Spiritforged. “We thought (the gear) performed really well in early testing,” Guskin explained, “but we didn't put it in Origins because we realized it was a little too complex to introduce on top of all the other systems in a brand new card game, so we put it aside.”

Other new mechanics in Spiritforged include Repeat, which allows you to double the effect of a spell by paying its casting cost twice, and Gold tokens, which can be clicked and sacrificed to add any color of energy to your available pool – similar to how treasure tokens work in Magic: The Gathering.

As for new legendaries, Guskin sees potential in three specific champions: Ornn, Lucien, and Ezreal. Ornn gives you additional resources to buy gear and abilities, which can create an gear-focused deck that Guskin said the competitive scene hasn't really seen yet. Lucien, meanwhile, is a deck focused on mobility and mid-sized units, which when paired with equipment can create aggressive attacking strategies.

However, Ezreal is Guskin's main hero in League of Legends, so he particularly likes what Ezreal brings to Riftbound. “Just like in League of Legends, he’s just a little jerk,” Guskin said with a laugh. “His legendary ability says that when you target an enemy unit twice in a turn, you can draw a card. It's not just killing them, you can move them, debuff them, anything, so he's got a lot of tricky things you can do with him, and he reloads very quickly because of his legendary power.”

Another champion making his debut in Soulforge is Czar Azir, a green/yellow legend who commands an army of Sandtrooper Tokens in the game. However, his companion championship card has yet to be revealed… until now.

Meet Azir, the Lord

We can exclusively reveal the yellow champion card for Azir, Monarch, and Tsar. Azir, the Sovereign costs 4 points of Strength and enters with 4 points of Attack Power. He has haste, which means you can pay an extra point of strength and recycle a yellow rune to make him actionable as soon as he hits the battlefield, and his ability is as follows: “When I attack, you can move any number of token units to this battlefield.”

Azir is tailor-made for Token decks, as he can turn a single unit attack into a massive army in one hit. Guskin said this Azir unit will complement the current Viktor archetype, but a key part of his abilities provides additional versatility.

“Victor specifically cares about recruit tokens; when you play Victor, you need recruits,” Guskin said. “Azir doesn't care about that; his card just says token. Plus, having a champion unit with haste in the champion zone means you're threatening to deploy it at any time, right? The pressure on your opponent is to consider not just where Azir might go, but where the token is currently deployed and how that might impact the fight.”

The future of Riftbound

Riftbound is still in its infancy, with only one set currently available, but Guskin is always thinking about the future. In a way, he has to be, because the demands he receives for future champions are massive and constant.

“People are definitely making claims for some championships, absolutely,” Guskin said. “I don't know that I've seen one champion dominate the requests, although I think everyone has a major champion that they really want to see. When I hear people say, 'I really want this champion, I love them, when can I get them?' I have to say, 'Well, I know the future, but I can't really talk to you about it, so it's either going to be coming soon or it's not going to be coming soon.'”

Don't let this sly answer fool you, though; the Riftbound team has multiple plans. The PAX Unplugged team revealed that four sets of products will be launched in 2026, which is also the team's target rhythm in the next few years.

“I have a very vague five-year plan for Riftbound, which is around 20 episodes,” Guskin confirmed. “We’ve got our first five to 10 sets well developed, some of which are already in print, some of which are being locked in, and some of which we’ve just started or are about to start.”

With all of this set up, and with so many cards in the card pool, the competitive scene might start to become unwieldy, but Guskin also has a rotation plan: He hopes to have the first competitive rotation in early 2028.

“Our plan is to have four sets each in early 2028, two years later, plus Origins now in 2025, and when the 10th set comes out, we'll be rotating the first four or five sets,” Guskin explained. “That way, the environment size for the 'standard' or whatever we call the 'standard' version would be five to eight sets, which is easier for me to manage.”

The next game, Spiritforged, will launch on February 13th at local game stores and major retailers.