How to Play Riftbound

The goal of Riftbound

You win by reaching 8 points first in a 1v1 game. Nearly all of those points come from battlefields, the sideways cards in the middle of the table. You score 1 when you take control of a battlefield and 1 at the start of each of your turns that you still control it. Your units are how you take and keep them.

What you bring and how a game starts

Each player brings four separate parts:

Jinx, Loose Cannon

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A Champion Legend. Jinx, Loose Cannon sets a Fury and Chaos deck.

Fury Rune

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A rune, one of the 12 in the rune deck.

Back-Alley Bar

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A battlefield, printed sideways to sit in the middle of the table.

To set up a casual 1v1 game, each player picks 1 of their 3 battlefields at random and both go in the middle, so there are 2 battlefields in play. Shuffle your main deck and rune deck separately, decide who goes first at random, and draw 4. Then, in turn order, each player may mulligan: set aside up to two cards from your hand, draw that many, and put the set-aside cards on the bottom of your deck. In a best-of-three match you choose your battlefield instead of picking at random, and after a game that someone wins, both battlefields used in it are out for the rest of the match.

Card types

A main deck holds three types of card: units, spells and gear. Champion units are units with an extra rule.

Blazing Scorcher

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Unit

Falling Star

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Spell

Trinity Force

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Gear

Jinx, Demolitionist

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Champion unit, with the Jinx tag

The costs, Might and domains printed on a card are covered in How to Read a Riftbound Card.

How a turn works

Every turn runs through the same six phases. The names are Riot's, and new players often remember the first four as ABCD.

Runes pay for everything. Exhaust a rune to add 1 Energy, which pays the number in the circle on a card. Recycle a rune, putting it on the bottom of your rune deck, to add 1 Power of its domain, which pays the domain symbols under that number. Runes have their own deck, so you never draw one in place of a spell, which is how a Magic player can end up holding lands when they need something to cast.

Units enter play exhausted, so a unit you play this turn usually can't move until your next turn (the Accelerate keyword is the exception). Moving is also paid for by exhausting: a ready unit can move from your base to a battlefield or back, and then it stays exhausted until your next Awaken. Riftbound turn structure goes through each phase, the first-turn rules and when Action and Reaction cards can be played.

Combat at a battlefield

A combat starts when units of two players are at the same battlefield, usually because you moved yours onto a battlefield where an opponent's units stand. The player who moved in is the attacker. Before any damage, both players get a window, called a showdown, to play spells and abilities that have Action or Reaction, starting with the attacker.

Then each side adds up the Might of its units there and assigns that much damage among the other side's units, attacker first. You have to assign a unit enough damage to kill it before you move on to the next one. Damage is dealt at the same time, and any unit with damage equal to or greater than its Might dies. Surviving units then heal.

If only one side has units left, that side wins the combat and takes control of the battlefield. If the defender still has units there, the attacker's survivors go back to their base. Taking control of a battlefield you haven't scored this turn is a conquer, which scores 1 point. Moving onto an empty battlefield skips the damage but still opens a showdown first, and if you still have units there when it ends, you take control. How combat works in Riftbound has a worked example and the keywords that change a fight.

How you win

You score 1 point when you conquer a battlefield and 1 point for each battlefield you hold at the start of your turn. Each battlefield can score for you only once per turn, either way. Some cards give points too.

The last point is harder to get. If you are one point from winning, a conquer only gives you that point if you have scored every battlefield this turn, and otherwise you draw a card instead. Points from holding or from a card aren't restricted this way.

Running out of cards doesn't make you lose. If you have to draw from an empty main deck, you burn out: shuffle your trash into a new main deck, choose an opponent to gain 1 point, then finish drawing. That point can win them the game.

How scoring works in Riftbound covers the final point, ties at the victory score, each mode and what happens when time is called at an event. The Riftbound score tracker guide shows how TurnZero HQ keeps the count for you.

Formats

Riot's rules define five sanctioned modes. 1v1 comes as a single game or a best-of-three match. Free-for-all works for three or four players, and 2v2 team play has teammates taking turns in alternation with the other team. Every mode is won at 8 points except team play, which is won at 11. Organized events add Riot's Tournament Rules, and which cards are legal can change between releases, so check the current rules for your event. Every Riftbound format and mode →

The official Riftbound rules PDF

Riot publishes the full rules as two PDFs on the Riftbound Rules Hub. The Core Rules are the one you want for playing: every rule is numbered, from deck construction to the keyword glossary, and this series cites those numbers. The Tournament Rules add what organized events need, such as round time and what happens when time is called. The Core Rules were last updated on October 9, 2026, and Riot revises them at least once per set, so open the Rules Hub for the current file rather than saving an old copy.

Frequently Asked Questions