Riftbound: Radiance Hands-On Preview and Interview - Riftbound Embrace

Riftbound’s final set of the year, Radiance, is finally upon us, and I went hands-on with the cards at a very early Pre-Rift tournament. This marks the League of Legends TCG’s fifth set, and features musically-inspired designs and brand new mechanics poised to disrupt the meta. I also had the chance to talk with Chengran Chai, the executive producer of Riftbound, to get some insight about the set straight from the source in a joint interview with Temple of Geek’s Myles Obenza. First, a quick recap of the new mechanics being introduced in Radiance, with some of Chai’s commentary: New Radiance Keywords: Disarm, Show Off, Deploy Disarm is the simplest of the new mechanics: When your unit with Disarm attacks , it reduces the might of an enemy unit at that battlefield, usually by one. It immediately made me think of Ahri’s original abilities, which is fitting, since the new green (Calm) Ahri, Confident, comes with Disarm. Her unit has a built-in buff when you reduce the Might of an enemy unit, gaining +1 Might herself. The promising new blue (Mind) Kai’sa, Rebel, has both Disarm and gives spells Reaction speed when in a showdown. Show Off is a mechanic that might be familiar to you if you’ve played other popular TCGs. Cards with Show Off gain an additional effect if you “Show Off” a qualifying card to your opponent as you play it. We’ve only seen four cards in Radiance with Show Off so far–two units and two spells–and they each grant totally different effects. The 5-cost yellow (Order) Spell Rousing Display (clearly part of the Legend Seraphine’s kit) plays four 1-Might Recruit Tokens to your base instead of just one if you Show Off a card with Energy cost 7 or more. Chai said that Show Off is a trade off–you’re giving away information in exchange for something, but TCGs are very much a game of information. “If I’m planning a spell heavy deck, whether you have Defy or not in your hand matters a great deal to me,” Chai explained. “Show Off basically opens up another dimension to the kind of like, 3D, 4D chess–that’s 5D.” Maybe you show your opponent something you have on purpose to throw them off, pushing them into a play you have the perfect counter-play for. Show Off has the possibility of granting great effects, but it opens the game up for more mind games, too. Deploy is a keyword specifically for Gear, allowing you to deploy that Gear straight to a Battlefield. While there, it’ll provide an effect, but will be killed if your opponent holds the Battlefield it’s at. Token Gear - Bomb There’s also a new Token Gear as well, called Bomb. This Token Gear has Deploy, and when it “dies,” it explodes, dealing two damage and triggering the other Bombs at the battlefield. Like other deployable gear, Bombs “die” when an opponent holds the battlefield they’re at, but you can always kill it yourself in various ways to trigger the effects. “I think Deploy is probably the one that will disrupt [the meta], because historically, you don't think of just going straight to a battlefield,” Chai said. “And now you have, like, Jarvan IV’s E-Q, you have Ziggs just tossing bombs onto battlefields, and it's going to change the way people think about Defending quite a bit.” Jarvan IV’s “E-Q” that Chai references is the move combo in League of Legends where he throws his flag and then pulls himself there–pretty 1-to-1 with Jarvan IV’s Legend ability in Riftbound, which lets you move a friendly unit to a Battlefield when you play a Gear with Deploy there (and pay 1 Power). Orianna's Legend ability allows you to turn a friendly Gear into a Gear Unit at the start of your Main Phase, a pretty tricky and cool thing you can do to steal some points with Deployable Gear! Her Signature Gear, The Ball, is especially interesting as it also gains Ganking, allowing it to roll back and forth between battlefields each turn. Chai seemed to be especially high on Orianna along with Deploy, noting her Legend and The Ball as playable cards he'd want to showcase from this set. Both Show Off and Deploy up the complexity of Riftbound. But, Deploy and Disarm seem to be mechanics that will absolutely disrupt defensive Hold strategies the most, which is especially scary for me as someone who’s playing Akali and Vex with Astral Heron hold strategies! Radiance Pre-Rift and Sealed Hands-On Last time I got to play with a set early, it was strictly with a preconstructed showcase deck behind closed doors, and I didn’t have more than thirty minutes to actually play with the cards. This time, however, we got a Pre-Rift tournament plus packs to take home to tinker with. So, I played Radiance with one seeded Pre-Rift deck and built two “Sealed” decks to test out–some of which were more successful than others! What is a Pre-Rift? Some quick background: A Pre-Rift is a casual prerelease tournament at local game stores. For a fee, usually $35 USD, you get a Pre-Rift Player Kit that includes a promo card, five booster packs, and a 15-card Seeded deck with a Legend and matching Champion Unit. The idea is to build a 25-ish-card deck on the fly with the seeded deck and the boosters, leading to a unique and fun format where people may play cards that might not see the light of day in a competitive Constructed deck. This is especially made possible because you can throw in a third color , enabling combos that couldn’t exist outside of the sealed format. In my Radiance Pre-Rift Kit, I got the orange (Body) and yellow (Order) Jarvan IV, Exemplar of Demacia Legend. Jarvan’s Legend ability makes use of the new Deploy keyword: “When you play a gear with [Deploy], you may exhaust me and pay [1 Power] to move a friendly unit to that battlefield.” I threw in plenty of Gears with Deploy, cards with Gear synergies, plus a couple purple (Chaos) cards that made Bombs, drew cards, and generated Gold so I’d have a decent supply of Power to activate Jarvan IV’s Legend Ability. I removed the 7-cost Jarvan IV, Royal Heir as my chosen Champion Unit, though, and r