Accelerate
An optional additional cost paid while playing a unit: pay 1 Energy and 1 Power to have it enter ready. Single-domain units use matching Power; domainless units use any-domain Power.
A reference for your next move
Glossary
The words of Riftbound.
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Action
A timing keyword that also permits a card or activated ability during a Showdown on any player's turn. You still need Focus and Priority with an empty Chain; Action alone does not allow a response to a waiting Chain.
Activated Ability
An ability you choose to use by paying the cost before its colon. Its effect is written after the colon.
Add
Put the stated Energy or Power into your Rune Pool. Activated and triggered Add abilities resolve as soon as finalized; spells that Add resources use the Chain normally.
Additional Cost
A payment added to a card or ability's base cost. Mandatory additional costs must be paid; optional ones become part of the payment when you choose them. A chosen optional additional cost reduced to 0 still counts as paid.
Additional Turn
A temporary extra turn inserted after the current turn by an effect. Once it finishes, play continues through the turns already queued. The established Turn Order does not change.
Alone
A unit is alone when there are no other friendly units at its location. Enemy units do not stop it being alone.
Ambush
Permission to play a unit to a battlefield where you control units, with Reaction timing when playing it there. Other play requirements still apply, and Ambush alone does not make the unit enter ready.
Assault
A unit keyword that adds its value to the unit's Might while it is an attacker. An omitted value is 1, and multiple values add together.
Backline
A unit keyword that changes combat damage assignment. Assign damage to that player's Backline units only after their non-Backline units have lethal damage assigned.
Banish
Move a card from its current zone directly into its owner's Banishment. Banishing is separate from killing and discarding.
Banishment
A player's off-board zone for banished cards. Its cards are public information and their order does not matter. It is separate from the Trash; some effects use it temporarily.
Base
Your Base is your personal location where your units can be played and return to during the game.
Battlefield
A Battlefield is a shared location that players compete to control during the game.
Bonus Damage
A positive increase to a Deal action. It adds once to a single target, separately to each target dealt an amount, or once to the shared total when damage is split.
Buff
Place a Buff counter on a unit that does not already have one, unless an effect allows more. Each Buff gives that unit +1 Might.
Burn
Move cards from the top of a player's Main Deck to that player's Trash. Burning too many cards can cause Burn Out.
Chain
An off-board zone that holds cards and abilities during the process of playing them. Cards and abilities on it are public information.
Champion Legend
Your deck's legend card. Its domains set your deck's Domain Identity. It starts in the Legend Zone and stays there; it is separate from the champion unit you choose to play.
Champion Zone
The separate zone where your Chosen Champion starts the game. You can play it from there using the normal timing, costs and restrictions. It is not a location on the board.
Channel
Put the stated number of runes from the top of your Rune Deck onto the board. They enter ready unless instructed otherwise. If too few remain, channel as many as possible.
Chosen Champion
The champion unit selected during deckbuilding to start in your Champion Zone. Its champion tag must match your legend. During play, champion units with that same full name also count as your Chosen Champion.
Cleanup
An automatic rules check that handles winning, lethal damage and board conditions before play continues. It is not an action you choose or normally announce, and an ordinary check does not heal units.
Combat
Combat is the part of play where opposing players' units fight for the same Battlefield.
Combat Damage
Combat Damage is the Damage units deal as part of Combat.
Concede
Voluntarily leave and lose the game. You may concede at any time; if you have teammates, they also lose and leave.
Conquer
Conquer means taking control of a Battlefield you did not already control and Scoring it for the turn.
Contested
A temporary battlefield status applied when a unit becomes present there, its controller does not control that battlefield, and it is not already contested. It prepares a Showdown or Combat rather than immediately transferring control.
Controller
The player who currently controls a game object and makes the choices assigned to that controller. Control is established differently for battlefields and other objects, and need not match ownership.
Copy
Taking another object’s specified copyable traits, normally its printed or previously copied traits. Later bonuses and statuses are not copied. An object created as a copy starts with the copied traits as its own initial traits.
Counter (Cancel)
To stop a card or ability on the chain from executing. Paid costs remain paid; a countered card normally goes to its owner's Trash. A countered finalized card can still satisfy Legion.
Counter (Marker)
A game object placed on another object on the board to track an ongoing effect or requirement. A Buff is one kind of counter.
Damage
Damage represents harm marked on a unit and stays marked until it is healed.
Deathknell
An ability that triggers when its own permanent is killed and sent to the Trash. Replacing that death with something else prevents the Deathknell from happening.
Deflect
A keyword that adds X Power of any Domain to an opponent's spell or ability cost each time it targets this permanent. No number means 1; multiple Deflect values add together.
Delayed Ability
An ability created by an effect to apply at a specified later time or during a specified window. It can persist after its source leaves the board.
Dependency
An ordering relationship between effects in the same layer: one changes how the other applies, so it applies first and the dependent effect immediately follows. Mutual dependence does not establish this ordering.
Dependent Keyword
A keyword, such as Legion or Level, that gives a condition for the following ability to be active.
Deploy
A gear keyword requiring it to be played or created to a battlefield. Its non-unit form avoids the usual battlefield recall; when an opponent holds its battlefield, its kill ability triggers.
Disarm
An attack trigger that gives an enemy unit at this battlefield -X Might for the turn. X is 1 when omitted. Add multiple Disarm values together for one trigger.
Discard
Move a card directly from your hand to your Trash without playing it or following its normal rules text.
Disempower
An instructed action that removes one Empowered status from a card. It does nothing to a card without that status.
Domain
A Domain is one of Riftbound's colors, used to identify different cards and resources.
Domain Identity
The domains your deck is allowed to use, normally set by your Champion Legend. A card with several domains needs all of them to be allowed. A specific effect can make a deckbuilding exception.
Double
Increase a value by its current amount when instructed, for the effect's stated duration. Doubling a negative value adds 0.
Draw
Move a card into your hand from the specified zone, normally from the top of your Main Deck.
Duel
A two-player, single-game mode with two battlefields and a Victory Score of 8. Each player randomly selects one of their three battlefields.
Effect Text
The separate text section a card adds to the Rules Text of the card it is attached to. It is inactive while the card is unattached.
Empower
An activated ability with a listed cost. When it resolves, it Empowers its source permanent or legend, without targeting it. Normally it can be activated only if the source is not already Empowered.
Empowered
A status that makes a card's Empowered text active. A card normally either has this status or does not, unless its text allows multiple instances.
Enemy
Describes something controlled by an opponent, from the perspective of the card or ability referring to it.
Energy
A resource used to pay numeric Energy costs. Energy has no domain and is spent from your Rune Pool.
Energy Cost
An Energy Cost is paid using Energy from your Rune Pool. You normally add Energy by Exhausting Ready runes.
Equip
An activated ability on Equipment: pay its listed cost to attach that gear to a unit you control when the ability resolves. This is normally separate from playing the gear.
Equipment
Gear with the Equipment tag. When attached to a unit, it adds its Effect Text and Might bonus to that unit. Playing Equipment does not normally attach it automatically.
Exhaust
To Exhaust something, turn it sideways to show that it has been used for an action or cost that requires it to Exhaust.
Facedown Zone
The separate board space associated with a battlefield for facedown cards. It is not a location and normally holds one card. The card's controller must control that battlefield; the zone is public but the card's face is private.
Flow
A spell keyword that lets you play it from your Trash for its Flow cost at its normal timing. After finalization, it is banished when it leaves the chain unless its own execution instructed that departure.
Focus
The opportunity to act in a Showdown when the Chain is empty. Gaining Focus also gives Priority; you need both to act. Passing Priority during a Chain does not itself pass Focus.
Friendly
Describes something controlled by you or a teammate, from the perspective of the card or ability referring to it.
Ganking
Ganking is a keyword that allows a unit to move from one Battlefield directly to another with its Standard Move.
Gear
A permanent type normally played to Base. Non-unit gear normally enters ready and does not have Standard Move. Equipment is gear with the Equipment tag. Gear that is also a unit follows the specific combined-type rules.
Heal
Clear marked damage from one or more units. Healing does not raise their Might.
Hidden
A keyword that lets you pay one any-domain power on your turn in an open state to hide this card from your hand or Champion Zone facedown at a battlefield you control with room. From the next turn, you may play it from there with Reaction while ignoring its base cost.
Hold
Hold means Scoring a Battlefield you already control during the Beginning Phase of your turn.
Hunt
A unit keyword that triggers when it Conquers or Holds. When the trigger resolves, its controller gains the stated XP. Hunt defaults to 1; multiple Hunt values on a unit add together.
Inactive
Text that is still present but does not currently apply, trigger or allow activation. Other effects can still check that the text or keyword is present.
Kill
Send a permanent directly from the board to its owner's Trash, either by an instruction or because the rules find it should die.
Layer
One of four ordered steps for calculating a game object’s characteristics: copy effects, trait changes, ability changes, then arithmetic. Dependencies and timestamps order effects within each layer.
Legion
A dependent keyword whose following text is active after you finalized a different card during this turn. That card still counts if later countered.
Lethal Damage
Marked damage sufficient to kill a unit in cleanup. Normally it must be a nonzero amount at least equal to the unit's Might. Effects can change the amount needed.
Level
A keyword that makes the following text active while the card's controller has at least the stated amount of XP. Falling below that amount makes the text inactive again.
Linked Ability
One of a connected set of abilities that refers to another ability in the set or to the cards or events it affected.
Location
A Location is a place on the board where units can be, such as a Base or Battlefield.
Magma Chamber
The two-versus-two mode. Teams share points, win or lose together, and use a Victory Score of 11. Players keep separate control of their cards and separate XP.
Main Deck
The deck of units, gear and spells, separate from your Rune Deck. Your deckbuilding list has at least 40 cards including your Chosen Champion; that chosen copy starts in the Champion Zone instead of the shuffled pile.
Match
The multi-game two-player mode, normally best of three. Players choose battlefields, and fields used in a game with a winner are set aside for later games, subject to the best-of-five reuse exception.
Might
Might represents both how much Combat Damage a unit can contribute and how much marked Damage it can normally take before being killed.
Mighty
A unit with 5 or more Might. Use current Might on the board and printed Might in a non-board zone.
Mistargeting
When a spell or ability's chosen target is no longer valid or available as it resolves. Instructions involving that illegal target are skipped; other instructions may still happen.
Mode
An option in a spell or ability's bulleted choice list. Choose the permitted mode or modes when putting it on the Chain, rather than waiting for it to resolve.
Mulligan
Your chance during setup to replace up to two of your four opening cards. Set them aside, draw the same number of replacements, then recycle the set-aside cards.
Name
The full identity of a card, including its subtitle when it has one. Different-language versions of the same card share a name for gameplay.
One on One
Two enemy units at the same location are one on one when each is alone: neither has another friendly unit there.
Owner
The player who brought a card into the game, regardless of legal ownership of the physical card. A token is owned by the player who controlled its creating effect. Changing control does not transfer ownership.
Passive Ability
An ability that applies automatically while its conditions are true, without being activated or put on the Chain.
Permanent
A Main Deck game object that remains on the board after being played. Unit and Gear are permanent types. Runes, battlefields and legends are not permanents simply because they stay on the board.
Pick
An explicit choice that does not target. Follow its stated restrictions and the timing of the instruction, rather than applying targeting costs or protection.
Play
To put a card through the playing process: put it on the Chain, make the required choices, pay its costs and carry out its result. Units and gear enter the board; spells resolve their instructions.
Power
A resource used to pay Power costs. Power normally has a domain that must suit the requirement; Universal Power can pay for any domain.
Power Cost
A Power Cost is paid using domain-specific Power from your Rune Pool. You normally add Power by Recycling runes of the required Domain.
Predict
Look at the instructed number of cards from the top of your Main Deck, recycle any number, then return the rest to the top in any order.
Prevent
Reduce the next matching damage a unit would take by the stated amount. Only the amount actually prevented is used; any remainder lasts for the effect's stated duration.
Priority
The right to take a legal action now. Only one player can have Priority at a time, and having it does not remove a card or ability's timing restrictions.
Quick-Draw
An Equipment keyword that gives the gear Reaction and, when you play it, triggers an ability to attach it to a unit you control.
Reaction
A timing keyword that includes Action's permissions and also permits a card or activated ability while a Chain is waiting. You still need the proper opportunity, normally Priority; it does not allow an interruption halfway through resolution.
Ready
Ready means a card or rune is available to be used for something that requires it to Exhaust. Ready objects are kept upright.
Recall
Recall means moving a permanent back to its controller's Base.
Recycle
Recycle means returning a card to the bottom of the appropriate deck. When you Recycle a rune, it returns to your Rune Deck.
Reflexive Trigger
A separate triggered ability created by instructions such as "Do this:" or "Do one of the following:". It uses the Chain.
Repeat
An optional additional cost on a spell or ability. Paying it once adds one more execution of that item's resolution instructions. Choices for each execution are made at their usual times.
Replace
Create a token in another object's place without playing it, inheriting its effects and statuses. The original goes to Banishment, but this does not count as Banishing it.
Replacement Effect
An effect that changes an event before it happens, often using "would," "as" or "instead."
Resolve
Carry out a finalized Chain item's effects. Normally the newest waiting item resolves after everyone passes Priority in sequence. Units, Gear and Add abilities instead resolve immediately when finalized.
Reveal
An instructed action that shows cards from private or secret information to all players. The cards stay in their zone unless an instruction moves them. Voluntarily showing private information is not the Reveal action.
Rune
Runes are your resources for paying for cards and abilities. They come from a separate Rune Deck and are brought into play as the game progresses.
Rune Deck
Your separate deck of exactly 12 runes. Shuffle it separately from your Main Deck. Channeling takes runes from this deck and puts them on the board.
Rune Pool
The temporary supply of generated Energy and Power waiting to be spent, not the physical Runes in your Base. Every player's pool empties at the start of each Main Phase and at the end of each turn; this removes unused resources, not Rune cards.
Shield
A unit keyword that adds its value to the unit's Might while it is a defender. An omitted value is 1, and multiple values add together.
Show Off
An optional choice while playing a card: reveal qualifying cards from your hand and/or pick qualifying friendly objects on the board. Referenced information is recorded then, ignoring later changes.
Showdown
A Showdown is a structured opportunity for players to act when a Battlefield is contested.
Signature
Signature is a supertype linking a card to a champion through its champion tag. In ordinary constructed deckbuilding, include at most three Signature cards in total, all sharing your Champion Legend’s champion tag. They cannot be your Chosen Champion.
Skip
Replace the specified event or part of the turn with nothing, then continue play. Abilities triggered by that skipped occurrence do not trigger. You only skip when an effect instructs you to.
Skirmish
The three-player free-for-all mode. It uses three battlefields, one randomly contributed by each player, and a Victory Score of 8.
Snapshot
The fixed increase or decrease remembered by a non-passive arithmetic effect after applying its minimum, maximum or other limitation when it happens.
Spell
A card type whose instructions resolve through the Chain. It normally goes to its owner's Trash afterward, rather than remaining on the board as a permanent.
Standard Move
A Standard Move is the normal way a unit moves between its Base and a Battlefield.
Stun
An action that makes a unit Stunned: it contributes no Might to combat damage, but its Might is unchanged and it still takes damage normally. Stun does not Exhaust the unit or automatically disable its abilities. The status is removed during end-of-turn Cleanup.
Swap
Exchange two numeric values by adding their difference to the lower value and subtracting it from the higher one for the instructed duration.
Tag
A label listed after a card's type, such as a creature group or champion tag. Tags have no automatic rules of their own, but effects and deckbuilding rules may refer to them.
Tank
A unit keyword that changes combat damage assignment. Assign lethal damage to that player's Tank units before assigning damage to their non-Tank units.
Target
A specific object, player or zone chosen by a spell or ability under the targeting rules. Check legality when choosing and when resolving. Costs, automatic groups and explicit "pick" choices do not target; pending Chain items cannot be targeted.
Teammate
A player on your team. Their cards count as friendly to yours, but you do not share control of cards or XP.
Temporary
A keyword that kills its permanent at the start of its controller's Beginning Phase, before scoring. Multiple instances trigger only once.
Timestamp
When an effect began applying, used to order effects from oldest to newest within a layer or sublayer when no dependency sets their order.
Token
A game object created by a spell or ability during play, represented by a printed token or another marker. It follows its type's rules but is not a card. After moving to a non-board zone other than the Chain, it immediately ceases to exist.
Top-Most Card
The card with one or more cards attached beneath it. It receives their Effect Text and applicable Might bonuses.
Trash
A player's off-board zone for cards that are killed or discarded and spells that finish resolving, unless an effect changes their destination. Its cards are public information and their order does not matter.
Triggered Ability
An ability started by a stated event or time, usually introduced by "when" or "at." It goes on the Chain when its condition is met.
Turn Order
The repeating player order established for the game. It governs regular turns and procedures such as passing Priority. An additional turn changes the queue of upcoming turns without changing this player order.
Turn Player
The player taking the current turn.
Unique
A keyword that limits you to one copy of each card name with Unique in your deck. A Unique Chosen Champion uses that name's one copy. Different Unique names are allowed; Unique does not itself limit how many units can be on the board.
Unit
A permanent type with Might that can take damage and use Standard Move. Units normally enter the board exhausted. A unit card outside the board keeps its type, but effects must be able to affect its zone.
Universal Power
Power that can pay a Power requirement of any domain. It is still Power, not Energy.
Untargetable
Unable to be chosen by the spells or abilities specified by an effect. This protects against those targeting choices, not against every effect that could affect the object.
Victory Score
The point threshold for winning in a mode. A player or team must also be ahead of every opponent when Cleanup checks for a winner. Standard Duel, Match and free-for-all games use 8; Magma Chamber uses 11.
Vision
A triggered keyword: when you play this permanent, Predict. Each Vision instance triggers separately.
War
The four-player free-for-all mode. It uses three battlefields, contributed randomly by everyone except the first player, and a Victory Score of 8.
Weaponmaster
A unit keyword whose play trigger lets you choose Equipment you control and pay its Equip cost, reduced by one any-domain power, to attach it to that unit. This does not activate Equip.
XP
A personal resource a player gains and spends as instructed. Keep the total visible; teammates do not share XP.
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