Understanding a Riftbound Card

The name is normally near the middle of a physical card. If it has a short name and a subtitle, read them together: Annie, Fiery is the full name, not simply Annie. The subtitle distinguishes this version from another card featuring the same champion.

Normally, your Main Deck can contain up to three copies with the same full name, including your Chosen Champion. Different illustrations, foil treatments or languages share that limit. Cards with genuinely different full names may have separate limits, subject to card and format restrictions. A collector code identifies a printing, not a separate gameplay identity.

Unit: a character or creature that stays on the board, has Might and can move and fight. Units normally enter exhausted. A Champion Unit is still a unit; Champion is an additional supertype.

Spell: instructions that resolve and normally send the card to the Trash afterward. A spell is not a unit you leave on a Battlefield. Gear: a permanent that normally enters your Base and supports your play through its abilities. Equipment is a tag used by attachment mechanics, not another basic card type.

A type line can contain a supertype, a type and tags. For example, Champion Unit tells you both the supertype and type. Annie and Noxus are tags. A matching champion tag alone does not make an ordinary unit a Champion Unit. Some cards have multiple types, such as Unit-Gear; read both types and their applicable rules.

Your Champion Legend begins in the Legend Zone, separate from the Main Deck. It provides abilities and defines your deck’s Domain Identity. It is not the Champion Unit you play to a Battlefield. Legends are established during setup, have no normal play cost or Might, and are not killed or moved during regular play.

Your Chosen Champion is a Champion Unit with a matching champion tag. Its set-aside copy counts toward your Main Deck minimum and copy limit. Other Champion Units may go in the Main Deck when permitted by your domains and other deckbuilding rules.

Signature is another supertype. It can appear on a Spell, Unit or Gear and links that card to a champion through its tag. Your deck may contain at most three Signature cards in total, all matching your Legend’s champion tag. A Signature Unit is not your Chosen Champion. An artist’s signature on a collectible printing is a different use of the word.

The six domains are Fury, Calm, Mind, Body, Chaos and Order. Each has a color and a distinct symbol. On the default physical frame, the colored band around and beneath the name reflects the card’s domain colors, combining them on multi-domain cards. Main Deck domain symbols are normally at the lower right; a Champion Legend’s deck-defining symbols are at the upper left. Use color as a cue, but the official symbols and card classification determine domains; do not guess from the illustration.

For ordinary constructed deckbuilding, your Legend must permit every domain of a card you include. A two-domain card needs both domains permitted. A card with no domain has no colored identity requirement of its own. Specific card effects and formats can create exceptions.

Identity and payment answer different questions. A card can belong to Fury while having no Power cost. A multi-domain card does not automatically require you to pay one Power of each domain: read its printed cost.

On the default frame, the upper-left cost box contains a number for Energy and any Power symbols beneath it. Missing Power symbols mean there is no printed Power component; a cost of zero is still a cost. These printed costs are separate from additional costs, cost changes and activated-ability costs.

Energy is paid as a quantity. A basic rune can exhaust to add one Energy. Power has a domain: recycling a basic rune to the bottom of the Rune Deck adds one Power of that rune’s domain. You can exhaust a ready rune for Energy before recycling it for Power. Generating resources and paying the cost are distinct steps.

A specific-domain Power symbol requires that domain. A rainbow symbol accepts Power of any domain. A multi-domain identity is not an instruction to pay all those domains: count and read the actual Power symbols. Follow the relevant printed symbols and any current correction.

Worked payment: Annie, Fiery costs five Energy and one Fury Power. With five ready basic runes, including a Fury Rune, exhaust the five to generate five Energy, then recycle the Fury Rune to generate Fury Power. Spend both resources. Her four Might is not part of that payment.

A unit’s Might is normally in the upper-right area. It determines how much damage that unit normally contributes in combat and how much marked damage is normally lethal to it. It is one value with two jobs, rather than separate attack and health statistics. Other effects can modify damage or Might.

A four-Might unit with three damage marked is not automatically a one-Might unit. Damage stays marked separately; it does not subtract from Might. When marked damage reaches the unit’s current Might, normal lethal-damage checks kill it. Damage is cleared at the relevant cleanup points.

A +1 or +2 Might Bonus in an attachment’s effect area is a bonus for the object it is attached to. It is not an Energy cost. A spell, ordinary gear or Legend does not acquire a unit’s combat role just because it has a number somewhere on its face.

The text box explains what the card does. A passive ability applies while its conditions are met. A triggered ability waits for an event, often introduced by “when” or “at.” An activated ability has a cost followed by a colon: first check the permission and pay the cost, then follow the ability’s instructions. Read who or what each instruction affects and how long it lasts.

Keywords such as Accelerate or Reaction abbreviate longer rules. Action allows the relevant play on your turn or in Showdowns; Reaction gives broader timing permission, including responding before other spells and abilities resolve. A card with neither does not gain Reaction timing because you have spare resources.

Italic text in parentheses is reminder text. It helps explain a rule, but its absence or a shorter version on alternate art does not remove the rule. Flavor text tells a story and has no mechanical effect. “I” or “me” on a unit or Legend refers to that object; “this” is used by spells and gear, and “here” on a Battlefield means that Battlefield.

The sideways-card symbol means an Exhaust cost: turn the relevant ready object sideways to pay it. Current written shorthand is [E]; older references may use [T]. A numeral represents Energy. The sword-and-shield symbol represents Might, written [M] in the rules. It is not a payment unless the actual instruction makes it one.

Domain symbols represent Power of that domain when used as resources. The rainbow Power symbol is written [A], and own-domain Power is written [C] in the rules’ notation. These bracketed letters are written shorthands, not collector suffixes. In particular, [A] inside a cost and the little alternate-art a beside a collector number mean different things.

The keyword indicator [>] connects a keyword with the instruction or ability that follows it. Read the text after it with that keyword’s condition or permission in mind. Do not assume every symbol is a resource cost: its role depends on whether it appears in a cost or in the instruction being performed.

In Accelerate costs, a single-domain unit uses Power of that domain; a domainless unit uses Power of any domain. In other contexts, [C] is design shorthand for the corresponding printed Power symbol. Do not transfer the Accelerate exception to every cost.

Equipment has its own text and may have a separate Effect Text area. Equip tells you the cost and procedure for attaching it to a unit you control. Paying to play the gear and paying to Equip it are separate actions and costs.

While attached, the attachment’s printed Rules Text is inactive, and its Effect Text modifies the object it is attached to. A Might Bonus applies to that object if it has Might. Abilities granted or added to the attachment can still be active. Read the effect and bonus together, rather than treating all the text as instructions for the gear alone.

Runes begin in a separate Rune Deck and enter through Channel. Each basic rune has a domain and the two resource abilities described above even when the face does not print their full text. Runes remain on the board but are not Main Deck permanents.

Battlefields are the locations you contest and score from. Their landscape layout and abilities describe a location, not a unit’s cost and Might. They are established during setup, not drawn from the Main Deck or played during regular play.

A printed token card is a convenient representation of an object an effect creates. You do not include it as a normal Main Deck card. Read the creating effect for the token’s properties and any exceptions. A Buff or Empowered marker tracks a condition or counter; it is not automatically an extra unit. The rules distinguish physical cards from tokens, and an effect that simply says “card” normally means a Main Deck card.

On a physical Riftbound card, look at the bottom left for the set and collector code. The artist credit is at the bottom right. The small collector line identifies a printing. In OGN-061/298, OGN is Origins, 061 is Poro Herder’s collector number and 298 is that set’s stated numbering total. This is a catalogue position, not “copy 61 of 298 manufactured.” OGS is the separate Proving Grounds code. A set logo or emblem identifies the product; it does not grant a domain or ability.

Riot explicitly documents a lowercase a after the collector number for alternate art. An asterisk (*) identifies an artist-signed Overnumber printing. Neither marking makes the card a gameplay Signature card.

An Overnumber has a collector number above the set total. Riot’s legality explanation says an Overnumber reprint does not count as a normal printing in the later set for set-based legality. Vendetta’s Crystal Rose Special numbered cards form a different treatment; the official gallery uses codes such as VEN-SP1/006. Do not classify every unusual number as an Overnumber. For legality, also consult current format rules, bans and errata.

Riot’s Origins guide identifies four functional rarity gems: Common is round, Uncommon triangular, Rare square and Epic pentagonal. The alternate-art example uses a hexagonal gem. Rarity describes the printing’s distribution and treatment; it is not a combat statistic or a guarantee that the card is better for your deck.

Foil is a surface finish. Alternate art changes the illustration and treatment. Artist-signed Overnumbers add an artist’s signature. These descriptions identify a collectible version without adding gameplay text. The artist credit at the bottom right, copyright lines and illustration credits are acknowledgements, not abilities. The RIFTPAL mark on these custom examples is RiftPal branding, not the original artist credit. Read the full name and current rules text to determine function.

Product-specific promo or commemorative markings need that product’s official explanation. The sources here do not provide a universal key for every promotional stamp, language mark or serial-number convention. If an unfamiliar symbol is outside the documented examples, match its exact code in Riot’s gallery and product announcement instead of guessing. The native examples intentionally omit official illustrations and physical rarity gems; use the descriptions above when inspecting your own card.