Riftbound Is Still One Of The Best Multiplayer TCGs Around As Of Set 5

Riftbound is on a roll, and it has been since the start of 2026, when the Spiritforged set hit. After sorting out some snafus with Origins’ (the first set) availability and a few rules issues, more keywords have steadily rolled out, creating entirely new playstyle niches and building on the already-fantastic Champion designs from the League of Legends universe.Radiance (Set 5) thankfully continues that tradition, with new keywords, Legends, and strategies to explore across multiple game modes.We’ve already seen the new Mordekaiser Champion Unit, so let’s look at the set as a whole and the new Legends making waves.

Seraphine vs. Evelynn Headlines Set 5

Radiance, by nature, is a flashy set. With a songstress like Seraphine involved, that’s only natural, but this set aims to shore up a few mechanics that have existed in the past (like gear) while creating new strategies.

The new set ushers in additional keywords and concepts, including:

• Deploy (Play this only to a battlefield. When an opponent holds here, kill this)
• Disarm (When I attack, give an enemy unit here -1 Might this turn)
• Show Off (As you play this, you may reveal such a card from your hand or pick a friendly one)
• Unit Gear (At the start of your main phase, you may spend (1) to choose a friendly gear. It becomes a unit gear with Might equal to its energy cost until you choose another gear with me)
• Bomb Tokens (play this only to a battlefield. When an opponent holds here, kill this. Deathknell: Deal 2 to an enemy unit here and kill all other bombs you control here)

The first way I engaged with this set was through the Seraphine vs. Evelynn Showdown Decks, which are preconstructed and part of the newer “dual deck” single SKU, which two people can buy and play immediately. Naturally, these two were chosen as ambassadors for the set, so they’ll have a little panache.

Seraphine (Starry-Eyed Songstress) is an Order/Mind Legend and lets players exhaust her and three friendly units to reduce a spell’s cost by (2). Evelynn, on the other hand, is governed by Body/Chaos and lets players draw a card when they play a card face down. The ever-tricky Champion doesn’t seem exciting at first glance, but Evelynn can activate this ability each turn (if it’s not your turn, you discard one card).

Here are the other Legends on offer in Radiance:

As you might imagine, Ziggs, given his penchant for explosives, centers on bomb tokens, which hones in on the hectic theme. Orianna, on the other hand, can use the aforementioned gear-unit creation ability, which ties thematically to her Lady of Clockwork title.

Riven’s ability is fun enough to make a deck of her own (units you play to battlefields you control enter ready), and a few Legends predictably play with the new keywords, like Jarvan IV utilizing deploy to move friendly units to battlefields.

There are a lot of new archetypes to play, especially in the chaos of multiplayer (read: three or more players), which is my preferred way to play and something Riftbound does better than pretty much every TCG out there right now.

Riftbound Is Still A Great Party Game

One of the things that impresses me the most about Riftbound is how easy it is to teach relative to how complicated some of the nitty-gritty rulesets can be (which have improved greatly since some of the confusion surrounding base game rules in Set 1). It’s really easy to get people involved, especially given the popularity of Arcane and the ongoing appeal of League of Legends.

I often play three-to-four-player games at conventions, which is a blast and completely different from what the TCG crowd has played for decades. With local play picking up in many regions, it’s a great time to go try the game out, even if you’re jumping in with Radiance.

If you’re keen on trying out Radiance, in addition to the Showdown Decks, there’s also a Vault Bundle with a storage box, six Radiance booster packs, foil tokens, and a set of 36 runes for deckbuilding. That’s in addition to individual booster packs and booster boxes.

The next set coming to Riftbound is Legacy on January 29,the game’s biggest set so far, with 346 cards (Origins is the closest at 298). For now, Radiance is the focus, and it’ll last us a while.

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