Riftbound: Legends, Champions, and Signature spells - Everything You Need to Know

In today's piece, we will explore the three key elements of Riftbound: Legends, Champions, and Signature spells. They are each crucial to both deck-building and gameplay. And so, without further ado, let's get into it!

Legend

Your Legend is a card that you choose to command your deck. This choice matters for five (!) key reasons.

First is that it dictates your deck's domain - in the case of aforeshown Jinx it's red (fury) and purple (chaos). You can only cards of your Legend's domain, so it greatly affects your deck-building options.

Second is the ability. Each Legend has its own ability, be it triggered, activated, or passive. This ability will influence the power level of the entire deck, since some Legends are worse than others, but also deck-building and gameplay. This is particularly important, as there are numerous Legends within the same domain. Therefore, if you love playing chaos and fury, you can still make your choice based on other factors like the ability. While Jinx cares about having few cards in hand, you could also play Draven that actively draws them or Annie that readies two runes every turn.

The third reason is the BestOf system that is used in competitive Riftbound tournaments. In short, at every Regional Qualifier the best player of each legend receives a special promo card of that Legend which is physically made of metal and has some cooler texture effects on it. These are worth upwards of 10,000 euro and some reach multiples of that. Therefore, you might want to choose a less popular Legend to make it easier to win such a prized award. There are also tournaments called Showdowns where the same BestOf system applies and the promo is still metal, but of a more common variety. It will still command a price of about 1,000 euro. Therefore, you might want to approach your choice of the legend economically.

Champion Unit

The fourth reason why the Legend choice matters and a clean segue into another topic is the champion unit.

Every Legend has a couple of Champion units available to choose from, typically one from each domain of the Legend's colours. We've looked at Annie before, so let's see what Champion Units she has available.

A champion unit, similarly to the Legend, is a card that you start the game with in its dedicated zone. While the Legend is ready to be used from the very first turn, Champion is like an extra card that you always have available, but you still need to play it for its effect to work. In other words, if your Chosen Champion is Annie Stubborn, on any given turn you can decide to pay 4 and chaos power to deploy her and get the enter-the-game effect.

Some Legends might not provide the best effects, but their Champions might be very strong. Conversely, you might have a powerful Legend with a disappointing Champion. Since both cards will be played, or at least available, every single game, the marriage between them is crucial for both deck-building and gameplay. 

Let me show one example of how important the chosen champion might be for gameplay and deck-building.

In Diana, typically your chosen champion is going to be the blue (calm) Diana Lunari. Champion synergises with Diana's ability, since you can tap her to add Energy and immediately spend it on the champion's trigger. Not every Legend has such a direct synergy with the Champion.

Moreover, Diana Champion costs three Energy and no Power. This means that every game when you go second, it's likely your best turn-one play. Deck-building-wise, it means that you don't have to worry about some critical mass of three-drops to have a strong opener when going second, since you always have Diana. As for gameplay, deploying her on the first turn will dictate how you're going to play our future turns, which are likely going to involve protecting her and re-triggering the showdown ability.

Last but not least, if you include two Champion Units in your deck, you can swap them between game one and post-board games. While you always have to have one, specific Champion chosen for every game one, later you can adjust if you see fit.

The Champion aspect in the game of Riftbound is clearly a major component as you can see. But that's not all!

Signature Spells

The last reason why the choice of the Legend matters so much and the last point I'd like to tackle today are Signature Spells.

Every Legend has a so-called Signature Spell that you can *only* play with that Legend. Even if you have two Legends of the same domain, they cannot share Signatures.

Similarly to Legends and Champions, the power level of Signatures differs greatly with some of them called overpowered, and some even completely omitted when building the deck.

As we've spoken about Diana, her signature spell, Moonfall, is likely one of the best in the entire game - not only among other Signatures but also spells in the game in general.

This makes for a deadly combination when each element - Legend, Champion, Signature - are all very good.

Lillia, for instance, has a signature spell that's not the strongest but is situationally strong. That's why you see 0-1 copies in Lillia decks. However, clearly this wouldn't be a reason to choose Lillia.

It's worth noting that not every Signature Spell is actually even a *spell*. Some can be units or gears.

Conclusion

Now, you're fully equipped with the knowledge to choose your preferred Legend and, with that, the Chosen Champion and the Signature Spell!