Runes, energy, power and channeling - Riftbound's mana system explained

Every TCG has its own resource system and, likewise, Riftbound has its very own. In today's piece, you will learn how it works exactly, and how it affects gameplay and deck composition.

If you want to listen to me talk about Riftbound more, visit my YouTube channel here.

Without further ado, let's jump in!

Card Costs

Let's start with an example card, and then we'll move onto resource specifics.

Card's cost is located at top left. In the case of Akali Silent, it's 4 and green. But 4 of what? Green what, exactly? This is where Runes come into play.

Runes

A Rune is a special type of card whose sole purpose is to provide resources to pay for cards.

What's particularly unique about them is how they slot into the deck composition. In Riftbound, your resources are in a separate deck! You will have a 12-card Rune deck available to you at the start of each game. Within this deck, you can have any number of Runes in your Legend's colours, which in practice is going to mean some combination of 1 or 2 different Runes. 

How do we access those Runes to be able to use them in-game?

Chanelling

Riftbound has a specific turn order, which is very often mnemonically abbreviated to ABCD -> Awaken, Beginning, Channel, Draw. Here, we're interested in the Channel phase.

Every turn, when the moment to Channel comes, you will take the top 2 of your randomised Rune deck and put them onto the board. That's it. Therefore, you can deterministically predict how many resources you or the opponent will have since it's always +2 every single turn until the Rune deck physically runs out.

The only small exception is when someone goes second, where on their very first turn they channel 3 instead of 2, once.

The resource scheme is going to be 2->4->6->8->10->12 for the person who goes first and 3->5->7->9->11->12 for the person who goes second. This affects the curve and which cards can be played when, like a 5-drop on turn two only for the person who went second, but that's outside of the scope of this piece.

So now we know how much cards cost and that you have a special separate deck with special resource cards that you get two of every single turn.

Let's back to the opening question of the cost of Akali - What is the 4 and what is the green indicated on the card?

Energy

Energy is the resource that pays for the cost indicated by a number on the card - so in the case of Akali this is the `4`. Every single Rune generates one Energy - and Energy is not of any particular colour. Therefore, you could, in theory, pay for Akali's Energy cost with every single type of Rune in the deck.

Power

Now, we can move onto the green pip in the Akali's cost. This seems to strongly suggest the usage of a green (Calm) Rune specifically - and you'd be correct to assume that! However, the way it's used is quite unusual.

Whenever a coloured pip or pips appear in the card's cost, it means you have to pay so-called `Power` in addition to Energy. Paying Power simply means that you have to take the Rune of the corresponding colour and...put it on the bottom of the Rune deck! And from that point on, you're operating on fewer Runes total.

One key thing to remember is that the game doesn't care whether the Rune you put back is ready or exhausted (tapped or untapped), so what you can do is use 4 Calm Runes to pay for Akali's Energy, and from among those same 4, put one back to pay for the Power. Done - you've paid for Akali!

Let's take another example - Baron Nashor.

We look at the top left corner. The cost is 10 and 3 Purple (Chaos) Power. Therefore, to pay for Baron Nashor you will exhaust/tap 10 Runes of any type and, from among them, put three purple ones on the bottom of your Rune deck. Simple!

The Consequences of the Resource System

The way this resource system operates has a plethora of consequences on gameplay. Let me list a couple to illustrate its importance.

• You get a predictable amount of resources every turn, so it's much easier to plan ahead
• The opponent gets a predictable amount of resources every turn, so it's much easier to foresee the range of options the opponent could take
• You never have non-games where you don't have enough resources
• Your main deck contains all action thanks to having a separate resource deck
• Paying Power costs permanently alters your channelling scheme, since you deprive yourself of a Rune forever.
• Power costs deprive you of future Energy since any Rune put back is a Rune that would have generated an Energy every turn it'd stayed.
• Unlike some other TCGs, the cost of the card won't correspond to the earliest turn it can be played on - a 5-drop can be played on turn three if you go first or turn two if you go second. On a given turn 5 though, you could have as many as 10 or 11 runes.

Conclusion

These are all the peculiarities of the Riftbound's resource system. I've personally found it fascinating and highly complex. Between predicting the resource pattern of yours and the opponents', to never getting unlucky with how many you get, to balancing the power costs, so you don't lose out on too much Energy in future turns.

If you're new to Riftbound, make sure to be on the lookout for more intro pieces by yours truly - there is much more to come!