How to read a Riftbound card

Riftbound cards are dense. Before you can play a turn you need to be able to look at one and know, without thinking, what it costs and what it does. This is that.

The cost, top left

This is the part that trips people up, because it is two costs printed together.

• The number is the Energy cost. Pay it by exhausting runes, one energy each.
• The coloured pips are the Power cost. Pay each by recycling a rune of that domain.

A card showing 3 and one Fury pip costs 3 Energy and 1 Fury Power, which needs four runes total: three exhausted, one Fury one recycled off your board.

If there are no pips, the card has no Power cost and you only need to exhaust. Those cards are quietly cheaper than they look, because they do not eat into your rune row.

The Might, bottom right

Only units have it. It is the number that does everything in combat:

• it is what the unit contributes to its side's total
• it is how much damage it takes to kill it (rule 143.2.a)

Both at once. There is no separate attack and toughness. A 3-Might unit hits for 3 and dies to 3.

Important: the Might printed on the card is the base. During a game the number that matters is the current one, which includes buffs, "this turn" effects, and keywords like Assault and Shield that only apply in one direction.

The domain colour

Six domains: Fury (red), Calm (green), Mind (blue), Body (orange), Chaos (purple), Order (yellow).

The domain does two things:

• it determines what a rune of that domain produces when recycled
• it determines which Power pips a card needs

Domains have flavour tendencies, but mechanically the domain on a non-rune card is only about what it costs to play.

The type line

• Unit: goes on the board, has Might, fights, holds ground. Enters exhausted (rule 143.4).
• Spell: resolves, does its thing, goes to the trash.
• Gear: stays on the board, has no Might, does not fight or hold ground. Played to your base.
• Rune: lives in your separate rune deck and never in your hand.
• Battlefield: the ground you fight over. One of your three is chosen at random at setup.
• Legend: sits to the side, is not a unit, usually has one ability a turn.

Champion is a supertype you will see on some units. It marks the named characters.

The tags

Things like Jinx, Zaun, Dragon, Pirate. On their own they do nothing at all (rule 143.1.a). They exist so other cards can refer to them.

The text box

Card text follows a few consistent patterns worth recognising:

Keywords in brackets are shorthand with reminder text after them. Common ones:

• [Assault X]: +X Might while attacking (rule 807)
• [Shield X]: +X Might while defending (rule 814)
• [Tank]: must be assigned combat damage first (rule 815)
• [Ganking]: can move battlefield to battlefield, not just via base (rule 810)
• [Accelerate]: pay 1 extra Energy and 1 Power to enter ready instead of exhausted (rule 805)
• [Deathknell]: triggers when the unit dies (rule 808)
• [Temporary]: dies at the start of its controller's Beginning Phase, before scoring (rule 816)
• [Hidden]: can be placed facedown at a battlefield you control and played later for free (rule 811)
• [Action]: can be played on your turn or during showdowns
• [Reaction]: can be played almost any time

"When you play me" is a triggered ability that fires as the card arrives.

"While I'm ..." is a passive that is true whenever the condition is.

A cost before a colon is an activated ability. Everything left of the colon is the price. "Recycle 1 from your trash: give me +1 Might this turn" means you must actually have a card in the trash to use it (rule 416.3).

Which numbers change during a game

This is the bit worth internalising, because the card is not the whole truth once it is on the board:

• Cost can change. Rhasa the Sunderer costs 1 less per card in your trash. Brazen Buccaneer costs 2 less if you discard a card as you play it.
• Might changes constantly. Buffs, Assault, Shield, auras, "this turn" spells.
• Damage sits on a unit until the end of the turn or the end of a combat, then clears completely (rule 143.3.b).
• Exhausted or ready flips every turn.
• Buffs persist until spent or removed. A unit holds at most one (rule 702.3.a).

So a 4-Might unit with a buff, attacking, with Assault 2, is a 7-Might unit for that moment. Reading the board means doing that arithmetic, not reading the printed numbers.

A quick drill

Pick up any unit card and answer these in order:

1. How many runes do I need, and do any of them have to be a specific colour?
2. What is its Might, and does it get more for attacking or defending?
3. Can it act the turn I play it, or does it arrive exhausted?
4. What does its text do, and when does it happen?

If you can do that in a couple of seconds for any card in your deck, you are ready to play.

Practising it

The Trainer has a lesson early on that does exactly this drill on real cards, pointing at each number and colour in turn and then testing you on cards you have not seen. It is the second lesson, right after the board itself.

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