How to start collecting Riftbound without wasting money

Riftbound is the first trading card game I've properly collected, and I made most of the obvious mistakes in the first month. This is the order I'd do it in if I started again.

Decide what "collecting" means to you first

This is the one that would have saved me the most money, and I skipped it entirely.

"Collecting Riftbound" isn't one activity. It's at least four, and they pull in different directions:

• Set completion — every card in a set, in collector number order
• Champion collection — every printing of the characters you like
• Domain collection — everything in one or two of the six domains
• Playing — cards that make a deck work, regardless of how they look

I did none of these. I bought whatever was in front of me, and ended up with a lot of cards and no complete anything. That's the expensive way.

You can change your mind later. But having an answer means every purchase either moves you forward or it doesn't, and that question alone cuts your spending.

Buy singles for the cards you actually want

The instinct is to buy packs and hope. Packs are fun, and there's nothing like pulling something you wanted. But if there's a specific card you want, buying that card is almost always cheaper than buying packs until it appears.

Rough rule I use now: packs for the experience, singles for the collection. Mixing those up is how you end up spending a lot to chase one card and finishing with forty you didn't want.

Write down what you own before you buy more

This is the mistake I made most often and it's the reason this site exists.

I stood in a card shop holding a card I was fairly sure I already had at home. Fairly sure isn't sure. I bought it. I had two at home.

You need some record. A spreadsheet works. A notes app works. What doesn't work is memory, once you're past about fifty cards, because the cards you own most of are exactly the ones you stop being able to picture.

Sleeve the things you care about, not everything

Sleeves cost money and you don't need them on every common. Put them on:

• Anything Epic, Showcase or Promo
• Anything you'd be annoyed to damage
• Anything you might sell or trade later

Bulk commons can live in a box. The point of sleeves is protecting value and condition, and a common in a stack of forty has neither.

Don't chase completion in the newest set first

Newly released cards are at their most expensive and least available. A set that's been out a while is cheaper across the board.

If you want the satisfaction of completing something, an older set is a much better first target than the one that just came out. You'll finish it, and finishing something is what makes the hobby stick.

Expect the promo sets to be awkward

Four of the eight sets in the catalog are promotional: organised play cards, judge cards and general promos. They come from events rather than packs, and some are genuinely hard to get hold of.

Nothing wrong with wanting them. Just don't build your definition of "complete" around cards that were handed out at events you weren't at, at least not to begin with.

The order I'd actually go in

1. Decide what you're collecting
2. Get a record of what you already own
3. Buy singles for the specific gaps
4. Buy packs when you want to open packs, not when you want a card
5. Sleeve what matters
6. Pick one achievable target and finish it

On keeping that record

This is what RiftPocket is for, and I'll be upfront that I built it because nothing else fit. Every collection app I found was enormous — deck builders, metagame stats, marketplace integrations — when all I wanted was to know whether I already owned the card in my hand.

It's free, there's no card limit, and it works on your phone in a shop. You add cards by searching, photographing them, or pasting a list. Then when you're standing at a counter wondering whether you already have it, you check instead of guessing.

Where to go next

• Card rarities explained — what you're actually pulling
• The six domains explained — the best way to organise a binder
• Set codes and collector numbers — how to buy the right single