How to win at Riftbound: Conquer and Hold

You win Riftbound by getting to 8 points (rule 480.3). Points come from battlefields and nothing else. Killing units does not score. Drawing cards does not score. Having a nicer board does not score.

There are exactly two ways to get a point (rule 464), and one rule about the eighth one that decides an awful lot of games.

Conquer

Conquer: you gain control of a battlefield you have not already scored this turn.

You gain control by being the only player with units at that battlefield. That happens when:

• you move onto an empty or uncontrolled battlefield, or
• you move in, fight, and are the only one left standing (rule 461.5)

Conquering scores immediately. You do not wait for anything.

Hold

Hold: you still control a battlefield at the start of your Beginning Phase (rule 315.2.b.2).

No cost, no action, no risk. You just get a point for every battlefield you are still standing on when your turn comes round.

Which is better

Hold, almost always, and it is not close.

A conquest is one point, once. A hold is one point every turn, for as long as you keep the ground. If you take a battlefield on turn 3 and keep it until turn 8, that is one conquest point plus five hold points.

This is the strategic core of the game and it is not obvious from the cards, because the cards all talk about fighting. The fighting is a means of getting onto ground and staying there. Players who chase kills lose to players who chase position.

One consequence worth internalising: denying a point is worth as much as scoring one. If they are holding a battlefield and about to collect for it, contesting it before their Beginning Phase costs them that point. You do not have to win the fight to do it. You just have to still be standing there so they are not the only player present.

The cap: once per battlefield per turn

You can only score each battlefield once per turn, by either method (rule 465).

So you cannot take a battlefield, walk off it, and walk back on for a second point. And if you hold a battlefield in your Beginning Phase, conquering it again later that turn gives you nothing.

Control is not permanent

You control a battlefield for exactly as long as you have a unit standing on it (rule 187.4.a). The moment your last unit there dies or walks away, it becomes uncontrolled.

There is no flag, no marker that persists, no "I took it so it is mine". Ground is held by bodies.

The winning point rule

This is the one. When you are on 7 points and about to take your eighth (rule 466.1.b):

• If you score through Hold, you gain the winning point and the game ends (rule 466.1.b.1).
• If you score through Conquer, you only gain the winning point if you have scored every battlefield this turn. If you have not, you draw a card instead of getting the point (rule 466.1.b.2).

In a two player game there are two battlefields. So at 7 points, a Conquer only wins if you scored both battlefields that turn.

What this means in practice:

• Walking one unit onto one empty battlefield at 7 points does not win. You draw a card and the game continues.
• To win by conquest you have to take both battlefields in a single turn, or already have scored the other one that turn.
• Otherwise you have to survive to your next Beginning Phase still holding something.

Games are genuinely lost by players who count to 8, make the move, and discover they have drawn a card instead. It also means the last point is the hardest one, by design, and the opponent gets a full turn to break up whatever you set up.

Playing around it

If you are on 7, ask which of these you are doing:

1. Holding. Get a unit onto a battlefield and make it survive their turn. Reinforce it. This is usually the right plan.
2. Double conquest. Take both battlefields in one turn. This needs two ready units in the right places and usually needs the other player to have overcommitted somewhere.

And if your opponent is on 7, the opposite: their easiest route is holding, so contest whatever they are standing on before their Beginning Phase, even at a bad rate. Trading a unit to deny a winning point is always worth it.

Scoring triggers

Some battlefields do something extra when you score them (rule 466.2). Conquer abilities fire when you conquer that battlefield, hold abilities when you hold it, and each fires at most once per turn per player.

From the Origins decks:

• Grove of the God-Willow: when you hold here, draw 1.
• Zaun Warrens: when you conquer here, discard 1 then draw 1.
• Targon's Peak: when you conquer here, ready 2 runes at the end of the turn.
• Monastery of Hirana: when you conquer here, you may spend a buff to draw 1.

Grove is the one that shows the hold-over-conquer principle most clearly. It pays you every turn you keep it, and it does nothing at all for taking it.

Practising the endgame

The last two points of a Riftbound game play differently from the first six, and the winning point rule is the reason. The Trainer has a section called Closing games covering racing, denial, and taking the last point, each with tests on real positions where the right move is not the obvious one.

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