Vancouver, Canada
Friday May 29th, 2026 - Sunday May 31st, 2026

Riftbound CR and TR
Riftbound "Scryfall"



Friday – Scheduled Sides Lead


New Game, New World
I was pretty nervous about this event, it was a game I was unfamiliar with, and it was also the largest sides staff I'd been responsible for in a long time. To compound matters barely anyone had any idea who most of the people on the staff list were, and my team leads were all seasoned Magic judges, but about as new to Riftbound as I was. Unfortunately all my team leads were also newer to leading teams of five or six judges. I knew it was going to be a rough weekend but I did all I could to prepare. I sent out a lengthy sides email. I was pretty heavy in my briefing about shadowing, double-checking and giving and receiving feedback. One of the huge benefits of large events like this is getting to learn from the people around you and many newer judges aren't necessarily going to understand that. Also instilling in people that it's okay to make mistakes and admit them early on is another positive bonus.

New Game, New Triggers
While Riftbound doesn't do anything enormously out of the ordinary with the stack (or Chain as they call it. At least it's not a bag) it does address triggers a little differently. Riftbound only has a look back in time for Deathknell triggers (CR 808) whereas all other triggers only have a check right after the inciting event. So for instance Viktor, Leader wouldn't trigger if it died at the same time as two other units. (CR 383.2.c.)

Greatest Unclaimed Trigger
The Arena's Greatest is not held by any player and triggers, who controls the trigger? The player who's turn it is controls the trigger. (CR 187.6.b.) This usually won't matter, but it can matter for putting triggers on the stack. Notably if multiple players need to put triggers on the stack it goes in the familiar AP/NAP order. (383.3.d.1.)

It's Just Rules All the Way Down
While this was similar to Magic, it wasn't Magic and that meant I had to learn a whole new set of procedures. Tardiness at Reg REL low OPL is just like Magic with a match loss at 10 minutes, but at Comp REL the game loss doesn't happen until two minutes into the round. (TR 703.8.) Rounds were either 30 or 60 minutes, never 50. At time in the round we'd have the active player finish their turn and have players play an additional 3 turns. (TR 408.2.a.) The next issue is that was a big debate as to whether to use sudden death rules for tournaments with unsplittable prizes. The verdict was the sudden death rules were yet more rules my judges would need to learn and would likely just add to the general confusion. (TR 408.4.c.3) If the prizes were unsplittable and there was a draw, we'd just pick the tickets back up. Many of our tournaments were best of one, which means that sideboarding is allowed (or rather HJ discretion, but it is common practice to allow sideboarding) the steps of opening the game are: the players show the champion legends, then randomly select battlefields and determine the starting player. At this point players can now sideboard. Then they'll reveal their chosen champions and begin the game.

Limited Issues
The next big challenge was limited. Limited in Riftbound is a bit of a mess since deck construction is just more restrictive. Normally you can only play the colors domains of your champion legend, but in this format, you could play an additional domain that didn't fall under your champion's identity. Notably you can't play cards that contain colors outside of your chosen domains, this means that multicolored cards must fit into both your domains (such as Hextech Gauntlets). The chosen champion didn't need to match the champion legend, but did need to fit into the chosen three domains chosen. Signature spells similarly are only bound by domain, but not by the champion. There is no limit on the number of any single card that can be played, though the main deck needs to be 25 cards in sealed and 20 cards in draft. The next spanner in the works is what happens if you don't manage to get a champion legend or a chosen champion, if you end up with only one or none of these you draw an extra card during your first beginning phase. Finally, battlefields, if you don't draft enough of these little buggers, you are stuck with blank battlefields with no abilities. Basically the Prismatic Piper of Riftbound. Speaking of which, the no champion legend or chosen champion rule is a bit weird. I'm thinking maybe there should just be a token chosen legend with a really mediocre ability, or maybe this is complicated and drawing a card is just fine. Another interesting spanner is what happens if you somehow don't draft a legal deck, this was brought up, however with 6 domains, across 42 cards, if you draft like an absolute psycho, you still end up with 7 cards in each domain, meaning it is impossible to end up with a pool that is actually unplayable. For draft it's also notable that you take the rune out only if it's not foil, since that slot is either a rune, a token or an insert. The foil rune however, takes up the foil slot in the pack and must be left in.

Your First Team Task...
The software currently doesn't have a good solution for team events. All players are registered in the tournament. Yes you read that right, each individual player, not each team. We had players meet up at the blue gathering point mind rune banner with their team and then they were directed to an open group of seats by a judge to sit with their team. When most of them were sitting, we told them to determine who would be team captain, and to have all other players on the team drop. This would ensure that only one player from each team was registered in the software.

Team Troubles
Other than 2v2 being a logistical mess due to the software limitations, it was a bit of a rules mess too. Teammates took their turns at separate times, but could give "limited priority" to their teammate. Allowing them to activate abilities (which are normally sorcery speed only) and cast spells (notably spells aren't units or gear). There are a few other rules but by far this was the one that caused the most confusion. (CR 484)

Saturday – Scheduled Sides Lead


Decked Champion
AP accidentally realized their chosen champion was shuffled into their library during game two of a match. This is illegal, since it should've started the game in their command zone champion zone. AP will get a warning for deck presentation error and we'll search the deck for the champion they played in game 1 and put it back into the champion zone. (TR 703.4.)

The Meaning of "Play"
the biggest issue by far in the Riftbound rules that I encountered was the meaning of "play" sometimes it meant "to cast" and sometimes it meant "to resolve" and it was never quite clear which case was which. I was given the adage that for triggers it was usually required that the spell resolve fully. Whereas for static conditions that merely asked if you had played something this turn, they only required that you had finished putting whatever it was on the chain. Except the Legion keyword, which requires for things to have resolved finalized. (CR 812.1.c) For example Ravenbloom Student requires that the spell resolve, but Jhin, Meticulous Killer only requires that you finish putting a spell on the chain (though it's unlikely you will be casting Jhin before that spell resolves anyways). Consider the following case: AP controls a unit at Abandoned Hall, they cast Ride the Wind and move it to another Battlefield, will it get +1 might? No, in this case the meaning of play is that Ride the Wind must resolve, and by that time it will no longer be at Abandoned Hall to cause it to trigger. However if the situation was AP Ride the Wind'ed their unit to Abandoned Hall, then they would get the trigger. Additionally if AP cast Ride the Wind and moved their unit away from Abandoned Hall but there was another unit remaning, that could get +1 might. (CR 383.2.c., CR 350.1.) Next is if the spell fizzles, or doesn't manage to execute any of its text (likely if all its targets become illegal) it's still considered to have been played. (CR 359.3.e.10.) Finally creating tokens in this game also counts as playing them. (CR 182.1.a.)

Excuse Me the Mill Rule is What?
There is a mill mechanic in this game but it's odd. Instead of just losing if you'd draw from an empty library, instead you shuffle all the cards in your trash into your library, then an opponent of their choice gets a point, then they finish whatever effect was causing them to draw. For example if AP has one card left in their library and casts Premonition, they'd draw one, then shuffle their trash into their library, have NAP gain a point, then draw two more. (CR 431)

Winning Shenanigans
Winning the game is fairly straightforward, different game modes require different numbers of points to win, and players can score points in a few ways. The main way is conquering or holding battlefields, however if the final point of the game is scored by conquering a battlefield, that player must've scored on both battlefields that turn (either by holding or conquering), otherwise they gain the point but don't win the game.

Sunday – Scheduled Sides Lead


Negativity Always Wins
NAP controls Mageseeker Warden at a battlefield, can AP play Rengar, Trophy Hunter at that battlefield? No, like in Magic, this game also has a "can't beats can" rule, thus Mageseeker Warden's ability supersedes Rengar's ability. (CR 054)

You May Decline
Unlike in Magic triggers that include "you may" as part of the trigger condition don't even go on the chain if the controller doesn't intend to take the action. Soulgorger's trigger, for instance, is an example of one of these types of triggers.

A Call to Attack
AP plays Call to Battle, and moves a unit to an uncontested battlefield. Their opponent does the same, who is the attacker and who is the defender? AP's unit will be the attacker since it moved there first, and applied the contested status to the battlefield. (CR 187.3.a., CR 459.2.b.1)

What is "Winning"
AP attacks an uncontested battlefield with Nidalee and NAP stuns it with Facebreaker, does this count as winning the combat? Yes. Nidalee remains after gaining the attacker designation, so AP (and Nidalee) have won the combat (CR 461.3.a). AP attacks NAP's battlefield, where they currently have Nidalee. NAP casts Facebreaker on both units, what happens? AP's unit is recalled and NAP wins the combat. (461.1.a.2.) Finally, AP attacks NAP's battlefield, where they currently have Nidalee. NAP casts Ride the Wind on Nidalee and moves it to an uncontested battlefield. NAP will lose this combat, but will likely win the next showdown at the uncontested battlefield that will begin after this one has fully concluded.

The Problem with Tickets
Prize ticket distribution issues are usually problematic but not catastrophic, however, when your prize tickets sell for $100+ each due to the ridiculously high value of the metal cards on the prize wall, any discrepancies become a much bigger deal. Also because of this we didn't want every staff member to have access to untold numbers of prize tickets. This meant that for the events with 200+ players where rounds were only 30 minutes, getting all the tickets out on time before matches finished was a challenge. This also meant that not every judge could split prize tickets if they needed to. That compounded with the fact that most events had different ticket prize structures caused all kinds of messes throughout the weekend. I even had the prize ticket distribution on the staff schedule next to each event, but this still managed to cause problems. The true solution to this is to ensure that side event prizing is flat and the value of each ticket isn't astronomical.

...In Conclusion
This event was quite rough, the prize tickets caused a lot of the stress, but also my relative inexperience with the rules caused me to feel out of my element. I also didn't know many of the floor judges and regrettably, didn't find enough time to really learn much about any of them. I really learned to value the institutional knowledge of judges and the simplicity of being able to ask basically any judge at a magic event to "flip a round of a side event" and be confident that it would happen on time and with some measure of proficiency. I did however learn a lot about the rules over the course of the weekend, and feel much more confident working Riftbound events in the future. While I know that I'm still a long, long way off from being anywhere close to where I am with the Magic rules, I feel like I can probably not blow anything up on the floor of a Riftbound event in the future. Big shout out to Andrew Villarubia for helping me go over the understanding of play, and several other rules interactions in this report.