While the meta-changing effects of Riftbound: Vendetta are still being felt since launch, Riftbound Radiance is here, and with the new Riftbound set, I’ve compiled five hidden gems that won’t hurt your wallet, but they will hurt your opponent. The next set, Riftbound Radiance, has been fully hit tabletops everywhere, and while fans have been getting their hands on the new legends and mechanics, it’s clear there has been a paradigm shift in the game. While cards continue to get faster and stronger on the tabletops of Riftbound, so do the legends.
Radiance introduces a whopping six new legends to helm decks, and the new Chaos-Calm legend, Riven, The Exile, introduces a way to play your cards readied. With this uptick in speed, and other cards tag-teaming with the new mechanic Deploy (and the new legend letting you fast-forward through games), the obvious bangers from the set in higher rarities, like Bedevilling Stranger, Angler Wurm or Transpositionist, are not so hidden and will cost a good amount to obtain a playset in the secondary market.
Riftbound Radiance gives the stage to formerly “uninvited to the upgrade party” legends in Vendetta (looking at you, Jinx, Loose Cannon), and there is an abundance of support for the Mech tribe, so Rumble, Mechanized Menace players can get more value and compete better. While certain legends have gotten significant focused upgrades, this list is for the players who need the extra tissue to tie their decks together when it’s time to throw down. The five listed Riftbound Radiance cards can slot nicely into most decks as players take over battlefields or attempt to set up strategies to get their score to eight. Due to their versatility, combined with very modest prices, the following five are worth considering with the set’s arrival for any play style to gain an advantage, and not break the bank doing so.
An Offer You Can’t Refuse
This card is what I would refer to as “five-tool” because it does it all. Like its Magic: The Gathering equivalent, this card costs little to play (with no recycled runes either), so you can potentially gain a bigger advantage or crush an opponent’s game-changing gear without spending too much. An Offer You Can’t Refuse is also an Action speed card, so you can throw a wrench into an opponent’s plans mid-play, or you can pick your own Gear with it to boost Power for a bigger play down the road.
With cards like Sabotage dominating deck-lists (and not being Chaos-coded), other Chaos-identity spells that destroy gear, like Acceptable Losses and Fading Memories, force you to also kill a gear, and cost more than double An Offer You Can’t Refuse, giving heavier setbacks for the play. On the contrary, you can also select your own Deathknell-equipped gear, like a Sprite Fountain (provided your legend has a Mind Chaos identity), to get a Gold token to get a power advantage, and two 3-might Sprite units at once to unleash a bigger readied attack, all for just two energy.
Siren’s Song
Siren’s Song is another card that can be played in many situations and at any time—Chaos players are eating good in the interaction department. This card can be used to push an enemy unit back to their base, or worse, put them onto a battlefield filled with your units to crush the attacker. If an opponent attempts to retreat a unit that conquered, you can also react to that choice, and Siren’s Song puts the unit into trouble. The only downside to this spell is that the like-ability spell, Fight or Flight, has been banned; so it’s hard to determine whether this one will be treated the same. But that’s how good it is.
Trifarian Captain
The Trifarian Captain has a play ability that makes your Order-based decks play more consistently off rip, and it lets you go through your deck and get card advantage over your opponent. In Fury Order identity decks, you can run more than one Trifarian Captain units, and you can technically cycle one to get another one, and then cycle through four more cards. You can also retrieve the Riftbound Radiance unit: Bilgewater Tracker, and destroy opposing meta-terrorizing Up from the Deep Tentacle tokens (or other one-might threats).
On top of that combination of identities, there is a huge wealth of three-energy-cost, one-power units and gear that wear the Order identity, and being able to potentially get one at such a low cost is an instant game-changing play. Due to the versatility of the Captain’s play ability, you can even use the Riftbound: Vendetta card, Mesmerize, to repeat offend with Trifarian Captain and get another four cards to look through. A Rek’sai-helmed deck, with Rift Herald, would also synergize well, giving you more options to get card advantage over your opponent.
You can also deploy the Captain in decks that use Predict, and can cycle more cards to get the ones out of the way you can’t immediately add to your hand, getting you to the cards you need faster. Using the Captain alongside Rakelstake, and using Deploy-equipped units, can allow you to see even further into the future and hit the criteria easier.
Battle Preparations
All gear-based decks that wear the Calm identity may find a staple in Battle Preparations, especially decks with the new legend, Riven, The Exile. Riven’s signature spell is a gear equipment, Blade of the Exile, and if you hold one of them in your hand and let everyone know it, Battle Preparations is essentially free, and it gives one of your units a two-might increase at Reaction speed. This allows for mid-Showdown shenanigans, and allows you to remove threats that opponents wouldn’t think are in danger.
While other Calm cards like Consult the Heavens and Blossoming Dreamroot are excellent low-brow options to keep card advantage and board advantage in your favour, Battle Preparations allows the player to cast it with essentially no cost provided that you’re holding a gear in your hand. Due to this and the element of surprise attached, Battle Preparations is a no-brainer.
Runeblade Anvil
Runeblade Anvil allows you to get two extra cards of advantage for potentially one energy cost. If you use the other Chaos card on this list, An Offer You Can’t Refuse, and choose this gear as the killed choice, you can get a Gold and another card off the top of the deck without having to pay the exhaust ability on Runeblade Anvil.
You can use the spell Detonate to get a card banished from the top, and a two-draw advantage without having to pay the two energy one-power cost of Runeblade Anvil. In Mind Fury identity decks, Mesmerize can also allow Runeblade Anvil to double dip, netting extra card advantage in a pinch. Runeblade Anvil can also use its attached ability to get the player an extra card to play as advertised. This makes it a huge boon for Fury players looking for extra card draw – that’s not exactly defined as it.
That wraps the Top 5 Hidden Gems from the Riftbound Radiance set list. This is nowhere near the entire list of viable cards from the set, just the ones I’ve been playing religiously to great effect since the new set launched this week. Riftbound Radiance events are still ongoing, so fans can head to the official UVS Games website to check for any events near them to throw down.
