The goal
Riftbound is a battlefield race: first to the points total wins.
- You win by scoring 8 points (2-player games) before your opponent does.
- Points come from holding battlefields at the start of your turn and from card effects.
- Each battlefield in play is worth points to whoever controls it during their scoring step.
- Running out of cards in your main deck does not lose you the game on its own — you simply recycle your trash when told to draw.
Setting up
A legend, a main deck, a rune deck and the battlefields in the middle.
- Pick a Legend (your champion identity) and place it in your Champion Zone — it sets your deck's legal domains.
- Your main deck holds units, spells, gear and battlefields; a separate rune deck powers your Energy and Power.
- Each player brings battlefields; shuffle them together and reveal the contested ones between the players.
- Draw your opening hand, then take turns from the starting player onwards.
Energy, Power and runes
Two resources, one deck of runes.
- Channelling a rune from your rune deck gives you Energy — generic fuel for playing cards.
- Runes also produce Power in their domain (Fury, Calm, Mind, Body, Chaos, Order), used for domain-specific costs.
- Most cards cost a mix: an Energy number plus one or more coloured Power symbols.
- Wild Power means any domain will do.
Turn structure
Beginning, action, ending — with plenty of back-and-forth in between.
- Beginning phase: ready your cards, channel a rune, score the battlefields you hold, then draw.
- Action phase: alternate taking actions with your opponent — play cards, move units, attack battlefields, activate abilities.
- Open state: it's your window to play anything you can afford. Focused state: only Reaction cards and abilities can be added.
- Ending phase: clean-up, temporary effects wear off, then pass the turn.
Moving and combat
Units travel to battlefields, and fights resolve in a single showdown.
- Units enter at your base and move to a battlefield; moving usually exhausts them.
- Attacking a contested battlefield starts combat between your attackers and the defenders there.
- Both sides assign lethal damage simultaneously based on Might; Tank soaks damage first, Backline last.
- Win the fight and you conquer the battlefield — hold it through your next beginning phase to score it.
The chain
How spells and abilities stack and resolve.
- Each card or ability played goes onto the chain as an item.
- While a chain is building the game is in a focused state, so only Reaction cards can be added.
- Items resolve one at a time, last in first out, until the chain is empty.
- Card text always beats the general rules — and if a card can't do something, it does as much as it can.
Zones
Where cards live during a game.
- Main deck, hand, base, battlefields, Champion Zone, rune deck, trash and banished.
- Recycled cards go to the bottom of the main deck; banished cards leave the game entirely.
- Cards in the trash can still matter — Flow lets you cast from it.
- Facedown cards hidden at battlefields (see Hidden) are secret until played.
