I was recently flown out to play and learn more about Riot Games’ newest entry into the League of Legends world, Riftbound. For those who may not know, this is their first time entering the physical TCG space. I was able to sit down with Dave Guskin, Riftbound’s Game Director, during the Riftbound influencer event to discuss his thoughts on the game, its future and more.
All of Dave’s answers will be in bold.
Obviously an exciting day. We’re getting a chance to try out the game and learn more about it and everything that kind of comes with it. We’ve seen some stuff, but this is really getting into the nitty gritty of it, which I’ve personally loved. I wanted to know, how’s the response been on your end? How have you really felt about seeing everybody playing it? What have you been hearing from everybody?
Yeah, I mean, it’s been great. Very positive responses, always encouraging. I think a lot of people have been very interested to see new cards. It’s not surprising. I’ve heard a lot of really interesting takes on how the resource system is different than other games on the battlefields and that sort of action. I think after we did the Learn to Play, a lot of people were excited, their brains were fired up about like, “Ooh, what can I do here? How can I build decks around this?” So that was very encouraging.
Have you seen anything different or just interesting in terms of decks?
Yeah, a couple of people kind of built from scratch. That was really, really exciting to see. A few people had different takes on champions than I would have, which is always really interesting to see. It’s only about half the set the people are working with. So, you know, still early days, but it’s been pretty cool.
Which is incredible. There are so many cards, and we’ll get to that here in a minute as well. You talked today a little bit how this came together very quickly, like early 2024 is what it sounds like. My question is, why go as quickly as you guys did to get this game out to the people? Why not maybe wait a little longer? Do you feel like the game was already just like that, ready to go? Can you walk us through that?
Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, I had, originally, when I planned out the timeline, I was like, well, we need a lot of time to prototype and iterate and test new game systems. It’s not easy to make a new game, especially one that’s—we’re trying to be, you know, a game that lasts the test of time, that is itself somewhat novel. We found something pretty rapidly. I was surprised, actually pleasantly surprised, at how quickly we found something that—the battlefield system— we felt really delivered on our goals of like making a game that’s good for multiplayer, but also still works for anyone.
So I felt at that point it’s like, well, at this point, we should show it to players, see what they think, iterate on the content. And so it really was—we could have given it more time, but I also want players to see it and have it. Like, the best measure of whether the game is actually working is to get players’ hands on it, and then we can adjust and improve it over time.
Read More: From Digital to Physical: Executive Producer Chengran Chai on Producing Riftbound
Yeah, we’ve already seen that, which has been awesome. It’s funny because the last time we as a collective saw you, was the last video, and you joked a little bit about sets two and three. How are things going on set four, I’m just kidding but how are future things going?
You know, the crazy thing about card games is they are voracious. They will—you know, there’s always more cards to make. My team is excitedly still working on stuff into the future, and I’m pretty excited to show it to players when we’re able to.
That is amazing. Because my question is just gonna be, how are the sets two and three going? And if you’re able to give us just any hints or teasers…
Well, I can’t give any teasers about what’s in the sets, but I’ll say we have gotten pretty far on set two. I feel pretty good about where it’s at. I think, you know, it’s a good package. I think players are pretty excited about the champions, the new mechanics. Set three—we’re in the middle of, I would say we’re about halfway done with set three, and that’s going well.
We do this thing where we bring in other folks from Riot who are card game experts, we bring in external consultants who are card game experts, and just jam on the set, iterate, try to balance it better. And we’re doing some of that for set three in the coming weeks.
Okay, well, I know I will be looking forward to it. So, can you talk to me a little bit about theme sets in the future? How are you guys gonna handle things like champion skins? And then, having a separate version of a champion. Obviously, we know that there are multiple versions, even in these iterations right now, but we know Volibear is gonna be in it. Is there a chance a version of Volibear with a skin could be in a set, in the future?
Yeah, great question. So over time, I think we will make new versions of champions, so not just skinned versions, but like, there will be a new Volibear card in the future that’s just different from these Volibear cards.
In addition to that, for most skin line kind of alternate art, we’re gonna apply those to existing cards, not mechanically different, just like new versions to collect basically.
That doesn’t preclude us from making, for example, a new League skin universe set in the future. That’s something we have talked about internally. And if we do that, then we would have, oh, this is, you know, the set that’s all about this skin line, and we make mechanically interesting cards for that skin line. But that’s something that’s pretty far in the future, I would say. I think right now what we’re looking at is which champions make the most sense for us to make, you know, in terms of what players are interested in collecting, what they’re interested in playing with. And then we’ll continue to make new versions of the champions over time.
Okay, okay, that’s perfect. My next one is gonna be heading towards Legends of Runeterra. Is there any chance we’ll ever see a character like Norra? I know we’ve kind of gotten that, but like more as like an actual potential champion and legend?
Yeah. So I would say for sure we will do stuff like that eventually. There was a question today—I thought it was a great one—was like, “Hey, are you ever gonna make your own like unique characters in Riftbound?” I would love to do that, just like Legends of Runeterra did. I think there is space for us to explore new champions, new characters and places in the world of Runeterra.
I also think there is a lot of exciting content from lore that we can borrow and make cards for—just like we can make cards for Rift now, where they can take that art and make new cards in Legends of Runeterra. So I am interested in that kind of back and forth. But yeah, I would love to make new champions, new characters in the future. It’s just a matter—it’s a matter of when, not if.
Okay, I love that. Obviously, people are going to make comparisons to Legends of Runeterra. What is the plan for that connection?
Yeah. So, I mean, the teams are very friendly with each other. We collaborate. Obviously, we are using a lot of Legends of Runeterra art in the first set, and we’ll continue to commission more art. We’ll share that among the teams. That’s something that we hope to do in the future.
I’ll also say that although there is audience overlap, we think that they’re different games for different people. Legends of Runeterra is about exploring the world of Runeterra at your own pace. It’s about picking a champion and growing with that champion over time, whereas Riftbound is a lot more about that social in-person experience. And so I think there’s overlap, and I think both games will benefit from that overlap, but we also think we’re targeting different audiences, and that’s a big difference between the games.
Why should players go into Riftbound? What sets it apart from other TCGs? Sell us on it.
Yeah, sure. So I think the most unique thing about Riftbound is that we really put all of the action and choices in the hands of the player. We designed this battlefield system so you can choose when you’re ready to engage with other players. So you build up in your base, feel safe, and then be ready to go unleash on another player and have a fight. And we also built a resource system, a new, unique resource system that helps complement that.
So, because you can get these power spikes from the resource system, that reinforces that “choose your moment.” And so that’s really what the game is about. I think that’s what’s unique about Riftbound.
Yeah, I can say, just from playing four games so far, it definitely feels that way.
Yeah. It’s one of the great things about the game. This is honestly one of the reasons we moved forward so quickly, is that you can feel that from almost your very first game. Then, as you play your second, third, fourth, and so on, you get even more of that feel, which is great.
I don’t think I’m allowed to talk about the champion that I played with yet, so I won’t say that, but I just played one of the newer decks, and it was incredible—just sending out three or four units I think it ended up being 10 and 11 Might. And my opponent just never even went after, one of those battlefields. So I definitely love that. It definitely had that feel for me.
Last questions here. So, 377 cards are a lot.
Yeah, 377 is the number of different card images, that’s not mechanically unique cards. There are 290—well, 298—in Origins, six of which are the runes and four of which are tokens. So it’s really more like 288 or something.
I want to know how it has been balancing that, especially because you don’t have prior versions of the game to fall back on?
Balancing a card game is tricky. It’s a lot of art, more than it is a lot of science. We’ve done a lot of iterations, trying to make sure that it’s both fun and fair in multiplayer and also really deep, interesting, and strategic gameplay for 1v1 and competitive.
I think over time we will find that, like, we’ve got to tweak some things. We might have made a few, you know, errors in some of the stuff we did in Origins. But the great thing about card games is that, as new cards are added in new sets, you get a totally new perspective on the power level of cards. So I think Origins will be very fun—hopefully quite well balanced—but we’ll find out when players get their hands on it. And then over time, with Set 2, with Set 3, I think it’ll be new and different and exciting.
Are you guys open to— say, if one card feels way too strong—taking that out of the competitive meta or how would you handle that?
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think we’ve talked about it. If something feels distorting to the metagame—if it feels really unfun or unfair, and it’s the boogeyman in the format—we would definitely talk about banning that card or other cards with it.
The priority is, when you come into competitive, you want it to be a fair, fun, balanced, skill-testing format. And if cards are too strong or severe outliers in that, then we want to correct that.
Which part of making Riftbound has been the most unexpected part that you’ve really enjoyed, or that you’re most excited to share with everybody else?
Yeah, I mean, this is something I touched on today, and I know I’ve talked about it on socials before, but I was not expecting to do a visual redesign of the cards. And having the opportunity to do that based on player feedback from the Teamfight Tactics event in Macau was really incredible.
I got to put on the creative director hat for a while and lead an effort with extremely talented visual designers and artists. And that was really incredible. It’s an experience I have not had very much in my video game career, in my card game career, and I think it’s been really cool to see that and have that come together.
I will say, seeing all the cards, they look outstanding. They really do. I never get tired of looking at them.
Thank you to Riot Games and Dave Guskin for their time and for answering these questions. Keep an eye out for more Riftbound as they prepare to launch later in 2025.
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