It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for another Thursday Spotlight — and this week’s timing couldn’t be better. Riftbound: Vendetta, the fourth expansion for Riot Games’ League of Legends trading card game, hits shelves worldwide tomorrow, July 31. If you’ve been curious about Riftbound but haven’t jumped in yet, this is the set to do it with.
New to Riftbound? Here’s the quick version
Riftbound is the League of Legends TCG from Riot Games, where you build a deck around a “Legend” — a champion from the LoL roster who leads your forces onto the battlefield. Each Legend has their own signature cards and playstyle, and matches are all about controlling battlefields, managing your Energy and Power, and timing your big plays right. If you’ve played Magic: The Gathering or a similar TCG before, a lot of the fundamentals will feel familiar, but Riftbound’s battlefield-control structure and Legend-driven decks give it its own identity.
Vendetta is all about rivalries
Where past Riftbound sets spread their attention across a wide cast, Vendetta narrows the focus and leans hard into it. The set trims its roster from 12 Legends down to just 9, built entirely around iconic League of Legends rivalries: Zed and Shen, Nasus and Renekton, and the Noxian family drama of Ambessa, Mel, and Jayce. Akali serves as the set’s poster Legend, and Kennen rounds things out as a wildcard tied into the Zed/Shen conflict.
The set is also Riftbound’s first true global simultaneous release — English, Japanese, Italian, and Simplified Chinese versions all launch on the same day for the first time in the game’s history, closing the gap that separated regional releases for Origins and Spiritforged.
Three new mechanics to learn
Vendetta introduces three new keywords, and they’re built to play off each other:
Flow lets you play cards straight out of your trash instead of your hand, for characters who “recover and reuse” the way certain League champions burn through Energy. Burn works the other direction, sending cards from the top of your deck into the trash — sometimes to fuel your own Flow cards, sometimes just to chip away at your opponent. Empower rewards patience: get a card onto the battlefield, then pay an additional cost later to make it stronger or unlock a new effect.
The set also debuts two new card types: Unit-Gear, cards that function as both a unit and an equipment piece, and Decrees, a cycle of spells that hit especially hard against their rival Domain’s cards — a mechanical nod to the whole rivalry theme running through the set.
The best on-ramp for new players
If you’ve been sitting on the sidelines, Vendetta gives you the easiest entry point Riftbound has offered yet: the Showdown Deck: Zed vs. Shen. It’s Riftbound’s first two-player preconstructed product, and it comes with two complete 56-card decks, two booster packs, two playmats, and deck boxes — everything you and a friend need to sit down and learn the game with two Legends whose whole story is built around fighting each other. It’s basically a rivalry, gift-wrapped.
For collectors, keep an eye on the Overnumber variants (which pair rival Legends together in connected artwork across two cards) and the Crystal Rose Alt Arts, a Showcase treatment tied to Wild Rift’s returning skinline.
What’s coming after Vendetta
Riot has confirmed four Riftbound sets a year going forward, and the next one is already dated: Radiance (Set 5) arrives October 23, leaning into a K/DA musical theme with Seraphine, Evelynn, and Ekko confirmed so far. But that’s a story for a future Spotlight — right now, all eyes are on Vendetta’s launch.
Whether you’re a League of Legends fan who’s never picked up a TCG or a longtime Riftbound player ready to build around Zed and Shen, Vendetta lands tomorrow with a lot to dig into.
New to the game and have questions? Come say hi on our socials, or find more spotlights, guides, and TCG news at manariotgames.com. 🔦 Thursday Spotlight is our weekly dive into a different TCG every week — a new one lands every Thursday, so follow along and never miss the next one.