Exclusive League of Legends Riftbound reveals – Vayne’s champion card and more

Preview season for Riftbound’s very first set, Origins, is here and we are pumped to give you an exclusive look at some new League of Legends cards. We have a rare champion unit card featuring Vayne to reveal, alongside an uncommon unit and two commons.

Let’s jump straight to the good stuff. First up is Vayne, Hunter, the first card representing LoL’s crossbow gauntlet-wielding marksman, who’s essentially Van Helsing meets Bayonetta.

This champion has no legend to establish a dedicated Vayne deck, but her unit card has an extremely cool effect that I can’t wait to try out. Essentially, Vayne is all about delivering a swift, decisive attack to wrest control of a battlefield on the turn you play her.

She has two might and costs five energy, which would be an atrocious rate, if it were not for her Assault ability. This boosts her up to five might when you’re the attacker. On top of this, Vayne also comes in ready if an opponent controls a battlefield, so she can immediately go on the offensive.

The card also has another ability. When you conquer, you can pay one energy to pop Vayne, Hunter back into your hand. This is great, and you’re going to want to use it as often as possible. Having Vayne on the defence is rubbish, but if you keep playing her and bouncing her back to your hand, your opponent will have a hard time dealing with the card without some sort of trick or spell.

Of the 12 legends revealed for Origins, I can see Vayne being most effective in a Darius or Jinx deck. She’s not much good for the rest of them: she doesn’t come in ‘mighty’ for Volibear, doesn’t do anything with spells for Kai’sa.

With Darius, however, she ensures you’ll always have two cards to play to trigger your Legion abilities, and for Jinx – while you don’t want her clogging up your hand, she does serve as a card you can get some value out of and then discard.

As for our other cards, we have Captain Farron, Bilgewater Bully, and Call to Glory. Captain Farron gives your other units Assault, so is great for an aggressive deck that wants to make big moves on your turn.

Our other two cards look well suited to a Sett, the Boss deck that’s spending and making a bunch of buffs. Bilgewater Bully is a high-cost unit that gains Ganking when it has a buff, helping you more easily keep control of multiple battlefields. And Call to Glory is a combat trick that can be cast for free if you spend a buff, helping you to catch your rival unawares when they think you’re all tapped… erm exhausted out.

That’s all for now, but you can check out my first impressions piece to hear about my experience playing the game. And over on PCGamesN you can catch my interview with Riftbound’s designer.

Come chat with us about Riftbound and your other favorite TCGs over on the Wargamer Discord. You might also be interested in the best card games that don’t come in booster packs.