Riftbound Keywords Explained: All 25 in the Core Rules

Fiora, Victorious is a 4-cost, 4-Might champion unit with one sentence of rules text, and that sentence contains four highlighted terms. Three of them are keywords. One of them is not a keyword at all — it is a description the rules define somewhere else entirely, and knowing the difference is the reason your opponent's "units here have Vision" effect does nothing to it.

Riftbound's Core Rules, last updated 16 July 2026, spend rules 805 through 829 defining exactly 25 keywords. Every one ships with reminder text in parentheses on the card, and that reminder is a summary — accurate as far as it goes, and in at least three cases it goes nowhere near far enough. What follows is the whole glossary, grouped by what each keyword structurally is, with the gap between printed reminder and actual rule flagged wherever it matters.

What counts as a keyword, and the eight shapes they come in

Rule 801 defines a keyword as "a specific term that appears on Cards that acts as a shorthand for a specific game effect, or ability of any variety." You spot one visually: keywords carry a coloured highlight, and rule 801.2.a is blunt that "the color of the highlight has no effect on gameplay." A card may carry any number of them, executed in printed order, top to bottom.

The thing the rulebook never puts in one place is that every keyword belongs to exactly one structural category — and the category tells you when it can possibly matter:

Eight plus six plus two plus two plus three plus two plus one plus one — all 25 accounted for.

The category is not trivia. Effects that grant keywords ("other friendly units have [Vision]") work in the ability-altering layer and can only hand over things that really are keywords. Effects that grant a state, or that trigger on a game action, are a different animal — which is the whole point of the "not keywords" section below.

The combat four: Assault, Shield, Tank and Backline

Assault and Shield are the same keyword pointed in opposite directions. Assault X is functionally short for "While I am an attacker, I have +X Might." Shield X is "While I am a defender, I have +X Might." If the X is omitted on the card, it is presumed to be 1. Both stack additively from every source: the rules use Petty Officer, which has Assault, being given Assault 3 by the spell Cleave, and the result is Assault 4 — not two separate instances.

Tank and Backline are also mirrors, and this is where the printed reminder text is genuinely misleading. The card reminder for Tank reads "I must be assigned combat damage first." The actual rule, 815.1.b, is:

I must be assigned lethal damage before any other unit with the same controller as me that does not have [Tank] during the Combat Damage step.

Three differences matter: it is lethal damage, not any damage; it only constrains units under the same controller; and it applies during the combat damage step specifically. Backline is the exact inverse — lethal damage must be assigned to it after every other unit its controller has that lacks Backline. If two of your units both have Tank, your opponent may pick either, but every non-Tank unit you control is an illegal assignment until both Tanks have lethal damage on them.

That is the Fiora from the opening. Three of those four highlighted words are keywords. Mighty is not. Rule 708 defines it plainly: a unit is Mighty as long as its Might is 5 or greater. Fiora is printed at 4, so she is a plain body until something buffs her — and the moment a buff drops off mid-combat she loses all three keywords at once, because the layers re-evaluate from scratch.

Deflect, Accelerate, Ganking and Ambush

Deflect X is a tax, not a shield. It reads: spells and abilities an opponent controls that target the card cost an additional amount of Power equal to the Deflect Value, charged once for each time they choose it. The clause people miss is 809.1.c.1 — the Power used to pay a Deflect cost may always be of any domain. It does not have to match the spell or the target. Deflect values stack the same way Assault and Shield do.

Accelerate is an optional additional cost of 1 Energy plus 1 Power of the unit's own domain, and paying it makes the unit enter ready instead of exhausted. Two footnotes carry real weight. You cannot pay Accelerate once the unit is on the board — it exists only in the steps of playing the card. And rule 805.6.a says Accelerate is a replacement effect: the unit never enters exhausted and then readies, so nothing that triggers on a unit "becoming ready" will fire. If you have a readying payoff, Accelerate does not feed it.

Ganking is one line: "I may move to a battlefield from another battlefield with a standard move." It adds a destination and nothing else — no cost, no extra movement, no additional activations. Without it, a unit at a battlefield can only walk home to your base.

Ambush lets you play a unit to a battlefield where you already control units, and it grants Reaction while it is being played that way. It is a play-time permission and it is fragile: rule 822.3 says that if there are no units at the chosen location before finalisation completes, the location stops being valid and the card cannot be played there. Riftbound is also happy to use Ambush as a verb — Rengar, Trophy Hunter (VEN 179/166) reads "I can be played to a battlefield where there are enemy units," which widens Ambush's normal permission rather than replacing it.

Action, Reaction and Hidden: the permission ladder

These three are the whole of Riftbound's interaction system, and they nest.

Action grants permission to play a card or activate an ability during showdowns, on any player's turn. Reaction grants everything Action grants, plus Closed States. Rule 813.1.b is explicit: Reaction includes Action's permissions. There is no card that has Action but is somehow faster.

Neither changes what the card does. Rule 806.3 spells it out — a unit with Action still obeys every normal restriction on playing units, so it can still only go to your base or a battlefield you control. Permission is not permission to break the rules.

Hidden is the longest entry in the glossary and the one worth reading twice. Functionally: while the card is in your hand or Champion Zone, on your turn, in an Open State, you may pay 1 Power of any domain to hide it facedown at a battlefield you control that does not already have a facedown card there. Beginning on the next turn it gains Reaction and you may play it ignoring its base cost — for 0.

The restrictions are what get people. The card stays hidden only for as long as you control that battlefield. A hidden permanent must be played to that battlefield, which overrides the normal rule that gear can only be played to your base. And targets chosen while playing from hidden must come from options at that battlefield, unless the ability's own targeting makes that impossible.

Triggers on a clock: Deathknell, Vision, Temporary and Hunt

Deathknell is "When I die, [effect]." The trigger is the permanent being killed and sent to the trash. If the death gets replaced — the rules use a Zhonya's Hourglass that heals, recalls and exhausts the unit instead — the triggered ability is removed from the chain and never resolves. Multiple Deathknells on one permanent trigger separately, in an order its controller chooses.

Vision is "When this is played, predict." Predicting means looking at the top card of your Main Deck and choosing whether to recycle it to the bottom. Multiple instances of Vision trigger separately, and if you decline to recycle and nothing happens in between, every instance looks at the same card.

Temporary is "At the start of this permanent's controller's Beginning Phase, before scoring, kill this." Read the clause order. A Temporary unit sitting alone on a battlefield can conquer it on the turn it arrives, but it is dead before the Scoring Step, so it can never hold. Temporary bodies buy you a point and a combat, not an engine.

Hunt X is "When I Conquer or Hold, my controller gains X XP," and again the X defaults to 1. Conquer or hold — both routes to a point also pay XP, which is why Hunt units want to sit still rather than roam. XP itself is public information, it cannot be targeted or exhausted because it is not a game object, and rule 732 confirms it is never shared between allies in team modes. If you are running 2v2 or the free-for-all formats, your partner's XP is not yours.

The gear package: Equip, Quick-Draw, Weaponmaster and Unique

Spiritforged brought equipment, and four keywords that only make sense together.

Equip is an activated ability on gear carrying the Equipment tag: "[Cost]: Attach this gear to a unit you control." The chosen unit is a target, so it can be responded to and taxed by Deflect.

Quick-Draw collapses that into playing the card: gear with it has Reaction inherently and attaches to a unit you control the moment you play it.

Weaponmaster sits on units and is a play effect: choose an Equipment you control, pay its Equip cost reduced by 1 Power of any domain, and attach it to this unit — ignoring the Equip ability's usual timing, and even if it is already attached elsewhere. Two traps. If the Equip cost contains no Power symbol, there is nothing to reduce and you pay it in full. If the chosen card has no Equip cost at all, it cannot be paid and the gear stays put.

Unique is the odd one out in the entire glossary: it does nothing during a game. Rule 825 calls it a Deck Constraint Permission — a deck may contain only one card of a given name if that card has Unique. The interaction worth memorising is with Signature cards. As covered in the Riftbound deckbuilding rules, you may register a total of three Signature cards; if a card is both Signature and Unique, you can still hit three Signature cards overall, but only one copy of that particular name.

Dependent keywords and paid upgrades

A dependent keyword is written "[Keyword][>] [Text]", and the text after the arrow is Inactive until the keyword's condition is true. Three exist:

Legion has the friendliest wording in the game: rule 812.2 says every instance of Legion a player controls is satisfied by that player playing a single card. Play one thing and all of your Legion text switches on at once. Level re-evaluates if control of the card changes, against the new controller's XP. And when one ability carries two dependent keywords, both conditions must hold — the rules give the example of a unit reading "[Level 11][>>][Legion][>] When you conquer, gain 1 point," which needs 11 XP and another card played that turn.

Empower is the activated half: "[Cost]: Empower this. Play only if not Empowered." Empowered is a binary state — a game object either has it or does not, and empowering something already empowered does nothing unless an effect explicitly permits it. Ambessa above is the clean template: pay 1 Energy and 2 Order Power once, and two dormant abilities come online permanently.

Repeat is an optional additional cost that executes the spell or ability's instructions one extra time on resolution. The detail worth money is 820.2.a — choices for the extra execution do not have to match the first. A modal spell can pick a different mode, and a targeted spell can pick a different target. Multiple Repeat costs on one card are paid individually, and no matter how many times the instructions run, the card is still only Played once for anything that counts plays.

Flow is an alternate cost that lets you play a spell from your trash, then banishes it. It changes the zone and nothing else — rule 829.1.b.2 states Flow does not alter the timing at which the spell can be played or any of its other permissions. If a spell prints multiple Flow costs, you choose which one to apply as you play it.

Words that look like keywords but are not

These all appear in square brackets with a coloured highlight on cards, which is exactly why players call them keywords. None of them is in the glossary. They are game actions or descriptions defined elsewhere in the Core Rules:

Why care? Because grant and removal effects work on keywords. An effect that strips a unit's keywords does not stop it being Mighty, and a Buff counter is not a keyword you can remove. Buff also refuses to stack, so a second Buff on an already-buffed unit is wasted.

Which set brought which keyword

Sorted by the earliest set in which a card carrying the keyword appears in Riot's official card gallery. Set codes and dates line up with the 2026 release calendar:

Thirteen at launch, then five, four and three. That curve is the honest answer to "is Riftbound getting more complicated" — yes, at roughly four new words a set, and the newer ones lean on states and alternate costs rather than combat math. Riot's own Vendetta core rules patch notes, published 17 July and effective 24 July 2026, call Empower "the tentpole mechanic of Vendetta" and shipped it alongside Flow, the Burn action and the Skip action in one update.

Quick Action Checklist

• Read the rule, not the reminder, for Tank and Backline — both constrain lethal damage assignment, and only among units the same player controls.
• Assault, Shield and Deflect all stack additively and all default to X = 1 when the number is omitted.
• Pay Deflect costs with any domain of Power. It never has to match.
• Accelerate must be paid as you play the unit, and it does not trigger anything that watches for units becoming ready.
• A Temporary unit can conquer but can never hold — it dies before the Scoring Step.
• One card played switches on every Legion ability you control, not one of them.
• Unique is a deck-registration rule only. Check it before you sleeve up, because it never comes up again.

If you are still getting the basics down, the full Riftbound rules walkthrough covers the turn structure, scoring and final-point rules this glossary assumes you already know. If you are coming from elsewhere, the way Magic sorts its evergreen mechanics by colour is the closest mental model — except Riftbound sorts by structure, and once you know whether a word is passive, triggered or permissive, you can usually work the ruling out yourself.