Riftbound Radiance: Deploy, Show Off and Disarm Explained

Every previous piece of Radiance coverage on this site has ended with some version of the same disclaimer. Our set schedule post put it flatly: "Anything you read describing Radiance's new mechanics right now is speculation." Our preview season schedule said the same thing four days ago: "None of the mechanics have changed hands yet - that's still the entire point of a preview season."

As of this morning, that disclaimer is out of date. Riot posted The Radiance Overview on 25 September - the same day the developer panel opens at RQ Los Angeles - and for the first time this vertical has actual mechanics to report instead of a placeholder. Three new keywords, a Legend who turns Gear into Units, a new token type, and a second Ultimate Rare that Riot says is deliberately harder to find than the first. Riot is explicit that this is a first pass: the same article gets two more updates, on 5 and 16 October, before Radiance releases on the 23rd. Everything below is sourced to that 25 September article and the five preview cards it prints. Where a later Riot document has since answered or changed something, that source is named and dated where it appears.

What Riot actually revealed today

The Radiance Overview is a living document rather than a single announcement - Riot's own words in the 25 September version: "We're going to update this article two more times throughout spoiler season as more and more of the set is unveiled. Come back on October 5 and October 16 at 10:00 AM PT to learn more about the Set!" Today's installment covers key dates, three new mechanics, one new card type, one new token, and the set's collectibility structure. Full decklists, the Ultimate Rare card itself, and the new Alt Art Runes are all explicitly deferred to later updates. The 5 October update has since shown the Ultimate Rare and the Alt Art Runes; the full decklists are still due on 16 October.

The confirmed calendar, restated from Riot's own Key Dates block:

• Previews: 25 September - 9 October 2026
• Merch Store drawing sign-up: 25-30 September 2026
• Drawing selection begins: 5 October 2026, approximately 9:00 AM Pacific
• Pre-Rifts: 16-22 October 2026
• Release: 23 October 2026, in English, French and Chinese simultaneously

Deploy, Show Off and Disarm: three new keywords

Three keywords carry their own highlighted badge and reminder text on the preview cards, in the same format our keyword glossary documents for the 25 keywords in the July Core Rules (rules 805-829), which stay in force through 15 October. Riot's 9 October Core Rules update, effective 16 October, adds these three to that glossary as rules 830 (Deploy), 831 (Disarm) and 832 (Show Off). They are the only new keyword entries, so the glossary grows to 28. Our Radiance rules update breakdown covers the rest of that release. Riot's plain-English description of each, quoted directly, with the rules entry that takes effect on 16 October:

Each one has a printed example, and the actual card text sharpens what the summary leaves vague.

Dockside Lock-Up (RAD 136/167, Gear, cost 6) is the Deploy example: "When you play this, banish a unit here. When you hold here, kill this to play the banished card, ignoring its cost. (Tokens aren't cards.)" Read alongside the keyword's own reminder - it is killed when an opponent holds that battlefield - and the card is a bet: lock an enemy unit away for free, but the payoff only arrives if you can hang onto the ground it's sitting on. Deploy's headline restriction is also the interesting part structurally: Gear normally enters play at your base by default, the same rule our keyword glossary notes Hidden has to explicitly override to put a card at a battlefield instead. Deploy is a second, blunter way to force that same override - it doesn't let you choose base or battlefield, it removes base as an option entirely.

Rousing Display (RAD 127/167, Spell, cost 5) is the Show Off example: "Show Off a card with Energy cost 7 or more. (As you play this, you may reveal such a card from your hand or pick a friendly one.) Play two 1 Recruit unit tokens to your base. If you showed off, play four to your base instead." That reminder text is worth reading twice - Show Off isn't limited to your hand. You can point at a big card already sitting on your board instead of one you're holding, which means a deck built around one genuinely expensive payoff can Show Off the same card turn after turn rather than spending it once.

Kai'Sa, Rebel (RAD 063/167, Champion Unit, cost 5, Might 5, Mind) carries Disarm alongside a second ability: "While I'm in a showdown, your spells have Reaction. (Play them any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.)" Riot's framing of Disarm as "similar to Assault" is a useful anchor if you've read our domains breakdown - Assault is Fury's signature +Might-while-attacking keyword, and Disarm is its mirror image aimed at the other side of combat. Instead of pumping your own attacker, you shrink an enemy unit at that battlefield for the turn, and it stacks with every additional instance the way Assault and Shield already do. Riot's 9 October Core Rules (rule 831, effective 16 October) spell out how the stacking works. The keyword is written "Disarm X", and X is 1 when no number is printed. Disarm values from different sources are added together, and the unit still triggers only once, using the total.

Orianna and the first Equipment Units

Riot doesn't introduce this Legend the way it introduced Seraphine, Ziggs, Jarvan IV, Ekko and Evelynn back in August, with a name drop and a roster graphic. She surfaces once, mid-explanation, in the new-card-type section: "Gear Units were introduced in Vendetta with the Patched Porobot. With Orianna's Legend effect, equipment can now become Units as well."

That's enough to confirm her as Radiance's sixth named Legend, and the card sitting next to that paragraph gives the rest: Orianna, Lady of Clockwork (RAD 145/167), Calm and Mind. Her printed ability: "At the start of your Main Phase, you may pay 1 to choose a friendly gear. It becomes a unit gear with Might equal to its Energy cost until you choose another gear with me." As of 25 September, that left three of Radiance's nine Legends still fully unannounced, down from four in our preview-schedule coverage four days earlier. Our Radiance Legends breakdown tracks the reveals since.

Worth being precise about what her ability actually does, because Riot's own copy blurs it slightly. "Gear Units were introduced in Vendetta" describes Unit-Gear, a printed card type covered in our 2026 set schedule - a card that is permanently both a unit and gear from the moment it's printed, the way Patched Porobot is. Orianna doesn't print a new permanent hybrid card. She applies a temporary, revocable status to an ordinary Gear you already control, and only one gear at a time gets to be a unit under her - choosing a different one switches it. Riot's own caveat matters here too: "when an Equipment becomes a Unit, it's automatically unequipped." Riot's 9 October patch notes confirm how that plays out: Orianna can choose an Equipment that is attached to something, and it detaches as it becomes a unit.

One more cross-check worth making before you build around her: Calm and Mind is already the most crowded non-rival pairing on this vertical's own Legend grid - Ahri, Ornn, Lillia and Nasus all sit there already, one per set since Origins. Orianna doesn't break new colour-pair ground the way Vendetta's three opposing-domain Legends did. She's simply the fifth entry on the pairing's most-populated row.

Bomb: a token that chain-reacts

Riot's pitch for the new token is short: "Bombs are small gifts to leave your opponent! The more bombs you play, the bigger the boom." The printed card explains why that isn't just flavour text. Bomb (RAD T02, Token Gear) carries Deploy, so it can only be played to a battlefield and is killed when an opponent holds there. It also has a Deathknell: "Deal 2 to an enemy unit here and kill all other Bombs you control here." Riot's 9 October Core Rules update, effective 16 October, adds the token in exactly those words as rule 187.12.

Read that instruction against how Deathknell actually works, which our keyword glossary covers in full. A Deathknell fires when the permanent carrying it is killed and sent to the trash. The first Bomb's Deathknell kills every other Bomb you control at that battlefield at once, and each of those goes to the trash too, so each one fires its own Deathknell for another 2. Stack three Bombs at one battlefield and a single kill or a single lost hold produces three 2-damage triggers. That is the literal mechanism behind "the more bombs you play, the bigger the boom". It isn't a flavour claim; it's a chain reaction you can count in whole numbers.

A second Ultimate Rare, and a changed pack

Radiance's collectibility section opens with a direct comparison to the set that came before it: "Radiance brings Riftbound's second Ultimate Rare. We learned a lot with the Ultimate Rare introduced in Unleashed. While finding one was very exciting, it wasn't quite as rare as we wanted it to be. We're trying something new with this card: it's our rarest Ultimate Rare yet, significantly harder to find than the Baron." Riot doesn't spell the name out in full, but "the Baron" is almost certainly Baron Nashor, Unleashed's own splashy Ultimate Rare and a card our Vendetta FAQ coverage already cites for how its delayed-replacement location text works.

The number attached to that promise is specific: "On average across the entire Radiance print run, an Ultimate Rare appears in approximately 0.025% of booster packs" - about 1 in 4,000. Riot adds the standard caveat that pack contents are randomised during manufacturing and any stated rate is a print-run average, not a per-box guarantee.

The pack itself changed shape to make room for it. Here is Riot's full Radiance breakdown next to the Vendetta breakdown our sealed and draft rules post already recorded:

The total is still 14 cards, and the two non-foil "hit" slots are still two slots - Radiance just carves one of them into a guaranteed Rare-or-better plus a wider pool that now explicitly includes the Ultimate Rare. Riot's Vendetta breakdown never itemised an Ultimate Rare slot at all; Radiance's does, printed directly into the checklist.

One number doesn't reconcile cleanly yet, and it's worth flagging rather than smoothing over. All five preview cards shown today - Dockside Lock-Up, Rousing Display, Kai'Sa, Orianna and Bomb - carry the collector line RAD ___/167, not the 180-card, 66-Showcase total Riot's own Radiance Drawing FAQ cites for the Booster Display the same day. Whether the base set settles at 167 with Showcase counted separately on top, the way Vendetta's 166-card core sat under 50-plus additional Showcase cards, or whether 180 gets restated closer to release, is not something anything published today resolves.

The product lineup so far

Pricing, where Riot has actually attached a number, is straight from its own Merch Store FAQ rather than a market estimate:

• Radiance Booster Display - 24 packs pulling from the 180-card, 66-Showcase pool cited above. $119.99 / €127.99 plus shipping and handling - a shade under $5 a pack before shipping.
• Showdown Decks: Evelynn vs. Seraphine - two 56-card preconstructed decks, two paper playmats and a rulebook. $34.99 / €36.99 plus shipping and handling.
• Vault - a storage box, six Radiance booster packs, foil tokens, and a set of 36 Runes. No price published yet.
• Pre-Rift Kits - five Radiance boosters plus a seeded Pre-Rift pack for each of the nine new Legends, the same 5-plus-1 structure our sealed and draft rules post recorded for Vendetta's kit. No price published yet.

On 25 September Riot named Seraphine's Legend title inside the Showdown Deck section, Starry-Eyed Songstress, but left Evelynn's as "TBD". The 5 October update to the Overview fills that in as Agony's Embrace. Every other line of both decklists still reads TBD, and Riot says full decklists arrive with the 16 October update.

Both Riot-run stores and your local shop get a piece of the promo calendar. At retail, sign up for your local game store's Pre-Rift and you're promised a copy of Heimerdinger, Academy Instructor while supplies last - a Champion Unit promo, not confirmation that Heimerdinger is one of Radiance's own named Legends (that name currently belongs to Legacy, Set 6, per our sealed and draft rules coverage of that set's roster). Nexus Night promo packs get updated with new Radiance cards, and Riot says the list arrives on 16 October. Two Summoner Skirmish windows are dated: events begin running 9 November and 14 December. Before 5 October most of the rewards read TBD. By 28 September only Summoner Skirmish 2's Top Cut and Champion cards were pictured, and Riot wrote that "some of the rewards are still a secret." Riot's 5 October update filled in the rest, so every tier of both Skirmishes now shows its prize card, and "The Champion will also step away with the Skirmish Playmat!" Radiance Skirmishes no longer award a bye. Riot's August 2026 State of Play says they "will not offer byes, and their prizing will be augmented instead", and it retires the Skirmish format after Radiance.

One more line item, separate from the numbered card checklist: Heartsteel Overnumbers. Riot's own copy - "The boys are here with a modern fashion makeover. Collect them all and stun your opponent with your overwhelming aura" - and the reveal video's own description name the lineup directly: Sett, K'Sante, Ezreal, Yone, Kayn and Aphelios, the real Heartsteel band from League of Legends, reworked as alternate-art Overnumbers with artist signatures.

What Riot has not shown yet

These were the gaps as of 25 September, named rather than filled. Where a later Riot document has since answered one, the answer is given with its date. The rest are listed as they stood on 25 September.

• The Ultimate Rare card itself. Not revealed on 25 September. Answered 5 October: the Overview update shows it and calls it "our first showcase Battlefield also being an Ultimate Rare". The pictured card is Packed Amphitheater (RAD 184/167 in Riot's card gallery).
• Alt Art Runes. Confirmed to exist ("This new set has some musically inspired Runes") but not shown on 25 September. Answered 5 October: the Overview update shows them.
• Both Showdown Deck decklists in full. On 25 September only Seraphine's Legend title was named. The 5 October update adds Evelynn's (Agony's Embrace). Everything else on both sheets reads TBD until 16 October.
• The remaining three of Radiance's nine Legends. Six were named by 25 September (Seraphine, Ziggs, Jarvan IV, Ekko, Evelynn and Orianna) and three were not. Our Radiance Legends breakdown tracks the later reveals.
• Whether Deploy, Show Off and Disarm are the complete list of new Radiance keywords. The 25 September article didn't claim completeness. Answered 9 October: Riot's Core Rules update, effective 16 October, adds exactly three new keyword entries: 830 Deploy, 831 Disarm and 832 Show Off. The same day's Radiance patch notes introduce no other new keyword.
• Nexus Night promo cards and most Summoner Skirmish rewards. Riot deferred the Nexus Night list to 16 October, and it is still due then. Most Skirmish prizes were deferred to 5 October. By 28 September only Summoner Skirmish 2's Top Cut and Champion cards were pictured. Skirmish answered 5 October: the Overview update shows the Participation, Top Cut and Champion prize cards for both Summoner Skirmish 1 (events from 9 November) and Summoner Skirmish 2 (from 14 December), with the Skirmish Playmat going to the Champion. Riot's August 2026 State of Play confirms Radiance Skirmishes award no bye.
• Pricing for the Vault and Pre-Rift Kits.

Quick reference

• Published: 25 September 2026, the same day RQ Los Angeles opens and Radiance preview season formally begins. Riot updated the Overview on 5 October and promises one more update on 16 October, before a 23 October release in English, French and Chinese.
• Three new keywords: Deploy (Gear that plays only to a battlefield and is killed when an opponent holds there), Show Off (reveal a qualifying card to unlock a bonus effect), Disarm (give an enemy unit at that battlefield -X Might for the turn as you attack, X defaulting to 1 and stacking like Assault).
• Rules status: Riot's 9 October Core Rules update, effective 16 October, adds the three as keyword rules 830 (Deploy), 831 (Disarm) and 832 (Show Off). They are the only new keyword entries, so the glossary grows from 25 to 28. Through 15 October the July Core Rules, which have no entry for them, remain in force.
• New card interaction: Orianna, Lady of Clockwork (Calm/Mind) - Radiance's sixth confirmed Legend - can turn one friendly Gear at a time into a unit gear with Might equal to its Energy cost.
• New token: Bomb, a Deploy token gear whose Deathknell deals 2 and kills every other Bomb you control at that battlefield - which can cascade, since each of those also has its own Deathknell.
• Collectibility: Radiance's second-ever Ultimate Rare, pulled at roughly 1 in 4,000 packs - deliberately rarer than Unleashed's. The pack's higher-rarity slots split into one guaranteed Rare-or-better plus one wider slot that now explicitly includes the Ultimate Rare.
• Pricing confirmed: Booster Display $119.99 / €127.99 (24 packs); Showdown Decks (Evelynn vs. Seraphine) $34.99 / €36.99. Vault and Pre-Rift Kit pricing not yet published.
• Open discrepancy: today's five preview cards are numbered out of 167, not the 180-card, 66-Showcase total cited the same day in Riot's Merch Store FAQ. Unreconciled as of 25 September.