Riftbound Radiance Pre-Rift Guide: Kit, Legends, Rulings

Radiance's Pre-Rift starts at stores on Friday, 16 October, a week before the set releases on the 23rd. Riot's Pre-Rift article, published 12 October, settles three things this site could not say a week ago: which nine Legends your seeded pack can hold, with Riven's now confirmed among them; what the Heimerdinger promo in the kit is and is not allowed to do; and four card interactions Riot wanted ruled on before anyone sits down.

This is the Radiance layer only. The general Sealed rules - a 25-card minimum, any three domains, no copy limits, blank battlefields - are in our Sealed and Draft rules guide and get a line each here at most. The Pre-Rift also opens on the day Riot's 9 October rulebooks take effect, so the rule numbers below are from the October Tournament Rules and Core Rules.

When and where the Radiance Pre-Rift runs

Riot's Radiance Overview gives the Pre-Rift window as 16 to 22 October, and stores pick their own dates inside it. The set itself releases on 23 October in English, French and Chinese.

Two practical points before you book a seat:

• Registration is on PlayRiftbound.com. Riot's September platform announcement made the Radiance Pre-Rift the first event registered there instead of on carde.io. You sign in with a Riot ID, with no account linking, and check pairings and report results on your phone. The store finder is the Events page on PlayRiftbound.com.
• It is a low-OPL event. Tournament Rule 602.4.a.8.k names Pre-Rifts as low-OPL events and lets deck construction run to 45 minutes instead of the recommended 30. At low OPL you do not register a starting configuration, and you can rebuild between games and matches unless the head judge says otherwise (602.3.f).

Whatever you open is yours to keep, Riot says, whether or not it makes your deck.

What is in the Pre-Rift kit

Riot lists three things in each kit. The booster counts in the middle column are my arithmetic from the Overview's per-pack breakdown: 7 Commons, 3 Uncommons, a foil slot, a Rare-or-Epic slot, a wider slot that runs from Rare up to Ultimate Rare, a token-or-rune slot and an insert.

The promo is the Pre-Rift printing of RAD 132. Riot is explicit that it cannot go in your Sealed deck, and just as explicit that the ordinary booster version can if you open one. RAD 132 is a Rare Order Champion Unit: 6 Energy and 1 Order Power for 5 Might, and while he is at a battlefield, any unit token you would play can arrive as a 3-Might Mech token instead. Sealed lets any Champion Unit inside your domains be your Chosen Champion, whatever your Legend (602.4.a.3.a), so a pack-opened Heimerdinger can lead any deck that includes Order.

Vendetta's Pre-Rift against Radiance's

Riot's Radiance article repeats much of its July Vendetta one, including the same build advice: at least 15 units, about five of them at 2 Energy, a few removal spells, and care with Power costs. Our Sealed guide already covers that advice. Here is what actually differs:

Riven goes from Vendetta's promo to one of Radiance's nine Legends.

The nine seeded Legends, Riven included

Riot's article gives each of the nine a short game plan. Here they are with domains and Signature cards as Riot's card gallery lists them, in card-number order. The full Legend text for the other eight is in our Radiance Legends roundup.

Count the domains column and each of the six domains appears on exactly three of the nine. Riot's Radiance article does not say how stores hand out the seeded packs; its Vendetta article said those were random across all nine.

On 2 October our Legends roundup could only infer slot 149 from the Riven Signature at 150. Riot's gallery now shows the card: The Exile, RAD 149/167, a Rare Calm and Chaos Legend, with its Overnumber at RAD 173. Its whole text is "Units you play to battlefields you control enter ready." Units enter the board exhausted, so a unit played to a battlefield you already control normally cannot make a standard move or pay an exhaust cost until it readies on your next turn. The Exile removes that wait. Riot's pitch pairs it with Ganking and exhaust abilities, and both of Riven's Radiance champion units care about exhausting: Riven, Broken Blade (RAD 043) picks a mode each time she becomes exhausted, and Riven, Deserter (RAD 114) gains Might when another friendly unit becomes exhausted and can exhaust a friendly unit to ready a unit once a turn.

Picking your three domains

The Radiance-specific points, on top of the Sealed rules you already know:

• Your seeded Legend fixes two of the three. A sealed identity is any three domains, or any one domain plus your Legend's two (602.4.a.3). Skip the Legend and any three are open; a deck missing its Legend or its Chosen Champion draws one extra card at the start of its first Beginning Phase each game, and still only one if both are missing (602.4.a.5.b).
• Your Chosen Champion does not have to match your Legend. Any Champion Unit inside your domains qualifies (602.4.a.3.a).
• Neeko fits anywhere. Neeko, Blending In (RAD 167, an Epic) has no domain, and Core Rule 103.2.b.5 permits a domainless card in any identity. How many Legends she needs is one of the four rulings below.
• Extra Legends are Rares. Riot's gallery lists all nine Radiance Legends as Rares, among a base set of 48 Commons, 46 Uncommons, 45 Rares and 28 Epics. A second Legend has to come out of a booster's Rare-or-Epic slot, its wider slot or its foil slot.
• Battlefields come from three places. The seeded pack includes one. Radiance's ten battlefields are all Uncommons, 10 of the set's 46, and five boosters give you 15 Uncommon slots plus whatever the foils turn up. Blanks cover the rest, and a specific physical copy can be used once per match (602.3.f). What the ten do, and which ones pay out for both players, is in our battlefields post.

Signature gear is the rule to check

Sealed lets you play another champion's Signature cards, but the written rule is narrower than Riot's own examples. Tournament Rule 602.4.a.3.b, worded the same in the July and October editions, lets a sealed deck play any signature spell that fits inside its domains without the matching champion. Riot's 12 October checklist also says "Signature spell". Neither mentions Signature gear, and Core Rule 103.3.d.2 otherwise requires every Signature card in a deck to carry your Legend's champion tag.

That gap matters in Radiance, because three of its nine Signature cards are gear: Orianna's The Ball, Riven's Blade of the Exile and Jarvan IV's Demacian Standard.

Riot's own examples read the permissive way. The fourth ruling in the same article puts Blade of the Exile, a Riven Signature, in a deck run by Orianna's Legend. Rule 103.3.d.2 rules that pairing out in Constructed, so the example only works in a limited deck. Riot's July Vendetta Pre-Rift article went further and said Signature cards in general only need to sit inside your three domains. If you open one of the three gear and want it without its own Legend, ask the head judge before round one. With its own Legend, there is nothing to ask.

Riot's four Pre-Rift rulings

Riot answered four questions in the article itself, ahead of the fuller FAQ it says will follow once Radiance has been out for a while.

K'Sante's Legend stacks with printed Assault. Pride of Nazumah pays 1 Energy and exhausts to give a friendly unit "I have Assault equal to my Shield" this turn. Riot's example is Staunch Survivor, a 2-Energy, 2-Might Body unit with Assault 2 and Shield 2, and Riot rules that it ends up with Assault 4: its own 2 plus 2 from its Shield. Assault adds Might while attacking, so it attacks as a 6-Might unit. Riot describes the granted text as a passive effect for the turn, so Shield you add afterwards raises its Assault too. On that ruling, K'Sante's Signature Ntofo Strikes, which grants Shield 2 for the turn and then deals damage equal to the unit's Shield, would deal 4 to an enemy unit and leave Staunch Survivor at Assault 6, attacking for 8.

Neeko works with fewer than three Legends. Riot frames this one around the Legends you pull: if you open Neeko and have fewer than three, you can still play her, because the 9 October errata changes her text to "choose up to 3 different legends". Riot's 9 October ruling also requires her picks to differ from your starting Legend, so in a Pre-Rift she is worth only as many different Legends as you open beyond your own. Whether those Legends must fit your domain identity is still unanswered, as our Radiance rules update breakdown notes.

Encore takes two different modes. Seraphine's Signature spell says "Choose two" from four modes: deal 2 to a unit, play two 1-Might Recruit tokens, give up to two units +1 Might this turn, or look at the top two cards of your Main Deck, draw one and recycle the other. Riot rules you cannot pick the same mode twice.

An Equipment turned into a unit loses its Equipment text. Riot's example: Orianna's Legend animates Blade of the Exile, Riven's 3-cost Signature Equipment. It becomes a 3-Might unit, Might equal to its Energy cost, without the Ganking printed in its lower text box. Core Rule 136.2.b is the reason: effect text is inactive unless its card is attached to another card. That adds to the 9 October rule, covered in our rules update, that an attached Equipment detaches as it becomes a unit.

What else changes on 16 October

• The 9 October rulebooks take effect. The Core Rules keyword glossary grows from 25 keywords to 28, adding Deploy (830), Disarm (831) and Show Off (832). Our keyword guide has all 28.
• Two limited-only lines change. The one-for-one sideboard swap now applies to constructed only (403.4), so after sideboarding a limited Main Deck only has to meet the format's minimum (403.4.c) and can change size between games. And the optional best-of-one sideboarding step (406.1.h.5) does not apply to best-of-one limited events (602.3.g).
• 10:00 AM PT: the Radiance Overview's last scheduled update, with both Showdown Deck decklists and the Nexus Night promo list.
• 23 October: Radiance releases, and Riot's fuller Radiance FAQ is due some time after that.

Quick reference

• Dates: Pre-Rifts 16 to 22 October 2026, at stores' own times. Release 23 October.
• Where to register: PlayRiftbound.com, with a Riot ID. Low OPL, with up to 45 minutes to build.
• Kit: five Radiance boosters (65 playable cards), one seeded champion pack with a Legend, a Rare champion, a Battlefield and support cards, and a Heimerdinger, Academy Instructor promo that cannot go in your deck. A Heimerdinger opened in a booster can.
• Seeded Legends: Ekko, Ziggs, Mordekaiser, Orianna, K'Sante, Riven, Seraphine, Evelynn and Jarvan IV. Each domain appears on three of them.
• Riven's Legend: The Exile, RAD 149, Calm and Chaos: units you play to battlefields you control enter ready.
• Rulings: K'Sante's Legend on Staunch Survivor gives Assault 4; Neeko is playable with fewer than three Legends; Encore needs two different modes; an animated Equipment loses its Equipment text.
• Check with your judge: The Ball, Blade of the Exile and Demacian Standard without their own Legend.