Riftbound Spiritforged review: Strong League of Legends-inspired gameplay, but the TCG has some issues

After the successful launch of the base set introduced iconic champions from League of Legends and Arcane, Spiritforged has taken the fantasy further with a new strong focus: League’s items as actual cards.

Imagine Draven’s Twin Axes flying across the board, or Jax  finally getting some real weapons and beating down the opponents. That’s the authentic champion fantasy Spiritforged delivers.

Items-as-cards transform the meta

Spiritforged’s core innovation is turning iconic League items into playable cards, fundamentally changing deck construction. The standout example is Miracle Draven, a hyper-aggressive deck running Twin Axes and other equipment that captures Draven’s personality perfectly. The deck has even gained traction in the competitive Chinese meta, proving the concept works at high levels, leading to unkillable boards that take over and conquer games.

Equipment-focused archetypes shine throughout the set. Jax’s lore states he’s so skilled with weapons that he uses a lamppost instead. And that shines through in the card game. His deck is about him getting different equipment to use, which leads to some serious power stacking on units.

Meanwhile, Lucian, the gunslinger, wants agile weaponry to enhance his mobile playstyle, combined with classic Lucian themed spells to match his dashing and prodding as Lucian does in game. Azir’s Sand Soldiers use equipment, mirroring how devastating they become with Nashor’s Tooth in the main game.

These aren’t just mechanical synergies; they’re faithful translations of champion identity into card form. Spiritforged nails the feeling you get from certain League character designs and translating it over once again to Riftbound 

Two major problems hold Riftbound back

Despite strong gameplay, Riftbound faces serious accessibility issues that new players will struggle with.

Cards constantly reference Sand Soldiers, Gold Gear tokens,Sprites, mechs and ther tokens. Yet, actually obtaining these essential game pieces is a randomized lottery. I attended a Pre-Rift event with a starter kit and five boosters and didn’t pull a single Gold Gear token, despite multiple cards in my pool generating them. Half my deck was incomprehensible without the physical token to reference or prior knowledge of reading up before the event.

Azir yellow decks spam Sand Soldiers. Most colors generate Gold. Seeing “create a Gold Gear token” on five different cards while having no idea what that token does makes deck building frustrating and learning needlessly convoluted. You often get a strange token from every other pack, but if you don’t get it, then it’s really odd to learn the game.

It would be nice if Riot managed to make it easier to get Tokens. The starter decks in the first set of Viktor and Lee SIn gave some recruit tokens and buff cards. So that made those easier. But still missing flavour recruit tokens for Garen / Darius Decks, and the same applies here with Gold Ger Tokens and Sand Soldiers.

It just makes getting those cards a bit annoying.

The other issue is round length. Standard 1-hour slots for best-of-three matches are wildly optimistic. My Ezreal vs Irelia control mirror took 50 minutes for a single game, making the best-of-three format effectively unresolvable. Whoever won that game essentially won the series due to realistic time constraints because of how back-and-forth the game is.

Aggro decks move faster, and experienced players make quicker decisions, but from watching competitive streams, lengthy games are typically the norm. Sealed Pre-Rift events especially drag as players puzzle through unfamiliar interactions, which could be skewing my perception of the game there. But it feels like most games can go long. It’s something to certainly monitor as they design the next few sets.

Collecting Spiritforged is genuinely fun and really pretty

Beyond gameplay, Spiritforged nails presentation. The Spring-themed alt-art variants are gorgeous. I pulled a Singed Teemo that reimagines the champion in an entirely new aesthetic. Spiritforged Vayne, Bard, and others feature similarly striking alternate takes that make ripping packs exciting even if you’re not chasing meta staples.

Gold Gear tokens are a step forward

I know I complained about Gold Gear, especially from deck constructing and learning the game. However, this card is also a really nice solution to a Set 1 meta problem. This mana system lets you play powerful cards by setting your resources back a turn or two via recycling runes.. The base set required expensive Seal cards to make this mechanic viable, pricing out budget players.

Gold Gear essentially operates at a similar mechanical level, and even bake interactions into a lot of common cards. Many units across all color sets can generate them, making Recycling Runes accessible without hunting down pricey singles. Sivir decks still run premium options, but casual players can now interact with the system meaningfully. It’s a smart design fix that improves deck diversity. Legend cards like Renata and to some extent Sivir are even designed around playing those cards to make things interesting.

From my experience so far, the set appeals to competitive grinder, League fans get authentic champion fantasy, and collectors get genuinely beautiful cards. That broad appeal is rare in modern TCGs. Riot is on track for an awesome product so far, and Spiritforged is helping to show how special the rules are, and just how great Riot’s art continues to be even off the digital platform.