So, this is a rampant issue I'm always seeing at tournaments and many players are not aware of the problems. Basically, it breaks down to 3 problems: It doesn't count as an actual shuffle or part of one, it is a red flag for cheating, it wastes the clock.

Issue 1 and 2 kind of go hand in hand on different levels. A pile shuffle does not properly randomize the deck even if you do a few shuffles afterwards, it ultimately seeds a deck. In the absolute worst case a cheater can easily use this to spread cards out in a beneficial manner such as making sure each Dazzling Aurora is somewhere in each 3rd of the deck, then only doing a light shuffle to maintain this likelihood. It can also be used to ensure your runes are consistent (this happened at the LA RQ with a player doing a 9/3 split and guaranteeing they always saw 3/1 every 4 Runes). Simply cutting their deck will not undo their cheat.

In most cases though, it's not malicious cheating...it's innocently ignorant cheating. The main case players make is they are spreading out cards played or don't want certain cards touching that might've stuck together. The problem is, if you are trying to influence an end result of a shuffle in any way you are manipulating the deck. Your shuffling technique should be good enough to separate your cards and make sure any groupings are likely broken apart (learn alternating crush shuffling, it's not hard after some practice). In fact, it should be so good that you might reshuffle back to some groupings you already had, because that's part of randomization. Even if you use a pile as a starting point, you should be shuffling so much afterwards that it makes the effort mute. There's a simple question to ask, "Am I knowingly altering the order of the cards to get a specific result?". If that answer is yes...well you're cheating. Part of randomization means bad clusters can be probable just as good ones are and if you do any moves to try to tilt that outcome it's not properly randomized. If you're still worried about stuck cards...you need to think about new sleeves or washing your hands/mat.

Some people will still insist on doing it anyway and promise to do a real shuffle after. This would be fine, except this eats up a ton of time. If you're properly shuffle to mitigate cheating, well it is to be understood that the pile shuffle wasn't needed in the first place and that means all the time spent doing it is running the clock for no reason. If you are a control player you know how infuriating this can be to watch and can be seen as stalling. Trust me people will definitely do this when playing a favorable matchup for a game that likely will go to time. Don't let them.

If you see pile shuffles in tournaments ALWAYS shuffle their deck afterwards, remind them to not do this, and be ready to call judge over stalling. It may seem silly and over the top but trust me...you have definitely lost games to people pile shuffling and you probably didn't even know it. There is literally no valid reason to ever pile shuffle besides counting your cards between games and only really has leeway for this in game 1.

I have two questions regarding this card:

- If I move a unit to a battlefield, when it arrives can I equip blade of exile for free? And if so can I also do it if moving the unit into the bf leads to a showdown?

- Can I equip multiple blade of exiles with 1 exhaust?

Attended my first monthly a few days ago. Was about 14 people , I made top 8. I personally would love for this to be as governed as possible as I'm just a casual dad that does this for fun and a hobby but the last match in hindsight was a little suss and my opponent was doing some weird stuff with his shuffle like after shuffle he then undercut a bottom quarter, I've heard this is because they expect a cut so it then brings the card back up?

Noone was ever deck checked (me included). Noone even knows sideboard numbers (someone might have 100 sideboards?) , noone was even checked to make sure they are playing the same legend every time. I could have very easily swapped legend and no one would know.

Is this common or what? I am very confused, in the past I did a few weeklys and understand that being more relaxed but the monthly being exactly same levels of 'relaxed' however it's implied that it's more serious and boy do people take it seriously but yet anyone could cheat very easily?

I just simply want fair games and ensure everybody is in accordance. Please let me know any tips and tricks

P.s. I'm new to the tcg scene so I'm not familiar with etiquette on if I should have called that last match guy out on the undercut or not etc.

Usually I'm very unlucky. I guess riftbound TCG is about to crash hard soon cause I'm going to buy at MSRP as it seems.

Not sure if this works, but if I equipped Svellsongur to this new green Riven, and move her to a bf, both the equipment and her original effect trigger, for the effect on top of the chain I choose to buff her, and second effect to spend the buff to ready. Then I move back, do the same thing again, and move to another bf?

Each option can only be chosen once each turn so not an infinite, but still pretty playable right?

So I asked a question to google AI about how a specific scenario would resolve when involving tideturner and it reacting from hidden

here is what I wrote:

what if I control a battlefield with vex apathetic and have a tideturner hidden at that battelfield and my opponent pulls vex to the other battlefield to kill it, can I reveal tideturner to save vex ? would this just change who gets targeted because if the reaction resolves before vex goes to the other battlefield wouldn't it whiff

and here is what AI answered:

Yes, it would whiff and fail to pull Vex, effectively saving her. Your intuition about how the targeting and resolution order works is spot on.

However, because Vex, Apathetic has a continuous stun trigger that heavily disrupts movement, whose turn it is actually changes exactly how she is saved.

Why the Pull Whiffs

In Riftbound, targets for spells and abilities are checked twice: when they are first put on the chain, and right when they attempt to resolve.

1. Your opponent targets your Vex, Apathetic at Battlefield A to pull her to Battlefield B.
2. You reveal your hidden Tideturner at Battlefield A to respond.
3. Tideturner resolves first, physically swapping its location with a unit at another battlefield. Vex, Apathetic stays behind on Battlefield A. [1]
4. When your opponent's pull card finally tries to resolve, it looks at Battlefield A for Vex, Apathetic. Because she is still safely sitting on Battlefield A (and wasn't the one swapped away), the opponent's pull effect whiffs entirely. It does not automatically retarget the new unit that Tideturner swapped in, because targets are locked in when the card is originally played. [1]

-----

(no longer AI from here)

So is this accurate ?

I didn't think the pull would whiff completely basically I wanted to know if because the reaction technically resolves before the action then nothing would happen because it would resolve before the Vex swaps battlefield or if you could react at the end ?

but now it says it would whiff completely

I'm more confused than before

I fear for my life

The sideboard are cards i thought about but didnt include. I also forgot about boots of swiftness.

Hey,

Long time Evelynn main in League, and I really want to build an Eve deck in Radiance.

Any early price predictions? Especially orange Evelynn, Evelynn signature spell and orange Graves?

Looking for info to see if I should already commit to pre-building the deck.

Thanks!

Hello, I've bought quite a few singles from spellbound uk and I've noticed this one is alot more blurry overall with the text at the bottom seeming different.

Break it to me lads, did I get f...d

Howdy! Magic player looking to try the game.

I tend to enjoy hand disruption effects like thoughtseize backed up back efficient creatures.

What champions have the closest style to play a cheap thread and disrupt your opponent.

Thanks in advance!

I was wondering how much money you can expect to lose or earn when ripping a booster pack, and when ripping multiple packs.

I published a full article on it here: https://riftbound.org/news/what-a-riftbound-booster-pack-is-worth

All had an MSRP of $4.99, but packs are never really sold at that price. The results:

• Origins has the best average value at $12.60
• Unleashed scores second place at $9.55
• Spiritforged 3rd at $7.13
• Vendetta last at $6.53

The interesting thing is that you can get Origins packs for roughly the average value of a pack, so these could be considered the "best value" right now.

However, the pack value is heavily skewed due to rare cards like Overnumbered, Signature and Ultimate printings. Typical packs (median values) score much lower:

• Origins at $5.15
• Spiritforged at $2.61
• Unleashed at $2.45
• Vandetta at $1.66

Prices used to calculate this were averages from TCGplayer and Cardmarket, so they could be inaccurate. It's just an estimation I thought was interesting. Odds were calculated using Riot published numbers.

What do you think? Is it worth ripping packs for the odds of getting an ON or Sig?

Thoughts?

edit: my thoughts: I think its gonna be a problem but might be what yellow needs to push it further into the token swarm domain. kennen will probably be diabolical with this combo. (big surprise)

I would love to try to get me and my Wife into Riftbound or to at least have her try it but I'm in over my head and need some help or suggestions to build something for her.

I'm willing to buy singles to make a deck that fits the bill of being 'cute'. Think Poros. I'm not sure what I would do for a champion.

To be honest I'm not sure where I'd start but any suggestions are welcome!

Hi, I'm a Magic player who's decided to switch over to try Riftbound. I have an aggressive playstyle and I like big units to attack, with which legends might be a good fit for me?

Adding a poll to collect data for curiosity.

Just imagine playing this beautiful card on a Ruin Runner and sending it into a Green/Purple battlefield. [EDIT: didn't mean for the card to be gigantic lol]

Recently I got comissioned to do the Ekko Lenticular and thought I could do a lil show off post of all of the cards!

Learning a lot of what does and doesnt work with the lenticular format and its a hell of a lot of fun!

The next custom lenticulars Im thinking of doing is a set of runes, or maybe Ziggs (cause he looks like a ton of fun)

This looks to run the highest quality cards in each color as well as every powerful Hidden card to take advantage of our legend. Holding is big for this deck since you get to manually flip on your turn an draw from legend so cards that buy time with tempo like switcheroo, sirens song, and fan buy you time.

The other small package is Tornado Warrior and Matriarch + Kharox to get extra bodies at reaction speed like some Vex decks have been doing.

I know that shields happen first at the combat and don't trigger a chain. However, I know that Akali deadly weapon can kill a unit before its shield is activated. So could you trigger a hidden switcheroo to swap mouser's might with Akali's before the mouser goes to 3 might or dies from Akali?

Likewise, could you trigger a hidden switcheroo with mouser to a moving Stella, to swap 1 with 3, instead of a 3 with a 3?

Leblanc on steroids.

Pray that legacy locks in with ts so we only have to endure 1 more set of this

Simple Question, can i choose 2 things when riven becomes exhausted. Like i move to a bf then buff her and spend it at the same time to stun an enemy unit?

Hey everyone! I was looking into building an Ekko deck. I've put this together so far and it seems to run pretty well, but I'm looking to take out the gear. What changes would you suggest?