It does not feel that long since I was here writing about the awesome Spiritforged legends, and I'm already back talking about new Unleashed releases! 12 brand new legends, 12 brand new abilities, and many new deck building opportunities have been revealed to us. In this blog I’ll offer you my take, insight, and amateur theory crafting of the new legends
Before diving in, it is important to understand Unleashed’s new XP mechanic. In Unleashed many cards will grant you XP tokens through play or interaction. These are token resources that may be spent on powerful abilities and also directly correspond to your Level.
Ambushing this set we get Pridestalker - Rengar who gives +1 Might to a unit whenever you play a unit. Many classics such as Kaisa Survivor, Noxus Hopeful, Darius Triferian, Battering Ram, and of course Rengar Pouncing, all fit this Fury Body archetype perfectly. An interesting interaction I can already see is with Ferrous Forerunner’s Deathknell, where you play two 3 might tokens to your base, triggering Pridestalker’s ability twice. When you consider that the newly revealed Rengar Trophy Hunter Champion unit has the ability Ambush which allows him to be played at reaction speed to a battlefield with no restrictions. You can react to Ferrous Forerunner’s deathknell with Rengar Trophy Hunter to a battlefield and give him +3 Might from the three Pridestalker triggers. This is such an awesome wombo combo interaction. Players will have to keep an eye out for a sneaky Rengar, and consider whether or not they want to spend their resources to defeat a unit that will simply enable another to come in and clean up.
Lillia the Bashful Bloom is THE token deck of Unleashed, if you thought Viktor playing with his 1 might Recruits or Azir playing with his 2 might Sand Soldiers were annoying just wait until you face off against Lillia’s horde of 3 might Sprites. Lillia’s 4 cost tap to summon a sprite is discounted for every sprite she already controls, this synergizes perfectly with the newly announced Leblanc Everywhere at Once unit (which prevents temporary triggers at her battlefield). Setting up Leblanc early would be essential for Lilllia - Bashful Bloom to begin building her sprite army. Green offers many great spells to protect units and blue has all the tools needed to spawn more sprites and annoy your opponents with pesky damage and might reduction spells… Supify, Frigid Touch, Bellows Breath, En Garde, Charm, Smoke Screen, Wages of Pain, the list goes on and on. I will definitely give this deck a try, I really miss playing my little sprite cards ever since my Teemo deck fell off in the Spiritforged format.
Ivern - Green Father is an interesting release for Riftbound, not the most popular character they could have chosen but a very good one to introduce a new mechanic. Token battlefields, Ivern - Green Father allows for you to exhaust him and replace a battlefield with his Brush token battlefield, triggered on holds and conquers. His Brush simply overrides the battlefield it is placed on and instead makes it so his animal units get a +1 might bonus. This does a lot to negate aggressive battlefields that punish players for conquering or holding them, for example Void Gate which makes all units in the battlefield take 1 extra damage from spells, or Sigil of the Storm where you have to recycle a rune when you conquer it, with Ivern since both effects are triggered at the same time you can choose which one to do first, so you replace the harmful field with a Brush and forgo its negative effects. Ivern will be a fun deck where you are incentivised to have one of every animal type unit in play (bird, dog, cat, and poro), then by having the Ivern Friend to All champion unit in play you may score an extra point on conquer or hold! This ability is sure to catch some players off guard, when you least expect it Ivern will come at you with all his forest friends and sweep the game from 6 points.
Now coincidentally fourth in this list, Jhin! Our buddy here loves counting to four, so it is very fitting that his Legend ability involves counting to four, four times. Jhin - Virtuoso looks to be one of the most creative and in-character legends coming out in Unleashed. His early turns will have him attempting to maximize 4 cost spells to trigger his ability, looking to play efficiently and on curve. His ramp seems strong but not unfair, a nice reward for synchronizing your spell plays and rune tempo. When building this deck make use of the aggressive spells offered by Fury and Mind. Jhin players will be aiming to play a 2 drop turn one while supporting it with 4 cost spells into turn 2,3 and 4. Going second will be interesting as you have one extra rune, letting Jhin play for more expensive early turns triggering his ability faster. One important thing to note is that paying repeat costs does in-fact count towards the Virtuoso trigger, giving Jhin players some flexibility when it comes to deckbuilding and decision making. The main hurdle in Jhin lists will be doing all this while also not bricking your hand in your first few turns with cards that you'd want to play later when you are ramped. As well, you will want to make sure you have a clear gameplan to follow when you are ramped. This deck will be very fun to build and pilot, it’s sure to draw the same love from fans that his in game character did, 4/4 legend design.
We got Leona in Origins, it's about time Diana came out. For those unfamiliar with the in-universe lore, Leona is the aspect of the Sun and Diana of the Moon, both are imbued with their celestial powers. While Leona focused on becoming stronger from applying Stun, Diana - Scorn of the Moon is more focused on offense and in the moment decisions. Her ability allows you to exhaust the legend for an energy to be spent only during a showdown. This allows for some powerful tempo plays. For example lets say Diana is going second, on her turn she plays 3 drop, then on her opponent’s second turn they attempt to conquer a battlefield, which initiates a showdown, the Diana player can tap their legend gain an energy and play Stacked Deck, cheating out some extra draw and getting ahead of their next turn! Or if they left one up and had just played a 2 drop they can tap their rune and the legend to play even more spells. Diana - Scorn of the moon will push the boundaries of what purple blue is capable of and will be a formidable deck in the meta.
LeBlanc - Deceiver is a notoriously mischievous character, whenever she is around you know there is some trickery afoot, this case is no different. Her Deceiver ability lets her, on conquer and hold, tap the legend, discard a card and play a temporary Reflection unit token where the conquer or hold happened. Her Reflection unit tokens are quite powerful and become a copy of another unit she controls at its location. Being able to clone unit stats and abilities is game changing, if LeBlanc has Ahri Inquisitive and clones it that’s suddenly a 4 might swing to LeBlanc. This combined with the champion unit LeBlanc Everywhere at Once which negates temporary effects in its field allows this deck to abuse strong synergies that subvert unit behaviour. LeBlanc has some strong synergy with the Baited Hook archetype, fully abusing her ability to clone units, hooking them, and avoiding losing the real copy of the unit. Turning one temporary token into a real unit card. Unleashed continues to push the limits on mechanics and synergies in Riftbound.
Our little alien praying mantis joins Riftbound, not letting Rengar have all the fun for himself. Khazix - Voidreaver incorporates the new XP mechanic. Khazix is quite versatile in his use of this mechanic, allowing you to spend 1 XP to buff a unit or 2 XP to move one of your exhausted units to base, exhausting the legend as a cost for either activation. This allows for some sneaky slippery gameplay, conquering and buffing to hold or pivoting and returning to base to avoid combat from stronger foes. Khazix is the first Body Chaos deck that does not seem to lean toward aurora, as both Sivir - Battle Mistress, and Miss Fortune - Bounty Hunter found great success around that gameplay loop. Khazix seems to be an outlier, with some XP related cards released it's likely he will run a midrange deck similar to other Body lists we have seen in the likes of Jax - Grandmaster at Arms, and Sett - The Boss. Without maximizing his XP gain Khazix will not be able to match other Legends who have more passive benefits from their abilities, hopefully they release enough XP support as this Legend is super cool. 🦗
Vex - Gloomist comes out in Unleashed with quite an unassuming Legend ability, when you hold exhaust me and draw 1. Coming off the brutal conquer and run away strategies found in the Spiritforged meta it is easy to assume Vex will underperform as a legend. But if equipped with the right cards she can definitely fight for a top spot within the darkhorse legends. At the time of me writing this not much has been revealed in terms of hold support, what we do know is that Body and Chaos are a great rune combination, with access to most counterspells in the game, and many pesky combat tricks that would enable a hold strategy. In the video game Vex uses her abilities to ‘fear’ enemy units and prevent them from using abilities and moving, hopefully Unleashed leans into this archetype with cards that have to do with control and damage denial. I love her rune combination, and if Vex has the right tools I will definitely be trying out this deck in a nexus night or two.
Wait a second, don't we already have Yi as a legend? Yes! But Riftbound devs have come out stating that the legends featured in the Proving Grounds do not count when considering legends for sets (so keep your eyes out for future Annie, Lux, and Garen legends). With that we have Yi in his shiny new legend card featuring the new XP mechanic. At each threshold Master Yi and his units are buffed, First at level 6 giving all his units +1 Might and then at level 11, where his units enter ready! This is the ultimate XP deck, leveraging away early game power to later play big bodies who will enter ready and dominate the board. Master Yi was one of the top decks in Origins, I expect to see him find a lot of success with this fresh new look. XP is very interesting as it cannot be taken away, and can only be spent in a few circumstances. Meaning when Yi is leveled up and hits all his thresholds he will be hard to stop. New mechanics are always so fun, and as the card count in Riftbound increases I'm excited to see what the top players cook up with their interactions and synergies.
The hit and run king, Pyke - Bloodharbour Ripper exhausts himself and alongside a one energy cost, allows you to return a friendly unit to your hand. Oh and also plays a gold gear token exhausted. Hit and run strategies proved very successful in Spiritforged, and hidden cards saw some success in Origins with Teemo being one of the better midtier decks. We know Chaos and Fury is a very good combination, as everyone has grown to love or hate the Draven legend that took Spiritforged by storm. The question here is whether or not the lack of draw power will hamper Pyke - Bloodharbour Ripper, his ability to retreat his units is good but it may backfire when keeping units on the board is necessary to squeeze out a win. His ability has potential to be very powerful, with units like Mindsplitter and Brynhur Thundersong sporting some of the strongest on play effects in the game. Whoever pilots this will have to manage their resources very carefully so as to not fall behind in hand size and board presence.
Vi comes in swinging with a new take on over-assinging damage, a mechanic we have seen in Origins with Tryndamere Barbarian, but that has not taken off in the competitive scene. The defining aspect of this deck will be the tools Fury and Order have access to, in order to pump up your own unit’s might, or decrease the enemy’s might. There might be a token archetype angle where you build very wide and are able to assign lots of excess damage, so long as you are able to effectively use Piltover Enforcer to swing on another field and double conquer, or retreat an important unit that you cannot afford to lose. Vi will likely try to build taller and play around classic Fury units like Kaisa Survivor and Darius Triferian, and maybe even the Order Darius Executioner as he gives all friendly units in his location +1 might, helping to fix might numbers to trigger Piltover Enforcer. Vi - Piltover Enforcer has a very interesting ability, I just worry it will be hard to use it to gain a significant lead over other Legend abilities that more directly affect boardstates.
And last but not least, our travelling hero Poppy - Defender of the Meek, utilizing the new XP mechanic to enable draw. A tried and tested colour combination, Order and Body, gives Poppy an arsenal of control, and unit oriented abilities. In this deck holding is key, XP as a resource is limited, you can only run so many cards that generate it, so any edge you are able to get in this respect will put you ahead of opponents. If there is enough support to maintain a steady flow of XP so she can draw an extra card every turn I can foresee this being a very solid consistent deck. We have seen card draw become defining features of the meta with Ezreal, Draven, and Irelia each finding their own way to maximize hand size. If Poppy is given the tools to succeed and find the key cards to unravel opponent’s decks she will be quite a challenge to overcome.
Hopefully I did these legends justice, Unleashed will be a huge step froward for Riftbound. If you want to be a part of the action here at Top Shelf I cannot recommend our discord community enough (https://discord.com/invite/9jtrtHmQxH). Join in and share your thoughts, strategies, epic hits! and everything related to Riftbound or your other favourite hobbies.
Right now you are welcome to attend one of our Nexus Nights, Tuesday or Saturday evenings, and place a pre-order for your very own Unleashed booster box!
