Battle You on the Rift: Introduction to Riftbound Organized Play

Hi everyone! We’re so excited to start talking with you about Organized Play for Riftbound. UVS Games and Riot Games have partnered together to create and run great competitions at all levels of play. We have a TON of things in the works, and we’re not quite ready to talk about everything yet, but today we’ll go over the Organized Play program as a whole.

Probably the most important aspect of Riftbound OP to discuss right off the bat is the competitive structure that links local (store level) events with premier events, which are generally run at pre-scheduled times and places by official tournament organizers. We plan to combine the accessibility of competitions at your favorite store with progression and advancement along the way to larger, more prestigious events.

When Riftbound releases later this year, there will be a one-time Origins Release Event in stores. This event is for everyone - it’s to introduce new players to the game and get players together around the game table in person. This event is low stakes, focused on participation and the experience of playing and tweaking a Riftbound deck for the first time.

Starting with each set after Origins, stores will run a special Prerelease Event before the official launch of the set where players will get the opportunity to play with the new cards before it has officially come out. We’re creating special prerelease kits featuring packs of the new set so you can build and play with your friends ahead of official release.

After the Origins release, stores will run Nexus Nights, which is a weekly Riftbound event designed to be fun and rewarding for those returning to the store week over week, on the store’s chosen night of the week. This event is for casual competitors - Nexus Nights with Origins will have players use their own constructed decks, and it’s a more casual event that doesn’t link into any higher levels of the competitive structure. Stores can choose the night of the week that works best for their players.

That changes with the next level of play, Summoner Skirmish, the highest level of competition players can find at their local stores. There are two Summoner Skirmishes per set, one at the start and one at the end of the season. Participating and winning at this event gives promos and other cool prizes, including a round 1 bye for the champion at their next Regional Qualifier. (These promos, as with all promos for organized play, will not be mechanically unique - they’re just different versions of cards in the set to commemorate that competition.)

Now we get into the premier level of competition, starting with Regional Qualifiers. Regional Qualifiers take the tournament experience from the stores and bring it to events, with 100s if not 1000s of players. These are open events where any competitive grinder can attend and they will be held in a variety of locations across the globe. Just like the Summoner Skirmish, participating and winning award promos and even more cool stuff including cash prizing and exclusive "Best of" prizes to the top-performing players for each Champion—whether you're crushing foes with Jinx or roaring to victory with Volibear, claim special rewards by being the very best with your chosen Champion, even when they’re not in the meta. The highest placing competitors receive an invitation to a Regional Championship, with the number of invites scaling up on attendance at the qualifier.

The penultimate level of competition in Riftbound is the Regional Championship, an invite-only tournament for the highest skill players. Players who win qualifiers can choose which Regional Championship they want to attend, and there’s a final shot onsite at each one for players to have a Last Chance to qualify. Participants and winners win even better promos and even more cash prizes. Starting as early as 2027, the highest placing competitors win an invitation to the final level of competition: the Riftbound World Championship.

We want players to feel rewarded for their skill and experience progression when taking part in the Riftbound tournament structure. We believe an engaging and balanced metagame is key for that to happen. One of the ways we will be working to achieve that goal is Rotation: we’ll be curating the constructed environment through regularly and predictably rotating sets out of current legality and into an eternal format. This process will begin no earlier than 2028, but we know this can be a sensitive topic for players and we want to be transparent about it now with more details to come.

Interested in what you’ve just read and want to dive deeper into how Riftbound OP functions? The team’s also been hard at work putting together our Tournament Rules which will govern the Riftbound OP experience. These rules will cover everything from levels of competition, codes of conduct, infractions and everything else you’ll need to know to get involved. These rules will be coming soon to pair with the Core Rules of Riftbound gameplay and form the fully fledged Official Rules Documents.

That’s all for now - stay tuned for more details on all of the above over the coming weeks!