Building Decks
The deck builder lets you construct, validate, and manage decks for the Riftbound trading card game. Pick a legend, fill your zones, and the editor checks the rules as you go.
Decks are blueprints, not physical locations
A deck is a list of cards, not specific printings or copies. It doesn't matter whether you play the English version, the Chinese version, or the signed foil promo. The deck just says "3x Fury Rune" and any printing of that card will do.
This is different from collections, which track where your physical copies are. A deck is the recipe; your collection is the pantry. Most other sites like Piltover Archive or TCG Arena tie decks to specific printings, but OpenRift keeps them separate by design. This means any printing you own (across all available collections) counts toward completing the deck, and shared deck lists (coming soon) work regardless of which language or edition other players own.
Deck structure
Defines your deck's identity and which domains it can use
A champion unit that shares a tag with your legend
Resource cards that match your legend's domains
Three unique battlefield cards
Units, spells, and gear — includes your champion toward the count
Optional cards you can swap in between games
Getting started
Open Decks from the top navigation and click New Deck. Choose a name and a format: Constructed enforces all deck-building rules, while Freeform removes all restrictions so you can experiment freely. You can switch between formats at any time.
The editor opens with two panels: a zone sidebar on the left showing your deck's contents, and a card browser on the right where you find and add cards. A validation banner at the top tells you whether your deck is legal.
Building your deck step by step
The browser guides you through each zone automatically. As you fill one zone, it suggests cards for the next.
The browser starts filtered to legends. Choose one to set your deck's domains. Runes are auto-populated with a 6/6 split to get you started.
The browser suggests champions that share a tag with your legend. Pick one to fill the champion slot.
Next, browse battlefield cards and pick three unique ones.
The browser now shows units, spells, and gear in your legend's domains. Your champion already counts toward the 40, so add 39 more.
You can always click a zone in the sidebar to change which zone you're adding to, or adjust the browser filters manually.
Adding cards
Click the + button above any card in the browser to add it to the active zone. Single-card zones like Legend and Champion show a "Choose" button instead. Cards you own show an owned count, so you can build with cards you actually have.
Drag a card from the browser directly onto a zone in the sidebar. You can also drag cards between zones to reorganize.
Once a card is in a zone, use the +/− buttons next to it to adjust the quantity.
Hold Shift while dragging a multi-copy card to move all copies at once instead of just one.
Use the Overflow zone as a stash for cards you're considering but haven't committed to a zone yet.
Validation rules (Constructed format)
In Constructed format, the editor validates your deck in real time. A green checkmark means your deck is legal. A yellow banner shows the most actionable issue to fix next.
Legend
Champion
Runes
BattlefieldIn Freeform format, none of these rules are enforced, so you can build however you like. You can switch to Freeform to theorycraft freely, then switch back to Constructed to validate. The zone sidebar highlights violations per zone, so you can quickly see what still needs attention.
Rune auto-population
When you pick a legend, the editor automatically fills the rune zone with 12 runes split evenly across the legend's two domains (6 per domain). You can then swap individual runes or adjust the split. If you remove a rune and the count drops below 12, the editor adds a replacement from the other domain to keep the balance.
Domain filtering
Once you've selected a legend, the card browser automatically filters to only show cards that match your legend's domains (plus colorless cards). This means you won't accidentally add cards your deck can't use. The filter is applied in real time as you browse.
Deck stats
Below the zone list in the sidebar, a collapsible stats panel shows a breakdown of your deck:
- Domain bar: a color bar showing the proportion of each domain in your deck
- Energy and power curves: distribution of energy costs and power values, with averages
- Type breakdown: count of units, spells, gear, and other card types, split by domain
Managing decks
The Decks page lists all your decks with their format, domain colors, card count, and validation status. From here you can:
- Click a deck to open it in the editor
- Rename a deck
- Clone a deck to create an exact copy for experimenting with variants
- Export a deck list as text
- Print proxies to generate a printable PDF for playtesting
- Delete a deck you no longer need
Auto-save
Changes are saved automatically as you edit. If you try to leave with unsaved changes, you'll see a warning. There's no manual save button, just build and go.