Cards — Riftbound Rules

126.

Riftbound games are composed of players playing the cards in their respective decks.

Related FAQ (15)

When can I use Vi's ability to recycle cards from my trash to increase her Might?

Abilities can only be used in your Main Phase, outside of a showdown, unless they have the Action or Reaction keyword. Vi's ability does not, so it can't be used in combat/showdown.

What happens when I run out of cards in my Main Deck?

If you run out of cards in your Main Deck, and then you need to draw 1, you will Burn Out. This means you take your Trash, recycle it into your deck, shuffle, and then choose an opponent to score 1 point. If you have no Trash to recycle when you Burn Out, then you'll grant an infinite number of points and pick an opponent to win the game.

What happens when I run out of cards in my Rune Deck?

Nothing. You can't channel any more runes, but there's no penalty beyond that.

What about cards like Blind Fury and Promising Future, which let players look at or reveal cards from the top of a deck, play one, and recycle the rest? If I can't play that card, where does it go? It sounds like it's too late for it to be recycled as part of “the rest."

Hey, you're pretty sharp! For most cards that let you play something, it's easy to put the card back where it came from if you can't play it. The Harrowing would put it back in your trash, Ava Achiever would put it back in your hand, and so on. But when the card came out of a deck, which is both secret and randomized, it's not so simple. To provide a clear and easy answer to this question, four cards in set 1 that let you play other cards from decks are receiving errata. They'll each banish the card before instructing a player to play it. If the card can't be played for any reason, it just stays banished. This is a small functional change, but it's one we feel is well worth it to avoid the fuss of getting these cards back into a deck somehow. (1)(C), (E) Kill a friendly unit. Look at the top 5 cards of your Main Deck. You may banish a unit from among them that has Might up to 1 more than the killed unit and play it, ignoring its cost. Then recycle the rest.

If I reveal multiple Nocturnes, can I play more than one? What if all 3 of the cards I look at for Stacked Deck are Nocturnes and I play all of them?

Yes, you can play more than one Nocturne at a time this way. If there aren't any eligible cards left for the original effect you were resolving, any further instructions will be ignored. So if you reveal Stacked Deck, see 3 Nocturnes, and opt to banish and play all of them, you won't put any cards into your hand, nor will you recycle any cards. You will, however, have 3 Nocturnes.

So if Promising Future resolves and one or more players choose to banish Nocturne from the cards they looked at, what happens?

As you go around in turn order and each player looks at their top 5, they can choose to banish one or more Nocturnes before they banish a card with Promising Future. Any such Nocturnes will go on the chain as pending items before whatever that player chooses with Promising Future. They'll remain pending through the whole process of resolving Promising Future, then at the appropriate point they'll be fully placed on the chain and (because they're units) will resolve immediately.

Does Ava's ability let me hide cards?

No, it lets you play cards with Hidden from your hand.

Can I use these cards to save a unit that's already in its base? What about one that's already exhausted? If I can't recall it, do I still exhaust it?

Yes. You can save any unit that meets the description in the replacement ability's condition. For Highlander and Unlicensed Armory, that's any friendly unit. The actions you perform on that unit as a replacement are like the effects of a spell or ability; you'll do as much as you can: heal the unit (if it's damaged), exhaust it (if it's ready), and recall it (if it's somewhere other than its base). And yes, you exhaust the unit even if you don't recall it; as per the above wordings, we've changed the “recall it exhausted" language to make that clearer.

If I play Cruel Patron and kill one of my units for its additional cost, but one of these cards replaces that unit's death, does the cost still count as paid?

Yes. You made the decision to pay the cost and took the action to pay it. What happened after that doesn't matter.

If a unit would be killed by Hidden Blade, but one of these cards replaces that unit's death, does the unit's controller still draw 2?

Yes. Hidden Blade attempts to kill a unit, then says that “its controller" draws 2. Even if the unit doesn't die, it's still on the board and information about its controller is still available, so that player draws 2. This is different from Baited Hook, which requests information about “the killed unit," and can't find any information if no unit was actually killed.