So we finally found some Riftbound packs, and look, I’m not gonna pretend like that wasn’t a whole mission. These things have been basically impossible to track down since the game launched and I dunno, maybe that’s just what happens when you release a League of Legends card game and every LoL player on the planet suddenly decides they need to open packs right now. You know what I’m saying.
But Tanner and I, we got our hands on a Jinx champion deck and 10 booster packs and yeah, we filmed the whole thing. This is what happened.
The Riftbound Scarcity Problem Is Real
I wanna be real about this because when I say these are hard to find, I mean we’ve been trying for a while. And this isn’t even our first time opening Riftbound. If you saw our first Riftbound video where we pulled a $70 Kai’Sa, you already know we’re kind of invested in this game. and getting back to do more packs has been way harder than it should be.
It’s not like I haven’t been looking either. I’ve walked into Target and found empty pegs where the Riftbound display should be. Checked Walmart a couple times. same story. There’s this weird specific thing where you find the little shelf label with the price tag still on it and just… zero product. Just vibes and cardboard air. The only physical copies I’ve seen in stores were already in somebody else’s cart, and at that point you just have to respect the hustle.
Part of why the scarcity is so intense right now is that Riftbound launched into a massive built-in audience. League of Legends has something like 100 million registered players, and even if only a fraction of those people got curious about the card game version of the IP they’ve already sunk years into. that’s still an enormous wave of demand hitting a product that clearly wasn’t manufactured at the scale needed to meet it. Riot has said more product is coming, but “more is coming” doesn’t really help when your kid is asking when we’re opening packs next.
So the Jinx champion deck. the starter deck. comes with a deck box, a paper playmat, a booster pack included, and the actual deck itself. We grabbed 10 booster packs on top of that. And when you’re going 5-and-5 with your kid on pack openings, those 10 packs go fast. Like I think we blinked and were suddenly on pack seven.
The pack opening mechanics with Riftbound are still kind of annoying, I’ll say that. The packs don’t tear down cleanly the way Pokémon packs do, and Tanner’s exact words were something like “if you’re the person who made these, you’re fired.” I mean. He’s not wrong. When you have to physically fight your own booster pack just to get it open, that’s a design issue. That’s just a fact.
What Even Is Riftbound (For The Uninitiated)
Okay real quick. because I know not everyone clicking on a pack opening video has any idea what this game actually is. If you’re a Pokémon parent who ended up here because your kid dragged you in, here’s the 30-second version.
Riftbound is a trading card game built on the League of Legends universe. All the champions from the game. Jinx, Yasuo, Vi, Darius, Kai’Sa, hundreds more. are now cards in a physical TCG. If you never played LoL, these are just cool-looking character cards with really impressive art. If you did play LoL, these are like running into old friends in a completely different context and you immediately have opinions about who got represented well and who got a bad card.
The game plays differently than Pokémon. Different resource system, its own mechanics around champions and runes. it feels like its own thing rather than just a reskin of something you’ve already seen. Whether it’s going to become a serious competitive TCG or mostly a collector’s product is still genuinely an open question. But the cards are gorgeous, the IP is massive, and there’s clearly an audience here. Whether Riot can keep the shelves stocked is the only real question mark.
What Came in the Jinx Champion Deck
The Jinx champion deck is pretty much what you’d expect from a starter deck in any TCG. built to be playable right out of the box, mostly commons and stuff, nothing crazy rare. But you get your champions, which is the whole point.
We pulled Jinx cards (obviously. it’s the Jinx deck), a Vi card which Tanner was pumped about, and Blaze and Scourge. The big highlights in any champion deck are really those champion cards, and everything else is what gives you a functioning deck to actually learn the game with. The rune cards round everything out in the back.
Here’s what I think people miss about starter decks. they get written off as “nothing valuable” pretty fast. But for a game like this where you’re brand new, the starter deck is genuinely the right first purchase. You get a cohesive strategy already built, you understand how Jinx as a champion is supposed to interact with the other cards, and you can actually sit down and play a game without needing to research a deck list first. We’ve tried the “just buy a bunch of boosters and figure it out” approach with Pokémon and it’s not as fun as having a deck that already has a plan in it.
Tanner immediately wanted to keep the Vi card separate because Vi is one of his favorites from the actual video game. That moment kind of hit me a little. the crossover between the game world he already loves and this physical card in his hand is doing exactly what Riot wanted it to do. You’re not just buying cards. You’re buying something that connects to something you already care about.
Is opening it exciting? Kinda, honestly. The starter deck is more of a “this is how the game works” product than a “holy crap are we getting rich” product. But that’s fine. That’s what it’s supposed to be.
The 10-Pack Opening: What We Actually Pulled
Okay so this is the part people come for. We went 5-and-5. Tanner and I taking turns. which is how we always do these. Started comparing cards every pack, like which art piece is better, which card wins in a face-off, and guys, Tanner has opinions. Strong ones. He picked wrong constantly but I love him for it.
Some highlights:
Stormfall URS came out of the Jinx deck bonus pack and it’s genuinely a nice card. Textured, gold foil treatment. the kind of card you hold up and go “okay, that’s actually cool.” Alternate art, numbered 193A. Not the biggest hit in raw dollar value but it looks great and that matters.
We also pulled a Yasuo at one point and Tanner lost his mind a little bit, which. I get it. Yasuo is one of those cards where even if you don’t know the TCG yet, you know Yasuo is a big deal from the actual video game. Tanner held it up like he was presenting it to an audience and declared it the best pull of the session before we were even halfway through. Zero patience for the reveal. Just announces the winner immediately. That’s him.
And then there was the moment. You know the moment in any pack opening where someone catches a glimpse of something and goes “I think I got a big hit” and then makes everyone rewind? Yeah. Tanner did exactly that. Told everyone to rewind the video and watch at 0.25 speed to try to spot the card before he flipped it. Whether or not it was the monster pull we were hoping for… you’re gonna have to watch the video for that one.
Darius showed up a couple times, and honestly Tanner’s favorite card visually ended up being Captain Ferrron just because of the art. and I genuinely cannot argue with him on that one. There’s something about the full-art cards in this set where the artist clearly put in serious work and you can tell. It’s the difference between a card you sleeve and put in a binder versus one you throw in a penny sleeve and shove in a box somewhere.
We had a few packs where nothing particularly notable came out, and those packs are honestly kind of useful for the video in their own weird way because they’re realistic. Not every pack is a banger. Sometimes you open five cards and go “yep, those exist.” That’s the hobby. It’s always been the hobby.
One thing worth knowing if you’re new to Riftbound and coming from Pokémon. the numbering system works differently. For the big chase cards you’re looking for numbers past 298. Anything under that is really a regular card, even with foil treatment. Kinda like how Pokémon works with full arts and alt arts being the highest numbers in a set. Once you understand that, it changes how you feel about the pulls you’re getting. We spent the first couple packs genuinely unsure whether we were hitting anything good because we just didn’t know the numbering system yet. and I think that’s pretty common for people jumping into a new TCG mid-release.
The Card Art Debate (This Is A Real Thing We Do)
One thing we’ve been doing more in the videos lately is the head-to-head card art comparison. pull two cards, Tanner and I each pick a winner based purely on which one looks cooler. Sounds dumb. Honestly it’s become one of my favorite parts of filming these because it turns into a real debate every single time.
Riftbound has a lot to work with here because the card art is legitimately good across the board. Even cards that aren’t worth anything in collector value can have incredible art, and that’s part of what makes the debate actually interesting. A common card with a beautiful illustration versus a foil rare with okay art. what do you pick? Tanner almost always picks based on which champion he personally likes more from the game, which is valid, and I try to pick based on actual illustration quality, and we just absolutely disagree constantly.
It’s low-stakes, nobody gets hurt, there’s no wrong answer. just the two of us having opinions and laughing about it. If you’ve got a kid who’s into cards, add this to your pack openings. It keeps everyone engaged even through the slower packs where the pulls aren’t exciting.
Riftbound vs. Pokémon: A Dad’s Take
Look. I’ve done a lot of Pokémon openings with Tanner at this point. We’ve done everything from Prismatic Evolutions boxes to Mega EX packs, so I feel like I’ve got some real baseline to compare from now.
Riftbound is genuinely fun and the art on a lot of these cards is incredible, especially if you have any history with League of Legends and actually recognize the champions. The problem right now is twofold. One, finding the packs is genuinely hard. Two, because it’s a brand new game, you dunno the values yet. We were pulling cards and going “okay is this good?” and kinda guessing based on how the card looked.
That’s actually kind of fun in its own weird way. We’re figuring it out together in real time, same as everyone else who’s new to the game right now, and there’s something kind of cool about being early to something before all the knowledge is already out there. With Pokémon, I can pull a card and look it up on TCGPlayer in ten seconds and know exactly what it’s worth. With Riftbound we’re still in the wild west phase. pricing is all over the place, the market is still sorting itself out. Some people love that. Some find it frustrating. I’m kind of in the love-it camp, honestly.
The pack opening experience itself. being completely honest. isn’t as satisfying as Pokémon from a pure physical sensation standpoint. The packs are harder to open and the foils don’t have quite the same feel yet. But the game itself looks genuinely interesting and I think this one has legs if they can keep the product available. Right now the scarcity is doing them a favor for hype but it’s also just annoying when you’re the person trying to actually buy packs.
One other difference I’ve noticed. the secondary market situation are really different. Pokémon has thirty years of data and infrastructure behind it. Dedicated price tracking sites, buylist tools, grading services that know exactly how to handle the cards. Riftbound is building all of that from scratch, which means if you pull something you think is valuable, figuring out what to actually do with it requires more legwork right now. That’ll change as the game matures, but for now it’s just part of the experience of being an early adopter.
The “Going Poor For You Guys” Reality
We’ve gotten to the point in these videos where Tanner will look at the camera and say “we’re literally going poor for you guys” and at this point it’s kind of his catchphrase, and it’s not totally wrong, and every time he says it I’m just like. yeah son. Content creation is a journey. Here we are.
Buying 10 booster packs plus a starter deck isn’t free. If you’re thinking about getting into Riftbound yourself, packs are running around $5-6 retail, starter decks are in the $15-20 range, so you’re looking at roughly $70-80 for what we did here. if you can even find the product at retail price. On the secondary market with the current scarcity? Add a markup. Booster boxes are going for significantly over retail on eBay right now and that’s just the reality.
Do I think it’s worth it? Yeah, actually. Not from a pure investment standpoint necessarily, but from the “afternoon with my kid doing something we both enjoy” standpoint. worth every penny. We spend two hours opening packs, arguing about card art, filming the whole thing, and I get to watch Tanner genuinely light up when he pulls something he recognizes from the game he already loves. You can’t put a dollar value on that.
If you want to find Riftbound packs for yourself, I’d check Amazon first because at least there you can set up alerts without driving to three different stores only to find empty shelves. Fair warning though. the secondary market markup is real right now. Local game stores are sometimes a better bet than big box retail because they tend to have smaller allocations that don’t get swept by scalpers as fast.
Tips For Actually Finding Riftbound Packs
Since I’ve spent enough time hunting these down to feel like I’ve learned things the hard way, here’s what I’d actually suggest:
Check your local game stores first. Not GameStop. I mean actual dedicated TCG and hobby shops. These places get allocations separately from the big box retailers and sometimes have stock when everywhere else is empty. They usually have a restock waitlist too.
Set up Amazon alerts. Seriously. The in-stock notifications are more reliable than checking manually, and product shows up there before it hits store shelves half the time anyway.
Check the Riftbound subreddit and Discord. The community has gotten really good at calling out restock alerts when stores get new product in. Crowdsourced inventory tracking and honestly it works.
Don’t pay scalper prices if you can help it. I know it’s tempting when you just want to open some packs right now, but paying 3x retail feeds the whole cycle. The FOMO is real but it passes.
Starter decks are sometimes easier to find than boosters. They’re not as exciting to scalpers and the margins are different, so champion decks sometimes sit on shelves a little longer. If you’re just getting into the game, a starter deck plus whatever boosters you can find is a totally reasonable starting point anyway.
Key Takeaways
- The Jinx champion deck is a solid starter product for learning the game. don’t expect massive hits but you get playable cards and the champions are genuinely cool
- Pack opening UX is still rough. harder to open than they should be and Tanner wants someone fired over it, which honestly tracks
- Stormfall URS was the best pull of the session. alternate art, textured, legitimately nice looking card
- Yasuo and Darius showed up and made us happy even if they weren’t monster dollar cards
- Chase cards are numbered above 298. if you’re coming from Pokémon this helps calibrate expectations fast
- Scarcity is real. if you see packs in the wild, grab them, because finding them in store has been genuinely hard since launch
- The secondary market is still sorting itself out. pricing is inconsistent and the infrastructure Pokémon has is years away, so being early means doing more legwork to understand what you pulled
- Local game stores > big box retail for actually finding product right now
Final Thoughts
I dunno. Every time we do one of these card opening videos I remember why I started doing them in the first place. and it’s not really about the pulls. It’s about sitting there with Tanner and having this thing we do together where we’re arguing about whose card art is better and he’s making declarations about which pulls are wins and which are trash and half the time he’s wrong but honestly that’s fine.
We don’t always pull a $70 Kai’Sa. Sometimes we pull a Pit Rookie and a Smoke Screen and call it a day. That’s kind of the whole deal with this hobby. and I think that’s also why it works as content. Because anyone who’s ever opened packs knows that feeling of hoping for a hit and landing somewhere in the middle. The excitement is built on the uncertainty, and if every pack was a guaranteed banger the whole thing falls apart. The variance is the product.
What I will say about Riftbound to be specific is that the ceiling feels high. The IP has the fanbase, the card art is genuinely impressive, and if Riot can solve the production and distribution issues there’s no real reason this can’t become a serious player in the TCG market alongside Pokémon and Magic. Whether that happens in year one or takes a few years to get there, I genuinely don’t know. But we’re gonna be here opening packs through the whole ride regardless, so you might as well subscribe and watch us figure it out together.
We’ll keep hunting for more Riftbound when it shows up, and yeah. Tanner will keep going poor for you guys. Subscribe so it’s at least worth it for him.
If you’re into card game content and haven’t seen our MTG Collector Booster session, check that out too. We’ve covered a few different TCGs at this point and we’re basically just card game addicts at this point and I’m fully okay with that.
Until next time. Peace out.