EXCLUSIVE REVEAL: This Riftbound Radiance Card Turns Your Tired Board Into a Weapon - VICE

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Riftbound players, meet your new favorite way to ruin someone’s turn. 

For this Radiance preview, I get to exclusively reveal one card from the set, and Riot Games handed me a perfect match. I wish you could feel my utter and absolute enthusiasm writing this, as my Riftbound: Radiance card reveal is…

“High Note”—a Seraphine spell that doubles as a pep talk for anyone who’s ever played from behind.

Riftbound: Radiance is the fifth set in Riot’s League of Legends trading card game. It launches October 23, and it’s built around performing your best under the brightest lights. Especially if you’re building a deck with Seraphine—the pop-idol Legend who happens to be one of the set’s faces. 

I’m a longtime K-pop and ’90s girl group devotee, and I’m planning on building my main Radiance deck around her. So revealing this card has me gleefully cheering/screaming/crying like I’m in the audience watching Seraphine perform.

High Note costs 3 and is a Spell with Reaction, which means you can play it any time, even before other spells and abilities resolve. When you do, you give a unit -Might this turn equal to the number of exhausted units you control. The flavor text is Seraphine’s “This one’s for you!”

Because here’s the translation: the more tired your board is, the harder the hit. Three exhausted units means a -3 Might swing this turn, aimed at a unit on the other side of the table.

I play from behind more often than not. That means deploying a lot of units at once in desperation and hoping for the best, with most of them entering exhausted. I’m not claiming it’s a “good” strategy. It’s just the one I keep ending up with… in every single match.

High Note takes that habit and turns it into a payoff. The wider and more exhausted my board gets, the bigger the hole I can punch into a stronger enemy unit, whether that’s decreasing their Might by one or two, or four, if you’re playing like me (… not recommended).

The Reaction timing is what sells it. High Note isn’t just a main-phase trick. You can fire it mid-Showdown, right when your opponent thinks the math is settled, and change the outcome of a fight that looked lost.

Obviously, there’s also a bit of built-in tension. The card rewards a wide, exhausted board, which is also the kind of board that’s easy to overextend. Whether High Note is a comeback button or a trap for the desperate is something I’ll find out a lot more about after launch. But “everything’s coming up Milhouse” in theory in my mind.

There are also nine new Legends, including K’Sante, Orianna, Ekko, and Ziggs. Neeko also arrives as the game’s first neutral domain Champion Unit, playable in any deck. 

And for collectors, there’s a second Ultimate Rare in fewer than 0.025% of packs, musically inspired Alt Art Runes, and a new Collector’s Binder. To be honest, they’re pretty damn sick, but I won’t rest until every Seraphine card is in my possession.

Radiance hits shelves October 23, with Pre-Rift events at local game stores October 16 to 22. If you don’t want to wait, here are some Riftbound products you can grab right now: