Opinion: With Spiriftorged, Riftbound needs to address its trust crisis

Last Friday (30), Riot Games announced that Riftbound players can now mix cards from different languages in competitive decks, effective immediately.

The community celebrated — more cards available for tournaments and price spikes for Chinese cards that will eventually lead to cheaper tags across all languages due to increased supply and a lower entry cost for the card game.

But this decision tells another story. During the Origins cycle, it was argued that mixing languages was impossible. After all, American and Chinese cards, printed with different materials, could be identified by touch and texture. The risk of cheating made sense —until Friday, when it suddenly didn't.

The narrative this timing creates is one of a company that didn't plan this change with competitive integrity in mind, but because Origins became a logistical disaster and needed a quick exit from a scarcity problem before the launch of Spiritforged, the game's second expansion, which promises to rekindle interest among part of the consumer base and attract new players.

The Origins cycle ends with the memory of stores without product, players without cards, scalpers operating inside and outside distribution channels, and the promise to increase Riftbound production to meet demand. When? Nobody knows. It could be in the next set; it could be in 2027.

The same problem is found in the recent decision to mix languages: there's a lack of clear communication about the why and the how. Even judges don't have a very clear idea of how to proceed from now on; for some, the line between identifying a marked card and understanding that players might use more expensive cards in Chinese isn't clear enough.

It's up to Riot to provide a more detailed statement for such an important decision from a competitive standpoint. They chose not to, at least not with the same speed as the new rule's implementation.

This vagueness — whether intentional or not — erodes the game from within. If Riot had planned language mixing for when French cards entered production or when Riftbound's launch was simultaneous worldwide, they would have had time to test materials, create protocols, and prepare judges for the changes. But a decision with immediate effect shows all the signs of sheer improvisation, perhaps even desperation to clean up their image before the new set's release.

The controversies around Origins drove players away due to prices and low availability. It's no use saying "buying singles is better than opening product"; humans enjoy the feeling of opening packs, and the prices of some cards in this cycle were beyond acceptable even for the card game crowd, let alone for League of Legends fans having their first — and unpleasant — experience with a TCG.

Major events in the United States had low attendance in January, partly due to snowstorms, partly due to disinterest under the reasoning that the Origins Metagame is outdated since Spiritforged has already launched in China. Another issue that will only be addressed by the end of the year with simultaneous releases, so a set won't lose its relevance months ahead of schedule because everyone is looking at the future Metagame.

The result is tournaments with $25,000, $10,000, and $5,000 in prizes having a turnout incompatible with the entry cost and prize pool — organizers lost money, and those who lose money don't persist with mistakes. There are no guarantees of future growth, and the obvious choice would involve reducing the prize pools for future events.

In Brazil, a tournament in São Paulo with a R$ 10,000 (roughly US$ 1,900) prize pool attracted 52 people. Fifty-two. Perhaps due to premature planning or poor marketing, or perhaps this is the peak that Riftbound can currently achieve in the country for a single event. Skirmishes and weekly tournaments emptied out as the game moved further from its official release date — which was delayed by almost a month due to low supply.

Just like the many players selling their collections on and off global marketplaces, the reasons may vary: the hype might have faded, maybe they're preparing for the new Metagame, or the League of Legends card game doesn't inspire confidence.

The Bologna and Las Vegas Regionals take place at the end of February. If cards with different materials can be identified inside a sleeve, we'll see cheating cases multiply and culminate in the terrible dilemma between reversing the decision and further breaking the already fragmented stability the game still has or creating stricter rule enforcement to identify marked cards, accompanied by clear communication.

If they can't be identified and the Regionals proceed smoothly, the obvious question will remain: why didn't this decision come earlier, when it could have alleviated the Origins scarcity crisis?

Riot can say that Spiritforged will be cheaper and more available. It doesn't matter — the first impression has already been made: Origins showed an expensive, poorly distributed game managed through improvisation.

There's a lack of preparedness in judging, stability in planning, and design decisions — like combat rulings that benefit Draven and make him an imminent threat to the future Metagame — show an absence of strategic vision or a long-term plan too distant for the player base to perceive and believe in.

Riftbound can improve. A year from now, it might be stable. Two years from now, it might dominate the TCG market like no other game has. But today it faces the worst problem a competitive game can have: it doesn't inspire confidence.

Card game players invest money, time, and energy into sets. They need to believe that the company behind the game knows what it's doing, that there will be product, that the rules are solid, and that they won't wake up tomorrow to another improvised decision or to the uncertainty of whether they'll be able to follow releases before scalpers do their thing.

Riftbound doesn't offer that right now. Consequently, it fails to provide the minimum necessary to earn player dedication. Without trust, it fails to build a community. Without a community, there is no game.