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Riftbound has finally hit a rite of passage all of the best card games have to go through; its first banlist. Seven cards have been axed in total, all in an effort to better balance the competitive game.
Chief amongst these are cards that form what players are calling "Miracle" decks, headed up by a Chaos Legend. These are highly effective but take up a significant amount of time in Riftbound tournament play, and developer Riot explains in a new post that it doesn't consider "this style of deck to be healthy." Draven, Vanquisher is also being scrapped because it's leading to decks that are better and more prevalent than Riot would like. Finally, a trio of Battlefields are being added to the Riftbound banlist because they are starting to define the game.
Annoyingly, getting your hands on Riftbound is easier said than done right now. I've only been able to find stock of the upcoming Unleashed set at TCGPlayer, and otherwise it's been all about older expansions at Amazon (such as the Spiritforged booster box and Rumble Champion Deck) along with Walmart.
Here's everything that's on the Riftbound banlist:
- Called Shot
- Fight or Flight
- Scrapheap
- Draven, Vanquisher
- Dreaming Tree (Battlefield)
- Obelisk of Power (Battlefield)
- Reaver’s Row (Battlefield)
In terms of specifics, the Miracle deck cards that are being targeted are Called Shot and Scrapheap because they "allow the player to filter through their deck AND get ahead on cards at a pace that’s too efficient (free)." Similarly, Draven, Vanquisher has an incredibly powerful turn-two play that could easily leave opponents behind. Meanwhile, Fight or Flight is out too because of its dominance over Chaos decks. Indeed, it has "proven to be powerful enough to crowd out other reasonable designs."
As for Battlefields, these three are being canned due to them encouraging less than ideal styles of play – be it Reaver's Row allowing players to avoid showdowns or Obelisk of Power for "being ubiquitous among the most powerful decks and for reducing interesting deckbuilding decisions."
What do you think about these changes?
- See all Riftbound deals at Amazon
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