How to Play
The board, the turn, the card types and every keyword — before you play a single game.
A card game with a board
Most trading card games line the two sides up facing each other. Riftborn Tactics puts your creatures on a 7×7 grid instead. They enter play at your corners, walk out across the board, and fight over ground — where a creature is standing decides what it can reach and what can reach it.
Each turn you collect Resources equal to your level, spend them on cards, move and attack with the creatures you already have, and try to bring your opponent to zero Health. The full rules are on this page. Nothing is held back for sign-up.
The modes
Standard is where everyone starts. Blitz and Guardian unlock after ten Standard games.
Alliance Coming Soon
Not released yet.
The Board
Standard is played on a 7×7 board. You sit at the bottom of it and your opponent at the top. Your two summoning tiles are the two bottom corners, which is where you play your creatures.
Two towers sit halfway up the left and right edges, the same distance from both players. Whoever captures a tower with a creature extra experience at the start of their turns, so most games are decided by who takes them and who can hold them.
Levels, Experience, and Resources
You earn experience every turn, and more of it for playing cards, killing your opponent's creatures and holding towers. Enough experience raises your level.
Your level is your income: at the start of each turn you get that many Resources to spend, and anything you do not spend is gone when the turn ends.
Card Types
- Creatures: enter play on one of your summoning tiles. Once on the board they can move and attack.
- Spells: resolve once and are then discarded. They deal damage, provide healing, grant buffs, or move creatures around.
- Weapons and Armour: equip to your player. Weapons let you attack directly; armour keeps you alive longer.
On Your Turn
- Collect Resources equal to your level.
- Play cards from your hand by spending them.
- Move creatures, and attack with them.
- End the turn. Unspent Resources do not carry over.
Other Mechanics
- Retaliation: a creature that is attacked hits back for half its current Attack, rounded down. Attacking a healthy creature costs you something.
- Attack of Opportunity: walking a creature out from beside an enemy takes half that enemy's Attack, rounded down. Disengaging is not free.
-
Tokens: small counters that sit on a creature.
- Rage: +1 Attack
- Health: +1 Health
- Weakness: −1 Attack
- Decay: −1 Health
How to Win
Bring your opponent to 0 Health. Nothing else ends the game.
The Board
No 7×7 grid here. Each side has a formation five files wide and up to three ranks deep, with your front rank facing your opponent's. Creatures enter play in your formation and fight straight across the file they stand in.
Because everything is decided by file and rank rather than free movement, range and reach work differently to Standard. Check a card's keywords before you commit to it.
Levels, Experience, and Resources
You earn experience every turn, and more of it for playing cards and killing your opponent's creatures. Enough experience raises your level, and your level is how many Resources you collect at the start of each turn. Unspent Resources do not carry over.
Card Types
- Creatures: enter play in your formation and advance up their file toward your opponent.
- Spells: resolve once and are then discarded.
- Weapons and Armour: equip to your player. Weapons let you attack directly; armour keeps you alive longer.
On Your Turn
- Collect Resources equal to your level.
- Play cards from your hand by spending them.
- Move creatures within your formation, and attack across their file.
- End the turn. Unspent Resources do not carry over.
Other Mechanics
- Retaliation: a creature that is attacked hits back. Only the Range keyword avoids it; Flight does not.
- Attack of Opportunity: moving a creature out from beside an enemy still costs it damage.
-
Tokens: small counters that sit on a creature.
- Rage: +1 Attack
- Health: +1 Health
- Weakness: −1 Attack
- Decay: −1 Health
How to Win
Bring your opponent to 0 Health. Nothing else ends the game.
Guardian
Your chosen Hero is your Guardian and always starts in your opening hand, costs 2 less the first time you play it, and each time it is truly killed it returns to your hand and costs 1 more on its next play.
The Board
No 7×7 grid here. Each side has a formation five files wide and up to three ranks deep, with your front rank facing your opponent's. Creatures enter play in your formation and fight straight across the file they stand in.
Because everything is decided by file and rank rather than free movement, range and reach work differently to Standard. Check a card's keywords before you commit to it.
Levels, Experience, and Resources
You earn experience every turn, and more of it for playing cards and killing your opponent's creatures. Enough experience raises your level, and your level is how many Resources you collect at the start of each turn. Unspent Resources do not carry over.
Card Types
- Creatures: enter play in your formation and advance up their file toward your opponent.
- Spells: resolve once and are then discarded.
- Weapons and Armour: equip to your player. Weapons let you attack directly; armour keeps you alive longer.
On Your Turn
- Collect Resources equal to your level.
- Play cards from your hand by spending them.
- Move creatures within your formation, and attack across their file.
- End the turn. Unspent Resources do not carry over.
Other Mechanics
- Retaliation: a creature that is attacked hits back. Only the Range keyword avoids it; Flight does not.
- Attack of Opportunity: moving a creature out from beside an enemy still costs it damage.
-
Tokens: small counters that sit on a creature.
- Rage: +1 Attack
- Health: +1 Health
- Weakness: −1 Attack
- Decay: −1 Health
How to Win
Bring your opponent to 0 Health. Nothing else ends the game.
Every keyword
These appear on card text throughout the game. The same table is available from the card catalog.
Keywords
| Keyword | Trigger | Description |
|---|---|---|
| AURA(X) | Always Active | Applies a continuous effect to all friendly creatures within X tiles. |
| BLOCK | On Attack | Prevents Retaliation damage when attacking. |
| CHARM | As Action | Target adjacent creature cannot attack on their next turn. |
| DASH(X) | On Move | Creature can move up to X tiles per turn instead of only 1. |
| DEPLETED | When Played | When played, the card is removed from the game instead of going to the discard pile. |
| DORMANT | Always Active | Creature cannot move, use actions, give Attacks of Opportunity, or Retaliate |
| DOUBLE ATTACK | On Attack | Attack twice, with the second attack further defined per creature. Retaliation damage is receieved for each attack and both attacks go to the same target, unless stated otherwise. |
| DRAW(X) | When Played | Draw X cards from your deck. |
| FLIGHT | Always Active | Creature can move over and on top of any other creature without FLIGHT. Creatures with FLIGHT cannot be attacked by non-RANGE creatures in a different tile. |
| HASTE | When Played | Creature is able to use its action on the same turn it is played. |
| HEAL(X) | As Action | Restore X Health to target adjacent creature or player. |
| HERO | Always Active | You may only have a single copy of a card with HERO in your deck, but can have multiple different HERO cards in the deck. |
| MAGIC | Always Active | Does MAGIC damage when they attack, bypassing RESISTANCE. |
| MORALE(X) | Always Active/As Action | Friendly adjacent creatures receive +X Attack, but using the creatures action can change it to grant +X Health instead. |
| PACIFIST | Always Active | Creature cannot attack. |
| PACIFY | As Action | Target adjacent creature cannot use their action on their next turn. |
| PIERCE(X) | When Attacked | Up to X amount of Retaliation damage bypasses BLOCK. |
| RAGE(X) | After Damage Received | Creature gains X Rage tokens when it takes damage. |
| RANGE(X) | On attack | Creature can attack targets up to X tiles away. |
| READY(X) | As Action | Creature increases the damage of its next attack by X. |
| REGEN(X) | End of Turn | Creature heals for X at the end of its turn. |
| RELENTLESS | After Damage Dealt | When this creature defeats an enemy creature, it automatically moves to the defeated creature's tile. |
| RESISTANCE | When Damaged | Takes half damage (rounded down) from non-MAGIC attacks, Attacks of Opportunity, and Retaliation. |
| ROOTED | Always Active | Creature cannot move. |
| SCRY(X) | When Played | Look at the top X cards of your deck and return them in any order. |
| SIPHON | After Damage Dealt | Heal for the amount of damage dealt. Does not trigger on Retaliation. |
| SPELL | As Action | Further defined per creature. |
| SPY(X) | When Played | Look at the top X cards of your opponent's deck and return them in the same order. |
| STEALTH | When Played | Creature enters the field face-down and flips face-up when using its action, if its attacked, or if one of its effects are triggered (eg TRICK). Creatures with STEALTH can only be attacked by adjacent creatures. |
| SUMMON(X) | As Action | Place X of the defined creature(s) adjacent to the creature using the action. |
| SWARM(X) | Always Active | The creature's Attack and Health are multipled by X and it loses all other keywords. |
| TRANSFORM | As Action | Creature is discarded and replaced with the defined Token creature. |
| TRICK | When Played/Always Active | When played, the player may choose an unchosen Trick card to play face-down near the board. If the conditions on a played Trick card are met, the owner removes it from play and chooses a TRICK effect from one of their living creatures with TRICK to activate. TRICK abilities can be activated any number of times. |
| UNDEATH | On Death | For each UNDEATH, the creature returns to life with 1 Health. Each UNDEATH on a creature can only trigger once for that creature. A creature with UNDEATH is only considered killed and grants experience once all UNDEATH on the creature have been resolved or removed. |
| VANGUARD | Always Active | Creature does full damage when delivering Retaliation or an Attack of Opportunity. |
Ready to take the field?
Making an account takes a minute. You start with gold, a tutorial that walks you through your first decks, and a practice opponent to try them against before you queue for real.