Riftbound 2027 Local Play

With Legacy on the horizon, we're taking a deeper dive into the upcoming programs for you to join at your local game store. As Riftbound grows and we have seen more about how you play and want to play, we will re-evaluate and improve our play programs.

Our vision for Riftbound play is to build two play programs which help us serve the different types of players in Riftbound: a Competitive ladder that serves players striving to compete and a separate structure that we've cleverly named 'Fun-petitive' to provide a structure that rewards players for being active at their local game stores and is less about the drive to win and more about the drive to socialize and participate.

At the core, good play programs are about incentivizing and rewarding players for playing the way they want to play, and we feel Riftbound is served best by building both of these tracks.

This isn't to say these are two separate pools of players. While you may be drawn to one or the other, there are certainly times the streams will cross, and you will be able to play in both. Good communities thrive on the diversity of their players.

Pre-Rift events will remain a staple of our play programs. The Legacy Pre-Rifts will kick off January 22, 2026, and run through January 28, 2026. Pre-Rifts will fall primarily in the Fun-petitive side of the play programs, but we have no doubt players who are driven by mastery will join alongside players who are looking to just hang and play some card games.

Summoner Skirmish Sunset & Bye-Back Details

Compare this to the soon-to-be sunset Summoner Skirmish program. As we shared in the State of Play article, this program was found to be in an awkward position. It had great promos and cool playmats our social players wanted to chase, but also Byes that our most competitive players were driven to farm. The mixed incentives, combined with the challenges we outlined around the bye-reward program, led us to rethink our store programs and land on the new Nexus Cup & Challenger Series programs.

With the announcement of Summoner Skirmish's coming retirement, we shared that we were working on plans for any unused Byes that you earned but were unable to use. We've got that update for you here.

If you have any unused Summoner Skirmish byes you will be able to redeem them at any Regional in 2027. You can do so by contacting UVS after registering for the event and emailing OP@uvsgames.com. The UVS support team will be able to implement this bye for you ahead of the event. Emails must be sent no later than 14 days prior to the start of the event. You can also implement the bye on-site at the event when you pick up your badge, ahead of the start of the main event.

If you cannot, or do not want to redeem any earned byes, we will be offering to replace them with a promo from Set 7, The Reckoning. We will be sharing it with players in the future when we open the redemption for this promo next year.

We'll be back with more information about how it will work as we get closer, but we do have answers for some of your most important questions about this program now:

1. Byes will be redeemed 1-for-1 with the promo (multiple byes receive multiple promos).
2. This promo will only be available via this redemption program.
3. Redemptions will need to be completed by December 31, 2027, at 11:59:59pm Pacific.

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Now, on to the new programs launching in January with Legacy.

Nexus Cup

Nexus Cup asks the question "Who's the local champion?" This is a per-set event at LGS aimed at crowning your store's best. The Nexus Cup doesn't feed up into the competitive programs; it's about local recognition and bragging rights.

While we did reveal the promo from The Reckoning, we aren't going to be revealing any Legacy promos today. What we can share is that the prizing for Nexus Cup will look like the following:

Prizing will look familiar to Summoner Skirmish players in that the promos will be:

• Winner & Top 8 promos - Sharing the same card, with unique stamps to denote the placement
• Winner playmat
• Participation promos - A unique promo for players who compete in the event.

As we note in the other article today about the play programs, we are working on a 'Fun-petitive' play program, we'll share more details on that in the future.

Challenge Series

This is a per-set program which will be available to select Riftbound Gaming Network stores. As this directly feeds into the competitive ladder, we want to maintain a certain bar for stores to meet to qualify to run these events so as to give players the best experience and minimize issues as they begin their ascent up the ranked ladder.

If you haven't read it yet, be sure to read the other article today as it will give a much deeper overview of the competitive program, introduce Ladder Points, and dive into the benefits it affords as players rise in the ranks. We won't delve deeply into the details of it here, but here's a quick introduction.

Ladder Points are the points players earn as part of competitive Riftbound events. Ladder Points raise your rank on the Ladder, and each rank awards you benefits. You earn Ladder Points based on your finish in competitive events. Challenge Series award Ladder Points if you finish in the Top 32 of the event.

As 2026 made clear, many of you are hungry for the competitive challenges of Riftbound, and the Challenge Series is to help fill that demand.

Challenge Series events will award both promos and Challenge Points to competitors. For the launch of this series the rewards will look as follows:

These promos will be of the same card with unique stamps to denote a winner vs a Top 8 finisher. As with the Nexus Cup, we aren't ready to reveal the promo for this yet, hang in there.

Since we're sharing a great deal about the organized player programs for 2027 in this and the other article, we know you have questions and the community will raise issues to address. Stay tuned for updates or follow-ups based on the community conversations.

If you want to understand more about the larger program, Ladder Points, the ranked ladder and more - learn more in the other article today.

Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for stores to begin listing these events so you can register and compete as part of Legacy in 2027!