Riftbound Radiance Leak: Deploy, Showoff & Disarm Explained

Three unreleased Riftbound: Radiance mechanics have leaked from Riot's own demo table at PAX West — Deploy, Showoff and Disarm — photographed and shared publicly by Riftbound content creator AskJoshy. This isn't a Riot announcement and it isn't a baseless rumour either: it's a photo of physical reference material Riot itself put in front of players at a public convention, months ahead of Radiance's confirmed 23 October 2026 release. Here's exactly what the photo shows, what each keyword appears to do, and — just as importantly — what still isn't known.

Where this leak actually comes from

Riftbound content creator AskJoshy posted a photo to Facebook of a physical rules-reference card from Riot's demo setup at PAX West 2026, captioned: "There are many new mechanics in the Radiance set!" The text in the photo is legible enough to quote directly, which puts this in a different category from the fabricated "leaked decklists" already circulating for Radiance that we've warned readers about elsewhere. It is still not an official Riot reveal, though, and reference material shown at a demo table is exactly the kind of thing that can be reworded, renamed, or cut entirely before a set goes to actual print. Everything below is reported, not confirmed — treat it accordingly.

Worth noting: the photo's own caption says Radiance has "many new mechanics," and only three are legible in this particular shot. That phrasing on its own suggests this is a partial list, not the complete set of what's changing.

Deploy: gear with a built-in expiry date

"Play this gear only to a battlefield and it will grant benefits while there. When an opponent holds that battlefield, kill this gear."

As leaked, Deploy is a Gear keyword tied to one specific battlefield. You don't get its benefit everywhere — only at the battlefield you deployed it to — and if your opponent takes that battlefield away from you, the card doesn't just stop working, it dies outright.

That's a real design tension, not a minor drawback. Hunt already rewards holding a battlefield with XP, and Ganking already lets a unit reposition from one battlefield to another. A Deploy card raises the stakes on a fight you're already having: hold the battlefield and you get an ongoing benefit on top of whatever else is happening there; lose it and you're down a whole card, not just a bonus. If the leak holds up, Deploy decks will likely want ways to actually defend a battlefield once they've committed a Gear to it — which points toward the same defensive combat keywords (Tank, Shield, Backline) covered in the combat keywords guide.

Showoff: a payoff that depends on what you reveal

"As you play this, you may reveal a card from hand or choose a friendly card that meets the listed criteria. The card's effect will change based on what is shown off."

Showoff, as leaked, is a modal, reveal-based effect — you play the card, then either show a card from your hand or point at a friendly card already in play that fits some printed condition, and the effect scales with what you showed. That's meaningfully different from Riftbound's existing reveal mechanic, Vision, which looks at the top of your own deck rather than your hand or board. Showoff instead seems to reward deckbuilding around a specific type, domain, or stat line the card is checking for — but without a single confirmed Showoff card yet, its actual power level is impossible to judge. A card that wants you to reveal an Epic-rarity Unit is a completely different build-around than one checking for the biggest Might on your board, and the leak doesn't tell us which.

Disarm: reportedly Assault's mirror image

"When this unit attacks, decrease the Might of an enemy unit here."

This is the mechanic AskJoshy's own caption calls out directly, framing it as "the inverse of Assault." That comparison holds up against the actual rules text: Assault gives the attacking unit +X Might for the duration of combat. Disarm, as leaked, instead takes Might away from an enemy unit when this unit attacks — a debuff aimed at the opponent's board rather than a buff to your own stats.

The caption also suggests Disarm "can pair well with direct damage spells like Falling Star" — a real card already in the game: Falling Star is a Fury-domain Spell from the original Origins set. The logic checks out even without knowing Disarm's exact numbers: shrink a blocker's Might first, and a fixed amount of direct damage goes a lot further toward actually killing it. If Disarm decks end up leaning on that kind of stacked-damage plan, it would put them in the same lane as Fury's existing direct-damage tools rather than introducing a brand-new archetype from scratch.

Deploy, Showoff and Disarm at a glance

What's still unconfirmed

• Which actual cards carry these keywords, and what their cost, domain or rarity is.
• The exact printed wording and bracket format — Riftbound's confirmed keywords print an activation number in brackets (Assault [X], Empower [Cost]); we don't yet know if Deploy, Showoff or Disarm work the same way.
• Whether more mechanics exist beyond these three — the leaked caption itself implies there are more.
• Whether the names or wording survive to release at all. Preview-season terminology shifting before a final print run isn't unusual in this genre, and this is Radiance's first mid-cycle mechanic leak, so Riftbound itself hasn't set a precedent either way yet.

We've written a dedicated deep dive for each of the three — Deploy explained, Showoff explained and Disarm explained — but every one of them carries the same caveat this roundup does, all the way through. We add a keyword to our verified reference glossary — the way Empower, Flow and Burn got added for Vendetta — only once we can check the exact wording against Riot's own Core Rules PDF or an official card image. None of Deploy, Showoff or Disarm have cleared that bar yet.

What to actually do with this before release

Nothing here is buyable yet — Radiance doesn't release until 23 October 2026, and none of these three cards have been shown. If you want to track the set as real information lands, Radiance pre-order pricing already compares sealed product across stores, and our what's actually confirmed roundup is where we keep everything Riot has said on the record, updated as it changes. We'll publish a proper keyword page for any of these three the moment Riot — not a demo-table photo — confirms it.