# Riftbound Radiance Leak: Deploy, Showoff & Disarm Explained

_2026-09-08 · RiftCompare_

A photo from Riot's own PAX West demo table reveals three new Riftbound: Radiance mechanics — Deploy, Showoff and Disarm — months before the set's 23 October 2026 release. Here's exactly what leaked.

**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](/blog/riftbound-radiance-what-we-know)**. 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.

Convention demo tables are a fairly consistent, if unofficial, source of leaks across the wider TCG industry — physical reference material sits in front of hundreds of attendees for hours at a stretch, and photographing text a publisher itself printed and put on public display is a different category of information from an anonymous "leaked decklist" screenshot. That doesn't make the wording final, though. A demo build exists specifically so playtesters and curious attendees can try mechanics ahead of a full release, and it's common across this genre for a keyword's exact phrasing — or even its name — to shift between a convention showing and the card that eventually ships. Treat everything below as a strong signal of intent, not a locked specification.

## 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](/keywords/hunt)** already rewards holding a battlefield with XP, and **[Ganking](/keywords/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](/keywords/tank)**, **[Shield](/keywords/shield)**, **[Backline](/keywords/backline)**) covered in the **[combat keywords guide](/guides/riftbound-combat-keywords-explained)**.

## 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](/keywords/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](/keywords/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](/browse?q=Falling%20Star)** 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

| Mechanic | Reported card type | What it does | Closest existing keyword |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Deploy** | Gear | Grants a benefit only at one battlefield; dies if the opponent takes that battlefield | No direct equivalent — closer in spirit to Hunt/Ganking's battlefield-control tension |
| **Showoff** | Unspecified | Reveal a hand card, or point at a qualifying friendly card, for a scaling effect | Vision (reveal-based value), but from hand/board instead of the top of your deck |
| **Disarm** | Unit | Lowers an enemy unit's Might when this unit attacks | The mirror of Assault, which raises the attacker's *own* Might |

## What's still unconfirmed

- **Which actual cards carry these keywords**, and what their cost, domain or rarity is. A keyword is only as useful as the cards printed with it, and right now there isn't a single confirmed card for any of the three to point to.
- **The exact printed wording and bracket format.** Riftbound's confirmed keywords print an activation number in brackets where relevant — Assault [X], Empower [Cost] — and we don't yet know if Deploy, Showoff or Disarm follow that same convention or work differently.
- **Whether more mechanics exist beyond these three.** The leaked caption itself says Radiance has "many new mechanics," which reads as an admission that this photo only captured part of a longer list.
- **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](/guides/riftbound-deploy-explained)**, **[Showoff explained](/guides/riftbound-showoff-explained)** and **[Disarm explained](/guides/riftbound-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](/keywords/empower)**, **[Flow](/keywords/flow)** and **[Burn](/keywords/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.

## How to read a leak like this responsibly

A leak like this is worth tracking, but it's worth reading carefully rather than taking at face value — a few habits are useful here specifically:

- **Check the source, not just the claim.** A photo of Riot's own printed material at their own demo table carries more weight than a screenshotted "leaked decklist" from an anonymous account — exactly the distinction that separates this leak from the fabricated Radiance decklists we've flagged elsewhere on this site.
- **Watch for hedging language in the coverage itself**, including ours. Every mention of Deploy, Showoff or Disarm on this page uses "reportedly" or "as leaked" on purpose: none of it is locked until Riot says so directly, through an official channel.
- **Don't build a purchase decision around an unconfirmed mechanic.** None of the three has a printed card attached to it yet, which means there's nothing to actually buy — the moment there is, that's what **[Radiance pre-order pricing](/radiance-preorders)** exists to track.

This is the same bar we hold every unreleased-set claim to, and it's why none of these three keywords live on our verified **[keyword glossary](/keywords)** 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](/radiance-preorders)** already compares sealed product across stores, and our **[what's actually confirmed](/blog/riftbound-radiance-what-we-know)** 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.

Source: https://riftcompare.com/blog/riftbound-radiance-leaked-mechanics