# Riftbound Radiance Release Date & What's Known

_2026-08-27 · RiftCompare_

Riftbound: Radiance releases 23 October 2026 with nine new champion Legends and a new Ultimate Rare tier. Every confirmed date, product and price so far.

**Riftbound: Radiance releases on 23 October 2026.** It is Set 5, its base run is **167 numbered cards**, it brings **nine new champion Legends** (six named, three not), and it adds a new **Ultimate Rare** chase tier. Since this page was first written Riot has also published the set code, pulled Preview Season's start forward to **25 September**, and revealed the first Legend in full — the distributor sheet has put a price on every product, and, on 19 September, the **first Radiance card was photographed in print**. All of that is below. What is still *not* here is the card list, because it has not been revealed, and the internet is already full of Radiance "leaks" that are nothing of the sort.

## Radiance at a glance

| | |
| --- | --- |
| **Set number** | 5 |
| **Set code** | **RAD** (published by Riot; hashtag #RBRadiance) |
| **Release date** | 23 October 2026 |
| **Preview Season** | 25 September – 9 October 2026 |
| **Pre-Rift events** | 16 – 22 October 2026 |
| **Card count** | **167 base run**, from the printed 167/167 on the first card seen. Riot announced 180 including 66 Showcase; unreconciled |
| **New champion Legends** | 9 — Seraphine, Evelynn, Ekko, Ziggs, Jarvan IV, Orianna, and 3 unrevealed |
| **New chase tier** | Ultimate Rare: Packed Amphitheater, 184/167 (shown 3 October) |
| **Tagline** | "Own the Stage. The World is Watching." |
| **Card list revealed?** | **No** — one Legend, one T1 promo and one photographed card (Neeko) are all that is known in full |

## The Radiance launch schedule

Riot has published dates for the whole run-up, not just street date. Four of them matter if you are buying:

| Date | What happens |
| --- | --- |
| **25 – 27 September 2026** | **Preview Season opens at the Regional Qualifier: Los Angeles.** The first official reveals land at the event that closes the 2026 qualifier season. |
| **28 September – 9 October 2026** | **Preview Season continues.** Cards are revealed a handful a day. This is when the set stops being a list of facts and becomes a card list. |
| **16 – 22 October 2026** | **Pre-Rift events.** Local stores run sealed events with the set a week before street date, which is also when the first singles start changing hands. The Pre-Rift Event Kit itself ships to stores on 16 October. |
| **23 October 2026** | **Street date.** Every other product — boosters, displays, the Vault, the Showdown Decks — and singles go on general sale. Riot's Regional Championships follow in November. |

Two practical notes on that calendar. First, **Pre-Rift week is when a new set's singles are at their most volatile** — supply is a handful of event boxes and demand is everyone who wants to build immediately, so early prices are almost never the prices a card settles at. Vendetta's singles started trading several days ahead of its official 31 July street date for exactly this reason. Second, **pre-order prices move during Preview Season**, not at release: once the chase cards are known, stores that priced a box before the reveals adjust. Our **[Radiance pre-order comparison](/radiance-preorders)** tracks every store's price daily through both windows, and the countdown itself lives on **[Riftbound release dates](/release-dates)**, which also offers an add-to-calendar file.

## Every Radiance product, and what Riot's distributor says it costs

Riot's rundown names four product lines — booster packs and displays, the Evelynn vs Seraphine Showdown Decks, a Vault bundle and Pre-Rift kits — and UVS Games, Riftbound's distributor, has published the contents and US MSRP of each. Those are list prices, not what any store is charging: pre-order prices sit above and below them, which is what the **[Radiance pre-order comparison](/radiance-preorders)** is for.

| Product | What is inside | US MSRP | On sale |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Booster pack** | 14 cards (see below) | US$4.99 | 23 October |
| **Booster display** | 24 packs | US$120 | 23 October |
| **Radiance Vault** | 6 booster packs, 36 basic runes, 3 full-art foil promo tokens, a storage box and 2 dividers | US$34.99 | 23 October |
| **Showdown Decks: Evelynn vs Seraphine** | Two 56-card preconstructed decks, 2 playmats, 2 booster packs, 2 deck boxes | display of two sets: US$139.96 | 23 October |
| **Pre-Rift Event Kit** (stores) | 16 player kits — each a 15-card mini-deck built around one of the nine new champions, 5 boosters and a Pre-Rift promo — plus a 24-pack display for prizes | US$480 | 16 October |

Three things fall out of that table that are worth more than the table itself.

**The Vault is not a discount on packs.** Six packs at pack MSRP is US$29.94; the Vault is US$34.99. You are paying about five dollars for the runes, the three foil tokens and the box — which is fine if you need runes (a new player does) and poor value if you already own a set. Buy it for the tokens or not at all.

**A Pre-Rift seat is the cheapest way to open Radiance early.** US$480 across 16 players is US$30 a head at MSRP for five packs, a playable mini-deck with the champion's Legend and Unit, and a promo. Stores set their own entry fees, but any fee near that number is five packs at list price with the deck and promo thrown in — and it is the only Radiance product you can open before 23 October.

**The Showdown Decks are the beginner product, priced like one.** A display of two sets at US$139.96 implies roughly US$70 for two full 56-card decks, two playmats and two boosters — a two-player start with nothing else needed. It is also the only place either Evelynn's or Seraphine's cards are guaranteed to be, which is why it is the product to watch if either champion is the reason you are here.

## What is in a Radiance booster pack

The distributor sheet lists the pack as **7 Commons, 3 Uncommons, 2 foil Rares or better, 1 foil of any rarity and 1 token slot** — the same 14-card structure every Riftbound set has shipped with, and the one our **[pack opening simulator](/games/pack-sim)** deals. Nothing about pack composition changes for Radiance. The change Riot has announced for booster packs — a Common slot becoming a Legend-or-Battlefield slot — belongs to **Legacy** in January, not to this set.

## The Ultimate Rare

Riot's rundown adds one line that older sets' announcements did not have: Radiance will include **a new Ultimate Rare card**. *Updated 7 October:* it is **[Packed Amphitheater](/card/packed-amphitheater-rad-184-167)**, a Battlefield numbered 184/167, shown at the Radiance Creator Summit. riftbound.gg, which reported it on 3 October, puts an Ultimate Rare at about 0.025% of Radiance packs, against 0.1% for Baron Nashor; treat that as a second hand figure until Riot's own page says it. Riot has said Ultimate Rares will not necessarily appear in every set. What was known before the reveal still holds: where it sits — above the overnumbered treatment, which until now was the top of the ladder short of a Signature print — and that it is a single card, not a tier of dozens.

The community credits **Unleashed's Baron Nashor** as Riftbound's first Ultimate-tier card, which makes Packed Amphitheater the second. Treat the precedent as community record rather than Riot's own framing; Riot's wording is simply "a new Ultimate Rare card." For a set that is already 37% Showcase, one more tier at the very top concentrates a box's value in still fewer slots — the same dynamic that keeps Origins' chase cards expensive, pushed a step further.

## Where Radiance sits in the release order

Riftbound has shipped five sets so far — Origins (298 cards), Origins: Proving Grounds (24), Spirit Forged (221), Unleashed (219) and Vendetta (166). Radiance is the sixth release and the fifth mainline set.

**A printed collector number has now settled this, and it settled it on neither answer.** This section used to lay out two readings of Riot's "180 (66 Showcase)" — an inclusive one making Radiance's base run about **114 cards** (the smallest mainline set ever) and an exclusive one putting 180 between Vendetta and Unleashed — and said we would not pick the flattering one because we did not yet know which the printed collector numbers would settle on.

They have. The first Radiance card photographed in print, **[Neeko, Blending In](/blog/riftbound-neeko-blending-in-spoiler)**, reads **RAD · 167/167 · EN**. So the base numbered run is **167**: slightly larger than Vendetta's 166, comfortably smaller than Unleashed's 219, and nothing like the 114 the inclusive reading implied. Showcase printings will be numbered above it, exactly as in every earlier set.

We are not going to pretend that reconciles with Riot's announcement, because it does not. 167 is not 180, and 167 + 66 Showcase is not 180 either. One of three things is true — the announced figure changed, it counted something outside the main numbering, or it was never precise — and we do not know which. What we do know is which number is printed on cardboard, and that is the one this site now uses everywhere, including in how it matches a "x/167" listing to the right set.

The **Showcase density** is the figure still resting on Riot's announcement alone: 66 Showcase cards, which against a 167-card base is a very high share by this game's standards. A high Showcase share concentrates a box's value in fewer, rarer slots, which is the dynamic that keeps Origins' top cards expensive. Treat the 66 as announced-not-verified until a Showcase card is photographed too. The full release calendar, including what follows Radiance, is in our **[set roadmap](/blog/riftbound-2027-set-roadmap)**, and the complete release order is in **[every Riftbound set, in order](/guides/riftbound-sets-in-order)**.

## The nine champions — and the one Legend Riot has actually shown

Riot has confirmed six new champion Legends: **Seraphine**, **Evelynn**, **Ekko**, **Ziggs**, **Jarvan IV** and **Orianna** — and said three more are still to be revealed. The total is nine, and it is now pinned down from a second direction: the Pre-Rift kit's mini-decks come in **nine champion variations**, one per new Legend.

All six named champions are League of Legends champions without an existing Riftbound Legend, so each one is a genuine debut rather than a reprint. Riot hasn't said whether the same is true of the remaining three.

**Ekko is the one Legend revealed in full.** *Ekko, Boy Who Shattered Time* was teased at Gen Con and detailed in Riot's own first-look article in August: a **Fury/Mind Legend** built on **[Empower](/keywords/empower)**, the mechanic Vendetta introduced. As previewed, you may disempower Ekko to make your next unit cost **2 energy and 1 power less**, and that unit is **killed at the end of the turn**. That is a cheat-a-threat-in-then-lose-it design — the kind of ability that wants units with enter-the-board effects, or ways to make the sacrifice not matter. It is also the clearest signal yet that Radiance extends Empower rather than retiring it, which matters for every Empower deck bought during Vendetta. *Ekko, Ingenious* is his Champion Unit, and only its art has been shown.

**Evelynn and Seraphine** headline the Showdown Decks and the box art. Riot has shown the art for *Evelynn, In Control* and reporting from the Vancouver reveal places her in the Chaos domain; her card text has not been published. Seraphine's *Not Alone* is fully known because it is already in print (below). Beyond that, nothing about domains, abilities or which existing champions get new printings has been said — and we are not going to guess, because a wrong domain guess is the kind of thing people build purchase decisions on. When the reveals land, they will appear on the **[Radiance set page](/sets/radiance)** with live prices, exactly as Vendetta's did.

## The first Radiance card seen in print: Neeko

On **19 September 2026**, days before Preview Season opens, a photograph of a physical Radiance card surfaced: **Neeko, Blending In** — a **6-energy, 4-Might Neutral Champion Unit**, numbered **167/167**, art by Luscinia Studio. It is the first Radiance card anyone has held rather than heard about, and it is already in our database with a live price page.

Its text changes deckbuilding rather than the board: if Neeko is in your deck you choose **three extra Legends** alongside your starting one, and playing her adds one of them to your Legend Zone for as long as she is on the board. We have pulled that apart properly in **[the Neeko spoiler breakdown](/blog/riftbound-neeko-blending-in-spoiler)** — including why a *Neutral* card that touches the Legend Zone is a bigger deal than a 6-drop's stat line suggests.

**On the leaks.** A photo of Riot's own PAX West demo material showed three new mechanics — Deploy, Showoff and Disarm — which we covered in **[the Radiance mechanics leak](/blog/riftbound-radiance-leaked-mechanics)**, hedged throughout. Since then, purported card text for several Legends has circulated from anonymous social-media accounts. We are not reproducing it here: a demo table Riot set up in public is a source; a screenshot with no provenance is not. Preview Season, which opens 25 September, is when this stops being a question.

If you want the wider picture of who is already in the game, we maintain **[which League of Legends champions are in Riftbound](/guides/league-of-legends-champions-in-riftbound)**.

## The odd one out: a Radiance card that already exists

Here is the genuinely strange detail about this set, and the one thing about Radiance you can look up right now.

**Seraphine, Not Alone is a Radiance card — and it has already been printed.** She was one of the five cards in the **[Riftbound x T1 2025 Worlds Champion Collection](/blog/riftbound-t1-worlds-champion-collection)**, distributed through a Riot Merch Store drawing months before her own set ships.

[[embed:0]]

That creates a situation with no precedent in Riftbound: a card that physically exists, that people own, and that **is not legal for sanctioned play** — because the set it belongs to has not released. Anyone who won a T1 box is holding a card they cannot play until 23 October.

It is also a small, useful signal about the set. Seraphine being pulled forward for a marquee collaboration suggests she is a headline card in Radiance rather than a background one. That is inference, not confirmation — but it is inference from a real, verifiable fact rather than from a rumour.

## What this means if you buy cards

Three things are worth thinking about before release, and none of them require knowing the card list.

**Launch windows are the most volatile pricing a set ever has.** In the first weeks after a release, a huge amount of product is opened at once while nobody yet knows which cards matter. Prices swing hard on very few trades. If you are buying to play rather than to speculate, waiting past the initial rush usually means better information and calmer prices — the full mechanism is in **[why Riftbound card prices change](/guides/why-riftbound-card-prices-change)**.

**Sealed is comparable before singles are.** Booster boxes and preconstructed products are usually listed and priceable before singles exist, so if you intend to open Radiance rather than buy into it, the **[sealed comparison](/sealed)** is where to watch first. Whether opening is actually the cheaper route is a question our **[box EV guide](/guides/riftbound-booster-box-ev-worth-ripping-or-buying-singles)** answers properly — and the honest answer usually depends on the singles market that does not exist yet.

**A new set moves the old ones.** Radiance will change what decks want, which moves Vendetta and Unleashed prices in both directions — up for cards the new archetypes need, down for cards they replace. Watching **[price movers](/movers)** through the launch window tells you which is happening far more reliably than predicting it in advance.

## What we will publish, and when

We are not going to run Radiance speculation. What we will do, from 25 September as the reveals are real — starting with **[the live Radiance spoiler tracker](/blog/riftbound-radiance-spoilers)**, a dated reveal log around a gallery that fills itself as each card is imported:

- **The full card gallery**, filterable by domain, rarity and type, straight from our database.
- **Live prices on every card**, compared across every store we track in each market's own currency.
- **The chase tiers** — Signature, overnumbered, alternate-art and promo printings — as they are confirmed.

Until then, the **[release calendar](/release-dates)** has the exact time remaining, and **[the Vendetta set page](/sets/vendetta)** shows what that coverage looks like once a set is actually out.

Source: https://riftcompare.com/blog/riftbound-radiance-what-we-know