# How a Riftbound Deck Is Built

_2026-06-06 (updated 2026-08-04) · RiftCompare_

Legend, Champion, main deck, runes, battlefields and the 10-card side deck — the anatomy of a Riftbound deck, explained with real examples.

New to Riftbound deckbuilding? A constructed deck is made of a few distinct parts. Here's how the current tournament lists are put together.

## The parts of a deck

- **Legend (1)** — your identity card. It sets your deck's direction and which Champion you build around (e.g. *Master Yi, Wuju Bladesman*).
- **Champion (1)** — your signature unit, tied to your legend (e.g. *Master Yi, Tempered*).
- **Main deck (~40 cards)** — your **Units**, **Gear** and **Spells**. This is where most of your strategy lives.
- **Runes (12)** — your resource cards. Their colours must match your deck's **domains**.
- **Battlefields (3)** — the locations you contest during the game.
- **Side deck (up to 10)** — extra cards you can swap in between games at tournaments. This went up from 8 in the [July 2026 tournament rules update](https://playriftbound.com/en-us/news/announcements/july-2026-tournament-rules-update-changelog/), effective **24 July 2026**.

Add it up and a full tournament list is **66 cards** (56 in the main deck plus a full 10-card side deck).

Two rules govern what can go in that side deck:

- **No Runes, Legends or Battlefields.** Those live in their own zones and can't be sideboarded.
- **The 3-copy limit is shared.** You may run at most 3 copies of a card across your main deck and side deck *combined* — 3 in the main leaves you 0 in the side.

## Domains and runes

Riftbound has seven domains — **Fury, Calm, Mind, Body, Chaos, Order** and **Colorless**. Most competitive decks commit to **one or two** domains (for example *Master Yi* is Body/Calm, while *Irelia* is Calm/Chaos). Your 12 runes are split to match those domains, which is how you reliably cast your cards.

## Building on a budget

A deck's cost is dominated by a handful of chase cards — the commons, runes and battlefields are cheap. On every **[meta deck page](/decks)** we show the build cost broken down card-by-card and priced in your own market, so you can see exactly where the money goes and where to save. Want to tweak a list? Open it in the **[Deck Builder](/deck)** to re-price your own version.

## Mulligan: keep or ship your opening hand

After you draw your opening hand you get one chance to mulligan — shuffle back any number of cards and redraw that many. A good keep usually has:

- **Enough runes to cast your early plays** — a hand with no resources, or all resources and no spells, is a mulligan.
- **Something to do on your first few turns** — a cheap unit or a tempo spell so you're not passing turns.
- **A plan that matches your domains** — if your runes can't cast the expensive cards in hand, ship the dead weight.

Against aggressive decks, keep cheap blockers and removal; against slower decks, you can keep a slightly greedier hand with your stronger mid-game cards.

## Sideboarding between games

At tournaments you play best-of-three, and between games you can swap up to your full side deck (**10 cards** since 24 July 2026, up from 8) in and out. The idea is to tune your deck to the matchup: bring in extra removal against go-wide decks, more resilient threats against control, or anti-aggro tools when you're on the back foot. Plan your swaps **before** the event — for each common matchup, decide which cards come out and which come in, so you're not guessing at the table.

The two extra slots are worth more than they look. Eight slots usually forced you to cover only the two or three matchups you expected most; ten lets you keep a dedicated answer for a fourth deck without cutting your core plan, which is exactly why the change landed alongside Vendetta and its sideboard-oriented designs.

Want to try these ideas out before committing? **[Price the final deck](/deck)** across every store first, so you know exactly what the build costs before you buy.

Source: https://riftcompare.com/guides/how-a-riftbound-deck-is-built