Riftbound: Vendetta Hands-On Preview: Zed vs. Shen Showdown Deck and New Keywords - IGN

Riftbound’s Vendetta is the League of Legends trading card game’s anticipated fourth set, and I got to go hands-on with the new Zed vs. Shen Showdown deck at Riot’s HQ before its release later this month. I played with Riftbound senior designer Jon Moormann, who spoke in depth about the new mechanics and keywords: Empower, Burn, and Flow. Before getting into my actual (all-too-short) experience testing out the Zed vs. Shen Showdown deck, here’s some background about those new keywords and some insight about them from Moormann. A keyword in Riftbound is, to put it as simply as possible, a mechanic shared across cards. For example, Unleashed introduced the keywords Ambush and Hunt. So when a new one is introduced, we can expect new strategies to emerge. Here’s what you need to know about three new keywords introduced in Vendetta: Empower is a state you can activate on your turn usually for a cost–either runes or a trigger, like banishing a card. In exchange, the now-Empowered card gains an extra ability or effect. For example, the Legend Akali’s normal Action effect is, “If it’s your turn, move a friendly unit in a showdown to base.” If you Empower her by exhausting three runes and r