Riftbound only just got its English release, but this League of Legends TCG has been available in China since the beginning of August, and it recently saw its first big tournament.
The Shanghai Major took place on the weekend of November 1, with 2,000 people battling it out for first place, and it seems to have revealed that the game's first set, Origins, has a fairly limited competitive meta - at least right now.
A whopping 43% of players opted for the top deck, led by Kai'Sa, and it ultimately won the tournament. Master Yi was very popular too, and together these two archetypes completely dominated the top 8. So is this Kai'Sa deck, which plays a bunch of spells that are made cheaper with your Legend's ability, too strong, and does Riot need to bring down the banhammer?
"Not necessarily," says the game's director Dave Guskin, who we spoke to recently.
"She's kind of showing up as one of the decks to beat, you know? But I think there are other decks up there. Master Yi is still one of the decks to beat. I think that there are variants of Dazzling Aurora decks, including Master Yi, that are good. I think there's a Teemo deck and a Victor deck that are both quite strong. So I think there's some diversity, you know."
He adds that on some level he'd prefer to have all 16 Legends be equally competitively viable, but that it's better to have a meta that evolves over time, with a 'best deck' that players can look for the tools to beat, than have everything be "equal and boring".
On the topic of card bans, Guskin makes similar points to those we've heard from designers of other TCGs, like Magic: The Gathering. Which makes some sense; he was previously with Wizards of the Coast, after all.
"It's all about the trade-offs," he says. "There's a pretty big cost of banning a card. You have to tell somebody who shows up to the local store. 'Oh, you can't play with that'. And that's a pretty big feel bad, especially if people are invested in that card." He points out that if a card is strong, it makes it more desirable and more valuable, which means there's a bigger impact to banning it.
On the flipside: "Of course, there are positive consequences to banning. You can potentially help a meta game get out of stagnation. You can help people feel like it's worthwhile for them to go to events, right?"
Riot doesn't want to be scared to ban something if that's what the situation calls for, but Guskin says, "I don't think we're in a spot where we're going to take action right now." But he does suggest there's enough happening that he'll be monitoring the situation month on month, to see "is something a problem, or is it just something people need to adapt to?"
If bans do take place, Guskin says Riot will make sure it's very clear about them ahead of schedule. "I want to be really open with the player base around - here's the why; here's when it's happening. We want to give you some time to adapt. Those are all really important to me."
We also spoke to Dave about the future of Riftbound - you can learn more about that here. Or check out the Wargamer Discord to join forces with a bunch of likeminded tabletop nerds.