Riot Games has shared new information about
League of Legends Trading Card Game’s most recent expansion.
Riftbound’s fourth set,
Vendetta, is set to release on
July 31st, 2026, and will be focused on the rivalries from LoL’s most iconic champions. This new expansion will feature 166 new cards, nine new Legends, three new keywords, and two new card types.
However, these new additions can make cards with low play rate garner attention, or completely break them and shift the game’s meta around them. Cards from previous expansions that gain better effects are banned to prevent a possible power creep, a card is overrepresented in an unhealthy way, or a card promotes unhealthy play patterns. These bans will take effect on July 24th, when Vendetta’s Pre-Rifts begin.
List of confirmed banned cards for Vendetta:
- Stealthy Pursuer | Unit
- The Arena’s Greatest | Battlefield
- Aspirant’s Climb | Battlefield
- Master Yi, Wuju Bladesman (2V2 ONLY)
Why are these cards banned in Riftbound?
With the introduction of Chaos and Order, a new domain pairing introduced in Vendetta, the first banned card was announced. On July 7th, Dave “Davetron" Guskin, Riftbound’s Game and Design Director, posted on his social media that Stealthy Pursuer will be the first card banned, taking effect on July 24th. This card is a Four Might, Four-Energy, and 1-Power unit from the Chaos domain that follows moving friendly units.
Stealthy Pursuer was introduced in Origins.
Stealthy Pursuer can enable a 3-card infinite when played in tandem with Eye of the Herald and Renata Glasc Industrialist. The former is a One-Energy Gear that can be attached by recycling an order rune, allowing its controller to play a One-Might Recruit unit after the unit it’s attached to moves. The latter, Renata Glasc, is a unit with Four-Might, Four-Energy, and One-Power that allows tokens to enter ready.
The combo happens when Renata has been played, and the Eye of Herald is attached to the Stealthy Pursuer. When Pursuer moves, she creates a token, readied by Renata’s ability on the battlefield she moved. You can then move the new Token and Pursuer from the battlefield to the base, create a new Token in the base, move the new Token with Pursuer to another battlefield, thus setting the infinite loop in motion.
The release of Vendetta will ban two battlefields released during
Origins:
The Arena’s Greatest and
Aspirant’s Climb. The popularity of these battlefields is unquestionable.
Riftdecks’ Riftbound Constructed Top Staple Cards List of July 2026 considers The Arena’s Greatest as the most popular battlefield, and Aspirant’s Climb slots in at fifth. According to the website’s own metric, popularity is quantified by the number of times a card has been played over a 30-day-period. “
We use the most popular card as a 100% popularity benchmark, and all other cards are adjusted in percentage based on this reference.”
Riot Games acknowledges the popularity these two battlefields have among players. However, they impacted structured play by either dragging the length of play or giving an advantage to the first player. These two were commonly used as battlefields after Game 1, when you would know if you started or not, and rewarded players in an unhealthy way.
The first Constructed 2v2 ban
The 2v2 Constructed game mode is underexplored, yet something Riftbound developers are eager to push forward. However, Master Yi, Wuju Bladesman becomes the first specific Constructed 2v2 ban. Thanks to its legend targeting friendly units, which includes your units as well as your allies, it has consistently overshadowed other legends in the format.
This is the final 1v1 Constructed ban list, which will take effect starting on July 24th:
Photo Credit: @TrickJarrett on X