Evelynn gets her Legend, and Radiance starts paying for hidden cards
Evelynn's Radiance Legend surfaced on Reddit on the afternoon of September 30: card 153/167, and every time you play a card from face down you draw another one. A few hours earlier Riot had shown Bandle Scouts' Academy, a battlefield that pays you for hiding cards. Together the two previews point the same way: Radiance wants hidden cards to become a real deck, not a two-card afterthought. One caveat: the Legend has only been seen in the Chinese print and Riot has not published it, so the English name and wording may still change.
First things firstWhat a hidden card actually is
If you have been away for a few months, start here. Otherwise skip to the next section.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Hidden | A keyword that has been around since Origins. You pay one rune of any colour and put the card face down on a battlefield. Later you flip it and play it for free, even on your opponent's turn. You pay today to surprise tomorrow. |
| Legend | The card that sits outside your deck and decides which colours the deck can play. It is effectively the deck's name: "playing Evelynn" means having this card in front of you. |
| Battlefield | One of the locations players fight over. Whoever holds it at the end of the turn scores, and many battlefields carry an effect that applies to both players. |
| Gold gear token | A single-use piece of equipment. Sacrifice it and it gives you a rune of any colour: a coloured energy chip to spend when you need it. |
| Exhausted | The card comes in turned sideways and cannot be used until it readies, usually at the start of your next turn. |
The LegendEvelynn draws every time you flip something up
Translated from the Chinese print, the card reads: "Once per turn, when you play a card from face down position, draw one. Then, if it is not your turn, discard a card." That is a draw engine bolted onto an action that used to give you nothing extra: hiding a card cost a rune and stopped there, now that rune also buys a draw.
The second sentence is the brake. Flip on your opponent's turn — the moment a hidden card is worth the most, because it catches them out — and you draw but then discard: your hand size stays the same, only its contents change. Flip on your own turn and the draw is clean. Once per turn you have to pick: surprise, or card advantage.
The card shows two domains, Body (orange) and Chaos (purple), and those are the colours the deck will be allowed to play. Purple is Evelynn's home — she already has two Radiance champion units tied to hidden cards — while orange is the new part.
The battlefieldBandle Scouts' Academy makes hiding almost free
This is the other half of the day and, unlike the Legend, it came through Riot, published on PCGamesN. Bandle Scouts' Academy (157/167) is a battlefield that reads: "When you hide a card here, play a Gold gear token exhausted."
The maths is simple: hiding costs a rune, and sacrificing the token gives one back. It arrives exhausted, so the refund is not immediate, but over a few turns the battlefield turns hiding from a cost into an investment. And it works for both players: it is a location, not your card.
Evelynn · 153/167
Legend, Body and Chaos domains. One draw per turn when you play a card from face down; outside your turn you then discard. Seen in Chinese only.
Bandle Scouts' Academy · 157/167
Battlefield. Hiding a card there gives you an exhausted Gold gear token, which when sacrificed produces a rune of any colour.
The bigger pictureAn old keyword with a new job
Hidden is not a Radiance invention: around sixty cards in the catalogue already carry it, from Stand United to Block, and it is one of the tools Heron decks lean on. What was missing was a reason to build a whole deck around it rather than slot two or three copies into a list. This week's previews are starting to supply that reason.
| Card | Number | What it does with hidden cards | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evelynn (Legend) | 153/167 | Draws when you play a card from face down | Reddit, Chinese print |
| Bandle Scouts' Academy | 157/167 | Gold gear token every time you hide there | Riot preview |
| Evelynn | 109/167 | Scores an extra point when she holds a battlefield where you have a hidden card | |
| Evelynn, Consuming | 090/167 | Readies and gains +1 Might when you play a card from face down | |
| Bedeviling Stranger | 107/167 | Hidden unit: bounces an enemy unit where four or more units stand | bubo.ig via Reddit |
Apart from Bandle Scouts' Academy, all of these come from community photos rather than Riot channels. Each one, with its image and its source, is in our spoiler section.
Why it matters for us. Radiance releases on October 23 and preview season closes on the 9th: anyone in Italy already thinking about the set's first tournament now has the first recognisable archetype to work with, and will need to prepare to play against it too. A hidden-card deck changes how you attack: on every battlefield where your opponent has a card face down you have to account for a free reaction. That said, the Legend so far exists only in Chinese and has not come through Riot, so it is worth waiting for the official previews before preordering anything on the strength of it.
In short
- Evelynn's Radiance Legend (153/167, Body and Chaos) draws a card once per turn when you play one from face down; outside your turn you then discard.
- It has only been seen in the Chinese print, on Reddit: Riot has not confirmed it and the English name is unknown.
- Bandle Scouts' Academy (157/167), this one official, gives a Gold gear token every time you hide a card on that battlefield.
- Hidden dates back to Origins, but this is the first set to build an archetype around it.
- Radiance releases on October 23, 2026; previews run until October 9.
Source: r/riftboundtcg (u/SenlanZWH), PCGamesN and The Radiance Overview. Images: Riot Games.
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