Homemade Best Of cards: the store that rewards the best player of every Legend
Goblin, a store group with its main club in Istanbul and a sister shop in London, came up with the simplest, most charming prize we have seen this year: it keeps a separate leaderboard for every Legend and, when the season ends, the player with the most points on that champion receives a custom-printed Best Of card with the store logo on the front. There is only one per Legend. A photo of a Nasus taken in Istanbul landed on r/riftboundtcg on Thursday night, and in the comments the London players recognised the logo: the league is the same there, and the Tuesday Nexus Night tops eighty players.
The ideaOne leaderboard per Legend, one trophy for whoever leads it
The mechanism is described by the original poster, who plays at Goblin Oyun Kulübü in Istanbul. Through the season the store tracks tournament points Legend by Legend: results with Nasus go into the Nasus column, results with Ahri into the Ahri column, and so on. When the season closes, the leader of each column gets the Best Of version of that Legend. The card carries the store logo in the bottom right corner, a "Best Of" banner where the set would be, and a completely white back: this is not a Riot or UVS product, the store prints it.
The side effect is the part players love most: it pays to run the Legends nobody else is running. The poster says it outright: he is going after Ahri, Teemo and Azir, because hardly anyone at his store brings them. A local league prize that pushes people off the meta, with no bans and no special formats.
The storesFrom Kadıköy to London, with an 85-player Nexus Night
Goblin Oyun Kulübü sits in the Caferağa neighbourhood of Kadıköy: it is the oldest game club in the area, open for about ten years, with more than four hundred board games on the shelves. For Riftbound it runs a Thursday Nexus Night that has drawn between 12 and 23 players in recent weeks. Under one comment, though, someone recognised the logo: the same league is run by Mythic Goblin, the sister store in London, for the Nexus Night of every set. And there the numbers change scale: the Tuesday Nexus Night of the Vendetta season drew 71, 85, 62, 78 and 82 entrants across its five weeks, according to the public UVS locator data, the same data that feeds our world ranking.
In London the prize has a second half: whoever wins the Best Of for a Legend is invited to an end-of-season tournament reserved for the winners. A user added a photo of six more cards already printed, Annie, Azir, Ezreal, Ahri, Irelia and Fiora, each with an alternate illustration taken from League of Legends skins: those are the ones at the top of this page.
The valueWhat they really are, and what they are not
This was the hottest debate in the comments. The honest answer is that a store-made Best Of is a trophy, not a card: it is not legal in sanctioned events, it has no market and it will not get one. Those who compare them to proxies are technically right but aim at the wrong target: nobody wins these to resell them. You win them to pull them out of the binder ten years from now and remember a season at a store. For the store, the cost is close to zero and the return in attendance is the whole point.
Not to be confused with the official Best-of Legend cards, the metal ones Riot puts up at Regional Qualifiers: one per champion per event, awarded to the best-placed Main Event player on that Legend, and tournament legal. We covered them in our guide to the Regional metal cards.
| Store-made Best Of | Official Best-of Legend | |
|---|---|---|
| Who prints it | The store | Riot Games, in metal |
| Where you win it | Nexus Night league, one season | Main Event of a Regional Qualifier |
| How many | One per Legend per season | One per champion per event |
| Tournament legal | No | Yes |
| Value | A keepsake, no market | Collectible, and high |
The comments also surfaced variations: another store 3D-prints a Best Of for each Legend modelled on the Overnumbered cards and gives them away at Skirmishes, others make tokens and alternate arts for other card games. The logic is always the same: an object that exists only there, for those who were there.
Why it matters to us. Weekly Nexus Nights are multiplying in Italy, and every store asks itself the same question: how do you get people back the following week? This is an answer that costs one print run and a bit of bookkeeping: one Best Of per Legend, a leaderboard on the wall, a champions' tournament at the end of the season. If your store tries it, or is already doing it, let us know: we will gladly write about it and put the cards on the page.
In short
- Goblin Oyun Kulübü (Istanbul) and Mythic Goblin (London) print one Best Of card per Legend: it goes to whoever ends the season with the most points on that champion.
- Only one per Legend per season, store logo on the front, white back: unofficial, not tournament legal, no market value.
- In London the winners also play an end-of-season tournament; the Tuesday Nexus Night reached 85 entrants.
- The best side effect: it pushes people to play the Legends nobody brings.
Source: post by u/TheLastCookieForever on r/riftboundtcg and its comments (u/ryusi for Mythic Goblin and the second photo). Photos: u/TheLastCookieForever and u/ryusi. Tournament figures from the public UVS Games locator. Club details from Google Maps and local Kadıköy press.
Spotted an error?
To send a report you must first log in or sign up: it only takes a few seconds.