Radiance Pre-Rift: what is in the kit and how it plays
From October 16 to 22 participating stores run the Pre-Rifts, Riot’s official prerelease events: you play with Radiance a week before it reaches the shelves. Everyone opens a Pre-Rift Kit holding five 14-card boosters and one pack pre-built around one of the nine new Legends, and anyone who signs up gets the Heimerdinger, Academy Instructor promo while supplies last. Radiance goes on sale on October 23.
In the boxFive boosters and a deck that is already half built
Riot sums the kit up in a single line: five Radiance boosters plus a seeded pack for each of the nine Legends in the set. “Seeded” means the pack is not random. Riot put it together on purpose, there is one version per Legend, and which one you get is the surprise waiting inside the box.
The missing detail arrived today from Player2, the Australian site Riot invited to the Radiance Summit held on September 29 at the Santa Monica campus. The seeded pack holds 15 cards already chosen around one Legend, and the five boosters are there to take you to the 25-card minimum a deck needs to be Pre-Rift legal. Half the job is done for you: you pick the other ten cards from whatever you just opened. Radiance boosters hold 14 cards each, so the kit also hands you seventy cards on top of the starting deck.
It works like Sealed with a shortcut. In plain Sealed you start from a blank page; here you start from a list that already functions and you fix it.
Pre-Rift
Prerelease events at participating stores: Radiance cards on the table before launch day.
Release
Radiance goes on sale in English, French and Chinese.
The promoHeimerdinger, Academy Instructor
Signing up earns you a copy of Heimerdinger, Academy Instructor while supplies last. It is a Champion Unit costing 6 energy with 5 might, numbered RAD 132/167, carrying the PRERELEASE stamp across the art: if you would play a unit token to a location while he is at a battlefield, you may play a 3 might Mech unit token there instead. In practice he turns the small tokens you make anyway into bigger bodies, as long as you keep him on the contested field.
One warning. At the summit the promo was explicitly off-limits for deck construction, as Player2 reports from the room. Riot’s official page does not say whether the same rule applies at in-store Pre-Rifts, so ask your organiser before you count on sleeving it.
Signing upThe events live on the official site
Pre-Rifts are booked through the store running them, and the listing sits in the Events section of playriftbound.com, the same tool Riot used to pair the tables at the summit. Registration goes through your RiftID, the Riot account tied to Riftbound. Set it up now rather than on the night: r/riftboundtcg already has players reporting they could not register for a Pre-Rift even with an account ready. If your store is not listed, ask them directly, because the organiser is the one who opens the event.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Pre-Rift | Riot’s official prerelease: you play the new set the week before it launches. |
| Sealed | You build your deck only from the cards you opened on the spot. Nothing comes from home. |
| Seeded pack | A pack Riot assembled on purpose rather than at random: nine versions exist, one per Legend. |
| Legend | The card that stays outside your deck and sets your colours and game plan. You only need one. |
| Champion Unit | The unit version of a champion: played from the deck like any other card, usually the strongest one you have. |
Why it matters for us. For Italian players the Pre-Rift is the first way to touch Radiance without waiting for October 23: one kit means five boosters, a half-built deck and the promo, plus a real table on which to try Deploy, Show Off and Disarm instead of just reading about them. Moving early pays, because seats are set by the store and the promo runs out. One thing to plan for: the cards will be in English, since Radiance ships in English, French and Chinese and Italian is not on the list.
The short version
- Pre-Rifts run October 16-22 at participating stores; Radiance goes on sale October 23.
- Each kit: five 14-card boosters plus a 15-card seeded deck built around one of the nine Legends, to be finished up to the 25-card minimum.
- Signing up earns Heimerdinger, Academy Instructor (RAD 132/167) while supplies last; at the summit it was not legal for deck construction.
- Registration runs through the Events section of playriftbound.com and needs a RiftID, so prepare it in advance.
Source: Riot Games — The Radiance Overview and Player2 — Radiance Summit 2026 Recap. Images: Riot Games.
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