Riftbound: Radiance Rarest Cards - Riot Games Music Crossovers Dominate the Set

Radiance, the fifth Riftbound set, features rare showcase cards inspired by Riot Games' Heartsteel, True Damage, and K/DA. Explore all the Overnumbered cards in the set, along with the rarest card in the entire TCG.

Riftbound's newest collection, Radiance, is right around the corner, and with a new set of exciting mechanical cards, there's a whole host of cool collectibles worth chasing down, too. Here's a look at some of these cool new cards with an explanation of how they came to be from Riftbound executive producer Chengran Chai.

With Alt Art, Overnumbered, and SP cards, the Riftbound team combines collectability with playability only after fine-tuning the set mechanics. Some rare Radiance highlights are Riot Games Music crossovers, including Overnumbered Heartsteel cards, SP K/DA cards, and Overnumbered Ekko, Revolutionary, which features Ekko's original True Damage skin. Overnumbered cards also come in Signature variants, which are the rarest cards in the set next to Ultimate Rare.

"We knew that Riot in general was going to have a music moment at the end of the year, so we said pretty early on that we were going to lean into it," Chai said. However, as a physical game, the Riftbound team had to finalize many of the card's details before the tracks were made and the new character designs were finished.

Riftbound: Radiance - Music ON, SPs and Alt Runes

"That's why you're seeing...for the K/DA and Heartsteel cards, it's their K/DA All Out and Heartsteel 1.0 versions, because the 2.0 versions weren't quite ready," Chai said. But we thought it was a great way to showcase Riftbound's contribution ... and the wider leveraging of the music scene will allow more fans to see and experience Riftbound as well."

The original plan didn't even include the Riftbound Heartsteel cards being dropped in Heartsteel's new Live My Life music video – Riot's music team actually started this easter egg by asking the Riftbound team if they wanted the cards in the music video. Of course they said yes.

Although Riftbound has been heavily supported from within Riot since its inception, its somewhat unexpected explosion in popularity has given Riftbound more opportunities to be in Riot-wide moments. Another example is the Riftbound Easter Egg in Valorant's Aeris Flex cosmetics.

Heartsteel Overnumbered cards have a very unique design, similar to K-pop photo cards, with bright motifs, stickers and Y2K elements. Taking even more photo card inspiration, Heartsteel Oversized Signature Cards are signed by the characters themselves - not artists like other Signature cards! During the Radiance panel at the Riftbound Regional Qualifier (RQ) in Los Angeles, Riot Games Senior Director of Creative Development Michelle Mauk talked about the design process, which I highly recommend watching if you're interested.

I always feel like the renders of Overnumbered cards don't do them justice, and that's certainly the case with Heartsteel cards. The texture and foiling on Riftbound's attractive cards is always impressive to see in person. I tried to capture what it looks like on the over-the-top Echo Echo, the revolutionary hero unit I drew in the slideshow above, but it's hard to show all the different patterns, holographics, and gold text in one image!

Radiance's Ultimate Rare ties in nicely with the heavy music theme, but shockingly, it's a Battlefield: Packed Amphitheater. This card will be the rarest card in all of the Riftbound core sets, appearing in only about 0.025% of booster packs, which is roughly 1 in 4,000 packs. This is a very rare boost from the only Ultimate Rare, Baron Nasher from Unleashed, with a 0.1% pack rate. The foils and textures you can't see in a render do a lot of the heavy lifting for this render — and you can get a better look at it and see some of the creators' reactions in this official PlayRiftbound loop.

Riftbound cards: Radiance Overnumbered and Alt Art

There are other Overnumbered cards and Alt Art to chase that aren't musically inclined, like IGN's Overnumbererd Mordekaiser Legend that was revealed exclusively last week. Overnumbered cards, as mentioned, come in Signature variants, which are significantly rarer than Alt Art cards, but that doesn't detract from the appeal of some Alt Art cards.

For more on Riftbound's fifth installment, Radiance, check out this full Radiance preview and more from Chai's interview.

Radiance Pre-Rifts hits your local game store on October 16th, and I really can't wait to play more. With the complexity Radiance introduces, this might not be the best deck for first timers, but it's great for existing players who crave more variety and creativity in their deck building. That being said, the Riftbound community has always been nothing but welcoming and helpful in every store I've played, so don't be shy. Otherwise, Radiance booster boxes, packs, and vaults will be available for purchase on October 23rd.

Casey DeFreitas is the VP of Guides at IGN and is running three Riftbound Radiance Pre-Rifts games this weekend at a local game store because they're so much fun. Check him out on social media @ShinyCaseyD.