Radiance Pre-Rift Guide: Dates, Kit and Sealed Deck Rules

Your first Radiance games

Radiance Pre-Rift Dates and Registration

Radiance Pre-Rifts begin October 16, 2026. Stores can run them during the following week, so check your shop’s actual day and time before travelling.
Use Riot’s Pre-Rift announcement and event-locator link to find an event, then ask the store about entry price, registration and any extra prizes. The announcement doesn’t set one universal entry fee.
You’ll open the supplied cards, build a deck and play it at the event. This is Sealed: your collection stays out of the card pool you build from.
The Radiance overview gives October 23, 2026 as the worldwide set release. Pre-Rift is the early local-store event, not that general release.

What you open

Radiance Pre-Rift Kit Contents

Announced Radiance Pre-Rift contents
Contents	What they’re for
Five Radiance Booster Packs	Open these for the event’s random card pool.
One champion pack	A Legend, Rare Champion, Battlefield and supporting cards themed around one of nine new Legends.
Heimerdinger, Academy Instructor promo	Yours to keep, but excluded from this Sealed deck.

Keep the Heimerdinger promo out of your deck. If you open the non-promo version in your booster packs, that copy is allowed.
The event-specific five-booster kit differs from the general six-booster Sealed pool in the tournament document. Your seeded pack gives you a possible strategy; open everything before locking in your domains.
The cards you open are yours to keep. Additional prize packs and their distribution depend on your store’s event, so ask rather than assuming they’re included.

Build a legal deck

Radiance Sealed Deckbuilding Rules

Your Main Deck needs at least 25 cards. You may use more, but keep extra cards only when they improve the deck rather than dilute your best plays.
Use up to three domains across your cards and Runes. If you use a Legend, both of its domains must fit those three.
A Signature spell needs both of its domains represented in the three domains you’ve chosen for the Main Deck.
For example, a Fury/Body/Order deck can include a Fury/Order Signature spell, but not a Fury/Mind one. That’s the example in tournament rule 602.4.a.3.b.1; Sealed doesn’t require its matching champion.
You may choose any Champion Unit within your deck’s domain identity as your Chosen Champion, regardless of your Legend’s champion tag.
If you omit a Legend, a Chosen Champion or both, draw one extra card at the start of your first Beginning Phase each game. Missing both still gives only one extra card.
Use as many copies of a card as your pool contains, even more than the normal three-copy limit; Unique also doesn’t apply in Sealed.
The organizer supplies additional Runes. Tokens don’t have to come out of your packs; use card objects your opponent can understand, with a clear ready or exhausted state, under the updated tournament rules.
Use a Battlefield you open, or a facedown card as a blank Battlefield with no abilities.
At casual events you can rebuild between games and matches unless the head judge says otherwise; events with registered starting configurations require you to restore that configuration for each match’s first game.

Make the first turns work

A Practical 25-Card Radiance Sealed Build

Sort your Units by cost before chasing an impressive combo. Riot suggests at least 15 Units, with about five costing 2 Energy, as a starting point for most decks.
For a simple first draft, try 15 Units, seven Spells and three Gear: that’s 25 Main Deck cards. This is an example, not a required split or a tested winning list.
If your pool’s useful support is mostly Spells, change that mix. The purpose is to field Units that can contest Battlefields and keep a few ways to help them survive or remove opposing Units.
Compare what a third domain adds with the Power costs it makes you pay. A splash isn’t helping if it prevents you from paying for the good cards in your main domains.
For example, a third-domain removal spell might solve a problem your first two domains can’t answer, but several expensive cards in that domain can pull your Rune choices away from the rest of the deck.
After your first game, look for cards that sat unusable in hand or turns when you had nothing affordable to play. Swap those cards within your pool; if the event registers a starting configuration, restore it for the first game of your next match.

Official Ekko, Boy Who Shattered Time Legend card — Ekko’s discount gives the Unit a kill-at-end-of-turn condition. Look for a useful effect or attack you can get immediately.

Start with the cards you’ll open

Radiance Commons Worth Checking First

Your five boosters contain 35 regular Common slots and 15 regular Uncommon slots. The variable foil slots and seeded champion pack add to those cards, according to the official pack breakdown.
Use the Commons below to spot a workable deck before committing to a Rare. Those slot totals aren’t the chance of opening any one named card.

Common cards and the jobs they can fill in a Radiance Sealed pool
Common card	Domain	Printed cost and Might	Why you’d play it
Amateur Demolitionist RAD-001	Fury	2 Energy; 1 Might	Leaves a Bomb at a Battlefield when you play it. Use it with Ziggs or cards that sacrifice Gear.
Bilgewater Tracker RAD-003	Fury	3 Energy; 3 Might	Deals 1 to each of up to two Units when played. Finish damaged Units or soften two defenders.
Entrenched Boar RAD-026	Calm	2 Energy; 2 Might	Can enter ready, but then can’t move that turn. Useful early body or a Unit to exhaust for a spell.
Consult the Heavens RAD-025	Calm	1 Energy; Spell	Gives Shield 2 for the turn and Predicts. Protect a defender or turn Shield into attacking Might with K’Sante.
Industrious Mechsmith RAD-049	Mind	4 Energy; 1 Might	Also plays a 3-Might Mech at its location. One card supplies two Units for Seraphine or an expendable body for Ekko.
High Note RAD-048	Mind	3 Energy; Spell	Reduces a Unit’s Might for the turn by your exhausted-Unit count. Three exhausted Units means -3 Might.
Overloaded Traveler RAD-072	Body	2 Energy; 2 Might	Has +1 Might at a Battlefield with your Deploy Gear. It’s an inexpensive attacker for Jarvan’s plan.
Pillaged Armory RAD-073	Body	1 Energy; Deploy Gear	Buffs a friendly Unit when played and when you conquer its Battlefield. It supplies Jarvan’s Gear condition cheaply.
Momentary Companion RAD-095	Chaos	4 Energy; 4 Might	Hidden can put it into a showdown cheaply. Played outside your turn, it dies at your next Beginning Phase before scoring.
The Waters’ Wage RAD-100	Chaos	1 Energy; Spell	Normally makes one exhausted Gold. Played from face down on your own turn, it makes three ready Gold instead.
Hunting Dog RAD-119	Order	3 Energy; 3 Might	Its death leaves a 1-Might Bird with Deflect in your base. It supports crowded boards and sacrifice effects.
Party Crasher RAD-122	Order	9 Energy + 1 Order Power; 6 Might	Costs 1 less Energy per exhausted friendly Unit and has Tank. A wide deck can cast it much earlier than its printed cost suggests.

Industrious Mechsmith RAD-049/167 card — Industrious Mechsmith is a Common that puts two Units on the board: the 1-Might Mechsmith and a 3-Might Mech.

Choose a plan

Nine Radiance Pre-Rift Seeded Legends

Your seeded pack suggests a strategy, but it doesn’t choose the whole deck for you. The themes below come from Riot’s Pre-Rift introduction; compare them with the cards in your five boosters.
If Deploy and the other new keywords are unfamiliar, start with the named examples in our Radiance rules guide before choosing cards around them.

Publisher-described starting themes, not a power ranking
Legend	What to look for in your pool
Ekko	Units with useful effects that reward getting them into play early.
Evelynn	Hidden-card support and ways to spring a trap.
Jarvan IV	Deploy Gear that lets his Legend move a friendly Unit to its Battlefield.
K’Sante	Shield Units that his Legend can turn into stronger attackers.
Mordekaiser	Gear and Units you can banish to help play more cards.
Orianna	Gear worth turning into Units.
Riven	Units you can play to Battlefields you control, where they enter ready.
Seraphine	Low-cost Units you can exhaust to help cast expensive spells.
Ziggs	Ways to control the board and make Battlefields difficult to approach.

Radiance supports recognizable plans, much like Magic’s Limited archetypes. Sealed gives you a random pool rather than a draft, so use these themes to choose from your cards. The combinations below are pre-event recommendations, not tournament-tested rankings.
Pick the plan your opened cards can carry out. A strong-looking Legend with too few useful cards around it can be a worse choice than a straightforward Unit deck.

Take and hold a Battlefield

Jarvan and Orianna Gear Decks

Jarvan: Body and Order Deploy pressure

Start with Overloaded Traveler and Pillaged Armory. At a Battlefield with your Armory, Traveler is a 3-Might Unit; Armory can also buff it when played or when you conquer there.
Jarvan’s Legend lets you exhaust him and pay 1 Power when you play Deploy Gear to move a friendly Unit to that Battlefield. Concert Poster is another Common Deploy card: pay its separate 1-Energy trigger to make a Recruit when played or when you conquer there.
After playing a Unit or Gear to a Battlefield, the Common Hold ’Em drops from 3 Energy to 1 for the turn and gives a Unit +3 Might. Keep that Energy available for the fight rather than spending everything on another Unit.

Overloaded Traveler RAD-072/167 card — Overloaded Traveler gets its extra Might only at a Battlefield with friendly Deploy Gear.

Orianna: Calm and Mind Gear that can fight

Orianna can pay 1 Energy at the start of your Main Phase to turn a friendly Gear into a Unit Gear with Might equal to its Energy cost. A 1-Energy Gear becomes a small 1-Might Unit, so value its ability as well as its new body.
The Uncommon Invigorating Bloom costs 3 Energy, gives a Unit +3 Might when played, and can draw by exhausting a friendly Mighty Unit and the Bloom. Mighty means at least 5 Might; turning Bloom into a 3-Might Unit doesn’t meet that requirement by itself.
The Ball is the higher-impact version of this plan: its printed 5 Energy becomes 5 Might under Orianna. Its profile below explains the movement and damage payoff.

Two different ways to fight

Seraphine’s Army and K’Sante’s Shields

Seraphine: Mind and Order Units feeding spells

Use Mechsmith and Hunting Dog to keep several Units available. High Note turns an exhausted army into a combat trick: with three exhausted friendly Units, it gives a Unit -3 Might that turn.
Seraphine’s Legend exhausts itself and three friendly Units to reduce a Spell’s cost by 2 Energy. The Uncommon Rousing Display can make four Recruits if you Show Off a card costing at least 7 Energy, such as Party Crasher. Show Off means revealing a qualifying card in hand or choosing a qualifying friendly card on the board.
Three exhausted Units reduce Party Crasher itself to 6 Energy plus 1 Order Power. Seraphine’s Spell discount doesn’t also reduce this Unit’s cost; the two cards reward the same board in different ways.
The Uncommon The Empyrean gives you another large finish: 8 Energy for an 8-Might Unit. Its Show Off play trigger can draw two cards, with Predict based on the shown card’s Power cost.

K’Sante: Calm and Body defense turned into attacks

The Uncommon Stalwart Goatherd gives you a 4-Energy, 2-Might Unit with Shield 2 and an optional play trigger that kills Gear costing 4 Energy or less. That’s a defensive body and an answer to cheap Deploy Gear.
Consult the Heavens gives a Unit Shield 2 for the turn. K’Sante’s Legend costs 1 Energy and exhaustion to give that Unit Assault equal to its Shield, turning the same protection into +2 Might while attacking.
Shield alone adds Might only while defending. You need K’Sante’s effect to make that Shield count as Assault on an attack; don’t treat every Shield card as an unconditional attacking bonus.

Stalwart Goatherd RAD-083/167 card — Stalwart Goatherd combines Shield 2 with a play trigger that can kill Gear costing 4 Energy or less.

Set up the next fight

Evelynn and Riven Hidden-Card Plans

Evelynn: Body and Chaos ambushes

Momentary Companion and The Waters’ Wage are Common Hidden cards. Hidden lets you pay 1 Power to hide the card now and react with it later for no resource cost; that setup payment still matters.
Evelynn’s Legend draws once each turn when you play a card from face down. Outside your turn, you then discard a card, so that trigger improves your hand rather than leaving you an extra card.
The Waters’ Wage makes three ready Gold only when you play it from face down on your own turn. An opponent-turn reveal gets the ordinary one exhausted Gold instead.
Use an opponent-turn Momentary Companion to affect that fight. Its Temporary condition kills it at your next Beginning Phase before scoring, so it won’t survive to earn a hold point then.

Momentary Companion RAD-095/167 card — Momentary Companion can help win a showdown, but its opponent-turn Temporary condition prevents a hold point at your next Beginning Phase.

Riven: Calm and Chaos Units arriving ready

Riven’s Legend makes Units you play to Battlefields you control enter ready. It doesn’t give you permission to play a Unit there, and it doesn’t ready a Unit merely because you moved it there.
A Hidden Momentary Companion played at a Battlefield you control can enter ready under Riven. The same card played to your base doesn’t get that benefit.
The Common Siren of the Shallows gives you Ganking, so it can move between Battlefields, plus Disarm to reduce an enemy’s Might when it attacks. Ki Burst can stun an enemy at the additional cost of exhausting a friendly Unit; Life from Stone uses that same kind of cost to draw a card and channel an exhausted Rune.

Get something when a Unit arrives

Ekko and Mordekaiser Value Decks

Ekko: Fury and Mind play-trigger value

Look for Units that give you something immediately. Bilgewater Tracker deals 1 to each of up to two Units when played; Mechsmith makes a separate 3-Might Mech.
Empowering Ekko’s Legend costs 1 Energy and exhausts it. Once it’s ready again, you can disempower and exhaust it to discount your next Unit by 2 Energy and 1 Power, but give that Unit a kill-at-end-of-turn condition.
For example, discounting Mechsmith still gives you its Mech token. The Mechsmith is the Unit marked to die at end of turn; that condition doesn’t also mark the separate Mech token.

Mordekaiser: Fury and Order cards that leave value behind

Hunting Dog leaves a Bird when it dies, while Concert Poster can make Recruits as you play it and conquer its Battlefield. Those extra bodies give you ways to keep fighting after trading a Unit away.
Mordekaiser’s Legend can banish a Unit or Gear card from your trash and exhaust itself to add 1 Power. You can spend that Power only on Units or Gear, so it won’t pay for your removal Spell.
The Uncommon Shimmering Swimmer can kill a friendly Unit or Gear as an additional cost to its 3-Energy play. Paying that cost makes its play trigger deal 2 to a Unit; sacrificing Hunting Dog also produces the Dog’s Bird.

Hunting Dog RAD-119/167 card — Hunting Dog leaves a Bird in your base when it dies, giving sacrifice decks another body to work with.

Make the opponent’s fight awkward

Ziggs and Fury-Chaos Bomb Tokens

Amateur Demolitionist is a Common 2-Energy Unit that also puts a Bomb Gear token at a Battlefield. The Bomb deals 2 to an enemy there when it dies and kills your other Bombs there, setting off their death effects too.
The Common Satchel Charge costs 3 Energy and 1 Chaos Power to move a friendly Unit, then play a Bomb at a Battlefield. The movement and Bomb placement don’t have to use the same Battlefield.
Shimmering Swimmer can sacrifice a friendly Bomb as its additional cost. You get the Bomb’s death effect at its Battlefield and, because you paid the sacrifice cost, Swimmer’s separate 2-damage play trigger.
Ziggs’s Legend makes more Bombs for 1 Energy, 1 Power and exhaustion. Keep enough actual Units to contest Battlefields; Bomb Gear doesn’t attack or defend for you.

Amateur Demolitionist RAD-001/167 card — Amateur Demolitionist supplies a Unit and a Bomb token for 2 Energy. The token’s death damage stays at its Battlefield.

A powerful Rare

Graves, Blasting Through

Graves, Blasting Through is a Body Rare costing 5 Energy and 1 Body Power. Its printed Might is 4.
Whenever Graves attacks or defends, it deals damage equal to its Might to every enemy Unit at its Battlefield. Against several small Units, one trigger can swing the whole fight.
Might-boosting cards increase that ability’s damage. Graves doesn’t also deal combat damage, so don’t count the same Might twice.
Hold ’Em’s +3 Might turns a printed 4-Might Graves into a 7-Might Unit for the turn. Cast the boost before attacking if you want that larger damage trigger.

Graves RAD-085/167 card — Graves damages every enemy Unit at its Battlefield when it attacks or defends, but it doesn’t also deal combat damage.

A Hidden-card payoff

Evelynn, Consuming

Evelynn, Consuming is a Body Epic costing 5 Energy and 1 Body Power, with 5 Might. This is the Champion Unit, not the Evelynn Legend.
Ambush lets you play her as a Reaction to a Battlefield where you have Units. Each card you play from face down readies her and gives her +1 Might for the turn.
Momentary Companion or The Waters’ Wage can supply that face-down trigger if you’ve prepared them. Check the Hidden setup cost and the timing limits on those cards before planning multiple fights.
Her own text doesn’t limit the ready trigger to once each turn. The Evelynn Legend’s draw trigger does have that limit; keep the two cards’ abilities separate.

Evelynn RAD-090/167 card — Evelynn, Consuming can ready when you play a card from face down. Her Ambush still needs a Battlefield where you have Units.

Gear worth building around

The Ball

The Ball is an Epic Signature Gear costing 5 Energy and 1 Power from either Calm or Mind. In an Orianna deck, its two domains are already covered. The single Power symbol doesn’t charge you one Power of each. Riot explains multi-domain payment in its Vendetta rules update.
When you play or move it, choose to draw one card or deal 2 damage to enemy Units at its Battlefield. That can clear several small Units or keep your hand supplied.
Orianna’s Legend can turn it into a 5-Might Unit Gear. While it’s a Unit, its printed Ganking lets it move between Battlefields and use that move trigger.
The Ball’s Ganking isn’t an equipped ability borrowed from another Unit. Ordinary Equipment doesn’t gain its equipped text just because Orianna turns it into a Unit.

A late-game removal engine

Mordekaiser, Dominating

Mordekaiser, Dominating is an Order Epic costing 9 Energy and 2 Order Power, with 8 Might. It needs a deck that can reach the late game.
When you play it or when it attacks, you may discard one card to kill a Unit or Gear. Unlike Graves, it can remove a large Unit without first matching that Unit’s Might.
The discard is a cost of getting the kill, and defending doesn’t trigger this ability. Keep a card in hand and protect Mordekaiser long enough to attack if you want another removal effect.
Party Crasher needs only 1 Order Power and gets cheaper with an exhausted army. Mordekaiser needs 2 Order Power plus a spare card for each kill, so favor it when your pool can support those costs.

Mordekaiser RAD-137/167 card — Mordekaiser’s removal triggers when played or attacking. You must discard a card to get the kill.

Avoid the easy mistakes

Radiance Pre-Rift Card Rules FAQ

Neeko: the corrected text lets you choose up to three different Legends, so opening fewer than three doesn’t stop you using her.
Encore: choose two different options; you can’t select the same option twice.
K’Sante: use Riot’s Staunch Survivor example: Shield 2 adds to its existing Assault 2 for Assault 4 under his Legend’s effect. Giving it more Shield that turn can increase its Assault again.
Orianna: turning Equipment into a Unit doesn’t turn on its equipped text. Riot’s Blade of Exile example becomes a 3-Might Unit without Ganking.
Keep the current errata available during deckbuilding and ask the judge when a printed card and corrected text disagree.

Official Orianna, Lady of Clockwork Legend card — Gear can become a Unit without gaining the text that normally applies only while it’s equipped.

Before you leave

Radiance Pre-Rift Preparation Checklist

Confirm your store’s date, entry fee, seat reservation and round schedule.
Bring sleeves, a way to track points and enough time to sort your pool before play.
When you open the kit, separate the excluded Heimerdinger promo, sort the playable cards by domain and cost, then count your Main Deck.
Check the Legend and Signature domain requirements, choose your Champion and arrange the Runes needed to pay your deck’s Power costs.

Read the current rules

Radiance Pre-Rift Sources

Riot’s October 12 Pre-Rift guide: kit contents, Sealed exceptions, seeded Legends, construction suggestions and card FAQ.
Radiance overview: worldwide October 23 release and product context.
Radiance errata and October tournament-rule changes: read the current wording before the event.
For Deploy, Disarm and Show Off examples, see our Radiance rules guide.
October tournament rules, sections 602.3 and 602.4: domain identity, the single extra starting draw, Unique and starting configurations.
Sources checked October 13, 2026. Card identities, rarities, costs and ability details were checked against the linked official card images and current errata. The sample deck mix and pool-selection advice are suggestions for building your first deck, not results from Radiance Pre-Rift tournaments.

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