Familiar League champions are already shaping how players engage with the new TCG.
Riot Games’ trading card game Riftbound has wasted little time making its mark. Since launching on 31 October, 2025, the League of Legends-themed TCG has seen a sharp rise in attention across online marketplaces, with search interest and card listings climbing at a pace which few new card games have managed to hit so early.
Fresh data shared by TCGplayer.com points to just how quickly Riftbound has caught fire. Daily searches for the game jumped by more than 300% compared to the preorder period roughly two weeks before launch. On a global scale, Riftbound was being searched more than 6,300 times per hour by TCGplayer users alone, underlining how quickly curiosity has turned into active demand.
That surge has also translated directly into marketplace activity. TCGplayer, the world’s largest online storefront for trading card games, saw Riftbound-related listings balloon almost overnight. On 30 October, the platform recorded just over 68,600 listings. One day later, on launch day, that figure nearly doubled to more than 118,100. By the end of November, listings had climbed past 585,000, reflecting both strong interest and limited availability of sealed product.
League of Legends characters are driving Riftbound’s popularity
Unsurprisingly, familiar faces from League of Legends are doing much of the heavy lifting. According to TCGplayer data covering searches between 17 October and 7 December, some of Riot’s most recognisable champions dominated interest. Jinx, boosted further by her starring role in Netflix’s Arcane, racked up over 65,000 searches. Ahri followed closely behind with more than 54,900 searches.
Other long-standing fan favourites also featured heavily, with Sett, Teemo, and Darius each surpassing 43,000 searches on the site. The numbers highlight how invested League players are in collecting characters they already know, whether that connection comes from the MOBA itself or from Riot’s growing slate of spin-off projects like Arcane and the upcoming fighting game 2XKO.
The scale of Riftbound’s early success has not gone unnoticed within the wider TCG space. IGN reported that TCGplayer CEO Rob Bigler described the launch as a strong signal for the genre, saying: “Riftbound’s early success is a huge positive for the hobby and reinforces that fans are excited to engage with the worlds and characters they love in new ways.” He added that trading card games remain a powerful, social way to extend fandom when handled authentically, something TCGplayer is already seeing reflected in marketplace demand.
With sealed product still proving hard to find, interest shows little sign of slowing. Riot is set to build on that momentum with Riftbound’s second set, Spiritforged, which launches in the West on 13 February following its Chinese release on 12 December. Preorders for Spiritforged are already live, and if the first set is anything to go by, competition for packs is likely to be just as fierce.
