3 Competitive Takeaways to Make You Better at Riftbound - Hangzhou Riftbound Regional Open Finals Match

When most players build their decks, they build with all the other meta strategies in mind. Let's say I'm playing Garen: I've got my Unyeidling Spirits for Kaisa, my Challenges for Master Yi, my Salvages for Darius. But rarely do you see players build around what may be good in the mirror match. It's like there's a mental block where we just assume we'll never come across a mirror match. In fact, I'd go as far as to wager that in your testing, the mirror is the match up you test the least. Well, that's a big problem if you plan on playing Master Yi or Kaisa (AKA the two most popular decks at the first 4 Riftbound Regionals). So, you need to test the mirror, and if its a match up you expect to be popular, you need to have a sideboard plan in place. Pretty obvious, right?

Well, things get more complicated when you have a situation like the Hangzhou regional finals; a Master Yi Legend mirror, but two very different strategies in the main deck. I don't think anyone was expecting Master Yi to adopt the Dazzling Aurora strategy, so I don't fault anyone for not prepping for an unknown quantity. But going into this tournament, if you planned to play Master Yi, you should have prepped for the small-unit-spam aggro build and the midrange-ramp builds that have put up results in the first 3 weeks. Depending on what version of Yi you planned on playing, it's vital to get a strong understanding of how your gameplan needs to be altered depending on which version of Yi your up against. Pro players across different games recommend playing 20-30 games of a particular match up to get a good start of an understanding of a particular match up. Aim for that number at minimum, and shoot for more reps as often as you can when prepping for a major event.

In card games, "inevitability" refers to cards or strategies, that if left unchecked, will win the game over time. Aurora is the defacto inevitability strategy in Riftbound Origins; if you don't answer the gear, or the units, or win the game fast enough, you will almost certainly lose to an Aurora deck. Some decks (read: aggro decks) are usually well positioned against inevitability strategies because they're able to win the game fast enough so that the inevitability deck can't really get online. Throwing aggro at Aurora works sometimes in Riftbound, but it only really works well if the Aurora deck gets off to a slow start. Aurora decks plan to conceed the early game. They're perfectly fine with letting the opponent score 5, maybe even 6 points. That's because once they get the Aurora online and start establishing insanely strong units, the aggro decks potential to win immediately falls off of a cliff, and the Aurora deck snowballs out of control. It also doesn't help that all of the primary colors that support Aurora decks (green, orange, purple) offer ramp to get there faster, often times on turn 3.

So, what can we do to fight Aurora? Well, going with an aggro meta call is still a decent option, especially if it has access to good gear removal. If you check out my last article, we brought up Darius Hook as the prime example of this. I also think my Jinx build can get the job done here too. Kaisa and other Yi builds can also be built with a more aggressive focus to try and punish Aurora decks before they can reestablish control of the game. Lastly, if you can't beat em, join em. If your goal is to win or place highly at a competitive event, at least get experience playing a winning deck. You can decide you don't want to commit to playing it at an event later, but if you test something like Aurora Yi and is tests exceptionally well, do yourself a favor and play it.

At this point in the match, we see the Aurora Yi player activate a Discipline on his Whiteflame Protector before sending it into battle. And this is a great play. However, if you read my previous gameplay article and saw the Cleave example, you might be wondering why I'm calling this a good play. After all, why wouldn't you cast Discipline after sending the Whiteflame into battle, so that your opponent has the least information possible? The main difference is that Discipline draws the user a card, which means that it gives the user more information and more options. So, its better to gather that information and that option before sending the Whiteflame into battle, incase you draw a card that allows you to go down a better decision tree. Also, back to the Cleave example, a YouTube commenter pointed out something really smart; it could be argued that the Kaisa player Cleaving before battle was a great play, because if the opponent Defies the Cleave, the Kaisa player doesn't have to commit to a losing battle. That's a great point.

Speaking of errors in my logic, let me know in the comments if you learned something valuable, or if there are any holes in my examples!