sureball | Riftbound 📍RQ Singapore

amateur riftbound player, collector & content creator on IG. formerly xaviertears

[Coinbase 🛡️ @coinbase]

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[ASH DanNoble 🔜 #RQMacau @MrDanNoble]

Top 4 in #RQTaiwan !🔥
Lost in top 4 to Kai’sa, no real cards in hand after sabo then he top decked Mundo at 16 might and couldn’t deal with it 😭

Still super happy with my run, top 4 and best of Yi in the first Traditional Chinese RQ is crazy to me. GGs!

[Frobei Riftools 🔜 #RCStuttgart @FrobeiF]

Riot just banned Ekko, Recurrent and Stacked Deck.

Ekko was expected because of the Lux infinite combo.

Stacked Deck is much more surprising, and the impact goes way beyond Kennen.

Let's look at what this could change for the meta before RQ LA. 👇

[sureball | Riftbound 📍RQ Singapore @sureballtcg]

@DeanZ0911 how does this even leak

[Riftatlas @PlayRiftatlas]

New ways to play Riftbound are here 🥳

[Jon Rosum @Awesum_Rosum]

In my opinion there is two ways that Riot can look into "balancing" Kennen.

I've been pretty loud about this, but I think it's time for Ride the Wind to go. I don't think hitting Kennen, Storm of Shuriken makes the most sense when the offender is the actual spell. Kennen CC is definitely pushed don't get me wrong but the game slows down quite a bit without access to Ride the Wind and this ban would at least keep the strategy alive.

The other option in my mind that keeps the strategy alive but hurts the power level is Nocturne, Horrifying. The effect is incredibly polarizing but the games that feel the absolute worst are the ones where your opponent just spawns in 4-8 extra might on t1-3 and that is often WAY too hard to get over for most of the decks in the format, this is another ban that I think that Kennen could survive.

I would personally avoid targetting Rhasa, the Sunderer. Without that threat I think you just absolute destroy Purple Kennen's existence and my takeway from the earlier Draven ban in Set 2 is that they don't want the bans to absolutely destroy archetypes which is what that would do. I also am of the opinion that Legends / Signature Spells are in the "untouchable" camp so the next look would be at Stacked Deck but that hits TOO much of the format.

There is a world where they look at Star-Crossed since it reads as a bit too pushed and a card you have to aware of when building your decks. That being said, Star-Crossed acts as the "anti-fun" police and it keeps Dazzling Aurora in check basically on its own. I don't think the players actually want to see a "patch" without this card.

[sureball | Riftbound 📍RQ Singapore @sureballtcg]

Before Top 8, Gorica asked his girlfriend to leave because seeing her made him tear up.

The story behind his Riftbound Singapore win, Ayu’s support, and a promise about an Akali card. ❤️

Read their story below. https://t.co/c1FmUdgoUl

[sureball | Riftbound 📍RQ Singapore @sureballtcg]

@LHP64D Would love a Group card.

[sureball | Riftbound 📍RQ Singapore @sureballtcg]

@dRIFTBOUNDtcg @playriftbound Heard someone say that it’s a card with all KDA members featured (rumor)

[sureball | Riftbound 📍RQ Singapore @sureballtcg]

Years ago, @GoricaLoL confessed his feelings to @ayukuraaa during an official League match.

In Singapore, seeing her before Top 8 made him tear up.

Between those moments: practice dates, setbacks, and a promise about Akali.

Their story, told by Sureball. ❤️ #Riftbound #RQSingapore

[sureball | Riftbound 📍RQ Singapore @sureballtcg]

@FrobeiF It was a pleasure playing with you!

[sureball | Riftbound 📍RQ Singapore @sureballtcg]

@ochmantxt RQ Singapore slots did not sell out in 5 seconds.

[ayu 🪷🌿 @ayukuraaa]

It’s been a little over a year since @GoricaLoL started playing TCGs, so I thought it’d be cool to share his improvement arc from an “inside” perspective.

Back in February, after watching Alanzq win RQ Bologna, Alex got deep in thought, so I asked what was up.

He took a long time to respond, but finally, he said he was confident he could win a regional.

I’m not sure why, but intuitively it felt true to me too. Maybe it resonated with me, since I’ve felt similarly before playing League competitively. But I’ve also struggled with not “realizing” that potential in time, and I didn’t want that to happen to him. So I told him we needed to start setting specific goals to make it happen.

The path was pretty rocky… At RQ Vegas, Alex didn’t even make top 64 despite feeling very strong on Ezreal. He practiced a lot online, but had issues going to time in person, so we decided he needed to take in-person practice much more seriously.

For a while, we had scheduled “dates” to play so we could spend time together and meet his goals. We focused on dexterity, speed, and pace of play, since he got burnt on time A LOT at RQ Vegas.

At RQ Atlanta, he got in his head and overcooked Teemo, fixating on making a “bad deck good” instead of “a bad deck as good as it can be.” He swears it wasn’t bad, but realistically, he didn’t have enough reps to pilot it in time.

After not even Day 2ing, we had another deep talk. He felt like he was at a crossroads: play meta and seriously try to win a regional, or commit to metal hunting for EV.

But I kept revisiting that “I can win an RQ” moment because of how powerful and aligned it felt, so I pushed him to go for a RQ win. We made a rule that he’d only play a deck if he genuinely thought he could win a RQ with it.

He swapped to Diana in Set 3 and played pretty well in testing, but struggled at his RQs. I think he was putting a ton of pressure on himself, especially since Diana was considered BDIF. He felt like he had no reason to lose except his own lack of skill.

I often caught him doing results-based analysis after losses, blaming himself even when he’d played correctly based on the information he had. Eventually he’d accept it was fine, but still be unsettled.

By the end of Set 3, he seemed pretty burnt out. He was still putting a lot of effort in, but something was wrong. It was hard to tell what though.

When Akali came out, we weren’t sure it could actually win a RQ. The teased cards looked pretty mid, and Alex kept praying Akali would be good, which I found really funny. But in early testing, he told me she was a lot better than he thought and was down to lock her in.

I was so happy, so I forced him to play Riftbound as much as I could.

After work every day, I’d push him to test or ask if there were tournaments he should play that weekend. I can only recall 2 or 3 times when he thought resting would be better.

Seeing him like this reminded me of when he was building Teemo for RQ Houston. He was constantly thinking about the game again, testing ideas, changing things, and trusting his own understanding.

Out of my own anxiety for him, I’d link him every list I saw on X, and most of the time his reaction was “that list looks like some ass” or “they don’t know how to build her”.

I think that’s what was missing in Set 3. Since he considered Diana “solved”, there wasn’t much of himself in it, but with Akali, he had complete ownership. He wasn’t playing just to prove he could win a regional, but because he strongly believed in his own ideas about the deck.

His mental form was immaculate; once he stopped putting so much pressure on himself, he played the best Riftbound I’ve seen him play.

Our goal for this event was top 8, so it’s crazy to me that he won it all. I still haven’t fully processed it yet tbh 🥲

Watching him become more of what I knew he could be keeps making me think of this line:

“Perhaps the best we can do for those we love is to make them more.”

Congrats again, Alex 🥺❤️

[sureball | Riftbound 📍RQ Singapore @sureballtcg]

DID RIFTBOUND JUST TEASE K/DA FOR RADIANCE?

Dave Guskin said there’s something “pretty awesome in the music universe” coming with Radiance.

And with HEARTSTEEL K’Sante already revealed — plus Seraphine, Evelynn, and Ekko all tied to Riot’s music universe — the clues are getting interesting.

K/DA? HEARTSTEEL? True Damage? Pentakill?

What do you think they’re cooking?

#Riftbound #LeagueOfLegends #RQSingapore

[sureball | Riftbound 📍RQ Singapore @sureballtcg]

@CainBd gundam goat

[KRX LotharHS @LotharHS]

In the week post RQ Barcelona, i have gotten messages from 5 friends who want to jump from mtg/fab/swu to Riftbound.

Im not kidding, Riftbound is gonna explode so so so much in a year or two.

[sureball | Riftbound 📍RQ Singapore @sureballtcg]

@poke_maam 25 mins ago. yea

[Michael Sherman @RiotSherman]

We’re seeing some conversations around the possibility of us working with PCG. We’re exploring and excited about the idea of working with them to have a booth at the EU RC to create a better player experience on-site. However, this is not yet confirmed and not exclusive. We do plan to share more about activities on site at EU RC more holistically in the lead-up.

[sureball | Riftbound 📍RQ Singapore @sureballtcg]

@RiftboundGG terrible

[Riftbound @playriftbound]

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