By Terry Miller

Hello, I was fortunate enough to have been able to attend GenCon 2025 in Indianapolis. I went with the intention of gathering information and recording my experiences, as well as trying out anything related to Riftbound while I was there.

My experience started by meeting up with my friends, whom I would be spending most of the convention with. We had a 2v2 with Riftbound developers shortly after meeting. I was paired with Dave, the game director for Riftbound. We played Yasuo and Kai'sa versus Lee Sin and Sett. Lee + Sett is a brutal combo to play against in 2v2, since one of Sett's biggest flaws is buff generators, and Lee gives it to him every turn. Dave and I were able to squeeze out a win due to a double Charm + Unchecked Power on my turn, with Dave top-decking Miss Fortune Buccaneer after two Clockwork draws to end the game.

 

 

This was a fantastic start to my weekend, and it would only get better from here. After our 2v2, we decided to grab some food before our mixer event that evening. After arriving at the Mixer event, we played with Diana, the community manager for Riftbound, in a free-for-all with the proving ground decks. This was cool, because it was the first time we played with real cards, with the 2v2 from earlier being proxies. I was able to win our free-for-all after maybe making enemies with Lux; it's just part of playing the control decks. I then did some networking at the event, meeting all the Riot staff as well as some other content creators who were there. After the mixer, we went back to our hotel to learn some friends were staying at our hotel, so we played Riftbound in the lobby for a few hours before heading to bed. 

Friday was an exciting day because that was the first reveal for the overnumbered cards we haven't seen yet. The first thing I went to look at were the reveals for the day, which were Teemo, Lee Sin, and Kai'sa. I was very excited for this, as Kai'sa is my favorite champion in League and my deck of choice for Origins. After looking at these reveals and the other cards they had on display, we went back to the stage for a session of 1v1 games, which were played until you lost and you couldn't play the same deck twice. Most of us played two games, winning one and then losing immediately, with my friend Anu playing 3 in a row and being crowned the champion. During this event, we received hand-drawn cards signed by Dave, themed for the legend we were playing. 

After this event, we walked around for a while, trying to locate a place to record some gameplay. After about 90 minutes of walking, we found a place to record for about 7 hours. This was a nice time off my feet since during these events you are walking a lot, and it also gave us a lot of insight on cards we would like to play in the future. Some of these games will be uploaded to Red Riot Game's YouTube channel as well as my own once I have time to go through them. 

Saturday was a pretty chill day; we met up with some people from the Riftbound Discord and played some games. We didn't have any big events or anything to do this day, and my friend's flight was Saturday night, so we mainly relaxed. Any time we were able to sit down and play Riftbound was nice, since most of the con was constant: go, go, go.

Sunday was about the same as Saturday; I had one "Beat a Dev" event Sunday morning where I played Dave to try and get an "I beat a dev ribbon." I decided to pick Teemo to try and have fun, which was apparently a mistake as Dave locks Kai'sa against me. Spoiler: I did not win. He was kind enough to give me a matching Kai'sa legend to go with my Icathian Rain from Friday, though, which was a huge highlight of my weekend. After this, I went around to say goodbye to all of the Devs and friends I had made this weekend since the convention closed at 4, while also looking at all of the overnumbered cards that were revealed this weekend. I then met my group for dinner, then back to the hotel to get ready to return home. 

Overall I had a fantastic trip and was able to meet many new people who I expect to interact with a lot in the future. Huge shoutouts to my friend Anu and Rob, who spent the weekend with me, and also Riftbound's development team, who were fantastic all weekend. I can't wait to see what comes next for Riftbound and will be attending PAX in November and their first North American regional once we receive more information on that.