What Radiance Adds
Radiance is Riftbound's fifth set, out October 23, 2026. It introduces three new keywords and two new card types. None of them are complicated on their own, but two of them — Deploy and Disarm — change how whole archetypes are built, and a couple of the interactions are not obvious from the reminder text.
| Addition | Type | One-line summary |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy | Keyword (Gear) | Play the Gear straight to a Battlefield. It works while it is there — and dies if your opponent holds that Battlefield. |
| Show Off | Keyword (Reveal) | Reveal a qualifying card from hand or board to unlock an extra effect. You keep the revealed card. |
| Disarm | Keyword (combat) | Reduce an enemy Unit's Might as you attack. Stacks, like Assault. |
| Equipment Units | Card type | An Equipment that can become a Unit. It unequips automatically when it does. |
| Bomb tokens | Token type | Ziggs' payoff tokens. The more Bombs you play, the bigger the reward. |
Deploy
Deploy — When you play this Gear, it goes directly to a Battlefield and provides benefits as long as it is there. If your opponent holds that Battlefield, the Gear is destroyed.
Deploy is the most consequential of the three, because it changes where gear lives. Normal Gear sits in your base or attaches to a unit. A Deploy Gear is placed on a Battlefield and functions as a persistent board effect for whoever is contesting that spot.
Three things follow from that, and all three matter:
- You can Deploy to a Battlefield you do not control. Portable Portal is the clearest case — it can go to any Battlefield, including the one your opponent is sitting on.
- Holding is now a removal spell. If your opponent holds the Battlefield, your Gear dies. That means Deploy decks need to actually win the fight for the spot, and anti-Deploy decks can answer gear without drawing gear removal at all.
- Several Deploy gears bounce themselves on hold. The Good Stuff, Demacian Standard and others read "when you hold here, return this to its owner's hand" — which converts the Deploy risk into a reusable engine. That is the whole reason The Good Stuff is the most-talked-about card in the set.
Cards with Deploy
| Card | Cost | What it does on the Battlefield |
|---|---|---|
| Concert Poster | 1 energy · Yellow | On play or on conquer here, pay 1 to put a 1-might Recruit token in your base. |
| Portable Portal | 2 energy | Pay 1 orange power to ready a unit here. Friendly units here have Ganking. |
| Demacian Standard | 2 energy, 1 power | When friendly units attack here, give one +2 this turn. Returns to hand when you hold. |
| The Good Stuff | 3 energy, 1 power | On play, discard 1 then draw 3. Returns to hand when you hold. |
| Detonation Amplifier | 4 energy, 1 power | On play, kill a friendly unit or gear to draw 1. Friendly Deathknell effects here trigger an additional time. |
The cards that answer Deploy
Because gear is about to be everywhere, two cards go from niche to mainstream:
- Stalwart Goatherd (4 energy, 2 might, Orange) — Shield 2, +2 while defending, and on entry you may kill a gear costing 4 energy or less. That range covers every Deploy gear revealed so far.
- Battlefield Armorer (3 energy, 3 might) — the other side of the trade: when a friendly gear at a Battlefield dies, pay 1 to return it to hand. Specifically a Deploy-protection card, and only useful if you are the one deploying.
Show Off (Reveal)
Show Off — Reveal a qualifying card from your hand or on your board to unlock a new effect of the card you played.
Show Off is Radiance's Reveal mechanic and the most straightforward of the three. You prove you hold a particular card, and the card you are playing gets better. You do not discard, spend, or lose the revealed card — the cost is purely information.
That "information is the cost" framing is the part worth internalising. Revealing tells your opponent exactly what is in your hand, which in a game with as much Defy and reaction-speed interaction as Riftbound is a genuine downside. Expect the skill expression here to be about when you decline to Show Off even though you could.
Note that Show Off can read off your board as well as your hand — so a card already in play can satisfy the condition with no information leak at all. Where both are available, board reveals are strictly better.
Disarm
Disarm — Reduces the Might of an enemy Unit as you attack. Each instance of Disarm stacks.
Disarm is Assault's mirror image. Assault adds Might to your attacker; Disarm subtracts Might from the defender. The two share the same stacking rule — Riot's own description explicitly says each instance stacks, so the reduction gets bigger the more sources you apply.
The restriction is that Disarm only applies while attacking. A Disarm unit sitting on defence does nothing with the keyword. This is the single most likely rules mistake in the first weeks of the format, so it is worth saying plainly: Disarm is an offensive keyword.
Where Disarm shows up
- Clanging Sentry (3 energy, 2 might, Blue, Mech) — your Mechs have Disarm. This is the stacking enabler. Attack with three Mechs and every defender is shrinking.
- Kai'Sa, Rebel — carries Disarm alongside a Showcase treatment.
- Evelynn Showcase cards — Disarm appears on the Evelynn alternate-art cards revealed during preview season.
The practical read from preview coverage is that Disarm is a Rumble and Mech-deck mechanic first. Clanging Sentry granting it board-wide is what makes it a real archetype rather than a per-card rider.
Equipment Units
Gear Units have technically existed since Vendetta's Patched Porobot. Radiance is where the idea gets a proper engine: Orianna, Mechanical Marvel's Legend ability lets Equipment become Units.
The one rule you need:
When an Equipment becomes a Unit, it is automatically unequipped first.
So you cannot have an Equipment buffing a unit and simultaneously attacking as its own body. It is one or the other, and the game resolves the ambiguity for you.
The combo that preview coverage keeps returning to pairs this with Improvised Projectile (3 energy, 1 power, action speed): choose a friendly gear; deal damage equal to its energy cost to a unit at a Battlefield. Under Orianna, an 8-cost Gear becomes an 8-might Unit and is a legal target to throw for 8 damage. That is a large swing attached to cards that are individually reasonable.
Bomb Tokens
Bombs are a new Token type, built around Ziggs, Short-Fused. The design is a straightforward scaling payoff: the more Bombs you play, the more powerful the result.
The card that makes the archetype dangerous is Detonation Amplifier — a 4-energy, 1-power Deploy gear whose second line reads friendly Deathknell effects here trigger an additional time. Every Bomb at that Battlefield detonates twice. With three Bombs down you are getting six triggers, and with Ziggs on board each one hits harder still.
Detonation Amplifier also has a built-in enabler — on play you may kill another friendly unit or gear to draw 1 — so it can detonate one of your own Bombs on the way in. The open question flagged across reviews is cost: 4 energy and a power is a lot, and the whole package evaporates if your opponent holds the Battlefield.
Interactions That Will Catch You Out
- Disarm does nothing on defence. It reads as a combat keyword but only applies while you are attacking. Do not hold back a Clanging Sentry expecting it to shrink an incoming attacker.
- Holding destroys Deploy gear — including gear you deployed onto the opponent's battlefield. Playing Portable Portal onto a contested spot is a tempo play, not a permanent one.
- "Return to hand on hold" is a benefit, not a drawback. On The Good Stuff and Demacian Standard the bounce lets you replay the on-play effect next turn. Read those cards as engines, not as fragile gear.
- Equipment unequips before it becomes a Unit. You lose the buff on whatever it was attached to. Factor that into combat maths before you animate it.
- Avalanche hits bases, not just battlefields. Radiance's sweeper deals 3 to all units and bases — including yours. Bomb tokens, Recruit tokens and Bird tokens all die to it, which is the main brake on the new token archetypes.
- Cataclysm's spell lock does not stop reactions already on the stack. Opponents can still respond at reaction speed before it fully resolves — Defy and similar effects get their window.
- Show Off can read your board. If a card already in play satisfies the condition, use that rather than revealing from hand and giving away information for free.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Deploy do in Riftbound?
Deploy is a Gear keyword introduced in Radiance. A Deploy Gear is played directly to a Battlefield instead of to your base, and provides its benefit for as long as it stays there. If your opponent holds that Battlefield, the Gear is destroyed. You are allowed to Deploy to a Battlefield you do not control.
What does Disarm do in Riftbound?
Disarm reduces the Might of an enemy Unit as you attack. It behaves like Assault in reverse, and like Assault, every instance stacks. It applies only on offence — a Disarm unit on defence gets nothing from the keyword.
What is Show Off in Riftbound Radiance?
Show Off is Radiance's Reveal mechanic. You reveal a qualifying card from your hand or from your board to unlock an additional effect on the card you are playing. The revealed card is not spent or discarded — you are only demonstrating that you have it, so the real cost is the information you give your opponent.
Does Disarm stack in Riftbound?
Yes. Riot's description states that each instance of Disarm stacks, exactly as Assault does. Two sources means a larger Might reduction. Clanging Sentry, which grants Disarm to all your Mechs, is the cleanest way to apply it across an entire attacking board.
What are Equipment Units in Riftbound?
Equipment Units are a new card type where an Equipment can become a Unit. The rule to remember is that an Equipment is automatically unequipped before it becomes a Unit — you cannot buff a unit and attack with the Equipment simultaneously. Orianna, Mechanical Marvel's Legend ability is the main enabler.
What are Bomb tokens in Riftbound?
Bombs are a new Token type tied to Ziggs, Short-Fused, with a payoff that scales on how many you play. Detonation Amplifier makes friendly Deathknell effects at its Battlefield trigger an additional time, which doubles every Bomb detonation there.
Can you play a Deploy gear to a battlefield you do not control?
Yes — Portable Portal is the clearest example and can be played to any Battlefield, including one your opponent holds. The trade-off is the standard Deploy risk: if your opponent holds that Battlefield, the Gear is destroyed.
Want the cards themselves? See every revealed Radiance card, ranked, or the release date and product breakdown.
Disclaimer: Radiance releases October 23, 2026. Keyword definitions on this page come from Riot's published preview material; individual card costs and wording are from preview-season coverage and may be adjusted or errata'd at launch. Check the official Riftbound Rules Hub for the authoritative text once the set is live.