It’s spoiler season! With Riftbound’s next set, Unleashed, set to release internationally in May (April in China), we’re starting to see cards from the set beginning to emerge on social media.
Ahead of Riot’s big developer blog later today, a few cards from Unleashed have cropped up on Chinese social media. This includes two new champion legends, Pyke and Master Yi.
Pyke is everyone’s (least) favourite colour combination, Chaos and Fury (Purple/Red). According to a rough translation of the card, you can pay one energy and tap the card to return a friendly unit on the battlefield to your hand to channel a gold token exhausted.
This is thematic to Pyke in League of Legends, as he generates gold for allies through his ultimate and ‘hooks’ people in, similar to hooking cards back into your hand.
As for Master Yi—the second version of this legend following on from his Origins appearance—he is once again Calm and Body (Green/Orange). Yi’s card mentions a new mechanic: experience. The specifics on how to gather experience are not known yet, but at level 6, Yi’s units all have +1 might, and at level 11, all his units enter ready.
Riftbound Unleashed’s Spoiler Season Has Officially Begun
Other cards were also spoiled, including Kha’Zix, an orange 5 power, 1 energy unit with 5 might who appears to gain 1 point of experience when he conquers or holds. Then, when he attacks, you can choose to spend 3 experience points to deal X damage (where X is his might) to a unit at the same battlefield.
Another champion unit, Lillia, is a green 5 power, 4 might unit with Tank that gives token units Tank. Her card text reads, “Whenever you play a token unit, give me +1 might this turn.”
There are also some cards that interact with ‘tribal’ mechanics, i.e. cards that target specific groupings of units (poro, dragon and so on). Hunting Snow Wolf is yellow 4 energy, 1 power unit with 6 might. Its card text reads, “As an additional cost to play me, you must kill a bird, cat, dog or poro unit. You may play me at that battlefield (even if you have no other unit at that battlefield).”
This is one of the cards that will benefit from an official translation when we receive the international version, because the direct translation from Chinese leaves several aspects of the card unclear.
The final leaked unit is the Blue Buff Golem, a unit the junglers of the world will be very familiar with. This creature is a blue, 4 energy, 1 power unit with 4 might with Shield 2 that reads, “Hold effects here trigger twice. On hold, add 1 power at the start of your beginning phase.”
Lastly, we also saw two purple gears. Cursed Sarcophagus is a 4 energy, 1 power geat with text that reads, “When you play this card, banish all units from your discard pile. You can then tap it to play a unit that’s been banished (while paying the card cost).”
This is an interesting tech that can foil the plans of decks that rely on cycling cards from the trash, or need cards in the trash to accomplish something, such as decks that use Vi and/or Rhasa the Sunderer.
The other gear, Bounty List, is a 1-power card in which the player must declare a tribal designation, e.g., poro, dragon, and so on. Tapping this gear then reduces the might of every unit with that designation by two for the turn.
That’s the extent of this morning’s spoilers, but there is surely more to come as we move closer to Unleashed’s release. Riot’s upcoming development blog will likely demystify some of the new mechanics we’ve been seeing.
- Original Release Date
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2025
- Designer(s)
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Dave Guskin (Game Director)
