Riftbound Kai'Sa Deck: The Radiance Answer to Riven

TL;DR: Fury and Mind control. The Legend, Daughter of the Void, adds a power of any Domain for spells, and the deck spends it on removal. Every one of the 13 Kai'Sa lists in Radiance events on riftbound.gg up to October 24 ran RAD-003RAD-003Shop on TCGplayer Bilgewater Tracker and the same three Battlefields. The 13 players went 36-31-1 together. The list costs about $334 in singles (October 29); four cards are 89% of that.

Image credit: Riot Games via the official Riftbound card gallery (OGN-247, OGN-039, RAD-003).

piorro's Kai'Sa list, 2nd of 74, 7-2-1

From the Showdown 5 standings on riftbound.gg. The last column counts how many of the 13 Kai'Sa lists from Radiance events on riftbound.gg ran the card.

Runes: 7 Fury, 5 Mind. Battlefields: Void Gate, Rockfall Path, Frozen Fortress. Sideboard (10): two each of Brittle Steel, Decree of Rage and Decree of Insight, and one each of Hextech Ray, Icathian Rain, Lost to the Sands and Ferrous Forerunner.

The Main Deck is 40 cards counting Kai'Sa, Survivor, who starts in the Champion Zone rather than in the deck: 22 more units, 17 spells and no gear.

What the Kai'Sa Legend does

Riot's text for Daughter of the Void: exhaust it as a Reaction to add one power of any Domain, with one condition, "Use only to play spells." Kai'Sa is Fury and Mind, and once per turn she pays part of a spell's cost at Reaction speed, including on your opponent's turn.

That's why 17 of the 40 cards are spells, most of them removal or tricks. Hextech Ray deals 3 to a unit at a battlefield for 1 Energy. Falling Star reads "Deal 3 to a unit. Deal 3 to a unit." Smoke Screen and Stupefy shrink a unit at Reaction speed, and Stupefy draws a card. riftbound.gg's Radiance Day 1 meta report (October 22) calls Kai'Sa "the best legend in order to remove units sitting at a battlefield through spells." That's the whole plan: the units your opponent wants to score with die before they score.

Image credit: Riot Games via the official Riftbound card gallery (OGN-009, OGN-029, RAD-013).

One reason for every card

Bilgewater Tracker, three. The new Radiance card in every list. When you play it, it deals 1 to each of up to two units. That 1 damage is what lets Falling Star's two 3-damage hits kill two 4-Might units, such as RAD-043RAD-043Shop on TCGplayer Riven, Broken Blade. On r/RiftboundTCG, u/RunningCatDog put it this way: "Bilgewater tracker is really good. Helps you get rid of the 4 might units with falling star a breakpoint Kai'Sa used to struggle with."

Watchful Sentry and Plundering Poro, three each. The 2-drops. Sentry draws a card when it dies. Poro makes a Gold gear token when it conquers, and the Core Rules give that token "Kill this, [E]: [Add] [A]", one more power of any Domain later.

Lecturing Yordle, two. A 3-cost Tank that draws a card when played. Two lists cut it entirely.

OGN-012OGN-012Shop on TCGplayer Noxus Hopeful, three. A 4-Might unit with Legion: it costs 2 less if you've played another card this turn. After a 1-cost spell, it's a 2-cost body.

OGN-039OGN-039Shop on TCGplayer Kai'Sa, Survivor. The Chosen Champion: 4 Energy, 4 Might, Accelerate, and "When I conquer, draw 1."

Brynhir Thundersong, three. When you play it, "opponents can't play cards this turn." That's the turn you attack without a counter-spell or trick coming back.

Thousand-Tailed Watcher, three. 7 Energy, 7 Might, and when you play it, enemy units get -3 Might this turn. With Accelerate it can enter ready and attack into a weakened board.

RAD-060RAD-060Shop on TCGplayer The Empyrean, one, and Ferrous Forerunner, one. The top end. The Empyrean has Show Off: reveal a card, Predict equal to its Power cost, then draw 2. Forerunner leaves two 3-Might Mech tokens in your base when it dies. riftbound.gg says the matchup against Riven becomes "a more resource based battle, hence why The Empyrean has joined the deck."

Temporal Breach, three. Banish a unit, then its owner plays it again in the same place, ignoring its cost. Since the unit is played again, a "When you play me" text like Brynhir's or The Empyrean's fires a second time. It has Hidden, so you can set it up for a power and react later for 0 Energy.

Bellows Breath, two. 1 damage to up to three units at one location, with Repeat for another 1 Energy and a Mind power. It's the answer to a wide board of small units.

Time Warp, two. "Take a turn after this one." 10 Energy and 4 power, so it's a late-game finisher, not something you plan around early.

The three Battlefields every list agreed on

All 13 Kai'Sa lists ran the same three Battlefields, and they fit the plan:

• Void Gate: "Spells and abilities affecting units here each deal 1 Bonus Damage." Falling Star becomes 4 and 4 there, and Hextech Ray deals 4.
• Rockfall Path: "Units can't be played here." Riven's Legend, RAD-149RAD-149Shop on TCGplayer The Exile, reads "Units you play to battlefields you control enter ready." No unit can be played at Rockfall Path, so her ability does nothing there.
• Frozen Fortress: deals 1 to each unit there at the start of each player's Beginning Phase. It wears down small units on both sides; your Watchful Sentry at least draws a card when it dies.

Image credit: Riot Games via the official Riftbound card gallery (OGN-296, SFD-216, UNL-212).

One limit: in a 1v1 Duel, each player brings three Battlefields and only one is randomly selected (Core Rules 487.5). So in any game, one of these three is on the table, not all of them.

How the other 12 Kai'Sa players built it

Two patterns stand out. Eight of the 13 lists ran Lost to the Sands, a 3-Energy spell that deals 4 to a unit at a battlefield or kills a gear, usually in place of a Tracker. And eight ran a third Hextech Ray. On Reddit, u/Indercarnive was blunt about the swap from the older Rocket Barrage: "Lost in the Sands is infinitely better because its cheaper and at action speed."

One more thing worth knowing: YBE Luddrox registered the exact same list as piorro and went 1-2-0 for 46th. Same 40 cards, opposite result. Treat one 2nd place as one good run, not a solved deck.

The turns that matter

Each turn you channel 2 runes and draw 1, and in a 1v1 Duel the player going second channels one extra rune on their first turn. Because both players draw on turn 1, the cards you've seen by a given turn don't depend on the seat.

We dealt 200,000 opening hands each from piorro's list and from the common variant (one Tracker out, one Lost to the Sands in), with the Core Rules mulligan: set aside up to two cards, draw that many, recycle the rest. Our model keeps any hand with a 2-cost unit or a battlefield removal spell, and otherwise sets aside the two most expensive cards.

That's the trade in one table. Lost to the Sands gives you an early answer about 7 points more often. A third Tracker gives you the two-for-one setup about 6 points more often. If your local meta is Riven, whose Broken Blade has 4 Might, we'd lean toward the early answer.

Matchups, and the sample behind them

Showdown 5 doesn't publish pairings, so we can't give you head-to-head records. What we have is 13 Kai'Sa players across two events (36-31-1), riftbound.gg's written analysis, and card text. Read the notes below as an expert read plus our reasoning, not win rates.

Riven. The matchup the deck is chosen for. riftbound.gg: "Kai'sa has emerged as the best legend to pick against Riven so far in Radiance, as long as one plays to limit their opponent's board first and foremost." The report's warning: Calm counter-spells "will get in the way at times", and some units can't be targeted by your spells. Baron Nashor's text says it "can't be chosen by enemy spells and abilities". Akali, Silent can't be chosen "unless I'm in combat." The report says Riven players have started to side in both. Our Riven deck guide covers what you're playing against.

Kennen. The bad one. The same report: "Kennen does have a great match-up into Kai'Sa however", because "reactive legends struggle with multiple Rhasa the Sunderer coming down at once" and Kennen hardly runs out of cards. Rhasa costs 1 less for every card in its owner's trash. Kennen was the most played Legend at Showdown 5, with 14 players.

Hush. A Radiance Reaction spell that counters a spell with a Power cost of 2 or more. In piorro's list, that's three Falling Star and two Time Warp. A long-time Kai'Sa player, u/Lowe5521, flagged it in the same Reddit thread: "it hits Singularity, Falling Star, Icathian Rain AND Time Warp." Your cheap spells (Hextech Ray, Stupefy, Smoke Screen, Bellows Breath, Temporal Breach) cost 1 power or none, so Hush can't counter them.

anzid's 78-minute set against Riven, uploaded October 22, is the best long look at the deck we found. His description doesn't hedge: "now with some insane buffs, she's absolutely tier 1."

What it really costs

riftbound.gg priced piorro's list at $866.05 on October 29. That's misleading. The list records Plundering Poro as UNL-222, an overnumbered Unleashed printing at $180.65 a copy on TCGplayer. Riot's card gallery also lists Plundering Poro as a Spiritforged common, SFD-069, with the same text, and that one is $0.14.

Using the cheapest printing of each card on October 29, 2026 (TCGplayer market prices), the 40 cards, the Legend and three Battlefields come to about $334, before runes. Four cards make up $296.80 of it, or 89%:

Kai'Sa, Survivor's cheapest copy is the Origins alternate art; the regular Epic is $67.68. Time Warp, Watcher and Falling Star only sell as foils. All four went up between October 24 and 29: Time Warp was $44.14 and Falling Star $10.19 when we first priced the list. Bilgewater Tracker is $0.11, The Empyrean $0.12 and Lost to the Sands $0.14. The Radiance cards are the cheap part.

How to pilot it

1. Keep a 2-drop or a removal spell. Our model keeps anything with one; about two hands in three have a 2-cost unit on turn 1.
2. Leave the Legend ready on their turn. Daughter of the Void works at Reaction speed, and so does Smoke Screen, which costs 2 Energy and 1 power. Holding both up lets you take 4 Might off their attacker mid-fight.
3. Kill units at battlefields, not in base. Hextech Ray and Lost to the Sands only hit units at a battlefield, which is where they score.
4. Count to 4 Might. Tracker's 1 damage on two units lets Falling Star's two 3s kill both. At Void Gate, Falling Star kills two 4-Might units on its own.
5. Spend Brynhir on the turn you need to stick. Once it's played, your opponent can't play a card for the rest of that turn, so your attack and removal can't be met with a counter-spell or a trick.

Our take

We'd build piorro's list with one change: swap a Bilgewater Tracker for Lost to the Sands, as 8 of 13 players did. Our numbers say it gets you an early answer more often, and that's what you need against Riven's turn-2 Broken Blade. If your store plays mostly Kennen, wait: riftbound.gg calls it a great matchup for Kennen, and nothing in these results says otherwise.

Don't let riftbound.gg's $866 scare you off. Buy the common Plundering Poro, and the real cost is about $334, most of it in two Time Warp and one Kai'Sa, Survivor. Thirteen players is a small sample, so read our Radiance tier list for where Kai'Sa stands against the other Legends, and expect this list to change once the in-person season starts.

How we checked this: on October 24, 2026 we pulled every Radiance event on riftbound.gg with match records, then every Kai'Sa standing, record and public decklist (13 players, 13 lists), and counted card usage with our script (scripts/sims/riftbound-kaisa-radiance.py, one run, no randomness). The opening-hand table comes from 200,000 simulated games per list with a fixed seed (scripts/sims/riftbound-kaisa-opening-odds.py, seed 20261024); it counts cards seen and doesn't model runes, power or the opponent. Card text is from Riot's official card gallery, rules from Riot's Core Rules (updated October 9, 2026), and prices are TCGplayer market prices on October 29 (TCGplayer's daily price file for every Riftbound set, cross-checked against riftbound.org's card pages). We haven't played the deck.

Related Reading

• Riftbound Radiance Best Cards From 74 Tournament Decklists: where Bilgewater Tracker ranks among the Radiance cards that made the Showdown 5 Top 16.
• Riftbound Kennen Deck Guide: the Legend riftbound.gg calls Kai'Sa's worst matchup.
• Riftbound Radiance Keywords: Deploy, Show Off and Disarm: how Show Off works on The Empyrean.
• Riftbound Domains Explained: what Fury and Mind each bring to a deck.

References

• NovaRiftbound's $2,000 Online Showdown 5 on riftbound.gg: date, standings, records and decklists, checked October 24, 2026.
• Club9 Riftbound Clash #3 on riftbound.gg: the 13th Kai'Sa list.
• riftbound.gg: Radiance Day 1 Best Decks & Meta Report, October 22, 2026.
• Official Riftbound card gallery: card text, Domains, costs and images.
• Riftbound Core Rules: deck building, setup, mulligan, Duel mode and Gold tokens.
• riftbound.org card pages and TCGplayer's daily Riftbound price files via tcgcsv: TCGplayer market prices, October 29, 2026.
• r/RiftboundTCG: Kai'Sa in Radiance