Riftbound Radiance Keywords: Deploy, Show Off and Disarm

New to the game? Our Riftbound how-to-play guide covers battlefields, holding and scoring first.

Riftbound Radiance keywords at a glance

Riftbound Deploy: gear that lives on a battlefield

Normal gear goes to your base. Rule 830.1.b turns Deploy into four instructions: the gear "may be played or created to any battlefield", must be played only to a battlefield, isn't recalled in Cleanups unless it's a unit, and dies "When an opponent holds here".

"Any battlefield" is literal. Riot's patch notes spell it out: "Gear with Deploy can be played to any battlefield; enemy occupied, friendly, or uncontrolled." So RAD-002RAD-002Shop on TCGplayer Banner of Conquest, which gives your units there Assault, can go where your attack is headed before a single unit of yours arrives.

The Cleanup point is the one people miss. Gear sitting at a battlefield normally gets sent home, which is why a hidden Zhonya's Hourglass ends up back in base (our Hidden rules guide walks through that case). Deploy gear stays put.

When does it die? Holding means keeping control of a battlefield through your Beginning Phase, and that's when the opponent's point and your gear's death happen, in that order. A player asked whether a Bomb explodes before the enemy scores, and u/Wikoro answered: "So the opponent scores, then the gear dies and explodes." Losing a battlefield in combat doesn't kill your Deploy gear on its own. The opponent has to still control it when their next turn starts, so you get your own turn to take it back.

How many can you stack? Rule 830 sets no limit per battlefield, unlike Hidden's single facedown slot. One player hit exactly this at a Pre-Rift: "I tried to stack 2 different gear and my opponent said hmm... Never happened before, can you only 1 like hidden? And someone leaned over and said ziggs bombs, and that ended the conversation." The cards agree. RAD-094RAD-094Shop on TCGplayer Explosimian plays "three Bomb gear tokens to a single battlefield." Giving Deploy to gear that already has it does nothing, since multiple instances are redundant.

Can it move? Yes, but only through effects. Command: Attack moves "a friendly gear with [Deploy] to a battlefield," and Jarvan IV's Legend, Exemplar of Demacia, moves one of your units to the battlefield where you just played Deploy gear.

Bomb tokens

Bombs are Deploy gear tokens. Rule 187.12 gives each one "[Deathknell][>] Deal 2 to an enemy unit here and kill all other Bombs you control here." Because the other Bombs die too, each fires its own Deathknell, so one Bomb going off sets off every Bomb you have at that battlefield. Riot's Radiance overview put it more simply: "The more bombs you play, the bigger the boom." Ziggs's Legend, Hexplosives Expert, makes one each time you pay 1 Energy and one Power of any Domain and exhaust him.

Orianna and Deploy gear. At the start of your Main Phase, Orianna's Legend lets you pay 1 Energy to turn a friendly gear into a unit. If that gear is Deploy gear at a battlefield you don't control, the patch notes say the battlefield becomes contested "and a combat or showdown will be staged there in the subsequent cleanup." Your gear just started a fight.

Image credit: Riot Games, official Riftbound card gallery (RAD-116, RAD-062, RAD-094, RAD-033).

Riftbound Disarm: Assault, pointed at the defender

Rule 831.1.d reads Disarm as "When I attack, give an enemy unit here -X [M] this turn." No number on the card means Disarm 1. Riot's overview calls it "similar to Assault", and the comparison works: Assault makes your attacker bigger, Disarm makes one of their units smaller.

The rules and patch notes add three details:

• It only fires on attack. A unit with Disarm does nothing extra when it defends.
• It fires once per attack. The patch notes put it as "The first time a unit with Disarm attacks each combat."
• Copies add up into one trigger. Extra instances sum. RAD-055RAD-055Shop on TCGplayer Clanging Sentry reads "Your Mechs have [Disarm]", and the rules' own example says that with a second Sentry out, "both of them will have Disarm 2."

RAD-093RAD-093Shop on TCGplayer Disposal Expert carries Disarm 2 on its own, as does Seraphine, Inspiring. Ahri, Confident pairs it with a payoff: she gains +1 Might this turn whenever you reduce an enemy unit's Might at her battlefield, and her own Disarm counts. The patch notes define reducing Might as an ability you control giving a unit a -Might effect.

Riftbound Show Off: reveal it for the bonus

Rule 832.1.c defines Show Off as "As you play [me/this], you may reveal [Object] from your hand and/or pick [Object] from among friendly game objects on the board." Take RAD-082RAD-082Shop on TCGplayer Primordial Roar: "[Show Off] a unit," then "If you showed off a unit, deal damage equal to that unit's Might to a unit."

What the rules settle:

• It's optional. "You may." Skip it and the card still resolves without the bonus. RAD-011RAD-011Shop on TCGplayer Incorrigible Construct just enters exhausted.
• Hand, board or both. A requirement for several cards can be met by mixing cards in hand with units on the board.
• The information is locked in. The patch notes: "That information is locked in when the card or object is shown off, even if it's referenced later." Shrink or bounce the unit you showed off with Primordial Roar and the damage doesn't change.
• Showing off doesn't hold the card in place. The rules' example has a spell show off a Mech and then discard that same Mech for its additional cost. That's legal.
• Facedown cards don't count. Gutter Guardian wants a card with Hidden, and a facedown card isn't one. The patch notes answer it directly: "You cannot."

Image credit: Riot Games, official Riftbound card gallery (RAD-055, RAD-065, RAD-011, RAD-127).

Riot's own Dev Drop introduces all three with card examples:

Every card with the Riftbound Radiance keywords

We went through Riot's card gallery data on October 22 and counted each card once, leaving out alternate-art and showcase reprints with the same text.

Four more cards reward Deploy without having it: Command: Attack, Exemplar of Demacia, Jarvan IV and Overloaded Traveler. Clanging Sentry hands out Disarm rather than printing it.

Where you'll meet them first

If you're starting with the Evelynn vs Seraphine Showdown box, each deck already has 8 cards using the new keywords, counting the champion options. Seraphine's has two Seraphine, Inspiring, three Concert Poster, two Rousing Display and one The Empyrean. Evelynn's has one Evelynn, In Control, three Siren of the Shallows, two Gutter Guardian, one Bushwhack Trap and one The Good Stuff.

Our take

Of the three Riftbound Radiance keywords, Deploy is the one that changes how you plan a turn. Disarm is better attacking math and Show Off is a deckbuilding check, while Deploy asks where you'll still be standing when your opponent's turn starts. Put Deploy gear where you expect to hold, or where you're about to attack, and treat gear dropped at a battlefield you can't keep as a one-turn rental. For Show Off, count how often you'll meet the condition before you build around the bonus. Rousing Display wants a card costing 7 or more, and the Seraphine Showdown deck runs eight of them; a cheap aggressive deck will mostly get the smaller half of the card. Ziggs, Orianna and Jarvan IV, the Legends built around gear, are in our Radiance Legends list.

How we checked this: on October 22, 2026 we read rules 830 to 832, the Bomb token rule and the Hold rule in Riot's October 9 Core Rules, read the Radiance patch notes and Q&A, and counted every Radiance card with the three keywords in Riot's card gallery data. Showdown deck contents are from Riot's Radiance overview. Player quotes are from r/riftboundtcg.