The newest Riftbound set, Radiance, is coming up right around the corner, and with the new set of mechanically exciting cards comes a slew of beautiful collectibles worth the chase, too. Here's a look at some of these cool new cards with commentary about how they came to be from Riftbound executive produce Chengran Chai.
The Riftbound team layers collectibility on top of playability with Alt Art, Overnumbered, and SP cards only when the've completed fine-tuning the mechanics of the set. Some of the rare standouts for Radiance are Riot Games Music crossovers, including the Overnumbered Heartsteel cards, SP K/DA cards, and Overnumbered Ekko, Revolutionary, which features Ekko’s original True Damage skin. The Overnumbered cards also come in the Signature variety, which are the rarest pulls besides the single Ultimate Rare in this set.
“We knew Riot as a whole would have a music moment towards the end of the year, so very early on, we said we would lean into that,” Chai said. However, as a physical game, the Riftbound team needed to finalize many card details before the songs were even composed and the new character designs were finished.
“That is why you see… for the K/DA and Heartsteel cards, it is very much their K/DA All Out and Heartsteel 1.0 versions, because the 2.0 versions just weren’t quite ready,” Chai said. “But we thought it would be a great way to showcase Riftbound’s participation… and leverage the broader music moment to allow more fans to see and experience Riftbound as well.”
This original plan didn’t even include teasing Heartsteel’s Riftbound cards in Heartsteel’s new Live My Life music video–the Riot Music Team actually initiated that easter egg, asking the Riftbound team if they wanted the cards in the music video. Of course, they said yes.
Though Riftbound has been very supported from within Riot since the beginning, the somewhat unexpected explosion of its popularity has given Riftbound even more opportunities to be a part of Riot-wide moments. Another example of this is the Riftbound easter egg in Valorant’s Aeris Flex cosmetic.
The Heartsteel Overnumbered cards feature a very unique design, akin to K-pop photo cards, complete with bright motifs, stickers, and Y2K elements. Playing into the photo card inspiration even more, the Heartsteel Overnumbered Signature cards are "signed" by the characters themselves--not the artists like on other Signature cards! Riot Games’ senior Manager of creative development Michelle Mauk spoke about the design process during the Radiance panel at the Riftbound Regional Qualifier (RQ) in Los Angeles, which I highly recommend you watch if you’re interested.
I always feel like renders of Overnumbered cards don’t do them justice, and that’s certainly the case for the Heartsteel cards, too. The texturing and foiling on Riftbound’s most coveted cards are always so impressive to behold in person. I tried to capture the look in the photos of the Overnumbered Ekko, Revolutionary Champion Unit I pulled in the slideshow above, but it's difficult to show all the different patterns, holographics, and gold text in a single picture!
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/riftbound-radiance-rarest-cards-riot-games-music-crossovers-dominate-the-set
