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Riftbound has been available worldwide for just a week, but China has been playing the game for months, guiding the metagame as a result. Then, some Legends already are regarded as juggernauts, and certain cards as must own.
Europe tends to have more reasonable prices compared to America, but the best cards in each color are pricey no matter when you look :
- OGN-116's best price is €25.
- OGN-039 is listed at a minimum of €50.
- OGN-160 is a €35 purchase.
- OGN-082 goes for €30 at best
- OGN-242's cheapest offer is at €23
- OGN-201 is seeing more play, and now costs €15 on average
When you have to spend from €50 to €100 for three copies of a key card, and still need to purchase about 60 more to complete your deck and side, you better be certain you will enjoy that build.
First, there are online clients one can use in order to test before spending the big bucks. Then, Riftbound can be played on a budget !
In this article, I crafted a deck for every legend without using any card worth more than €10 at the moment. Plus, I ranked all of them based on their powerlevel if played in that casual friendly environement.
Sure, you probably don't want to enter a regional tournament with those builds, at least not if you aim for the win. Yet, all these builds will let you enjoy the game with your friends or at your local store.
Plus, you can always improve them later on if you want to take your game to the next level.
| Tier | Champion |
|---|---|
| S Tier | Viktor |
| S Tier | Teemo |
| Tier 1 | Ahri |
| Tier 1 | Jinx |
| Tier 1 | Annie |
| Tier 2 | Yasuo |
| Tier 2 | Miss Fortune |
| Tier 2 | Volibear |
| Tier 3 | Leona |
| Tier 3 | Kai'Sa |
| Tier 3 | Lux |
| Tier 4 | Darius |
| Tier 4 | Master Yi |
| Tier 4 | Lee Sin |
| Tier 4 | Sett |
| Tier 4 | Garen |
S Tier
Viktor
Except for OGN-116, OGN-265 already is a budget friendly legend. Then, I just reworked a build with a proven track record to be slightly more proactive and beginner-friendly in its play-patterns.
We run a balanced build with our base deck, packing a solid set of removals to make sure we don't just run out of gas and give our opponent the board eventually. In a casual friendly environment, games tend to be more value focused, so this fits that requirement perfectly.
Then, depending on your opponent, you can either switch to a more token heavy build, including OGN-231 to the mix, or pack even more control tools with OGN-229 and OGN-238.
The only downside to picking OGN-265 is the struggle to re-use several of the more expensive cards in another deck. Indeed, OGN-246 or OGN-239 don't see much play outside this legend.
Teemo
OGN-263's core gameplay can be played for pretty cheap. Indeed, compared to a refined deck, we are mostly missing OGN-201, even if some like to run OGN-116 or OGS-011 as well.
Otherwise, OGN-109 and OGN-185 are very affordable, while their supporting cast is cheap as well. Plus, we can also invest into more hidden cards if we wanted to build around OGN-167, another cheap option.
Three copies of OGN-183 might cost you around $10, but this is a staple in most Purple decks, meaning the card won't go to waste.
Overall, Teemo is a solid budget option to consider. Plus, except for OGN-109, most cards see play in other Purple or Blue decks, so your investment won't be wasted if you want to explore another synergy within those colors.
Tier 1
Ahri
OGN-255 loses both OGN-119 and OGN-256 on top of the usual pricey blue cards when switching to a budget deck. However, thanks to OGN-066, we have a pretty clear direction to build our deck, one we can achieve with cheap cards only.
The key support piece in this strategy will be OGN-073. Through readying our runes at the end of the turn, we can spend proactively while still having means to react during our opponent's turn.
The rest of the deck is mostly made of solid cards we see in many blue or green decks, plus OGN-092 to provide something proactive when we have more runes available.
In our side deck, OGN-106 represents a way to switch to a more fast-paced play style.
Jinx
Red and Purple pair pretty well when it comes to budget strategies, even more so as this build does not require OGN-039. Plus, OGN-251's ability is quite good for a casual environment, in which players tend to manage their ressources sub-optimally.
Arguably, OGS-017 is a stronger pick at the moment if you intend to upgrade your deck in the future. However, that legend is also pricier to get started, so OGN-164 is a solid pick if you plan to play on a budget for the foreseeable future.
Annie
One of the legends on the rise lately, Annie is a bit more affordable than other red legends thanks to purple cards being on the cheaper side of the spectrum. However, I wouldn't wait for too long if I was interested to build OGS-017, as the champion is one big win away from possibly becoming much more expensive.
Already, we have to build our budget deck without OGN-039 and OGN-201, basically killing our draw capacity compared to an optimize build. With these two missing, we are forced to play a more aggressive play-style, hopefully cheating out OGN-194 for a huge tempo boost.
Tier 2
Yasuo
Except for the one OGN-082 and both OGN-077, two cards we will be missing dearly in most green decks in this article, the best OGN-259 from the Chinese national tournament was already quite budget friendly.
To accommodate our finances, we can replace OGN-082 with OGN-192, a more disruptive yet not as impactful dragon. As for OGN-077, the only thing we can do is improve another area of our deck. I picked OGN-168, a flexible purple card we can use in a multitude of decks. It for sure will not go to waste, whether it is in this Move heavy deck, or if we decide to play another purple Legend.
Miss Fortune
Any legend relying on OGN-160 will naturally struggle to keep its signature play-style when switching to a budget friendly approach. Plus, we'll also miss our legend signature spell and champion unit here, as OGN-268 and OGN-268 cost about €10 each.
Fortunately, OGN-267 combines the two colors we need to run the Dragon synergy, thanks to OGN-192 being pretty cheap to get.
Then, there is a budget way to run this legend and still get a cohesive build. However, this won't be a deck we can upgrade to match the competitive build. Instead, this is a different take on OGN-267, more suited for our wallet.
Volibear
OGN-038 can be purchased for around €5 on Card Market, saving OGN-249 from having nothing left to build around. Indeed, there isn't another direction but to Ramp available to this legend, so on a budget or not, we have to build with that intent.
Fortunately, the Dragon synergy features multiple Mighty units, while we have multiple cheap red cards available to stall early on.
In a casual environment, without some midgame must remove units to deal with at every turn, OGN-249 might actually be better than he is in the competitive, high stakes tournament metagame.
Tier 3
Leona
Leona loses her signaturel spell OGN-262 and the green staple OGN-077 once in budget mode. However, if her supporting cards are a bit worse, she gets to keep all her units and core gameplay, one of the perks of being a weak legend in the competitive metagame.
Once in this more casual friendly-environment, I would expect Leona to be able to post decent results. Indeed, without the dominant midrange champions and fantastic removal spells in every deck, OGN-232 and OGN-238 should be much stronger. Plus, the stun mechanic will be much improved when it doesn't have to compare to the flurry of removal an optimized OGN-247 runs.
Kai'sa
Being the top legend in the game naturally raises the stock of your key cards. As such, we will have to build OGN-247 without many of our top cards : OGN-039, OGN-116, OGN-122, OGN-248 or OGN-029.
Obviously, you should not expect to dominate every tournament like the legend does at the highest level. Yet, a budget OGN-247 can still run its signature off-tempo play style. Plus, OGN-092 and OGN-034 aren't so bad at the top of the curve.
If you are hesitant to spend hundreds of dollars into the game to get the best deck, this could represent a decent cheap option, at least to figure out whether you enjoy the archetype enough to invest into it.
Lux
Playing without OGN-122 will definately make the deck worse, as we'll now have to outvalue our opponent rather than build our board and score most of our points at once. Yet, considering OGS-021 is amongst the weakest legends in Riftbound, playing in less of a competitive environment might actually improve her stock.
Indeed, OGS-021 is quite good at the value game, combining a ton of removal with a great draw ability. Then, even if we'll dearly miss that ability to play two turns in a row, beginners should enjoy the luxury of clearing virtually any threat the opponent could have in store.
Beware of token decks though, unless you are willing to spend a bit for a couple of OGN-123.
Tier 4
Darius
The most competitive red legends are going to struggle a bit when switched to budget mode, as both OGN-027 and OGN-039 are out of line. For OGN-253, we also have to cut out OGN-242, basically preventing us from playing the best performing builds of this legend.
In that context, I felt forced to look for another synergy to build around, and turned to a token based strategy, with the more affordable OGN-246 and OGN-243 at the helm.
One could wonder why not run OGN-265 then, since that leader is the Token synergy go-to pick and is much easier to build on a budget. Honestly, the reason would be to run a more aggressive build with beefier red cards in the mid-game compared to yellow or blue options. Yet, it is very likely OGN-253 does not have that many upsides when played on a budget.
Master Yi
We are allowed to use a Chinese card for our legend, meaning we can bypass the price problem to get OGS-019. Then, OGS-009 can be purchased as a single for about €7 while OGS-004 is not mandatory, just a good late game option in this budget exercise.
It is quite annoying to go through these hoops, but unless one can find a Proving Grounds at a reasonable price, this is the cheapest route to playing Master Yi.
The average Master Yi that is, as we'll have to build the legend without OGN-161 and OGN-082, two of the most expensive cards in Riftbound currently. Then, while we still have OGS-004 to ramp for, the deck needs to find a powerful win condition. OGN-076 and OGN-148 in our side deck are affordable cards we can use against midrange or token based synergy, granting the deck some adaptability in game 2 and 3.
Lee Sin
Just like OGN-269, OGN-257 doesn't look so great for a budget player, as the two cards we have to cut from the deck are very important to our core strategy. Indeed, OGN-164 is our highest might in the deck, while OGN-077 is crucial to any deck looking to keep key units on the board. So much so, I'm hesitant to run OGN-145 in the main deck.
For anyone who enjoys the buff synergy, OGN-257 probably is much more budget friendly than OGN-269. Nevertheless, it looks like playing a buff deck isn't ideal for someone unwilling to invest in their deck.
Sett
OGN-269 is probably the worst legend to pick for someone on a budget. Indeed, OGN-164, OGN-244 and OGN-270, all key cards to our synergy, cost quite a penny at the moment.
Then, We have to reword the deck quite a bit in order to fit our requirement of not spending too much, instead building our deck around OGN-232 and OGN-240. Even in that scenario, I felt forced to include OGN-155 to help the deck with stability. Yet, even if the card is flexible enough to be used in other Orange decks, spending about €20 to get three copies could have been invested into getting a copy of OGN-164.
Just a bad pick for someone on a budget, unfortunately.
Garen
Garen is widely regarded as one of the worst legends in the game. Recently, OGN-160 has been added to the mix in tournaments, which improved the results a bit. Yet, this is more another proof of OGN-160 being a great card than anything else.
Then, the only reason I can picture to go with Garen is because you like that particular character, even on a budget. Indeed, its playstyle can be replicated with a budget OGN-253, and improved with OGN-265.
