The In-Depth Guide to Scoring in Riftbound

Hi everyone, welcome to our guide about scoring in Riftbound. In this one, we'll go in-depth on the various strategies one can pursue in order to reach 8 points.

Before we dive into the more elaborate stuff, it is crucial to know this particular ruling :

Q: How does the last point work?

In order to win the game, you need to score the last point (the 8th point in most games, 11th in 2v2). If you try to score the last point by conquering, you will only get the last point if you have already scored all of the other battlefields this turn. Otherwise, youʼll draw a card instead.

So, in an 8 point 1v1 game with two battlefields:

If you are at 6 points and conquer both battlefields, youʼll go to 7 and then to 8 and win.
If you are at 7 points and conquer both battlefields, youʼll draw a card for the first one, and then go to 8 and win.
If you are at 6 points, hold one battlefield to 7, and conquer the other to go to 8 and win.

On top of these common ways to win, you can also score your last point through a card's ability. OGN-034, OGN-066 or OGN-205 will win you the game if their ability scores the eighth point.

The Lethal Range

In Riftbound, we consider the lethal range to be whenever a player is able to score enough points in one turn to win the match. Most of the time, the lethal range is set at six points. From there, you can win the game the following turn if you accomplish any of those :

Conquer both battlefields next turn

OGN-116 became a metagame staple thanks to its ability to support that particular win condition. Through its ability, the 7-cost lower the power of your opponent on both battlefields, easing up the upcoming showdowns to close the match.
Cards able to move opposing units, such as OGN-116 are equally great for a double conquer, allowing to remove our opponent's biggest unit before the showdown even starts.

Manage to hold a battlefield this turn and Conquer the other next turn

As you trade battlefields with your opponent and score points doing so, you might end up with 6 points and a battlefield under your control. Then, rather than letting your opponent take it back for cheap so you can conquer both next turn, you could also consider holding this turn.

This is more an opportunistic way to win the match, as you likely will have limited resources available while your opponent has all their runes. Yet, certain cards, such as OGN-050 or OGN-213 against a single larger attacker, can sometimes represent a hold opportunity for cheap.

Conquer one battlefield this turn, and hold it until the start of your next turn.

In this scenario, we need to be ahead on the scoreboard, as it means we let our opponent keep the other battlefield and score a point. Still, when the opponent expects us to come for a double conquer, they could let us have the first one for much less resources than we anticipated. Then, on the back of that easier than expected conquer, we could have plenty of runes still available. Rather than invest to conquer the other battlefield, we could decide to keep these runes to react during our opponent's turn or summon a unit at the battlefield we just conquered.

OGN-122 is a fantastic card to punish such behaviour from our opponent, allowing us to skip their turn and get that last point. OGN-244 is another example, depriving our opponent of their resources and greatly limiting their ability to take that battlefield back next turn.

With that in mind, it is often more important to work towards six points plus a solid setup to accomplish one of these three scenarios, rather than aim for 8 points carelessly. Indeed, once you are in that lethal range, your opponent will have to commit resources to make sure you cannot win the game. As they are forced to play reactively, opportunities to counter play or make them waste resources will arise.

The Conqueror and the Holder

Depending on your legend and deck's strengths, you will naturally drift towards one of the above scenarios as your preferred way of closing a match.

Some like to call it Even or Odd scoring, depending on if you try to win when at 6 or 7 points, but we'll just label the two main strategies "Conqueror" and Holder" for this guide.
A conqueror is a deck designed to go to 6 points, and then look to conquer both battlefields at once. A Holder will try to win through holding a battlefield when at 7 points.
Conqueror decks will be proactive strategies, designed to score points early on and packing great cards to conquer both battlefields in the same turn. On the other end, Holders tend to be more control oriented, willing to trail on the scoreboard but extremely difficult to manoeuvre once they get set.

Here is how the scoreboard typically evolves for Conqueror decks :

The first point is basically given from conquering an empty battlefield on your second turn. If going first, you will likely hold that first battlefield as the opponent takes the other free one. Then, you are at 2 points starting turn three, and the real game can begin.

From here, we need to start planning how to get from 2 to 6. Riftbound allows us to score two points per turns, so we would like to aim for a 2-4-6 progression, and then go for a double conquer on turn five or six for the win.

To do so, we will typically recall the unit which held our first battlefield to base on turn three. Then, with both battlefields open to conquer, we can go from 2 to 4 points on turn four. Let our opponent take them back so we can conquer again next turn, going from 4 to 6, reaching our lethal range.

However, the opponent might let us get one point, since being on the odd count doesn't really help us, but fight tooth and nails to prevent that second score in a turn. Indeed, being at 6 or 7 before we go for the win doesn't change much, as we need to conquer both battlefields anyway. As such, they won't mind if we go from 4 to 5, but might have a say in us scoring that sixth point.

If we started the game, we can get to three points fairly easily. We already get two from conquering and holding a battlefield. With initiative to play our units first, we could conquer our opponent's battlefield on turn three, even if they can take it back the following turn as we tapped out of runes.
Yet, considering we are designed to conquer rather than hold, we don't mind trading battlefields. Plus, with our total now at 3 points rather than 2, we don't have to overcommit in order to score two per turn. We can accept one turn being a little less prolific, either going from 3 to 4, or 5 to 6, and keep our other units in the base rather than enter a showdown with no way to support our troops.

Here is how the scoreboard typically evolves for Holder decks :

The more control oriented decks don't really have a scoring pattern. Instead, they will rely on holding a battlefield when it causes their opponent to stay on an odd score. If they can do so, not only they got a point, they also get another benefit :

Either their conqueror opponent lost a turn, as they can't go from 3 to 6.
Their opponent has no interest in a showdown to go from 6 to 7, so they likely will just let you hold for free, instead preparing to conquer both battlefields at once.

Then, since Holders don't really plan for a specific scoring pattern, but rather to mess with the way their opponent progresses, they will often end up at 7 points. From there, they will rely on a powerful hold to win the game.

The key to playing a holder deck is to prioritize your units over your score, and keep runes ready to force your opponent into playing around certain cards. The existence of OGN-046 or OGN-058 can force your opponent to overshoot the might they need for a conquer, causing them to spend more resources, or take more risks. In doing so, they lower their chances to win future showdowns, especially the one deciding the fate of the game, once at 7 points.
On the other hand, if they try to come with only one more Might than you have at that battlefield, those cheap cards will allow you to hold and score.

Typically, you won't be able to prevent your conqueror opponent from reaching 6 points. Instead, your goal is to delay them by a turn, two is fantastic, and leverage that extra time to build your board.
Turn four will usually be when your first large unit comes down with eight or nine runes available, if you didn't recycle any on the way. Cards such as OGN-160 or OGN-161, able to turn the game around if they stick around. Yet, if your opponent is at 6 points, it is very risky to tap out of runes. Then, buying yourself a turn earlier through keeping your opponent on an odd score allows for those cards to be played safely.
Unfortunately, we can't always play OGN-134 into OGN-138 to develop our big cards by turn three, when our opponent hasn't scored enough to be a problem.

The OGN-247 exception :

If you were wondering why OGN-247 is the best legend in the game : She can play both as the conqueror or the holder.

Once at six points, OGN-247 is able to win through a double conquer through the likes of OGN-116 or OGN-248, both card massively impacting the board state to make cheap units able to conquer even in the later stages.
However, if you let OGN-247 reach seven points, certain you can hold that second battlefield, or when the Daughter of the Void plays defense against a faster opponent, OGN-122 becomes the win condition. Indeed, that card can turn any hold into two consecutive points, allowing OGN-247 to score from 6 to 8 with one battlefield only.

Through mixing these multiple win conditions, OGN-247 is able to play flexibly, focusing on value for most of the match, leveraging her ability to cast spells without recycling many runes. Those spells are the key to being able to play either as conqueror or holder. Indeed, they can serve to support a strong start, removing opposing units outside of showdowns so ours don't have to fight to conquer. Or we can try to starve an aggressive opponent, removing their units at their base before they can be used to conquer and score points.
Once in crunch time, OGN-247 can pick which pattern of scoring is best based on the situation and her resources available.

Value against Points

With the scoring progression covered, we can now discuss the real topic of this guide : When should we score or keep our unit safe ?

The way damage works in Riftbound, units are healed to full if they weren't removed by the current chain of spells or at the end of a showdown. Then, scoring with a 3 Might unit means we are basically exchanging that card for a point if our opponent comes knocking with a 4+Might unit the next turn, assuming we don't invest more resources as support.

With that in mind, the question we have to answer is : Does one point progress our scoring pattern enough to sacrifice this unit ?

From the holder perspective :

As a holder, the answer to that question will often be no. Indeed, our score isn't as important as preventing our opponent from scoring. Then, keeping that unit alive to remove a point from our opponent is more beneficial than scoring a point of our own and losing the unit.

In that position, we will conquer only if there is a high chance our unit stays alive. The ideal scenario being to conquer, hold, and return it to base for future utility.

One specific scenario would be to force our opponent to send two units instead of one to conquer that battlefield now that ours is holding it. In doing so, we have the opportunity to remove two of their units in the showdown we'll engage next turn.

For example, let's assume we have OGN-132 in play while our opponent has OGN-211 and OGN-246 available at their base.
If we keep our unit safe, they can conquer with the smaller OGN-211. However, if we place OGN-132 on that battlefield, our opponent might be forced to send OGN-246 instead, or maybe both units. This would create an opportunity to remove the more valuable unit, otherwise safe in our opponent's base.

From the conqueror perspective :

As a conqueror, we need to figure out how many turns we need to get to our lethal range. If that sacrifice does not buy us a turn, might as well keep our unit for the final push later on.

The obvious situation would be to score from 6 to 7, which effectively does nothing to our score. At best, we will get to draw a card when we conquer our first battlefield next turn. Then, unless a draw from our deck is worth more than a unit available to use on the board, that was a useless sacrifice.

If we plan to score in pairs, going 2-4-6 points, then our unit's sacrifice is only valuable if it helps us reach the next even number. Going from 4 to 5 only matters if we go from 5 to 6 in that same turn, so figuring the likelyness of that event is key to determine how to best use our unit.
Indeed, we prefer to be at 4 points with a high chance of conquering as our board is sizeable, rather than be at 5 points with every showdown requiring support cards to stand a chance due to lacking in Might.

Important Cards to keep in mind

Here are some support cards to keep in mind in the Origins set when playing against a Conqueror or a Holder deck.
Conqueror cards will be great at improving the ability to seize both battlefields once at 6 points. On the other hand, Holder cards will help keep a battlefield under control, and force the opponent to be cautious when they attack.

Many cards, such as damage spells (OGN-009), cards impacting the might of a unit (OGN-093, OGN-207) or able to move a unit (OGN-168) can serve in both strategies. Typically, reactions will be more efficient in holder decks while those neither an action nor a reaction can only serve during our turn, and therefor will more often see play in conqueror builds.