Riftbound 2027 Premier Play

Continentals

These are the marquee events of our Organized Play structure. These tournaments will also be the largest tournament we run of the year, and are being hosted in venues larger than the largest Regional Qualifier events we held in 2026.

Set	Dates	City	Venue	Hashtag
Legacy	March 26-28, 2027	Dallas, USA	Kay Bailey Convention Center	#RBCDallas
The Reckoning	June 11-13, 2027	Melbourne, Australia	Melbourne Showgrounds	#RBCMelbourne
Set 8	August 13-15, 2027	London, England	Excel	#RBCLondon
Set 9	December 10-12, 2027	Toronto, Canada	EnerCare Center	#RBCToronto

Continentals are three-day events open to all, whereas this year's Regional Championships required players to have qualified to compete in them.

While we aren't ready to share full details on the Continentals' tournament structure, we know some of you will want to know how the open event and the Day 2 tokens will interact. The players who compete on Friday and make Day 2 will find their records reset as they are joined by players who have used Day 2 tokens.

We'll dive into this more as we get closer to the event.

Regionals

Regional Qualifiers did a massive amount of work for Riftbound this year, driving excitement and providing regular major tournaments for the community to attend, compete, watch, and rally around. We're not dramatically increasing the number of Regionals going into 2027, but we're increasing the size of these events in very real ways:

• Three-Day Tournaments - Regionals move from only Saturday & Sunday to be Friday-Sunday. (More on this after the schedule.)
• Larger Venues - Every Regional in 2027 is being held in spaces larger than regionally comparable RQs from 2026.

Here is our Regional schedule up through the middle of 2027:

Set	Dates	City	Venue	Hashtag
Legacy	February 5-7, 2027	Madrid, Spain	IFEMA Madrid	#RBRMadrid
Legacy	February 12-14, 2027	Philadelphia, USA	Pennsylvania Convention Center	#RBRPhiladelphia
Legacy	March 5-7, 2027	Auckland, New Zealand	Auckland Showgrounds	#RBRAuckland
The Reckoning	May 14-16, 2027	Louisville, USA	Kentucky Exposition Center	#RBRLouisville
The Reckoning	May 21-23, 2027	Dusseldorf, Germany	Dusseldorf Congress	#RBRDusseldorf
The Reckoning	June 25-27, 2027	Lyon, France	Eurexpo Lyon	#RBRLyon

Three-Day Tournament Structure

For 2026, one recurring reality was that Regional Qualifiers were long days of competition. We give huge thanks to the competitors for battling through those long days. Going into 2027, we are moving to start Regional Qualifiers on Friday.

Doing this allows us to make both Friday and Saturday 7 rounds of play, with a top cut for Sunday. You will need a 5-2 record (or better) at the end of Friday to come back and play on Saturday, where you'll compete to advance to Sunday.

The expansion of the tournament to three days does not mean Thursday now becomes an open hall day. We are finalizing logistics, but you should expect Thursday to be for picking up badges and purchasing merch (when the venue permits layouts that allow it outside the main hall).

This impacts things like the Pre-Regionals events, which were mainstays of this year's RQ schedules. We are not moving away from side events, they will remain a major part of these events. As we get closer to our first Regional in Legacy we'll share more information.

Best-Of Prizing

Recently we announced a change in prizing for the 2026 Regional Championships. This change caused many to have questions regarding both those changes and the future of Best-Of prizing.

In addition to these questions, there were also many posts understandably expressing frustration over the timing of the changes.

Regarding the timing of the news, the frustration is completely justified—it would have been better to announce these changes earlier. We regret we weren’t able to make this happen and acknowledge the frustration that caused players.

As for the concerns about the future of Best-Ofs, we want to reassure you that this pivot for the Regional Championships does not signify us moving away from Best-Of prizing altogether. We still see it as a powerful element of our competitive tournaments and intend to continue it into the future.

That said, we are continuing discussions about if the implementation may change. Many ideas have been levied by the community and by our teams and we are discussing what, if any, changes we should make to these plans.

Showdown Series

Showdown Series events are continuing to grow as part of our competitive programs for next year. We are looking to dramatically increase the number of these events for each set’s season, with an aim to deliver in the range of 30-40 each season, and have them provide global coverage to enable more players around the world to play competitive Riftbound and earn Ladder Points.

Additionally, the Regional and Continental Day 2 tokens system is a major step up in how we tie these programs into our larger competitive program, with roughly twice as many players each Showdown being fed into Day 2 of the Continentals than there were for Showdown invites for the Regional Championships.

The tier system for the Showdown Series is based on the number of competitors participating (not solely badges sold):

• Tier 1: 512+ players
• Tier 2: 256-511 players
• Tier 3: 129-255 players

Due to the nature of Showdown Series events, we can’t unveil the schedule for next year, as they will continue to be announced on a rolling basis as we sign contracts and those partners prepare to share the events.

To stay up to date on the Showdown Series offerings, the Roadmap articles will be kept up to date, but the most frequently updated resource will be RiftboundOP.com.

Challenge Series

The foundation of our competitive ladder is the new Challenge Series, which we announced in the August State of Play. This is the only event type run by local game stores that can offer Ladder Points and Regional tokens for players. As such, these tournaments are not going to be available to every store in the Riftbound Gaming Network. UVS has been working to identify stores around the world which qualify for hosting these events.

The winner of these events will get a stamped Promo and a Riftbound Regional token. Keep an eye out for these tournaments to begin popping up on the Riftbound Gaming Network in 2027!

Region Specific Competitive Series

In Riftbound's first year, we've made an effort to launch regional events such as France's Le Rift Tour, the Korea Tour, and the Taiwan RQ.

Both Korea and Taiwan are still early in Riftbound's local launch, and not yet up to parity for set releases. The region specific programs will continue into 2027, with a limited number of invitations for the top competitors of each program to the 2027 World Championship.

China, as the country where Riftbound was first launched, occupies a unique position in the Riftbound system. We are working to more tightly link their system into the global program but, for now, we intend China's events to largely work as they did in 2026; one notable change is that Majors will award invites for the 2027 World Championship.

Riftbound World Championship Showcase

Lastly, let's talk about the peak of competition. The 2026 World Championship Showcase is happening January 23-24, 2027 in Shanghai, China. 24 of the best Riftbound players in the world will come together and compete to crown the game's first World Champion. Like our other programs, the World Championship will also be changing after its first year.

The 2027 World Championship, fueled by the more robust competitive system we've been discussing, will be a larger event and tournament. Invites will be awarded to:

• Every Regional winner.
• Every Continental Top 8 finisher.
• Every China Major winner.
• Top finishers at the 2027 China Regional Championship event.
• The Top 50 not already invited players according to Annual Finish ranking.
• Top finishers for the Korea and Taiwan regional tournaments.

We've still got a lot of time between now and crowning our second World Champion, but it'll be exciting to see the roster of competitors grow as the year goes on.

PlayRiftbound.com

2027's play program underlines the importance of the new PlayRiftbound.com and why we launched it this year. You will begin seeing elements of this new program, tracking Ladder Points, ranking on the Ranked Ladder, and more as updates are pushed to the website in 2027. While those are implemented, we will communicate in the beginning of the year how to track these in the interim. As with this entire launch, it will continue to grow as the year progresses.