Building the Cube · Chapter 2

Building the Cube: Legends

How to choose a balanced pool of 27 Legends, support their archetypes, and avoid options that ask too much of a singleton draft.

Published · 2026-09-14Written by SethMakesGames

An old game designer joke:

“How do you kill a vampire?”

“Wooden stakes? Sunlight? Mirrors?”

“Anyway you want - because vampires aren’t real”

When I was building my cube, I was faced with a choice: how should Legends and Battlefields be distributed? In normal Riftbound draft, the Legends and BFs are inside the pack and must be picked normally (that is, instead of a main deck card). This is a conceit to the nature of booster packs, but the nice thing about building a cube is that you can modify the rules to create a better experience (you can kill the vampire however you want). I didn’t want to recreate a suboptimal pack opening experience just because that is how Riftbound is sold on the store shelves.

I decided early on I wanted to have Legends in a separate set of sleeves, with each player receiving 3 Legends at random before the main deck draft begins. I felt this led to a better experience because you never “wasted” a pick on a legend you ended up not playing, and gave players a bit of guidance without forcing them too much (as you have 3 different paths to draft towards, and a variety of colors to play with).

This means you need at least 24 Legends (8 players x 3 each) out of the 49 Legends in the game, so you - the cube designer - have to use your coconut to pick which ones are best for the drafting AND gameplay experience. In a well-designed cube, no matter which way you look you should see interesting and complex board states using a wide range of cards you might not see in Constructed play:

There are 27 Legends in my Cube as of Vendetta (2 of each of the 12 normal color pairs, plus 1 each of the enemies). The challenge pre-Vendetta was finding enough quality legends that players would actually want to play, instead of taking the extra card draw for not playing a legend. I feel strongly that with the release of Vendetta we have a deep enough pool to work with, nearly every domain combo has worthwhile Legends. By the release of Legacy I am sure we will be in the golden age of Riftbound Cube Draft!

Try to support every legend in the pool so they have a theoretical deck to build around it, this impacts a lot of the choices in the main deck pool. Here are the 27 Legends I have in my 8-player Cube, along with a few example of 3 random legends you might end up with:

Legends In Cube

In a draft, players will have options like this - what would you try to draft around in these situations? What kind of cards could show up in the first few picks to influence your choice?

Calm — Sample draw 1Three possible paths. One deck to build.

Order — Sample draw 1Three possible paths. One deck to build.

Body — Sample draw 2Three possible paths. One deck to build.

Fury — Sample draw 3Three possible paths. One deck to build.

Chaos — Sample draw 3Three possible paths. One deck to build.

Legend Choices: The Easy Ones

If you haven’t seen the Magma Chamber video on cube drafting - my Cube is primarily designed for 8-players, but sometimes we get more folks. I have an “expansion pack” that adds enough cards for 4 more players, which includes an additional 12 Legends (1 of each standard domain combo). I won’t be covering those 12-player legends choices in detail, but in the notes below you can see in some circumstances where you could make alternative choices when building your own Cube.

ENEMY COLORS: , , and

These are easy because, well, they are the only options!
is reasonable enough without much support - Kennen empowers off any chosen champion, hidden card, and Flow spells. You can get a few activations without stretching too much, and +2 Assault is basically a card’s worth of value each time.
’s Legend ability is a nice bailout without needing to empower, but of course you would like to land , , or a variety of other movement-based units. Since you get 3 Legends, Akali is not usually your first choice but you can find decks where she is a worthwhile choice.
is a bit trickier - there aren’t many gears that you want to ready, at least not in Body/Mind. Luckily you can play 3 domains in draft/sealed, so cards like , , , and are floating around to provide other options than the several Body gear that can exhaust/ready. Still, I think Jayce might be the weakest legend option in the pool - but players can always surprise you.
Overall I like having 27 Legends when only 24 are needed, it creates a bit more volatility and randomness from draft to draft. When more enemy pairs are introduced, I suspect I will go up to 30 Legends, but only if they are worthwhile to play. The most important thing for players is that any combination of 3 random legends has at least 2 good options, so I don’t want to add more legends for enemy colors if they end up being Rumble or Renata tier, so it might take a few sets to get 2 quality legends of each of the enemy pairs - although I think Vendetta was a strong start for these combos.

MIND / FURY: Kai’sa and

is amazing and only asks the player to do what they planned to do anyways - pick powerful spells. The best spells often cost Power, and Kai’sa can pick several of them without worrying too much about her rune economy.
requires a bit more thought - focusing on 4-cost spells, but with both Mind-Fury legends wanting to be spell-slingers, I was able to focus those colors on spells more than Gear. Having a third color really helps Jhin, as cards like , , and might go around late in picks but fit perfectly into his gameplan. Being in the pool of options with Lux is nice as anything that works for Lux will also work for Jhin.
is easy to exclude - there are simply not enough Mechs, and even if they were I am not sure his effect is better than drawing a card. There isn’t a Mind-Fury legend in Vendetta, so this was the easiest domain combo to choose from in the whole cube.
, Boy Who Shattered Time was recently spoiled for Radiance - I have proxied him for the 12-player expansion in the meantime as the third Mind-Fury legend.

CHAOS / FURY: &

Out of the 5 Chaos/Fury legends, and both stand out as powerful and easy to build around. They simply don’t demand specific cards in the draft pool to be amazing, just playing Riftbound (as Dave Guskin intended) will provide more than a single card draw of value
is an easy cut - too difficult to activate, and too little effect when you do. Even if there was no Empower requirement, just exhaust to discard/draw, I am not convinced he would be better than Draven.
has potential, but Cube is a surprisingly fast and powerful format, and even a good Pyke deck might find itself falling behind and losing. In addition to the singleton nature of the format, trying to find the single or in the pool of nearly 400 draftable cards is a tall order.
is a design choice to exclude - she really wants a lot of cards that make you discard. No other legend wants this, so I opted to cut nearly all the discard enablers and discard synergies from the draftable pool. I didn’t want players to be stuck with weaker units like just to enable a relatively weak legend when Annie and Draven would be preferable anyways.

CHAOS / MIND: &

These two require a bit more setup than Annie & Draven, but not much. encourages you to draft combat tricks (which you wanted anyways) and encourages removal (which you wanted anyways). Ezreal benefits from the third color as well, with cards like and turning 1 piece of cardboard into meeting his condition to draw.
, like Zed, requires too much set up for not enough payoff. She is no Kennen!
is an interesting possibility - I have him in the 12-player expansion alongside a lot of Hidden cards. Ultimately I didn’t feel there were enough Hidden cards in the base set for him to be consistently useful, and getting the discount on hidden cards just felt less useful than the consistent energy of Diana or the card draw of Ezreal.

MIND / ORDER: and

is a quintessentially good legend for Draft - making units without spending cards will always be useful. Order specifically supports a lot of token strategies - going wide with tokens then buffing them with Grand Stratagem or to seal a game.
provides a pretty easy puzzle to solve when drafting - if you play two 5-cost spells in a game, then she is clearly better than a free card draw. She also benefits from being in the pool with Jhin - there are many higher cost Spells meant to support both legends
Renata is, well, you know, not playable in any format.
is my 12-player Mind/Order legend and I think could reasonably be played instead of Lux. She is looking for a critical mass of Deathknell units and I found many of them (such as , , and ) competing for spots with other cards I wanted to include. I decided to move a lot of Deathknell support and into the expansion pack, but another cube builder could easily decide to support LeBlanc instead.

CHAOS / CALM: and

This is another combination with only 3 Legends to choose from - neither Proving Grounds nor Vendetta had a Chaos-Calm Legend. ’s legend ability works well with anything you draft - paying 2 to effectively make any unit “enter ready” is incredible, especially late game where double conquering can lead to a win.
is another ideal draft Legend - you do need to build around it and seek out specific cards, but the strategy is basic Riftbound (holding battlefields) and the reward is multiple cards drawn over the course of the game. Cards like and can be bombs for you that other decks aren’t racing to pick up, giving you strong cards for your archetype in the crucial middle picks of a pack.
is pushed out of the main list largely because it requires a lot of specific cards in order to trigger ability, and the power costs can feel oppressive in a format where tempo matters and many of the units have power costs already. Generally, I feel Yasuo is easier to draft around, requires less luck to pull off, and less punishing in actual games.

CHAOS / BODY: Miss Fortune and

Yet another with only 3 Legends - Proving Grounds and Vendetta skipped the Chaos-Body Legend, and due to the limits of XP you are really only left with 2 choices.
Miss Fortune is easy to build for - any successful hold or “ready a unit” effect makes her ability relevant to the game. You don’t have to look hard to find ways to double conquer, whether that is in the Chosen Champion zone or in the main deck. Playing on your opponent's turn, then holding and ganking is a 3-point swing out of nowhere that can win tight games in a pinch.
is strong because the nature of a singleton cube full of powerful units means there are lots of power costs naturally on cards. It is pretty common to recycle 1-2 runes every turn starting in the mid-game, and Sivir provides a strong economy without needing to seek out specific cards.
is the best of the XP legends - it (I Googled it - Kha’zix is apparently genderless) both generates XP and spends it, meaning you don’t technically need XP cards to make it work. However Kha’zix is much weaker without a guaranteed in the Chosen Champion zone, so it is in the expansion where I expect all the buff-synergy legends to end up. If Radiance has a strong Chaos-Body legend, Kha’zix will probably be bumped out entirely.

FURY / ORDER: Rek’Sai and

This is the final combination with only 3 Legends - again neither Proving Grounds nor Vendetta had a Fury-Order Legend.
is a slam dunk include - triggering the Legend even once is arguably better than a free draw, and in a normal game of Riftbound you will do it closer to 4 times. Rek’Sai is arguably the best Legend in cube, helping you dig deep into your singleton deck to find the right card at the right moment.
is somewhat similar to Diana, a strong player with a thoughtful deck can utilize it nearly every turn. Order and Fury have lots of low cost efficient threats to trigger Legion. Going 2nd is a bit more common in draft games, so being able to play two 2-drops on turn 1 is a good enough reason to play Darius. Here’s a Darius deck from a recent draft, with an exceptionally low curve:

is not bad by any stretch, being able to ready units for free is a powerful legend effect. I go back and forth on which to include in the second spot and I believe neither is objectively wrong. She requires more thoughtful drafting, and a bigger emphasis on the large units that Fury provides. If you like Vi, feel free to include her instead of Darius and let us know what you think.

BODY / CALM: and Lee Sin

This is a uniquely easy color combination because while there are 4 to choose from, both Master Yi Legends are problematic in opposite ways. In the end, this is the last “easy” choice because you effectively only have 2 options to pick from at this time.
Wuju Bladesman (Proving Grounds) is quite frankly too strong - now banned in 2v2, we experienced multiple drafts where Yi just stomped to victory. His original weaknesses - having a bad Signature Spell and Chosen Champions - are completely gone in Cube draft. When you can run or in the champion zone, you get consistent early plays that feel overpowered with the +2 Might on defense. PG Yi won every draft we ran until it was banned, and no one wants him to return.
Wuju Master (Unleashed) has a similar problem to Jinx - you need to include a whole lot of cards that no one else wants. Generally I did not want to include any XP cards in the base set, because it is too inconsistent to both generate and spend the resource. While some cards like and are in the list, the XP has nothing to do with why they are good. It is essentially impossible to get even 6 XP in a singleton list of hundreds of cards, so this Legend makes no sense to include.
That leaves only and Lee Sin as options. Admittedly, both are on the weaker side of the Legends in the pool, with Jax being clearly the better of the two. There are plenty of good gear to support both Jax and Azir in the base set, and being able to re-equip gear to save on power costs is certainly better than a single card draw in a longer game. Check out this Jax deck from a recent draft:

Many of the buff-synergy legends are in the 12-player expansion (Khazix and Leona currently) and on a longer timeline, I would expect both Lee Sin to be shifted there too, where the expansion allows for tons of buff cards to be added alongside a set of legends that exploit them. Fingers crossed for Radiance!

Legend Choices: The Tricky Choices

CALM / MIND: and

This is a tricky domain because all 4 Legends are actually pretty reasonable and could be included depending on the Cube’s designer. I settled on these two but it's the domain that is most up to your personal preferences when building a cube.
is just straightforward and simple - doesn’t ask much of you, provides consistent value. You don’t want every Legend to demand hyper specific cards, and Ahri is a completely fine deck when you just play “good stuff”. Her biggest issue is that I am not sure her ability is always better than a card draw, but with 3 options to choose from, you would only play her if your deck definitely benefitted from it.
has a powerful effect, being able to generate points from nowhere is quite strong. However in a singleton format, it is difficult to get a critical mass of Sprite-generating cards. Some cards like , , or can be picked up in the middle of packs, but crucial cards like or might be gone before you see them. On the other hand, you don’t really need extra Sprites for her legend to be useful - paying 4 to defeat a small enemy unit and score a point without using a card is worthwhile. In the end, since Lillia works best in a smaller card pool, I put her in the base set along with every bit of support I could muster, and opted to move a few Equipment-centric legends like Ornn and Lucian to the expansion pack.
is probably the most controversial exclusion when we discuss Cube design locally. His Legend ability is strong, and his ability to attach Equipment for free is better on paper than Jax. While Calm does have some gear to support Jax and Azir, Mind is heavy on the spellslinger support for Lux, Ezreal, and Jhin. Ornn therefore is excluded, along with a ton of gear-centric Mind and Calm cards.
seems like a potential option, but as-is there are only 2 Mind and 2 Calm units at 7+ cost. Units like and are high picks in any draft, so you aren’t assured to see them regularly. In a 25-card deck, you probably want 4+ units to trigger him consistently, and that means you are relying on your splash color to provide crucial late game drops like , , and to round out your endgame… but you can only splash 1 extra color. As we iterate the Cube over future sets, I could see Nasus moving up into the main deck but as mentioned this domain is really crowded with great options.

CALM / ORDER: and

This domain combo is quite tricky because all 4 Legends don’t overlap much - they all want pretty different cards, and rarely overlap with what the other Legends of their color is trying to do.
shines in Cube Draft! If you played in the Vendetta Pre-Rifts, you probably know that his Legend ability creates awkward situations for opponents who often lack enough removal to break up your holds. Calm already has a lot of hold support for Vex and Ahri, so Shen can utilize those cards alongside Equipment meant for Jax and Azir to create powerful tanks that support holds. Tanking for or is a strategy all by itself, and with an attached is a one-ninja card-drawing machine.
is a feast-or-famine Legend - if you get the critical mass of Equipment, it's one of the strongest decks in the format. is a powerful signature spell that no one else wants, so you can usually pick it up late in the pack. Azir is included because there are about 7-9 Equipment just in Calm / Order that I would include anyways - they are powerful enough that decks wouldn’t feel bad running them - so I didn’t feel like I had to make too many concessions to make him worthwhile.
was a tough cut - ultimately it was a power level call. Leona requires a lot of Stun cards to make work, and if you only have a few I am not sure getting a free buff occasionally is better than drawing a free card. To maximize her Legend you also need ways to capitalize on both buffs and stuns, which moved her to the expansion where cards like , , and live.
actually isn’t as bad as you might think - both Calm and Order have a ton of completely viable Cat / Dog / Bird / Poros and like Azir, if you get the right cards the deck feels pretty nice. In the long run though, I didn’t want to sweat cutting these unit types if better units came along. Maintaining a critical mass of random weak units is worse for gameplay, but I could see a world where your cube is light on equipment, which opens up Ivern as a potential choice.

FURY / BODY: and

Don’t sleep on - this Legend is probably the biggest leap up in power from Constructed to Cube Draft. Playing Mighty units is a very straightforward way to win Riftbound games. Many Mighty units in the cube have power costs already, which are negated by Volibear’s ramping ability. Being able to run or in the Chosen Champion zone gives you very strong opening plays that don’t slow down your rune economy.
’s ability is straightforward and works great simply playing on curve. When you add a third color though, you can get a little crazy. Check out this primarily Order deck that abused the token strategies to get +2-4 Might per turn with cards like , , and :

is what made this a tricky domain combo - his ability is strong, but requires multiple gear (often 4+ in a deck) to be consistently worthwhile. The Equipment that exists in the Cube are generically good, and often get picked up by other players - especially ones looking to play Azir or Jax. Notably Fury does not have as many good Equipment compared to Calm. I could have included weak Fury Equipment just to support Lucian, but opted to move him to the expansion pack alongside Ornn. You could absolutely choose Lucian instead of Rengar, but I would recommend adding more cards like and to the list so Lucian has late picks to support his strategy.
is an easy exclude, which breaks my heart. As a Florida Man / Gator enjoyer and a Renekton player in League, it is sad that there is basically nothing he does better than other legends. Even if you get first pick for the champion zone AND win every die roll AND play her turn 1 every game… it is still not good enough.

BODY / ORDER: and

With the full 5 Legends (one in every Riftbound set released so far), this is rather difficult to choose and I think another cube designer could make different choices - here is where I ended up.
is the easiest include - there are a gigazillion ways to make something mighty in draft play. Staple units like and aren’t high picks, so you can fill out your curve with middle of the pack choices. Getting any Gear like Tools of the Empire or makes activating her Legend trivial, and building a good rune economy is crucial for winning in the late turns.
is the newest addition to the options, and a surprisingly easy one to activate. Unlike XP, which requires a critical mass of generators and spenders, Empowered units are extremely easy to include in the cube. They all have both an energy sink and a powerful effect on the same piece of cardboard, and a huge amount of Empowered cards made the Cube list naturally. Cards like , , , , , and both versions of would be in the card list even if she wasn’t an available Legend. Activating Ambessa only a few times per game is very powerful, and even easier when you get to splash a third color and their Empowered cards. I consider Ambessa easier to build around than Irelia, and with the reveal of ’s legend indicating that Empowered cards will continue to be printed, she will only get more options over time.
is actually a bit better here than you would think - the Proving Grounds legends often have terrible Chosen Champions and Signature Spells, but without those limitations the Legend ability is actually viable. Order specializes in swarm strategies, and with cards like or , conquering with 4+ units a single time makes Garen better than a free card draw. I think I have overlooked Garen due to his Constructed reputation and would consider moving him into the main cube list for a few drafts to see what players can do with him.
has an indisputably powerful Legend ability - perhaps the strongest in the late game. With only 1 copy of each card, saving a key unit from defeat can turn a game around. However, he requires lots of buffs… which I have largely moved out of the main list. Even though there are few buff makers in the main list, not enough to justify his inclusion.
is the odd one out - 1 XP for holding is not enough, and there aren’t enough other ways to make XP to consider her. They can’t all be winners, folks!

That’s all 27 Legends in the Vendetta cube list! Let me know where you agree or disagree with my choices. I plan to update the cube list again both before and after Radiance, and community input can help shape the future of the list. If you can, build your own Cube and run drafts at your local store to get firsthand experience with the best format in card games!

Legends In Cube

Shen

Rek’Sai

Jhin

Sett

Vex

Miss Fortune

Draven

Jax

Lux

Annie

Rengar

Sivir

Legend Choices: The Easy Ones

Legend Choices: The Tricky Choices