From VCT Game Changers to Riftbound: One organizer’s plans to add team competition and inclusivity to Riftbound

Riftbound has certainly blown up its projects and initiatives with Unleashed, and it’s all manifesting around the Vendetta launch. Last week, we spoke to T1 about the organization entering Riftbound, and one thing that stood out about their efforts is that they wanted to treat it like a grassroots project.

They are certainly not wrong. TCGs live and breathe off local communities, LGS events and community creations online. Yet what it also helped realize is how naturally esports crossover fits into the TCG niche.

We see it with organizations like T1 and EDG signing players, T1 setting up its own LGS, and the likes of Gen.G and Cloud9 running their own events with prizes up for grabs.

Yet other esports initiatives are bringing expertise and ideas into Riftbound. I recently spoke to a French organizer named Leeroy Stinson, who created the Nations Clash event. He invited nationally focused teams, featuring prominent TCG teams and communities to compete in a more spectator-friendly online format, giving a sense of how new decks match up against each other in a new set.

The event is already progressing through its Group Stages.

For Leeroy, these events are fundamentally about competition. “I love competition,” he explained. “This TCG is one where I’m at least decent. But the issue was it’s not a team game. So quickly, my thought was, ‘How do I turn that into a team game?’”

For those unaware, Leeroy has been in Riot’s ecosystem for years. He previously worked with VCT Game Changers teams, including EMUs, where they made a Contenders run, reaching their group’s semi-finals in 2025. Game Changers is an event series aimed at helping female and gender minority players enter esports at the top level. It seems to be working too, with ENC national teams now featuring mixed gender rosters.

Competition is at the core of his ideals.

Yet Riftbound is largely a 1v1 game, though it has a growing 2v2 event mode that has appeared in Regional Qualifiers alongside more casual FFA play. The focus on 1v1 best-of-three series means it is largely a solo experience.

The challenge was how to turn that into a more team-focused format.

So Leeroy created Nations Clash. It is an opportunity to get teams, some with personalities and followings already built up, involved in something bigger. There are other benefits too, as he explained: “When you’re cheering for your country, you get way more involved than you would probably for any player. This is the kind of story this tournament can tell that regional qualifiers can’t.”

The draft structure itself is designed to enable comeback storytelling.

“We can write stories that otherwise would not be there with just a 1v1 game because it’s so much harder to relate and to get involved with just one player,” he said. “You can be a fan of this player but it’s hard to relate to them. Whereas whenever it’s a team, it’s always easier.”

These teams battle through what Leeroy calls the Omega Draft. It uses a snake draft system where each team gets one ban, removing eight legends from the pool entirely. From there, picks proceed in snake order to balance priority across the field. The result is that 48 of the 49 available legends will be picked or banned across the tournament. Teams then build their lists around the few legends they know they will encounter in their draft pool.

Yes, a Leona deck did counter Lucian. But it did not save Team UK.

In its first year, Riftbound has built a competitive scene at impressive speed. But following the game as a spectator often means tracking net decks, dissecting what is strong, and watching players dismantle local competition with optimal builds. A national tournament with a draft changes that dynamic entirely.

The format is also engineered to generate its own moments. The King of the Hill structure used in earlier Nations Clash events, where losing a game eliminates that player from the round, was specifically designed to enable comeback narratives.

“I wanted there to be the option of a national hero that would come back from everything and reverse sweep the enemy team,” Leeroy explained. “In terms of story writing, it’s amazing.”

At the time of writing, Nations Clash is nearing the end of its Group Stages, and it has already delivered the kind of storytelling the event set out to create. Team Poland, assembled through a national committee selection process, is making waves. They have defeated Germany and Spain, the latter being notable given Team Micellion’s presence in the Spanish lineup. 

For context, Team Micellion is one of the newer Spanish outfits, featuring Xtacio and Pedro B, the latter known for his undefeated Azir piloting across two Regional Qualifiers. His teammate, Xtacio, is a consistent best-of and top eight finisher. That is the kind of storytelling you want.

Challenger TCG, representing Team USA, is also performing strongly, giving their players some competitive game time and familiarity ahead of RQ Barcelona in a few weeks.

However, the Nation Clash is not the only project Leeroy wants to help build. As mentioned, Leeroy came to Riftbound from the VALORANT Game Changers scene. It came with some stark realizations over the years, that more needs to be done in the space.

“When you have to tell your players that men are not naturally better than women, you realize how deep those disbeliefs are,” he said. “And how much work there is to do.”

It’s why he’s come up with the idea.

Leeroy originally made the call out back in July. While the date has changed, there is a Game Changers EMEA Discord in the works, with several women stepping up to help create it, he told me in a Discord DM update. The group is forming along nicely, and will likely know more in the near future about their plans and dates.

Though this project is not the only thing in this space. Another group created the Riftbaddies community, a place for women in the Riftbound scene to meet and socialize. There’s also Liftbound, where players of all genders share a passion for health and Riftbound. 

TCGs truly do live and breathe by the grassroots, and speaking to both Stinson and Marsh made that very clear.