Riftbound Absorbs MTG Players Amid Competitive Scene Crisis

Last updated on August 26, 2026

Return to Dust | Illustration by Wayne Reynolds

Competitive Magic is finding itself at a bit of a crossroads lately. Three more cards were just banned in Standard, yet the format is finding itself unable to fire RCQs this season. Meanwhile, MTG competitor Riftbound is scooping up disenfranchised competitors left and right, with a massive turnout at Barcelona and reports of packed Nexus Nights (basically their FNM).

Regional Championship Qualifier Woes

The RCQ system in general may be in crisis, as the last RCQ I played had a whopping four people in it. I was able to qualify for the Milwaukee regional by playing just two rounds of Magic, which featured us drafting a Pick-Two Spider-Man Draft. No one wanted to play that atrocious set, and it was honestly by the mercy of the store that the event was fired in the first place!

While this was definitely an outlier, reports of low numbers, dead stores, and total disinterest in playing RCQs right now are all over social media. No amount of bans can get people to like this Standard format, which is still widely derided for its high power level and obscenely large card pool, which simply does not feel like “Standard”. I personally have almost no interest in the format until rotation, and feel like I have been seeing the exact same decks on repeat for months now (even with bans). Banning Badgermole Cub from Standard was like putting a Band-Aid on a giant gaping wound!

Bad Promos

It’s no secret that Magic’s promos recently have been terribly received. Laughing Jasper Flint was a slap in the face for Standard players (which they were promptly ratio’d for), and was followed by the uninspiring duo of Sunpearl Kirin and Pinnacle Starcage. All of these cards see at best fringe play in Standard, while absolute staples like Quantum Riddler, Voice of Victory, Aang, Swift Savior, and Surrak, Elusive Hunter go without any promos.

Meanwhile in the land of Riftbound, players receive excellent and extensive promos for different levels of competition. Despite being such a young game, the promos list is utterly massive, with unique treatments of highly desirable cards like Rengar, Trophy Hunter and its Rune cards (basically the game's lands).

Okay MTG Boomer

Riftbound is a fresh-blooded game with a ton of enthusiastic players and deck diversity. Just look at this chart: 

There are a ton of viable decks in this game, and the games I watched were fundamentally interactive with actual back and forth gameplay. Standard meanwhile has been in a state of “dump your threats and win” for years now, which is utterly alien when compared to old Standard footage events like Pro Tour Shadows over Innistrad.

Another thing worth adding about Riftbound is that the Regional itself was actually won by a fringe deck! Mice TheManLand took down the entire tournament with a legend that isn’t even listed above, which is something I haven’t seen in Standard in ages. Cori-Steel Cutter, for instance, burned and pillaged the format for months until it was banned, as did Vivi Ornitier and Badgermole Cub. The closest we came to this was the surprise success of UB Excruciator at Pro Tour Lorwyn Eclipsed (and to a lesser extent 5c Elementals, which was a new archetype at the time).

A Deeply Personal Blow

Just a day after Javier Dominguez was voted into the Hall of Fame, the GOAT found himself playing an entirely different game! While there’s nothing wrong with Javier Dominguez branching out to other TCGs, the timing here is truly remarkable, and speaks to WotC’s failure to make current competitive Magic appealing.

He’s hardly the only Magic player to try Riftbound either; MTGNerdGirl, SonRebell, JimDavis, AliEldrazi, and other content creators have all flirted with Riot Games recently. Ali has pretty much jumped ship entirely to creating content for the game, while the others remain players of both.

What Can Be Done?

While this article is definitely harsh, none of this is written out of hope that WotC fails. To the contrary, I love Magic and have no plans to quit the game for Riftbound. The judgment is simply a plea for WotC to make necessary changes to Magic. To that point, I’d like to plug this excellent video by Gul_Dukat, which offers tangible suggestions for improving Organized Play. Some key takeaways:

• Promos obviously must be improved. WotC designers are smart enough to know many of the set’s chase cards (i.e. I’m sure they knew that Quantum Riddler was going to be a multi-format staple), and should use those to entice players. Doing so should have a minimal impact on their bottom line too, since the secondary market is never an official concern for WotC.
• Local events need to feature consistent, exciting events with fewer formats and seasonal shifting formats. More Standard and Modern, plus clear and appealing prizes/invites for attending and winning these events.
• The same goes for online events, which often veer into unpopular digital-only formats like Timeless and Historic. This creates a discontinuity between paper decks and digital ones, decreasing the willingness of players to invest in real-life Standard.
• MTGO and Arena should get into the business of selling stats to players, which is practice Valve has made millions of dollars off of. Magic players would love the option to pay for more win rate/metagame data. Why is 17lands the only game in town?
• MTGO should feature more single elimination events, as current MTGO challenges eat an entire day to complete.
• Pauper should become a mainstay competitive format, as it’s quite affordable and has a unique character (and the excellent Gavin Verhey running it with a clear eye).

One point I’d add myself is that I would like something to be done about the Standard format at large. While the 3-year structure was originally envisioned to make the format more appealing, the shift to making six sets a year (and seven this year) has left Standard feeling confused and bloated. It also doesn’t help how thematically distinct each set is, since there is often no expectation that set mechanics and themes will ever be meaningfully supported later.

Like was Badgermole Cub aimed at supporting anything from past Standard? Or did we all simply play it because doubling your mana for 2 mana (with a guaranteed 2-for-1) was clearly nonsense?

Wrap Up

Stunning Reversal | Illustration by Zoltan Boros

My hope is that someone at WotC reads and heeds this, which shares sentiment with thousands upon thousands of competitors out there. I dearly love Magic, and wish for the game to succeed as both a casual and competitive game. If current trends continue, The Hall of Fame may end up being nothing more than meaningless trivia for Commander: The Gathering.And that would be a terrible shame!