Craig Robinson is an experienced writer, who has been covering gaming and esports since as early as 2015. He's passionate about esports, with a specific affinity for League of Legends and a keen interest in TCGs like Riftbound. Craig has bylines across Escapist Magazine, Esports News UK, Gameshub, and many more. Outside of work, Craig enjoys hitting the gym, sampling fine Northern delicacies, and coding projects to keep his GitHub firing on all cylinders.
Olivia Richman is a seasoned esports journalist who has worked with Inven Global, Esports Illustrated, Esports.gg, and more. As an editor and writer at Esports Insider, she loves telling unique esports stories, especially within the FGC. When not working and gaming, Olivia loves collecting Kirby plush, eating sushi, and driving her cars at the track.
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 s…