Demand outruns supply again

Riot Games has a hit trading card game on its hands, and it cannot print it fast enough. Riftbound, the League of Legends TCG formerly known as Project K, saw its second set, Spiritforged, launch around February 13, 2026, and nearly every preorder item sold out almost immediately.

Riot came prepared, or thought it had. The studio produced roughly 50 percent more product than launch set Origins, yet game director Dave Guskin conceded the company still did not have enough to meet demand. Origins had already suffered widespread sellouts and weeks-long restock waits after its late-2025 English release, so the appetite was well established.

Bots and scalpers move in

The launch was complicated by the same forces plaguing other hot collectibles:

Preorders were hit by bot activity, prompting Riot to pause sales to cancel fraudulent orders.
The studio promised improved anti-bot measures when sales reopened.
Booster boxes appeared on eBay for as much as 250 pounds, roughly $336.
Observers warned that scalping could damage the game's long-term health, drawing direct comparisons to Pokemon TCG's ongoing supply problems.

UVS Games serves as Riot's official publishing and distribution partner for the line.

A familiar cautionary tale

Riftbound's growing pains echo a pattern the trading card hobby knows well. A beloved franchise launches a card game, demand vastly outstrips print runs, and bots and scalpers exploit the gap before genuine fans can buy in at retail. The result is frustration among the exact players Riot most wants to reach.

The encouraging news is that Riot is responding rather than ignoring the problem. Printing significantly more product and openly acknowledging the shortfall shows awareness, and the promised anti-bot improvements target the mechanism doing the most damage. Whether those measures hold up under Set 3's launch will be the real test.

For collectors, the advice is patience and caution. Paying triple retail to a scalper rewards the behavior that created the shortage, and Riot's track record suggests restocks and larger future print runs are coming. Riftbound has clearly arrived as a major player in the TCG space; now the challenge is getting enough cards into the hands of the people who actually want to play.