"Riftbound Banned an Origins Card to Fix Vendetta -- and Origins' Chase Cards Are Still Outpricing Vendetta's Own Signatures"

⚔️ Riftbound TCG 2026-09-13

Riftbound's ban list just reached backward. On July 16, Riot announced (effective July 24) that Stealthy Pursuer -- a card from October 2025's Origins, the game's very first set -- was banned because Vendetta's new Chaos/Order interaction turned it into part of a three-card infinite combo. Game director Dave Guskin called it "a patch for the game" rather than a normal metagame reaction. It's the second consecutive main set to get hit: Spiritforged took bans back in March (Called Shot, Draven, Vanquisher, Fight or Flight, Scrapheap, plus two battlefields) for similar reasons. Riot's own August "State of the Game" post owned up to the pattern.

You'd expect that kind of instability to spook money out of the game's oldest set. It hasn't. Origins' top Signature-tier chase cards are still pricing above Vendetta's own best chase card today -- and Riftbound's first official Korea launch, five days from now on September 18, is built entirely around Origins product.

Old money is beating new money, and the supply story explains it. Vendetta is Riftbound's fourth main set and Akali is its clear chase card, but at $3,229.71 it's still sitting behind Origins' Ahri at $3,624.82 -- a card from a set that's almost a year old. Origins has never actually caught up on supply. TheGamer documented the shortage back in December 2025: the set's $30 Proving Grounds starter boxes were badly under-printed relative to demand, exclusive cards inside them (cards that don't appear in regular boosters at all) went for well above retail, and local shops reportedly pulled boosters from open sale to protect event stock. Nine months later, that scarcity hasn't unwound -- it's compounded, because every new set brings new players into the game who still need Origins staples to build around, and the printed supply of that specific set never grew to meet them.

The ban is a headache for players, not collectors. Stealthy Pursuer itself was already a $0.19 bulk card before the ban -- it wasn't valuable, it was a combo enabler, and now it's dead weight in a binder. That split matters: banning a card wipes out its playability, but it does nothing to the supply of the Signature-tier chase pulls from the same set, which is what's actually setting Origins' price ceiling. If anything, two straight sets of balance-driven bans is a signal that Riot is still actively patching a game whose card pool keeps producing unintended combos as it grows -- worth watching for Radiance (out October 23) as a potential third strike.

Korea is about to pour more demand into an already-thin pool. Riot's September 18 Korea launch -- confirmed for two Seoul venues running through September 30 -- is built around Origins: boosters, the Jinx/Lee Sin/Viktor Champion Decks, and Proving Grounds starters, plus three Korea-exclusive promos. That's fresh regional demand landing directly on the same under-supplied set that's already commanding these prices, not on Vendetta or the upcoming Radiance. If Origins print runs haven't meaningfully increased since December, this is more fuel on a fire that was already burning.

Read the top end of this table cautiously. Signature-tier Riftbound cards trade in genuinely thin volume -- Ahri's $3,624.82 and Akali's $3,229.71 are close enough that either number could realistically flip on a single high-value sale, and neither should be treated as a stable valuation. The Overnumbered and Rare tiers below them have more trade volume and are a better read on where real demand sits.

Where to buy: [Check current listings on eBay](https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=riftbound+origins+signature&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&toolid=20023&campid=5339192526&customid=riftbound-origins-signature&siteid=0&mkevt=1