There’s a snap to it. A sharp, electric tension you feel the second your eyes lock onto Obelisk of Power.
The colors are cold, but the energy isn’t. Lightning splits the stone as if the world itself is being cracked open—raw, alive, and trembling with the kind of magic you’re not sure anyone should touch.
It’s not just power. It’s reckoning. And it’s happening at the start of your very first turn.
Illustration Breakdown
Artist Chris Kintner delivers an arresting visual rooted in negative space and pure voltage. The central channel of lightning slashes down the canvas like a god’s verdict, breaking apart monolithic shards of purple-tinged stone.
Towering, broken obelisks lean at violent angles, suggesting they weren’t built this way—they were ruined by whatever is channeling beneath them.
Jagged spikes frame the top corners, while the lower half sinks into a basin of obliterated rock and bleeding light.
But what really lands is the stillness between flashes. There’s no movement, no figures—just the charged silence of aftermath.
It’s an image of enormous consequence, rendered in a single second.
Kintner’s use of icy blues against burnt magentas suggests something both divine and dangerous, like the energy here doesn’t belong in Runeterra.
The mood walks the line between awe and dread.
Gameplay Integration
Fittingly, Obelisk of Power doesn’t do anything flashy—but what it does might redefine how games open.
“At the start of each player’s first Beginning Phase, that player channels 1 rune.”
No triggers to worry about, no complex stacking. Just a guaranteed early spike in resources.
And the fact that it’s symmetrical? That’s not a drawback—it’s an opportunity. The first player to plan around this Battlefield wins the tempo war, and in Riftbound, that war starts on turn one.
The art complements this beautifully. It’s not showing action—it’s showing a state. Something ancient and unchanging, yet constantly affecting its surroundings.
That’s the exact design of Obelisk of Power: a passive field with game-altering consequences, available to both players, but only one will wield it better.
It’s also a clever inversion—what looks like ruins is actually the source of advantage. Form meets function in a way that’s easy to miss but impossible to ignore once it hits the board.
Collector Details / Value Mention
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Card Name: Obelisk of Power
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Type: Battlefield
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Set: Riftbound: League of Legends TCG
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Collector Number: 284/298
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Artist: Chris Kintner
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Foil Status: Not yet confirmed, but this art begs for foil treatment—the lightning alone could make it pop
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Alt / Overnumbered Variant?: None currently revealed
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Chase Card?: Possibly low to mid-range collector interest unless rune channeling mechanics break into high-tier metas. But artist collectors will absolutely want it—this is one of the cleanest battlefield compositions in the set so far.
Obelisk of Power isn’t here to impress with flash. It’s here to reshape the rules while you’re still drawing your opening hand.
And it does that with a kind of silent, destructive beauty that sticks with you—like the hum in the air before the storm actually hits.
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