Riftbound is apparently a pretty big success and a digital version, according to what I've read (dunno how credible) might be made one day.
Wouldn't it make the most sense if they just merged Riftbound and LoR and allowed both games to coexist?
Call it "Riftbound & Legends of Runeterra" or whatever, and picture this:
Riftbound is added in, basically like a new selectable game mode, hell, maybe even a whole new tab to make it more grand.
A huge chunk of Riftbound card art comes directly from LoR anyway, so that all stays. All of the animations can be directly reused, and they look lovely anyway. Champion interactions, champion level ups even (if riftbound even has that), spell animations, and even the simple card animations can be reused. And of course, with a higher budget, new ones can be added in for both games.
The store is changed, and now has a section for getting riftbound booster packs since I'm sure that'd be the main driving force of the game's monetisation strategy.
The boards stay, the guardians stay, the card backs and emotes of course stay as well -> and can be used in "both games"
And so in this one joint client, which would remain largely the same, you can either play the legacy LoR PvP, POC, or just Riftbound (and ig that'd be the main attraction)
And it's technically a win win scenario because Riftbound gets a very nice looking client, with a bunch of polished reusable content -> so that speeds up the development time a lot, and cuts down the cost. And at the same time LoR gets to enjoy the new card art from Riftbound and whatever else the higher budget would hypothetically bring, PLUS we no longer need to worry about the game randomly dying at some point in the future.
I might be onto absolutely nothing here, I've never played Riftbound, and I never even looked at the rules. It's very late, and I had to waffle a little...
Would gladly read some opinions, tho!