The Riftbound European Regional Championship just wrapped up in Stuttgart, Germany, and by all accounts, the event was a success for the game, but two distinct controversies over the weekend left a mark on the event for many players.

One involved a notoriously slow-playing participant who questioned the judges' quality and how the rules were implemented, while another was much larger in scale and related to the share percentage of certain Legends leading decks in the tournament. The latter point led to a final eight where two Legends accounted for seven decks, drawing comparisons to the domination of certain archetypes in Magic: The Gathering in recent years.

Update: As this story went live, game director Dave Guskin confirmed that Riftbound bans are due to be announced this Friday, with an effective date TBC.

The first flashpoint from the Riftbound ERC revolved around a player called Templar, who was accused on day one of deliberately slow-playing to run out the clock on opponents, so they could score points late in the game and leave opponents in a position where they couldn't respond.

Worse still, Templar reached a record 8-1, with time concerns in every match, before he was eventually disqualified from the event. There are some unsubstantiated rumors floating around on Reddit that Templar wasn't actually disqualified for his slow play, and it was instead for marking cards, another huge TCG no-no, but most players commenting on the situation believe it was for the slow play, and they're also demanding a follow-up punishment.

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