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Flavinger·April 3, 2026·5 min read
Interview with GhaelWinds, Houston’s Best Of Yasuo
Amy Y.Q. Lin: You’re Houston’s Best Of Yasuo and a YouTuber. What else should people know about you?
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GhaelWinds, content creator and Best Of Yasuo Houston winner, opens up about Riftbound’s growth since its “mythological era,” his time in Las Vegas, and ways in which the TCG has changed his life.
Amy Y.Q. Lin: You’re Houston’s Best Of Yasuo and a YouTuber. What else should people know about you?
GhaelWinds: I’ve been moderating the Riftbound Community Server on Discord, doing the Super Mega Riftbound podcast, and making an aggro Irelia guide. I was also keeper of rules in the “mythological era” of Riftbound, pre–Proving Grounds when the game was in trial meta. There was only Jinx, Yasuo, Volibear, and Viktor. We made inferences about the rules using Magic: The Gathering as a base to figure out what things were supposed to do. I love talking about the mythological era of Riftbound as if it were years and years ago, but it was around last year.
AYQL: Most players who have gotten involved only in the last set or two probably can’t see the bigger picture yet. Having been part of this space for so long, do you have insights into how Riftbound has changed and the direction you see it going?
GW: It’s hard to say because so much changed in trial meta. We had cards being edited in real-time. Super Mega Death Rocket!, Jinx’s signature spell, used to cost 
, and Noxus Hopeful used to be a 3
unit. So we saw a ton of changes back then. That adds some perspective—that was the only time when we actively saw “balance errata” to cards.
AYQL: It seems like there’s new errata for every set now.
GW: The thing about these errata is they’re coming out basically alongside the cards. We got Spiritforged errata very quickly, 2-3 weeks after we saw the cards. Back then [in the mythological era], cards would function that way for three months before they were changed. We had Noxus Hopeful as a 3 unit for 4-5 months.
It’s been great to watch everything grow exponentially, pretty much all the time. Back at the very beginning, it was basically like playing with the same three or four people every day. Pan to now, when I can go out today and find three different stores around me doing Nexus Nights in person, not to mention the plethora of people playing online. It’s a surreal experience to watch everything just bloom.
AYQL: Absolutely. That’s what I like too. Riftbound has brought me so much connection with people whom I would otherwise never meet. You don’t have to know anything about each other. You just sit down and play. It’s this magical thing that can bring people together rather than tear people apart, as video games sometimes can.
GW: On a more personal note—I never cared about having friends in my real life because I have my wife. I love my wife, and she’s the only people that I really need. I never found the reason to have a strong social life outside of that. But going to the Riftbound Regional Qualifier in Las Vegas recently and having this giant watch party at the end of the night, where we’re all watching finals in this twelve-person B&B, and some people are playing drafts while some people are watching—everyone’s just talking and having a great time—it just puts into perspective how much the human connection matters and how much Riftbound is doing to bring that personally into my life.
AYQL: I love that you got that chance. Did you meet all those folks at Houston or your locals?
GW: A lot I met online, and they’re part of my testing group. People like tog and housesarebig. Then at Houston I started talking to Gorica, who is the Best Of Teemo winner and goes to my locals. Over time we’ve grown this group of people who are very friendly to each other and have a great time.
AYQL: You’ve said that you’ve always tried to give love to all the games made by Riot Games. What makes Riftbound exciting?
GW: What makes Riftbound special to me is really this battlefield system that they have in place. The texture that adds to a card game is so immense. I’m playing in three different combats a turn. We have so many more places that matter rather than a more two-dimensional field on a game like Magic. In Magic, you have one main phase, and combat happens—that’s all you get for the turn. In Riftbound, it’s so much more varied. We have two different places and multiple win conditions. We can either hold one, conquer both, or just control the board. Our ways to win the game are very different than any other card game. This is my first TCG, but I’ve been around Magic before. My dad played it a bit, so I’ve seen him play it. I never got super big into it, so this is my first TCG.
AYQL: Could you comment on the variety of ways to approach Riftbound? Or any barriers to playing?
GW: I am mostly a competitive player. I play the game at a very competitive level where most of what I’m doing throughout my day is hardcore playtesting and figuring out lines [of play]. However, my wife is not that. Seeing her and how she experiences the game adds a whole new dimension to it. She’s very casual. She enjoys pretty cards and playing what she likes. She still enjoys the game, and she’s getting better at the game every day. She’s not a bad player by any means. Seeing how she’s interacting with the game gives me a lot of joy. We went to the Regional together this time around, and I was worried that she wouldn’t have any fun because to me the tournament’s all about networking and winning and getting as far as you can—and that’s clearly not her goal. But she had a ton of fun playing for tickets, playing with people she came with from our locals, and interacting with the game on its own legs. As far as barriers, I don’t think there are too many. If you want to get into it, we have online applications that you can learn from. We have TCG Arena, where you can play any card on there and start learning the game. The local scene around me is strong, and most of the places I talk to people about have at least a scene going. Unless you’re living far from civilization, you should be able to find a place to play.
AYQL: Do you feel there’s a cap to how well you can do if you’re running a budget deck or working with what you have?
GW: No, I do not. My Yasuo list for Houston cost thirty bucks. There are lists like that in Spiritforged that exist as well. The Jax list that made Top 8 was a pretty inexpensive list in general. Before it topped, the Counter Strikes, which are probably its most expensive card, were ten bucks. You don’t have to play the hard meta decks that have cards that cost a hundred bucks. You can do perfectly fine making a budget deck of anything and going pretty far with it.
AYQL: Speaking of Regionals, how was your experience at Vegas?
GW: The Regional was a lot of fun this time around. I think I had more fun at Vegas than I did at Houston because Houston was my big first event, and this one was my second. I knew what it was about, and I knew I could relax and have some more fun. Being around the people I had played with earlier was more comfortable this time around. Doing the Card Slinging for Riot was another great thing. I was super thankful for the opportunity to do that. It was really humbling because, being a Riot [fan] in general, I look up to a lot of the [Riot Games celebrities]. I’ve watched their content through the many different versions they’ve gone to. I remember seeing Scarra play League of Legends, and now he’s not the super League guy anymore. He’s much more versatile and Teamfight-Tactics-oriented. It was humbling to be able to share that same space and even more humbling to see people wanting me to sign cards for them. I was super grateful for that opportunity to interact with people.
AYQL: Did you have any fun interactions with players at Card Slinging?
GW: I have built a reputation for hating Stellacorn Herder.
AYQL: Tell me more.
GW: I have hated this card. I think this card is awful. I thought it was great at release, and I played with this card for a month. Then I was completely off of it. I’ve never turned back. I look at this card, and I just see it’s awful in Irelia, so I’ve made a full-stake claim that this is true. The most common card I ended up signing was Stellacorn Herder.
AYQL: I’m guessing you never refused to sign it.
GW: No, but I did kill every one that came through. I put X’s through all the eyes of the unicorn. Playing games at the Card Slinging was fun. I brought two decks—my competitive deck and a casual, for-fun deck, which was all hidden cards in the same deck. I would play the blue Teemo, Strategist instead of the purple Teemo, Scout and try to get as many hidden cards out of him as possible. I played that deck into another Irelia person who—we’ve interacted on the Discord before, and they know my stance on Stellacorn and all that jazz. They sit down, and we start playing a game. He’s playing Stellacorn, and then my Teemo, Strategist comes out and blows up the unicorn. Eventually I win this game with thirty-three hidden, Teemo into Stellacorn. It’s just a fun moment. We laughed about it. We’re like, “Ah, I guess Stellacorn is really bad!”
AYQL: I was staffing, so I didn’t get a chance to play. However, it was fun living vicariously through everyone I saw in Vegas. Some people were trying to get the metal cards, and others were between rounds in the Main Event. I would hear from them, and there was so much excitement and joy.
GW: The social bits are the most fun thing for me. That watch party at the end of the night was beautiful. We just have twelve people all together, razzing each other about their runs, celebrating the people who won. We had DaemonXGG and KnightinGale who both won a Best Of card in Lucian and Ahri. We’re celebrating these people who have made great accomplishments and then razzing each other for not making as great accomplishments. We had a full draft night, and it was a great time. I truly love the fact that Riftbound gave me a reason to be social; Otherwise, I would just not be.
AYQL: You’d stay at home and play video games.
GW: One hundred percent.
AYQL: Riftbound has given me the same thing. I usually play Deadlock, and you can just sit at your desk playing that all day.
GW: You just get lost in it.
AYQL: One thing I like is going to my locals. You play with so many people, but you get to make small talk. It feels like speed dating because you get to learn a small tidbit about someone. Then you go to the next person. The more times you go to the same stores, the more you bump into the same people. You just know all this random stuff about people.
GW: For sure. That’s something that I don’t know if we’ll lose when we get this digital client that keeps being teased [by Riot]. I am a little worried about how much that will ruin the magic that we feel in this Riftbound speed dating scene that we have. I have a bit of nerves about that. I know that the Riot team is also nervous about that, but because of the volume of players, it’s becoming more and more of a necessity [to have a digital client], it seems. More for the accessibility reason: Not everyone has a local game store near them. If you’re in the middle of nowhere or you live in a rural place, you don’t have the experience that some other people are having, like me and you. There’s a good reason to get people into the game who otherwise wouldn’t be able to. But those sorts of things also have the capacity to subsume everything else. Will we see a drop off from local scenes because we can play whenever we want at home, with a ranked ladder on a digital client?
AYQL: People want to play the physical cards that they have, especially their overnumbereds. They’re not going to let them sit and gather dust.
GW: That’s what I hope too.
AYQL: Everyone knows you as the Yasuo player. Why did you decide to play Irelia in Vegas?
GW: Well, Irelia is hot. That’s step one. I’ve got to enjoy what I’m looking at. Otherwise, what am I even doing? No, the real reason is that I didn’t necessarily want a one-trick, and Irelia was looking better than Yasuo the more that I played it. Originally, I thought Yasuo was the better deck, but the more I played with Defiant Dance and Irelia, Fervent, the more I realized those pieces really put it above Yasuo. I switched over to Irelia, and I made her playstyle similar to what I did with Yasuo at Houston. So it still feels very much like the same deck, just a different character on front. Irelia happens to be in my top five of League characters anyway. My top five is Yorick at number one, followed by Irelia, Fiora, Jhin, and Mel.
AYQL: I hear you on Irelia. She’s aesthetically pleasing, and her ability is fun too. Did you feel that there’s more to keep track of with Irelia? She’s more rune hungry, isn’t she?
GW: Yeah. Rune management. Also, just physically tracking her current Might at all times is the overhead that Yasuo doesn’t have. I have to dedicate a die to keep track of her Might at any given moment. So there’s any accessory requirement for Irelia that wasn’t there for Yasuo. You have to be super aware of exactly how Riftbound works because she benefits off of targeting, and targeting is already a little bit of a vague concept in Riftbound. My guide is for the aggro version of Irelia, which is what I brought to Vegas. It’s a deck concept that I have not seen people explore. I was hoping to get a little better with it than I did, but I’m not not proud of what I was able to do. In my guide, there’s a whole section about rulings, going over everything that targets and exactly how the errata’d cards in the deck work. Tideturner has two different functional errata at this point.
AYQL: Why is there so much of a market for Best Of cards?
GW: League is a huge IP. Let’s start there. Most of the people who want these cards are people who have played with League IP for years now. Some are character aficionados who love specific characters and want to get everything of a specific character. That’s where a lot of this comes from—people who love their characters. The difference between the plated Legends and the Best Ofs is basically just rarity. Having a card that is one of nine is more prestigious than a card that is one of five hundred. I don’t think the cards themselves look too much different to garner the price differential that they are. It’s all just rarity and prestige. But that’s fun to have. Like if I’m a Yasuo one-trick in League, I want to have everything that Yasuo has. I want to have the prestigious Yasuo thing.
AYQL: Did you ever consider keeping your Best Of Yasuo card?
GW: No, I did not. Because for me, what the Yasuo metal card allowed me to do—what I’m currently able to do right now is take Riftbound full time. I just started that at Vegas, where for the past two months I’ve been finishing up my previous job, making sure everything was set up and ready for my departure. Now we’re going to really try hard at making Riftbound a full-time thing for me. We’re going to give it our best shot.
AYQL: That’s incredible. Congratulations!
GW: That’s what that card allowed me to do. People talk about how [the Regional is] just a money-grab event, where people go and get the Best Ofs and they get their bag. But for someone like me, [the card] was lifechanging. It allows me to interact with this community and this game at a level that I didn’t think I would be able to.
AYQL: What’s next for you? More content, more competition?
GW: A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B. We finished the Irelia guide. We’re going to be doing gameplay videos. We’ll be getting a lot of the previews when those come out and doing some card reveals. We’re going to try to just diversify as much as possible and see where we go. Obviously I’ll be there at Atlanta to compete and try to reclaim the Best Of Irelia that I missed at Vegas.
AYQL: Who is this “we?”
GW: I’m mostly talking about me and my wife. She’s here always on this journey with me as well. She’s given me all this support to do it. I also have a testing group that I play with, like tog, SouledOut, yuuto, housesarebig, and Gorica. There’s a ton of people that we play with that we’re all cheering for, all together.
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