There’s no shortage of recursion tools in Shadow Isles, but The Harrowing might be the cleanest, most tempo-efficient resurrection play we’ve seen in Riftbound so far.
At 6 Energy, it slots right between the raw impact of units like Soulgorger and the cheaper utility of early-game trash manipulation—offering an elegant, surgical revival for decks that want precision over mass reanimation.
This isn’t some late-game hail mary. This is mid-game insurance.
Gameplay / Cool Mechanics
The Harrowing reads:
“Play a unit from your trash, ignoring its Energy cost. (You must still pay its Power cost.)”
This lets you bring back your big hitters or combo enablers far earlier than usual, bypassing one of the biggest tempo walls in the game—Energy.
In a region like Shadow Isles that already accelerates trash stacking through self-sacrifice, trade bait, or mill, The Harrowing becomes a value bomb that rewards tight deck sequencing.
There are obvious pairings—reviving Soulgorger, Rhasa the Sunderer, or anything that had a high Energy tag but paid its worth in stats or ETB effects.
But the real play? Pulling something like Mirror Fiend or Deadknell Ravager and immediately slamming the pressure back onto your opponent while they’re still trying to stabilize.
Since the Power cost remains, you’re still taxed on value, but not tempo—and that’s what makes The Harrowing so potentially busted in the right hands.
Visuals
A spectral hand emerging from a pool of darkness. It’s simple, but not subtle. The transparency on the fingers gives it a disembodied, otherworldly feel, like it’s phasing through dimensions.
What makes it land is the hand’s posture—it isn’t reaching. It’s grasping. As if reclaiming what was stolen.
It’s a clean visual cue for what the card does: pull something back from the dead, and do it with intent.
Pull Rate & Value Speculation
The Harrowing is card 198/298 in the core set. No confirmed rarity tag shown yet, but given the power ceiling, it’s likely Rare or possibly Epic.
There’s no known alt-art or foil at this point, but this is exactly the kind of spell that gets reprinted with premium variants in later drops—especially if it becomes a meta staple.
It’s not flashy. It’s not overloaded. But the utility is real, and Shadow Isles players should keep an eye on The Harrowing—especially if future cards deepen the trash synergy pool.
Read more – Stacked Deck from Riftbound TCG
