Combo · ENGINE

Emptying a battlefield opens it, and 344.2 gives the next body a Conquer with no combat — but the Drake cannot open his own landing spot

2 cards · chaos · verified

Pieces

• Angler Beast ×1 UNL-132 · engine · chaos

  When you play me, return all units with 2 Might or less to their owners' hands.

• Ocean Drake ×1 VEN-115 · payoff · chaos

  You may play me to an open battlefield. When you play me, you may return a non-Dragon unit to its owner's hand.

Payoff

Deck

• Any legend with Chaos among its two domains (103.1.b.3) — 16 names: Loose Cannon (OGN-251), Unforgiven (OGN-259), Swift Scout (OGN-263), Bounty Hunter (OGN-267), Dark Child - Starter (OGS-017), Glorious Executioner (SFD-185), Blade Dancer (SFD-195), Prodigal Explorer (SFD-199), Battle Mistress (SFD-203), Bloodharbor Ripper (UNL-185), Gloomist (UNL-193), Scorn of the Moon (UNL-197), Voidreaver (UNL-201), Master of Shadows (VEN-143), Soul's Reflection (VEN-151), Heart of the Tempest (VEN-155).
• An enemy garrison made of 2-Might-or-less bodies — tokens, Recruits, Sprites, Birds, Tentacles. Against real bodies the Angler Beast opens nothing.

Run play

• the Angler Beast opens the battlefield for a body already in base

Prerequisites

• 'OPEN' IS TWO CONDITIONS AND THE ANGLER BEAST ONLY SUPPLIES ONE DIRECTLY. 170.11.a: 'Battlefields can be "occupied." This means they have a Unit present'; 170.11.b: '"uncontrolled." This means no player controls them'; 170.11.c: '"open." This means they are unoccupied and uncontrolled.' Returning the garrison to hand makes it unoccupied at once; it becomes uncontrolled at the next Cleanup, when 323.6 and 190.4.c strip the Control of a player with no units there. Only then is it open, and only then may the Drake be played to it.
• 355.2.b IS THE PERMISSION AND 344.2 IS THE PAYOFF. 355.2.b: 'Some Game Effects may grant players permission to play Units to locations that are not normally Valid.' So the Drake lands at a battlefield you do not control; 190.3.a.1 applies Contested; 323.9 stages no Combat, because it needs 'Units present controlled by opposing players' and there are none; and 344.2 opens a Showdown at the next Cleanup instead, with 348.2.a establishing Control and 348.2.a.1 saying 'This results in a Conquer'. A point, with no damage step, no Attacker designation and no attack trigger.
• THE DRAKE CANNOT CLEAR HIS OWN LANDING SPOT, AND THIS IS THE TRAP. His 'return a non-Dragon unit to its owner's hand' is a play trigger, and 355.2 fixes the play location during the play STEPS — before any trigger resolves. So if a body is still standing there, the battlefield is occupied (170.11.a), it is not open (170.11.c), and the permission in 355.2.b never applies. The bounce is for a body somewhere else. This is the same shape as the project's 'an evacuator is never a walker' finding: the card that opens the ground and the card that takes it cannot be the same play.
• THE ANGLER BEAST IS SYMMETRIC AND TARGETS NOTHING. 355.10.d makes 'all units with 2 Might or less' a programmatic selection, so [Deflect] never charges (809.1.c, 809.1.d) and no 'can't be chosen' clause survives it — and your own small bodies go to hand as well. Keep the Beast, and anything you care about, off the 2-Might line before you cast it.
• PRICED WHOLE, ACROSS TWO TURNS: 5 Energy + 1 Chaos Power to clear, then 8 Energy + 2 Chaos Power to take. It is a Duel-ending price for one point, and what it actually buys is a battlefield taken without ever winning a combat — against a token board that no combat could win.
• `OGN-174 Sai Scout` (Chaos, E6 M5, [Vision]) prints the same 'You may play me to an open battlefield' permission for two Energy less and no Power, so the second copy of this plan is cheaper; the Drake is in `uses` because his bounce also answers the one body the Angler Beast could not reach.
• A BLOODLESS CONQUER IS NOT A FAIT ACCOMPLI, AND 46 OF THE 47 ENTRIES CITING 344.2 DID NOT SAY SO (added 2026-09-12, #187 batch 25). **316.8.b.1.a**: during a Non-Combat Showdown *"units controlled by a different player may become present at the Battlefield where the Showdown is"*, which converts it to a COMBAT Showdown in the following cleanup - so the opponent can turn your uncontested walk-in into a fight. 316.8.c is the permission (a Showdown is a Window of Opportunity for [Action] and [Reaction] cards). **The answer set is THREE CARDS, swept on the ACTOR rather than on the destination**: `OGN-173 Ride the Wind` (Chaos, E2+1), `OGN-262 Zenith Blade` (Calm/Order, E3+2) and `SFD-184 Relentless Pursuit` (Fury/Body, E2+1) - twelve printings move a friendly unit, and nine of them send it to base or need a body already there. They span three identities, so **no identity is safe**; and `OGN-262 Zenith Blade` is the worst to walk into, because it STUNS your body on the way in, and 423.1.b removes a stunned unit`s contribution to the damage step while 423.1.c keeps its full Might as the price to kill it - one 3-Energy card takes the unit and the battlefield. **[Ambush] is not a fourth answer**: 822.1.b needs a battlefield where the player already has units, and the defining feature of that board is that they have none there. **THE REMEDY IS A COUNTERSPELL, AND A FIRST VERSION OF THIS NOTABLE SAID SOMETHING FALSE THAT IS WITHDRAWN HERE (corrected within the hour, 2026-09-12).** It said that because all three answers are [Action] and 358.4 admits an Action card only as the card that CLOSES the state, the attacker - who holds Focus by 345 and priority by 335.1 - could shut them out by playing any cheap Action card first. Every step is true and the conclusion is false, because **a Showdown is a LOOP, not a single window**: 346 - *"When the last item on the chain resolves and the turn returns to an Open State during a Showdown, Focus passes, and the next Player gains both Focus and Priority"* - with 347.1.b and 347.2.a. Closing the state buys a lock-out lasting exactly that CHAIN; when it resolves the Showdown reopens, Focus passes TO THE DEFENDER, and they play their answer into an open Showdown after all. **The real sequence**: walk in, take Focus, **PASS** (acting first gains nothing); they play the answer, which closes the state as it is played; **you COUNTER it**, since 358.4`s other half now admits only [Reaction] and all eleven of the pool`s counters are Reaction, and 425.1.c refunds them nothing; all players then pass in sequence, 347.2.a ends the Showdown, and 348.2.a with 348.2.a.1 give you Control and the Conquer. The cheap counter is `OGN-045 Defy` (Calm, E1 + 1 Power, *"counter a spell that costs no more than 4 Energy and no more than one rainbow"*), which covers all three answers; `OGN-064 Wind Wall` is the unconditional one. **So the protection narrows to pairs containing CALM** - it is not the one-Energy insurance any deck can buy.

Steps

1. Wait for the opponent's battlefield to be garrisoned by bodies of 2 Might or less.
2. Play Angler Beast (5 Energy + 1 Chaos Power) somewhere else. All units of 2 Might or less — theirs and yours — return to their owners' hands (355.10.d: nothing is targeted).
3. At the next Cleanup, 323.6 and 190.4.c strip their Control of the now-empty battlefield. It is unoccupied and uncontrolled: open (170.11.c).
4. Play Ocean Drake (8 Energy + 2 Chaos Power) directly to that open battlefield (355.2.b).
5. His play trigger may bounce a non-Dragon unit ELSEWHERE — it cannot have cleared this spot, because 355.2 fixed the location first.
6. 190.3.a.1 applies Contested with no opposing units present, so 323.9 stages no Combat; 344.2 opens a Showdown at the next Cleanup and 348.2.a.1 makes the resulting Control a Conquer.

Per iteration

-2 cards, -13 Energy -3 Chaos Power, an enemy token garrison bounced and one battlefield conquered without a damage step

How it ends

engine — a token garrison returned to hand and the battlefield taken by deployment for a Conquer, with no combat; one point, across two turns and 13 Energy

Sources

Published elsewhere

• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-07, issue #173 — the uncatalogued Fury / Body / Chaos cards 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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