Combo · ENGINE
Applied Researchers stack — Time Warp for 7 Energy + 1 Mind
Pieces
- Applied Researchers ×3
VEN-055 · engine · mind
[Empower] 3 Energy (3 Energy: Empower me. Use only if not Empowered.) [Empowered][>] Your spells cost 1 Energy + 1 Power of any domain less, to a minimum of 1 Energy.
- Time Warp ×1
OGN-122 · payoff · mind
Take a turn after this one. Banish this.
Payoff
Deck
- Legend covers Mind — both cards are Mind, so any of the ten Mind legends runs it (103.1.b.1).
Prerequisites
- 21 Energy of setup spread over earlier turns: 3 x 4 Energy to play plus 3 x 3 Energy to Empower. 103.2.b caps the discount at three copies, and the third copy is the one that stops paying for itself on Energy.
- The Energy floor does NOT chain and the Power halves DO. 356.4.e: 'If a discount applies a minimum cost, that minimum applies only to that discount.' Each copy carries its own 1-Energy minimum, so the Energy component of any spell bottoms out at 1 however many copies are out; the printed minimum says nothing about Power, so the rainbow halves stack down to 356.6's zero.
- The discount reads 'Your spells'. Units, gear and legends are untouched, and 818.1 makes an [Equip] an Activated Ability rather than a spell, so Equipment costs are untouched twice over.
Steps
- On earlier turns play up to three Applied Researchers (4 Energy each) and Empower each for 3 Energy. Empower is an Activated Ability whose cost here is 3 Energy with no exhaust (827.1.c.1), so a copy can be Empowered the turn it lands.
- Play Time Warp. Its printed cost is 10 Energy + 4 Power, and its Power symbol is [C] — its own domain, Mind (135.2.e.6), which is why the rainbow half of the discount reaches it: every Power cost printed in this pool is [C] and none is [A], so a rainbow discount that only removed rainbow symbols would be dead letter across the whole game (rule 002).
- With one copy Empowered Time Warp costs 9 Energy + 3 Mind; with two, 8 + 2; with three, 7 Energy + 1 Mind. Against the free floor of 2 Power a turn (164.2.b plus 315.3.b/430.4.a), three copies turn Time Warp from a four-Power card into a one-Power card.
- Every other spell in the deck is discounted at the same time: 1 Energy off anything printed above 1 Energy, and 1 Power off anything with a Power cost — which at the catalogue's standing rate of 9 Energy per Power is where nearly all of the value is.
Per iteration
-1 Energy and -1 Power per Empowered copy on every spell you play, floored at 1 Energy by 356.4.e and at 0 Power by 356.6; Time Warp goes from 10 Energy + 4 Mind to 7 Energy + 1 Mind on three copies
How it ends
engine only - a cost reduction on every spell; nothing here scores and the extra turn still has to be used
Sources
Published elsewhere
Walked here, in this project
- Hand walk against Core Rules 2026-07-16 and the #21 loop ledger (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-issue85-three-loose-ends.md, section 1) 2026-09-06 record
How this entry was audited
REFUTE = a refutation pass, with its date and verdict · WOUNDED = the pass found a flaw and the entry was rewritten · BUDGETED = the pass checked the recycle-and-draw ledger · lens = the hunt that proposed it.
Walked for issue #85, whose actual question was whether this card moves the #21 loop ledger (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-04-loop-budget-ledger.md). MEASURED ANSWER: NO for the thing that matters. The ledger's scarce resource is DRAWS, and the draw is bought from SFD-088 Renata Glasc, Mastermind's '1 Energy + 1 Mind: Draw 1' - an Activated Ability, recognised by the ':' at 377.1, not a spell - so this discount never sees it and rate 3 (an extra cycled card = 1 Energy + 1 Mind Power, about 10 Energy) is unchanged. Rate 2 is unchanged too: the Power pass's only spell is OGN-104 Retreat at 1 Energy, already on the floor, so a Power still costs 9 Energy. And the wall itself does not move, because '0 spare draws' is 431.1.a - a fifth draw into an empty Main Deck is a Burn Out and a point for the opponent - and a discount buys Energy, not cards. What it does move: the Energy pass of lux-infinite-energy spends 10 Energy, of which UNL-165 Shadow's Call (Spell, 2 Energy) becomes 1 and UNL-173 Sacrifice (Spell, 1 Energy) is already at this discount's own minimum, while OGN-110 Ekko is a Unit and OGN-212 Forge is Gear; so the pass goes from +1 to +2 Energy and the loop converges in half the passes, which changes nothing about what an already-unbounded loop can reach. Against the four payoffs the ledger priced, two do not move (renata-bubble-bot-ready and ashe-retreat-hand-strip pay only for Retreat, a Unit and a Gear) and two do: jayce-mesmerize-renata's VEN-052 Mesmerize is a Spell at 1 Energy + 1 Power and loses the Power, taking it from about 75 to about 66 Energy per point; promising-future-force-deck's OGN-115 Promising Future is a Spell at 5 Energy + 1 Power and loses both, taking it from about 24 to about 14 per cast. TWO READINGS WERE NOT NEEDED and are recorded rather than filed: whether an [A] discount removes a [C] cost (it must - zero cards in the pool print an [A] Power cost, so the other reading is dead letter, the rule-002/R28 argument), and whether 'to a minimum of 1 Energy' floors the Energy component or the total (the answer is the same for every spell in this walk). 476.1 is the WRONG frame for any of it: cost determination is 356, a step of playing a card, while 476/477 are the layer system for objects on the board - reaching for 476.1 here is the citation error the 2026-09-04 audit found three times. VEN-055 appeared in zero entries before this one.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16