Combo · ALT WIN

Arise! — one 2-Might body per Equipment, straight onto The Grand Plaza

11 cards · calm + order · verified

Pieces

• The Grand Plaza ×1 OGN-293 · payoff

  When you hold here, if you have 7+ units here, you win the game.

• Arise! ×1 SFD-198 · payoff · calm/order

  Play a 2 Might Sand Soldier unit token for each Equipment you control. Then do this: Ready up to two of them.

• Doran's Shield ×3 SFD-033 · enabler · calm

  [Equip] 1 Calm Power (1 Calm Power: Attach this to a unit you control.)

  [Tank] (I must be assigned combat damage first.)

• Soul Sword ×3 UNL-039 · enabler · calm

  [Equip] 1 Calm Power (1 Calm Power: Attach this to a unit you control.)

  [Level 3][>] I have an additional +1 Might. (While you have 3+ XP, get the effect.)

• Eye of the Herald ×3 SFD-153 · enabler · order

  [Equip] 1 Order Power (1 Order Power: Attach this to a unit you control.)

  When I move, play a 1 Might Recruit unit token here.

Payoff

Deck

• SFD-198 Arise! is a SIGNATURE card tagged Azir, so 103.2.d.2 forces a Azir legend that also covers calm + order: SFD-197 Emperor of the Sands — the only one. Domain-legal legends without the Azir tag cannot run the list. (Rebuilt from the census by test/legend-lines.test.ts, 2026-09-07; an earlier line named legends that cannot hold a Azir Signature card.)

Prerequisites

• The Grand Plaza must be the battlefield in play, and a deck may not carry two of it (Core Rules 103.4.c, Tournament Rules 402.1): random 1 of 3 in Duel (485.5) and Skirmish (487.5), chosen in Match (486.5).
• Control the Plaza BEFORE resolving Arise!, not after. The spell names no location, so 439.2.b.1 and 355.2.a send the tokens to your base or to a battlefield you control — the same requirement the REFUTE of grand-plaza-recruit-vanguard recorded for the Vanguard line. Each token chooses its location separately (355.2), so all nine can enter the Plaza.
• Nine Equipment, nine 2-Might Sand Soldiers (187.3), plus the body already holding the Plaza: 10 units against a bar of 7. They need not be attached — 718.5.a keeps Types and Tags on attached cards and "each Equipment you control" asks for nothing more. Doran's Shield, Soul Sword and Eye of the Herald are the only Calm or Order Equipment in the pool at 1 Energy; the next cheapest is 2.
• Why it exists next to grand-plaza-recruit-vanguard, which does the same thing in 2 cards and 12 Energy and sits inside this identity (OGS-015 is Order): this loses 8 deck slots and wins on two measurable points. The finishing turn costs 6 Energy and 1 Power against 12 Energy, and the bodies are 2 Might — OGN-133 Flurry of Blades (Body, 1 Energy, [Reaction], "Deal 1 to all units at battlefields") is lethal to every 1-Might Recruit under 142.4.b and does nothing whatever to a Sand Soldier. The slot count is the honest signal and it is stated rather than hidden.
• The Sand Soldiers carry no [Temporary] (187.3), so 816.1.b never touches them, and they enter exhausted (143.4), which does not matter for holding — Arise! readies two anyway. The Plaza's "if you have 7+ units here" is a Trigger Condition measured at the instant of the Hold (383.2.a.1, 383.2.c), so the nine must already be standing when the Scoring Step arrives.
• The 9 Equipment are paid one at a time through the early game and are not dead cards while they wait: Doran's Shield grants [Tank], Soul Sword grants Might at 3 XP, and Eye of the Herald makes a Recruit on every move of its bearer.
• THE EQUIPMENT THIS LINE STANDS ON (Doran's Shield x3, Soul Sword x3, Eye of the Herald x3) IS A LEGAL TARGET THE WHOLE TIME IT SITS THERE. 718.5.b: "Attached cards still can be chosen or targeted by game effects while Attached." Its printed Rules Text is Inactive while attached (718.2) and its [Equip] is unusable (721.2), but neither of those protects the CARD. OGN-022 Thermo Beam (Fury, E5 + 2 Fury Power, "[Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Kill all gear.") is the only card in the pool that kills EVERY gear at once, so against the 9 copies this line stands on it answers the whole payoff with ONE card. It is symmetric, which makes it cheap for a gearless deck and expensive for anyone else. The unconditional enemy-facing gear kills are OGN-022 Thermo Beam (fury), OGN-224 Salvage (order), SFD-005 Detonate (fury), SFD-032 Disarming Rake (calm), SFD-077 Rocket Barrage (mind), VEN-003 Brittle Steel (fury) - four domains, so there is no identity this line can hide in. (The full swept set is 16 base codes across all six domains; the predicate is /\bkills?\b[^.]{0,80}\bgear\b/i over text+effect of every deckable base in data/cards.json, and the rest either reach only a friendly gear or are gated below this line's costs. Run npm run adversarial to re-derive it.)
• NO GEAR KILL IN THE POOL CARRIES [Reaction] - BUT A KILL IS NOT THE ONLY ANSWER, AND THE PREDICATE THAT MEASURED THAT SET COULD NOT SEE THE OTHER FAMILY. Swept over all 16 kills: Thermo Beam and Salvage are [Action], which 806.1.c.1 makes short for "This can be played during showdowns on any player's turn", and Detonate and Brittle Steel are plain spells, which 155 confines to "an Open State outside of Showdowns on its controller's turn". WHICH OF THOSE PROTECTS THIS LINE DEPENDS ON WHERE IT PAYS, so check before relying on it. If it pays on a HOLD, the Score happens at 315.2.b.2 inside your own Beginning Phase, where 312.2.a gives the opponent no priority in a Neutral Open State and 813.1.c.1 admits only a [Reaction] in the Closed State the trigger opens - no kill in the pool reaches that window at all, so each must be cast on THEIR own turn, a full turn early and fully telegraphed, and that spell on the Chain is itself a Closed State where 312.2.c hands out priority and 813.1.c.1 admits a [Reaction] in response. If it instead pays in your MAIN PHASE, that protection does not exist: 806.1.c.1 puts Thermo Beam and Salvage inside any showdown on any player's turn, so they reach the scoring window itself. THE SECOND FAMILY IS DETACHMENT, AND IT DOES CARRY [Reaction]. 719.1 appends an attached card's Effect Text to its carrier "for as long as they remain Attached" and 137.3.a stops the Might Bonus "as soon as the card with the Might Bonus is no longer Attached", so taking the Equipment OFF switches the payoff off without killing anything. Swept with /\bdetach/i over text+effect of every deckable base: 5 base codes (4 names - Grandmaster at Arms is printed twice), of which only 1 is ENEMY-FACING, because Strike Down says "an equipped friendly unit", Veiled Temple "a friendly gear" and Grandmaster at Arms "you control". That one is SFD-011 Angle Shot - Fury, 2 Energy, NO Power, and it cantrips: "[Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Choose a unit and an Equipment with the same controller. Attach that Equipment to that unit or detach that Equipment from that unit. Draw 1." The words that make it an answer are "the same controller", which need not be you. WHAT IT PROVABLY DOES is strip the text and the Might Bonus BEFORE the trigger condition is ever met. WHAT IS NOT WALKED, and a reader should not reach for it here until somebody does, is whether a detach inside the scoring window itself accomplishes anything. The reason to DOUBT it - not a paragraph that settles it - is that a Trigger Condition is measured when the trigger is PLACED (383.2.a.1 makes a clause immediately after the trigger "part of the Trigger Condition and not the Effect"), so stripping the Equipment once its trigger is already on the Chain may well change nothing. Nobody has walked what becomes of a chain item whose source text has gone. Until somebody does, treat Angle Shot as a cheap answer cast EARLY, and do not claim it answers the trigger.
• THE PARAGRAPH THAT AUTHORISES THE NAMED DESTINATION, ADDED BESIDE 355.2.a RATHER THAN INSTEAD OF IT (#204, from #187 batch 18). 355.2.a is the DEFAULT for playing a card - 'By default, Valid locations include the controller's Base or a Battlefield the controller controls' - and it is what this entry already cites. It is not a permission for a token-creating effect to NARROW that, and the paragraph that is has been cited by nothing in 766 entries: 184.2, 'The effect may restrict the location to which the token may be played.' That is what makes a printed 'here' a legal instruction rather than a contradiction of the default. The system is three paragraphs - 184.2 narrows, 355.2.a defaults, 355.2.b widens - and this catalogue was citing two of the three. Both are true here and the pair is the finding.
• THE +1 IS WORTH MORE HERE THAN ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE PLAZA FAMILY, BECAUSE THIS GARRISON STARTS A SIZE UP. 187.3 makes a Sand Soldier a 2 :rb_might: token by rule, which is why this entry’s own steps already say a 1-damage sweep does not reach them. `OGS-013 Garen, Commander` and `OGN-243 Darius, Executioner` are both mono-Order and print the identical sentence — *"Other friendly units have +1 :rb_might: here"* — so either is legal in this calm+order identity, stands at the Plaza as one of the seven, and takes the Sand Soldiers to Might 3. Measured over the twenty cards in the pool that remove more than one body in one action (the table is in `docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-13-might-1-survivability.md`), Might 3 escapes SIX rather than the three a Might-2 body escapes, and the three it adds are the ones that matter: `OGN-127 Cannon Barrage`, `VEN-019 Renekton, Rage Fueled`, and above all `UNL-132 Angler Beast` — *"return all units with 2 :rb_might: or less to their owners' hands"* — a BOUNCE that catches the whole Might-2 band a +1 creates elsewhere, and which a Might-3 Sand Soldier is the only Plaza garrison in the catalogue to clear BY TAKING THE +1 (narrowed 2026-09-13: five Plaza entries already field Might 3 or more with NO grant at all and each states the Might in its own steps — `spiderling-swarm-grand-plaza` at Might 7 each, `sprite-mother-burst-leblanc-plaza`, `svellsongur-trevor-leblanc-plaza` at 3 each, `leblanc-bashful-bloom-trevor-plaza`, `dragonstorm-confront-grand-plaza`. The deciding Might is in their STEPS, because 185 keeps a token out of `uses`, so no uses-level probe can see it). It does NOT escape `UNL-107 Stare Down` (Body, E2, the cheapest unconditional answer in the pool — the threshold is the ATTACKER’s chosen unit, so no amount of Might escapes it, and 355.10.d makes it programmatic so no `[Deflect]` tax is paid for any number of bodies), `OGN-268 Bullet Time` (E1 plus any amount of rainbow), or the two that take everything and carry no location clause at all — `UNL-180 The Ruination` and `SFD-147 Downwell`. Parking bodies at the base is a defence against Flurry and NOT against the lens.
• A SPELL PAYOFF IS ANSWERED IN A WINDOW THE RULES CREATE FOR IT, AFTER EVERY COST IS ALREADY SPENT (added 2026-09-13, #200). **359.3.c**: *"Other players have an opportunity to play Reactions before the resolution of spells."* A UNIT or GEAR payoff never gets that window — 337.2 sends it straight to Step 4 Resolve — and a BATTLEFIELD payoff is not removable at all (170.3, 170.4). A SPELL is the one payoff class the process stops for, and **425.1.c** with **425.1.c.1** refunds nothing: *"Countering does not refund any costs paid to play a card"*, *"This includes additional costs."* This line's payoff is `SFD-198 Arise!` at **E6 + 1 Power**, and all of it is spent before the counter resolves. Swept on the bare word *counter*: 14 printings, of which three are not counters (`SFD-194 Counter Strike` is a PREVENT carrying the word in its name; `VEN-015` and `VEN-069` GRANT can't-be-countered), leaving **ELEVEN**, every one `[Reaction]`, of which **CALM PRINTS FIVE**. `OGN-045 Defy` and `VEN-152 Rebuttal` are both priced out by this payoff's own cost, which is the one thing its size buys. AND THIS IDENTITY CANNOT BUY THE ONE ANSWER: swept on the word *countered*, the pool holds exactly one card that protects your other spells — `VEN-069 Mel, Newly Awakened`, **mono-Mind** — and 103.1.b keeps her out of ["calm","order"]. (`VEN-015 Decree of Rage` is the only other mention and protects only itself.) There is no counter-proofing available to this shell at all.
• OPPONENT BOARD AND KILL PRICE - ADDED 2026-10-27 (#503). THE BOARD IT WINS ON: nothing of theirs ready in their base on the one turn between Arise! and the Hold (units at their own battlefield cannot reach the Plaza, 144.4.a, 144.4.b; units they play that turn enter exhausted, 143.4), and no removal spell; 383.2.a.1 counts the ten when the Hold happens. N is ten: nine 2-Might Sand Soldiers (187.3) and the body that holds the Plaza, none with [Tank] or [Backline] unless the holder carries a Doran's Shield (815.1.b), so otherwise nothing orders the assignment (465.2.c.6). Killing N - 6 = 4 of them costs 8 damage, four Sand Soldiers (465.2.c.3, 142.4.b), or 7 if the holder has Might 0 or 1 (a 0-Might unit dies to 1 damage, 142.4.b): any ready enemy body of Might 8 or more, or bodies whose summed Might is 8, that attacks the Plaza leaves six and the Hold does not win.

Bodies no card supplies

Take control of The Grand Plaza with any body and keep it — conquering it is what makes it a valid location for the tokens (355.2.a)

Steps

1. Play the nine 1-Energy Equipment over the early turns, 9 Energy in total. They need not be attached to anything to be counted.
2. Take control of The Grand Plaza with any body and keep it — conquering it is what makes it a valid location for the tokens (355.2.a).
3. In a later Main Phase, resolve Arise! for 6 Energy and 1 Power. 439.2.b.1 and 355.2.a let each of the nine 2-Might Sand Soldiers enter at the Plaza you control; the spell readies two of them.
4. Survive one opponent turn with 7+ units there. A 1-damage sweep does not reach them (142.4.b).
5. At your next Beginning Phase you Hold the Plaza, its trigger finds ten units, and 195 grants you the game.

How it ends

win the game at the next Hold

Sources

Walked here, in this project

• Equipment lens hunt, issue #41 candidate 5 (rc-huntE) 2026-09-05
• Hand walk 2026-09-05 2026-09-05 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue