Combo · ENGINE
Vanguard Armory feeds two Bottled Constellations — points from bodies without a battlefield
Pieces
- Vanguard Armory ×1
SFD-168 · engine · order
Exhaust: Play three 1 Might Recruit unit tokens. (You may play them to different locations.)
- Heimerdinger, Inventor ×1
OGN-111 · engine · mind
I have all Exhaust abilities of all friendly legends, units, and gear.
- Bottled Constellation ×2
VEN-067 · payoff · mind
At the start of your Main Phase, you may kill 3 other friendly units and/or gear to score 1 point.
Payoff
Deck
- A Mind/Order legend — Vanguard Armory is Order, Heimerdinger and Bottled Constellation are Mind (103.1.b.1). Herald of the Arcane (OGN-265) is the natural choice and adds a seventh Recruit a turn for 1 Energy.
Prerequisites
- THE CYCLE, AND WHY IT IS ONE TURN OFFSET. Turn N Main Phase: exhaust the Armory (three Recruits) and Heimerdinger's copy of it (three more). Turn N+1's Main Phase opens with both Constellations' triggers — 'At the start of your Main Phase' — and the six Recruits from turn N are still there, so each Constellation kills three for a point. TWO POINTS A TURN, and turn N+1's Main Phase then makes six more. Eight points in four turns.
- THE RECRUITS SURVIVE THE GAP, WHICH IS WHAT MAKES THIS WORK AND WHAT KILLS THE OBVIOUS ALTERNATIVE. 187.1 Recruits carry no [Temporary], so 816.1.b never touches them and they are still on the board at the next Main Phase start. A [Temporary] token engine can never feed this: 816.1.b kills those 'at the start of the controller's Beginning Phase, before scoring', and 315.2 Beginning Phase precedes 316 Main Phase, so every Temporary body is already dead when the Constellation triggers. That refuses sprite-fountain-malzahar-jayce and sprite-fountain-aspiring-engineer as fodder even though both are Mind and domain-legal.
- THE COST IS THE HONEST PROBLEM AND IT IS NOT HIDDEN. Two Constellations are 20 Energy + 4 Mind Power, the Armory 7 + 1 and Heimerdinger 3 + 1: THIRTY ENERGY AND SIX POWER before the first point. Against a Rune Deck of exactly 12 (161.2.a) that is three turns of build. What it buys is a point engine that needs no battlefield at all — no random 1-of-3 draw (485.5), no Control to establish (190.1), and nothing for the opponent to conquer away.
- IT IS NOT bottled-constellation-time-warp. That entry is three Constellations plus three Time Warps and it declares needs ['infinite-energy','infinite-power'] — it only exists on top of the Lux loop, and its fodder is 'the loop's Recruits and Gold'. This one names its own fodder source, rides no loop, and its class is ENGINE rather than CHAIN. They share only VEN-067.
- '3 other friendly units and/or gear' MEANS THE SECOND CONSTELLATION IS LEGAL FODDER, and so are the Armory and Heimerdinger. Do not: six Recruits is the exact meal for two Constellations, and eating the engine ends it. With Herald of the Arcane as the legend the turn's production is seven and one Recruit is spare.
- A THIRD CONSTELLATION IS NOT WORTH IT AT SIX RECRUITS. 103.2.b allows three copies, but the third needs three more bodies at the same Main Phase start and the Armory line supplies six (seven with the legend). It becomes correct only alongside a second token source, and the entry does not claim one.
- R2 = A IS LOAD-BEARING: 'score 1 point' on a card is a 194.1.c Gain by ability, not a 469 Score, so 470's once-per-battlefield cap never applies to a payoff that touches no battlefield at all. 471.1.a.1 lets the eighth point land the same way.
- SFD-060 Tianna Crownguard switches it off ('opponents can't gain points'), as she does every ability-point line in the catalogue.
Steps
- Land Vanguard Armory (7 Energy + 1 Power), Heimerdinger, Inventor (3 Energy + 1 Power) and two Bottled Constellations (10 Energy + 2 Mind Power each).
- Each Main Phase, exhaust the Armory for three Recruits and Heimerdinger — using his copy of the Armory's ability — for three more.
- At the start of the following Main Phase, both Constellations trigger. Each kills three of those Recruits to score 1 point.
- Two points a turn, and the same Main Phase then rebuilds the six bodies.
Per iteration
+2 points, +6 Recruits, −6 Recruits per turn, for 0 Energy after the build
How it ends
engine — 2 points per turn once both Constellations are down, 8 in four turns; no battlefield involved at any point
Sources
Walked here, in this project
- Hand walk 2026-09-06 2026-09-06 record
- Issue #155 — Engine × payoff: the master payoff inventory, which lists VEN-067 Bottled Constellation but files it as '(self-kill, not a removal payoff)' and never pairs it with the token-body-engine group 2026-09-06
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.
HAND-WALKED 2026-09-06 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-engine-payoff-walk.md). Issue #155's inventory named Bottled Constellation and then set it aside in a parenthetical; re-reading the corpus line makes it the pool's only card that converts BODIES into points without a battlefield, which is the missing payoff for the token-body-engine group the hunt sent entirely to The Grand Plaza. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt; 103.1.b.1, 103.2.b, 161.2.a, 187.1, 190.1, 194.1.c, 315.2, 316, 469, 470, 471.1/471.1.a.1, 485.5 and 816.1.b opened and read. Ban check: none of SFD-168, OGN-111 or VEN-067 is banned or Signature. Trap check: the killed Recruits are tokens and 186.1 makes them cease to exist rather than reach the trash, which costs this line nothing because nothing here recycles or reanimates; no attack; no [Repeat]; no recall; no [Temporary] anywhere, and the entry states why a [Temporary] source could never substitute. Depends on R2 = A and on no open reading.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16