Combo · ENGINE
Ava Achiever is the SECOND route into the battlefield you are attacking — and she puts a different card there, free, after the defender has committed
Pieces
- Ava Achiever ×1
OGN-107 · engine · mind
When I attack, you may pay 1 Mind Power to play a card with [Hidden] from your hand, ignoring its cost. If it's a unit, play it here.
- Mischievous Marai ×3
UNL-003 · payoff · fury
[Hidden] (Hide now for 1 Power of any domain to react with later for 0 Energy.) When you play me to a battlefield, deal 2 to an enemy unit here.
Payoff
Deck
- Ava Achiever is mono-Mind and Mischievous Marai mono-Fury, so 103.1.b.1 needs a Fury/Mind legend, and the census gives three names: OGN-247 Daughter of the Void, SFD-181 / SFD-240 Mechanized Menace, UNL-181 / UNL-226 Virtuoso. Neither card is Signature, so 103.2.d.2 imposes nothing on top of that.
Run play
Prerequisites
- THIS NARROWS A CLAIM MADE IN THIS CATALOGUE THE SAME WEEK. `fresh-beans-rengar-pouncing-attacking-reinforcement` says `SFD-025 Rengar, Pouncing` is 'the only card that may be played to a battlefield you are attacking'. That is true of a card's OWN text — Rengar prints the permission on himself — and it is not the whole story: 355.2.b says 'Some Game Effects may grant players permission to play Units to locations that are not normally Valid', and Ava Achiever's attack trigger is such an effect, aimed at a DIFFERENT card. Rengar walks himself in; Ava throws someone else in.
- AND THE BODY IS IN THAT COMBAT. 464.2.c.3.a: 'If a Unit controlled by the Attacker or Defender becomes present at this Battlefield after this moment, it will gain the Attacker or Defender designation during the Cleanup phase following the action that caused it to become present, as appropriate for its controller', with 323.2.a doing the assignment. So the Marai is an Attacker before 465's damage step and its Might counts in 465.2.c's sum.
- THE DAMAGE LANDS EVEN EARLIER. Ava's trigger fires at the Attacker designation (464.2.c.3), so the Marai's 'deal 2 to an enemy unit here' resolves before the damage step — a 2 Might defender is dead and gone from the defender's summed Might before 465.2.c is computed.
- 811.1.c.1 IS WHY NOTHING IS CONFINED. 'Hide is not a subset of Play.' Ava plays the card FROM HAND, not from face down, so 811.1.d.2's restriction on where a hidden card's play effects may target never engages — the Marai's own 'here' is the only restriction, and it is the one you wanted.
- AND IT IS WHY THE [HIDDEN] WATCHERS NEVER FIRE. `UNL-023 Katarina, Reckless`, `OGN-167 Ember Monk` and `SFD-121 Black Market Broker` all read 'when you play a card from face down'; Ava's play is from hand, so none of them sees it. Do not price this line as if it also fed that package.
- ONE MIND POWER PER ATTACK, AND THE CARD IS FREE. Ava's cost is the rune, not the card, so a 2-Energy body plus 2 damage costs a single Mind Power on a turn she was attacking anyway. 103.2.b caps the Marai at three copies, which is the real ceiling: three free reinforcements a game unless the deck runs other [Hidden] cards.
- THE PAYLOAD IS INTERCHANGEABLE, AND THAT IS THE RULE'S CONTENT. Any [Hidden] card in hand works; a unit lands 'here', anything else simply resolves. `VEN-135 Kennen, Keeper of Balance` (Order) stuns a defender for 2 Energy from the same slot, and `OGN-097 Blastcone Fae` shrinks one. Those are different domain pairs and different entries, not a wider `uses[]` here.
- IT DOES NOT SCORE. Killing part of the garrison is what makes the Conquer available; 466.5.d is the point, and it belongs to whatever else is attacking.
Steps
- Deck-build under OGN-247 Daughter of the Void (Fury/Mind) and keep a Mischievous Marai in hand rather than hiding it — this line wants it in HAND, since Ava plays from there.
- Move Ava Achiever to an occupied enemy battlefield. 190.3.a.1 applies Contested, 323.9 stages the Combat, and 464.2.c.3 designates her an Attacker.
- Her trigger fires. Pay one Mind Power and play Mischievous Marai from hand, ignoring its cost. 'If it's a unit, play it here' — 359.3.f.2 reads 'here' at execution, which is the battlefield she is attacking, and 355.2.b makes that a valid play location for this effect.
- The Marai's own play trigger resolves: deal 2 to an enemy unit here. 143.2.a kills any defender at Might 2 or less outright, before any damage is assigned.
- 323.2.a and 464.2.c.3.a give the Marai the Attacker designation at the Cleanup following the play, so it is in the combat.
- 465.2.c now sums a defence one body lighter and an attack two Might heavier than the opponent committed to.
How it ends
engine only — one free [Hidden] body plus 2 damage at the attacked battlefield per attack, for one Mind Power, three times a game on this payload (103.2.b); nothing here scores
Sources
Published elsewhere
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
- 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 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-07-rules-second-pass.md), issue #170 2026-09-07 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.
HAND-WALKED 2026-09-07, issue #170, from `ava-achiever-hidden-discount`. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. The content is a narrowing of `fresh-beans-rengar-pouncing-attacking-reinforcement`'s uniqueness claim: Rengar is the only card whose OWN text permits it, and 355.2.b makes Ava's attack trigger a second, different route that places another card. Trap check: 464.2.c.3.a is quoted rather than paraphrased, so the body is shown to be in the combat and not merely adjacent; 811.1.c.1 is cited both for why nothing is confined and for why the three face-down watchers never fire, which is the mistake this pairing invites; the payload is stated as interchangeable and the alternatives are left out of uses[] because they change the domain pair; the Fury/Mind census is named as a single legend.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16