Combo · ENGINE

The one XP line that wants the counter BANKED - a 5 Might body that walks in the turn it lands

6 cards · order · verified

Pieces

• Bandle Soldier ×3 UNL-151 · payoff · order

  [Level 3][>] I enter ready. (While you have 3+ XP, get the effect.)

• Enthralling Protector ×3 UNL-162 · engine · order

  [Hunt] (When I conquer or hold, gain 1 XP.) Spend 2 XP: [Buff] me. (Give me a +1 Might buff if I don't have one.)

Payoff

Deck

• Both cards are mono-Order, so 103.1.b.3 admits any legend with Order in its pair: SFD-201/SFD-249 Chem-Baroness, UNL-199/UNL-235 Deceiver, SFD-197/SFD-247 Emperor of the Sands, VEN-147/VEN-193 Eye of Twilight, SFD-205/SFD-251 Grand Duelist, UNL-195/UNL-233 Green Father, OGN-253/OGN-302 Hand of Noxus, VEN-155/VEN-197 Heart of the Tempest, OGN-265/OGN-308 Herald of the Arcane, UNL-203/UNL-237 Keeper of the Hammer, OGS-021 Lady of Luminosity - Starter, VEN-153/VEN-196 Matriarch of War, OGS-023 Might of Demacia - Starter, UNL-187/UNL-229 Piltover Enforcer, OGN-261/OGN-306 Radiant Dawn, OGN-269/OGN-310 The Boss, SFD-187/SFD-243 Void Burrower.
• Neither card is banned or restricted in either format, and neither is a Signature card.
• A battlefield you actually hold, since [Hunt] pays on a Conquer or a Hold and nothing else.

Prerequisites

• THE SWEEP, WITH ITS MEMBERS NAMED. `grep -in "enter ready\|enters ready" data/corpus_flat.txt | grep -i level` returns exactly THREE cards: UNL-016 Scorchclaw (Fury, [Level 3], '+1 Might and enter ready'), UNL-151 Bandle Soldier (Order, [Level 3]) and UNL-191 Wuju Master (Calm/Body legend, [Level 11], 'Your units enter ready'). Bandle Soldier is the Order one and the cheapest to switch on.
• WHY 'ENTERS READY' IS WORTH ANYTHING AT ALL. 143.4: 'Units enter the Board exhausted', with 143.4.a saying that can be altered. 144.2: 'Exhausting the Unit is the Cost for this action' - the Standard Move. So a body that enters ready walks to a battlefield on the turn it is played, which is the whole value; 415.1 defines Readying as marking a Game Object ALREADY on the board, so 'enters ready' is a play-time property and can never hand an exhaust back later. It is worth a tempo turn, never a second activation.
• THE RULE THAT MAKES THIS LINE THE OPPOSITE OF EVERY OTHER XP LINE. 824.1.d: 'The Dependent Ability will be Inactive as soon as the controlling player has less than [N] XP', and 730.2: 'To Spend XP, reduce the value of XP marked on the Player spending it.' So the XP has to be BANKED and never spent. That is a deckbuilding constraint, not a play decision: the two catalogued entries that share this faucet - poppy-hunt-xp-discount (UNL-178 Poppy spends 3 XP as an additional cost) and shepherds-heirloom-xp-equip (UNL-158's [Equip] spends 1 XP) - both take you back under the threshold and switch every [Level 3] in the deck off. Pick a side; a list cannot run both halves.
• THE PROTECTOR'S OWN SINK IS PART OF THE SAME TRAP, AND IT IS ALSO A BAD DEAL. 'Spend 2 XP: [Buff] me' takes 3 XP to 1. And what it buys is capped anyway: 702.3, 'There can only be one Buff on a Unit at a time', with 703 fixing each buff at exactly +1 Might - so the sink is worth +1 Might ONCE, forever, and costs you the [Level 3] of every Bandle Soldier in the deck to get it.
• THE RATE, DERIVED RATHER THAN ASSERTED. 823.1.c.1: 'Hunt is functionally short for "When I Conquer or Hold, my controller gains X XP"', X = 1 here. 315.2.b.2: 'The Turn Player Holds all Battlefields they Control', and 485.4 puts Battlefield Count at 2 in a Duel - so two Protectors standing on two held battlefields pay 2 XP per Beginning Phase and the floor of 3 is reached in the second one. One Protector alone takes three turns.
• THE FLOOR IS A STATE, NOT A ONE-TIME UNLOCK. 824.1.c.1 re-evaluates on a change of controller and 824.1.d re-evaluates continuously, so every Bandle Soldier drawn later also enters ready for as long as the counter stays at 3 - the faucet is paid for once and every copy after that is free.
• WHAT IT IS NOT. Nothing here scores. The Protector's [Hunt] is paid BY a Hold, it does not cause one, and 469 defines Scoring as Conquer or Hold only.

Steps

1. Play Enthralling Protector (2 Energy) and walk it to a battlefield you can hold.
2. At your Beginning Phase, 315.2.b.2 Holds every battlefield you control and [Hunt] pays 1 XP per Protector that held (823.1.c.1).
3. Repeat until the counter reads 3. With two Protectors on the two battlefields of a Duel (485.4) that is the second Beginning Phase.
4. From then on every Bandle Soldier you play enters ready (824.1.d keeps the Dependent Ability Active while the counter stays at 3) and can pay 144.2's exhaust to walk to a battlefield the same turn.
5. Never spend the XP: 730.2 reduces the marked value and 824.1.d switches every [Level 3] off the instant it drops below 3.

Per iteration

1 XP per Protector per Hold until the floor of 3, then a 5 Might body that reaches a battlefield a turn earlier, per copy played

How it ends

engine only - a tempo turn per Bandle Soldier, capped at three copies by 103.2.b, and the whole thing switches off the moment anything spends the XP (824.1.d + 730.2); 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
• Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt (built from Riot's gallery content API) 2026-09-07

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-07 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-07-uncatalogued-order.md, batch 5) 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue