Combo · ENGINE

Bard, Mercurial — the only card that moves your whole board at once, and it Conquers as it lands

1 card · mind · verified

Pieces

• Bard, Mercurial ×1 SFD-079 · engine · mind

  You may exhaust your legend as an additional cost to play me. When you play me, if you paid the additional cost, move any number of your units to an open battlefield.

Payoff

Deck

• Legend domains cover Mind. Bard is mono-Mind, so any legend with Mind runs him.
• Your legend must still be READY: 414.1.b forbids exhausting what is already exhausted, and the trigger checks 'if you paid the additional cost'. 107.4.c is why a legend can be exhausted at all ('The Champion Legend here is a Game Object').

Prerequisites

• 'OPEN BATTLEFIELD' IS DEFINED IN THE CORE RULES AND IT IS TWO CONDITIONS. 170.11.c: "Battlefields can be 'open.' This means they are unoccupied and uncontrolled." Both, not just the control half. This is what unblocks the entry, which issue #58 had filed as its refutation R3 pending a ruling, and it agrees with Riot's own Spiritforged errata of 2026-01-14 (data/errata.json, https://playriftbound.com/en-us/news/rules-and-releases/riftbound-spiritforged-errata), which rewrote Yone, Blademaster's 'When I conquer an open battlefield,' as 'When I conquer a battlefield that was uncontrolled,'. SCOPE, STATED RATHER THAN HIDDEN: Yone's is a CONQUER text and the five cards that still print 'open battlefield' (OGN-174, OGN-176, OGN-193, SFD-079, VEN-115) are PLAY and MOVE texts Riot has not reworded; the errata is direct evidence of what the word means, not a rewrite of this card. WHAT THE SECOND CONDITION COSTS THIS ENTRY: an uncontrolled battlefield with ENEMY units standing on it is NOT open, so Bard can never drop your board on top of a garrison, and one where you already have a unit is not open either. Nothing else in the entry changes — its Conquer route already assumed the destination was empty, and 323.6 re-opens a battlefield precisely 'without their Units occupying them', so what it re-opens is unoccupied by construction.
• WHAT IT DOES THAT NOTHING ELSE IN THE POOL DOES. 'Move any number of your units' in one effect, for 4 Energy + 1 Mind Power plus the legend's exhaust. It is an effect move (420.2, 420.2.a), so 144.4 and 420.3.a do not apply: it moves EXHAUSTED units, and it goes base to battlefield or battlefield to battlefield with no [Ganking] (810.1.c.3). Issue #48 measured that 18 of the 49 token makers leave their tokens 'at your base' while points are scored at battlefields, and that SFD-177 Azir, Sovereign is the only bulk mover of TOKENS. Bard is the only bulk mover of units of any kind — and the two need opposite boards, so they complement rather than compete.
• THE DESTINATION IS THE CONSTRAINT, AND IT IS THE WINDOW A DUEL OPENS WITH. 190.1: 'Control is established over Battlefields through the course of play', so both battlefields start uncontrolled and the one you provided is open until somebody takes it. 323.6 re-opens one whenever its garrison leaves. Once you control a battlefield it is no longer a legal destination for this trigger, which is exactly what stops Bard being a general-purpose shuttle.
• THE MOVE CONQUERS BY ITSELF. 450: your units apply Contested to an uncontested battlefield you do not control. 323.8 stages a Showdown; 323.9 stages no Combat, because an uncontrolled battlefield normally has nobody on it. 323.12 opens it, 348 closes it, 348.2.a establishes Control and 348.2.a.1 makes it a Conquer — 471.1, one point, the same turn the bodies arrive. Trap 1 is respected: no Combat exists, so no Attacker designation is handed out (464.2.c.3) and no 'When I attack' is claimed.
• THE ARITHMETIC WITH THE QUANTITY DECLARED. One card, one activation, 4 Energy + 1 Mind Power, no cap on the number of units moved. Bard is already on the board when 'When you play me' resolves, so he is one of the bodies. Against OGN-293 The Grand Plaza, whose bar is seven and whose condition 383.2.a.1 measures at the Hold (315.2.b.2 puts that in your Beginning Phase), Bard plus six banked tokens is exactly the bar and every extra token banked at the base is margin — but the swarm must survive the opponent's whole turn, and 312.2.a gives priority only in the Main Phase, so there is no window to top it up.
• IF THE PLAZA IS THE TARGET, THE USUAL BATTLEFIELD CAVEAT APPLIES: a deck may not carry two of a battlefield of the same name (103.4.c, Tournament Rules 402.1), and it is random 1 of 3 in Duel (485.5) and Skirmish (487.5), chosen in Match (486.5).
• The legend exhaust competes with everything else your legend does that turn, and that is the real price: many Mind legends want their own exhaust ability on the turn you would want Bard.
• SCOPED AGAINST ITS EXTENSION (2026-09-09): `swain-bard-brambleback-double-conquer-chain` is this relocation used as a POINT lever rather than as board management - the same Bard move carries three Swains and a Red Brambleback to a second open battlefield, so both Conquers pay 7 instead of the second paying 1. This entry stays because the relocation is worth walking on its own; a card set that is a strict SUBSET of another entry’s is invisible to a duplicate check that compares sorted card sets, so the two must name each other.

Steps

1. Bank bodies wherever they are made — the base is fine, and 18 of the 49 token makers leave them nowhere else (issue #48).
2. With your legend still ready, play Bard for 4 Energy + 1 Mind Power and pay the additional cost by exhausting the legend (107.4.c, 414.1.b).
3. His trigger resolves: move any number of your units — Bard included, since he is on the board by then — to a battlefield with no Controller (190.1, or one 323.6 has just re-opened).
4. 450 and 190.3.a.1 apply Contested. The Cleanup stages a Showdown (323.8) and no Combat (323.9), and 323.12 opens it.
5. 348 closes it, 348.2.a establishes Control and 348.2.a.1 makes it a Conquer: one point by 471.1, with the whole swarm now standing there.
6. From your next Beginning Phase, 315.2.b.2 Holds it every turn the garrison survives.

Per iteration

your entire base emptied onto one battlefield in a single effect, plus the Conquer that move causes, for 4 Energy + 1 Mind Power and the legend's exhaust

How it ends

engine only — one Conquer and a garrison; the win comes from what the bodies then do, e.g. a Grand Plaza hold on the following turn

Sources

Published elsewhere

• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
• Movement lens — issue #58 (GitHub) 2026-09-06
• Riftbound Spiritforged errata (Riot), transcribed in data/errata.json 2026-01-14

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-06 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-draw-lens-candidates.md) — 170.11.c 2026-09-06 record
• Hand walk 2026-09-06 2026-09-06 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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