Combo · ENGINE
801.3.a.3 makes the Altar's [Shield] permanent rather than 'this turn', and 816.1.b makes a [Temporary] body's whole life the opponent's turn - the one window 814.1.c ever pays in, so the grant and the lifespan fit exactly
Pieces
- Black Flame Altar ×1
UNL-208 · battlefield
Units here with [Temporary] have [Shield]. (+1 Might while they're defenders.)
- Sprite Call ×3
OGN-094 · enabler · mind
[Hidden] (Hide now for 1 Power of any domain to react with later for 0 Energy.) [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Play a ready 3 Might Sprite unit token with [Temporary]. (Kill it at the start of its controller's Beginning Phase, before scoring.)
Payoff
Board protectionRepeatable [Temporary] bodies
Deck
- OGN-094 Sprite Call is mono-Mind (data/cards.json) and UNL-208 Black Flame Altar is colourless, so 103.1.b.3 admits the line under any legend with Mind among its two domains: Daughter of the Void (OGN-247 / OGN-299), Nine-Tailed Fox (OGN-255 / OGN-303), Swift Scout (OGN-263 / OGN-307), Herald of the Arcane (OGN-265 / OGN-308), Mechanized Menace (SFD-181 / SFD-240), Fire Below the Mountain (SFD-189 / SFD-244), Prodigal Explorer (SFD-199 / SFD-248), Chem-Baroness (SFD-201 / SFD-249), Virtuoso (UNL-181 / UNL-226), Bashful Bloom (UNL-189 / UNL-230), Scorn of the Moon (UNL-197 / UNL-234), Deceiver (UNL-199 / UNL-235), Curator of the Sands (VEN-145 / VEN-192), Defender of Tomorrow (VEN-149 / VEN-194), Soul's Reflection (VEN-151 / VEN-195), and the Mind/Order Starter legend OGS-021.
- Neither card is a Signature card (data/cards.json, signature=false on both) and neither appears in data/legality.json.
- 103.4.c allows only one battlefield of a given name in the three you bring, and 485.5 / 487.5 say the battlefield in use is selected RANDOMLY from what the players provide - so this line is not certain to come online in a given game, and 485.4.a puts two battlefields on a Duel table. Bringing three Altars is illegal, not insurance.
Run play
Prerequisites
- A GRANT THAT NAMES NO DURATION IS NOT A 'THIS TURN' GRANT, AND NOTHING HAD CITED THE PARAGRAPH THAT SAYS SO. 801.3.a.2: 'The effect that granted the Keyword will specify the duration for which it is granted.' 801.3.a.3: 'If an effect that grants a Keyword does not specify a duration, the duration is as long as that Game Object remains on the Board or in its current Non-Board Zone.' The Altar names none, so the [Shield] holds for as long as the body is on the board - which 816.1.b then bounds at exactly one opponent turn.
- THE GRANT AND THE LIFESPAN FIT EXACTLY, AND THAT IS THE ENTRY'S REAL CONTENT. 814.1.c makes [Shield] functionally short for 'While I am a defender, I have +X [M].' - worth nothing on offence and nothing in a Main-Phase Might count. 816.1.b kills a [Temporary] permanent 'At the start of this permanent's controller's Beginning Phase, before scoring', so a body minted on your turn is alive for precisely your Main Phase and the whole of the opponent's turn - the only stretch of the game in which a unit of yours can ever hold the Defender designation. The Altar therefore hands a defence-only keyword to the one class of body whose entire life is spent defending, and 814.1.b.3 makes the bare grant worth 1: every Sprite in the pool defends here at 4 instead of 3.
- IT READS A KEYWORD, WHICH 816.3 IS WHAT PERMITS. 816.3: 'Temporary, and whether or not a permanent has Temporary, is a characteristic of the permanent and may be checked or referenced by other Game Effects.' And 814.2 - 'If a Unit has Shield, or has been granted Shield, and is granted Shield by an additional source, the Shield Value of all granted Shield keywords is summed' - means the Altar stacks with any other Shield source rather than being redundant with it, the opposite of 816.2's 'Multiple instances of Temporary are redundant.'
- [ACTION] IS WHAT MAKES IT A COMBAT TRICK RATHER THAN A STATIC. 806.1.b: 'Action grants the corresponding card or effect permission to be played or activated during Showdowns, even when it is not the Controlling player's turn.' So the Sprite can be bought after the attackers are declared; 319.6 with 323.2.a give a body that becomes present mid-combat its designation at the very next Cleanup, before 465.2 resolves, and 143.4's entering exhausted costs nothing on defence, since neither 464.2.c.3 nor 465.2.b filters by state. Hidden for one rainbow, it later costs 0 Energy (811.1.b).
- THE ALTAR IS SYMMETRIC AND SAYS SO. 'Units here' is not 'friendly units', so an opponent's [Temporary] bodies at this battlefield are shielded too - the same shape as OGN-296 Void Gate, which is likewise worded for the location and likewise cannot be blanked by 190.6.d. Six cards in the pool grant [Temporary] to a unit (OGN-069, OGN-180, UNL-070, UNL-165, UNL-199, UNL-200), so an opponent running that package gets the same +1.
- A COUNTED SET IN THIS PROJECT'S OWN NOTES IS SMALLER THAN THE POOL, AND THE MEMBERS ARE NAMED HERE. The standing note says SIX battlefields are live with no Controller because their text never says 'you'. Measured 2026-09-09 with a field-aware sweep of data/corpus_flat.txt, TWENTY-SIX of the 66 battlefields contain neither 'you' nor 'your', of which four are banned in both formats (OGN-276, OGN-284, OGN-290, OGN-292), leaving TWENTY-TWO playable: OGN-277, OGN-294, OGN-295, OGN-296, OGN-297, SFD-209, SFD-216, UNL-205, UNL-206, UNL-208, UNL-210, UNL-212, UNL-213, UNL-214, UNL-215, UNL-218, VEN-157, VEN-158, VEN-159, VEN-160, VEN-164, VEN-166. That is the literal-word count and it is not by itself the count of live battlefields, because 190.6.d also reaches 'the implied "you" in instructions that don't specify a player like "draw 1"' - one row, OGN-277 Back-Alley Bar ('When a unit moves from here, give it +1 :rb_might: this turn'), states an instruction with no named actor and needs that second check before anyone leans on it. The other twenty-one either name a player explicitly or, like this Altar, are pure statics and prohibitions with no instruction at all.
- WHERE THE TOKEN'S [Temporary] COMES FROM, ADDED BESIDE 816.1 RATHER THAN INSTEAD OF IT (#204, from #187 batch 18). This entry sources the keyword to the 816.1 block, which is correct and says what [Temporary] DOES. What it does not say is that the effect which created the token may attach it; that is 184.2's sibling, 184.3 - 'The effect may grant temporary abilities or modifications to the token' - cited by nothing in 766 entries. It matters here because the grant is the PAYOFF rather than a drawback, so the paragraph licensing it is load-bearing. 816.1 stays exactly where it is.
Steps
- Bring UNL-208 Black Flame Altar among your three battlefields (103.4.c: one of each name). 485.5 / 487.5 select the battlefield in play at random from what both players provide.
- Hide OGN-094 Sprite Call face down at a battlefield you control for one rainbow (811.1.b), or hold it to cast for 3 Energy.
- When the opponent attacks the Altar, play Sprite Call inside the Showdown - 806.1.b for the printed [Action], or 0 Energy from face down. A ready 3-Might Sprite unit token with [Temporary] enters; 355.2.a permits the Altar because you control it.
- 319.6 with 323.2.a give the Sprite the Defender designation at the next Cleanup, before 465.2 resolves. The Altar's static has already granted it [Shield], which 814.1.b.3 reads as 1 and 814.1.c pays only now, so it defends at 4 and 465.2.c.4 charges the attacker four to remove it.
- At your next Beginning Phase 816.1.b kills the Sprite at 315.2.a, before scoring - so it never interferes with 315.2.b.2's Hold and the Altar is free for the next one.
Per iteration
each [Temporary] body at this battlefield defends one Might larger, permanently rather than for a turn, for zero additional cost
How it ends
engine only - nothing here scores, the Sprites are replaced rather than accumulated (816.1.b), and 814.1.c pays only while defending, so the whole value is the damage an attacker must find
Sources
Published elsewhere
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 801.3.a.2 and 801.3.a.3 2026-07-16
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 816.1.b and 816.3 2026-07-16
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 814.1.b.3 and 814.1.c and 814.2 2026-07-16
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 190.6.d 2026-07-16
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 806.1.b 2026-07-16
- Card text, data/corpus_flat.txt (Riot gallery API, errata applied) 2026-09-04
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 2026-09-09 (issue #191, uncited sub-rules 500-829, batch 4). Anchors uncited before this entry: 801.3.a.2 and 801.3.a.3, the paragraphs that decide how long a granted keyword lasts when the granting card says nothing. UNL-208 Black Flame Altar was in zero entries. The measurement in the last notable is a correction to a counted set recorded elsewhere in this project - the sweep is a one-liner over data/corpus_flat.txt and the twenty-two members are named so the next reader can refute it in one grep rather than inherit it. Cross-reference: enthusiastic-promoter-trevor-backline-single-body-cap, walked in the same batch, is the same [Temporary]-body-as-wall idea paid for by a Hold instead of by a battlefield, and states the 826.4.b cap this line does not need.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16