Combo · ENGINE
Blade Dancer readies on a choose — Heart of Dark Ice both triggers her and doubles Caitlyn
Pieces
- Blade Dancer ×1
SFD-195 · legend · calm/chaos
When you choose a friendly unit, you may exhaust me and pay 1 Power of any domain to ready it. When you conquer, you may pay 1 Energy to ready me.
- Caitlyn, Patrolling ×1
OGN-068 · payoff · calm
I must be assigned combat damage last. Exhaust: Deal damage equal to my Might to a unit at a battlefield. Use this ability only while I'm at a battlefield.
- Heart of Dark Ice ×1
SFD-052 · enabler · calm
Exhaust: Give a unit +3 Might this turn.
Payoff
Deck
- The legend must be SFD-195 Blade Dancer; Caitlyn and Heart of Dark Ice are both Calm, inside its Calm/Chaos identity.
Prerequisites
- THE CHOOSE IS REAL, AND TWO RULES SAY SO. 355.5: 'If a card requires you to specifically choose one or more Game Objects, that choice is made now.' 355.7: 'When a card Chooses one or more specific Game Objects to affect, it is Targeted unless indicated otherwise.' 'Give a unit +3 Might this turn' names one specific unit, so 355.5.a's carve-out for effects that hit objects 'based on criteria' does not apply. 426.1.c confirms the same reading for the buff family: 'Units with Buff Counters can still be chosen for actions that Buff units.'
- THE TURN, WITH THE DECLARED QUANTITIES: exhaust Caitlyn for 3 damage; exhaust Heart of Dark Ice choosing Caitlyn, taking her to 6 Might; Blade Dancer triggers on that choose, exhaust her and pay 1 rainbow Power to ready Caitlyn; exhaust Caitlyn again for 6. NINE damage for one Power and no cards, against the three the same board deals without the pair.
- THE SECOND AND THIRD READIES AND WHAT THEY COST. 415.3.a gives Blade Dancer one readying a turn for free. Her own 'When you conquer, you may pay 1 Energy to ready me' gives a second, but it buys nothing without a FURTHER choose, so it wants a second Heart of Dark Ice (103.2.b allows three): +1 Energy +1 Power, Caitlyn at 9 Might, a third activation for 9, eighteen damage in the turn. SFD-039 Royal Entourage (Calm, E3 P1 M4, 'When you play me, ready or exhaust a legend') is the third route and the only repeatable one, since it is a unit rather than a trigger.
- THERE IS NO RECURSION, AND THE ENTRY DOES NOT PRETEND OTHERWISE. Blade Dancer readies the unit that was chosen, and readying is not itself a choose - 415.1 defines it as marking an object already on the board. One ready per exhaust of the legend, full stop. Caitlyn's own ability chooses an ENEMY unit, so it can never re-trigger the legend either.
- Caitlyn has to stand at a battlefield for both activations (377.2.b), which also means she is exposed to combat; her 'I must be assigned combat damage last' is what keeps her alive there.
- The +3 Might is 'this turn', not a Buff counter (702/703), so it is gone at end of turn and the damage has to be dealt inside the same turn.
- EVERY BUFF IS A CHOOSE, BUT THE CHOOSES ARE NOT THE BOTTLENECK (issue #97, walked 2026-09-06). 702.2.a: 'To Buff a Unit, a player chooses a Unit and then places a buff on it.' So any buffer triggers Blade Dancer without paying SFD-052 - the rule is right, and the conclusion is worth less than it looks, because her ready costs HER OWN EXHAUST ('you may exhaust me and pay 1 rainbow to ready it') and 415.3.a gives her one readying a turn. A mass buffer that chooses five bodies still buys ONE ready. The levers this entry already prices - a second Heart of Dark Ice plus her 'When you conquer, you may pay 1 Energy to ready me', and SFD-039 Royal Entourage - remain the correct ones. What the buff family DOES add is cheaper chooses inside Calm/Chaos for turns when the +3 Might is not needed: OGN-053 Stand United (Calm spell, E3, [Hidden] [Action], 'Buff a friendly unit'), OGN-063 Spirit's Refuge (Calm gear, E2 P1, 'When you play this, buff a friendly unit', and it hands out [Deflect]), OGN-078 Lee Sin, Ascetic (Calm, 'exhaust: Buff me', 'I can have any number of buffs' - the pool's one override of 702.3) and UNL-043 Enthusiastic Promoter (Calm, 'When I hold, [Buff] all units here'). Nothing about this entry's class, quantities or steps changes.
Steps
- Caitlyn, Patrolling at a battlefield and ready; Heart of Dark Ice on the board and ready.
- Exhaust Caitlyn: deal 3 to a unit at a battlefield.
- Exhaust Heart of Dark Ice, choosing Caitlyn: she is at 6 Might for the turn.
- That choose triggers Blade Dancer. Exhaust her and pay 1 rainbow Power: ready Caitlyn.
- Exhaust Caitlyn again: deal 6. Nine damage in the turn for one Power.
- With a conquer and a second Heart of Dark Ice, pay 1 Energy to ready Blade Dancer and repeat for a third activation at 9 Might.
Per iteration
+1 extra Caitlyn activation per choose, at 1 rainbow Power each; 9 damage a turn on one Power, 18 with the conquer ready and a second gear
How it ends
engine only - repeatable removal at 1 Power per shot, bounded by how many times something chooses a friendly unit and by Blade Dancer's own readyings
Sources
Published elsewhere
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
- Legend lens — issue #47 (GitHub) 2026-09-06
- Lente de buff y Might — issue #97 (GitHub) 2026-09-06
Walked here, in this project
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-legend-lens-candidates.md), issue #47 candidate 5. The candidate was filed honestly as 'a motor sin pago propio' and asked the walker to name the payment or send it to the synergy layer instead. The payment is Caitlyn, and the reason it is better than a payment is that the same gear activation does both jobs. Trap check: no [Repeat]; no [Temporary]; no attack designation is needed because nothing here is a combat trigger (807.1.d/383.4.e/461 do not engage); no rune recycled; the Power is spent in the Main Phase it is made (167). Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. Depends on no unruled reading. REFINED 2026-09-06 (issue #97, docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-might-buff-lens.md): one notable added. The issue's refinement 3 is right on the rule (702.2.a makes every buff a choose) and wrong on the value - 415.3.a and the legend's own exhaust cap the line at one ready per readying however many chooses arrive, which this entry already said in another notable. The useful half is the list of cheaper Calm chooses. No change to class, quantities or steps.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16