Combo · ENGINE

Tideturner is Riot's own worked example for the 811.1.d.2 escape — a free swap across the board, and Blade Dancer readies what it moved

2 cards · calm + chaos · verified

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.

• Tideturner ×1 OGN-199 · engine · chaos

  [Hidden] (Hide now for 1 Power of any domain to react with later for 0 Energy.) When you play me, you may choose a unit you control at another location. Move me to its location and it to my original location.

Payoff

Deck

• The legend IS Blade Dancer (SFD-195, second printing SFD-246) — she is in the list as the legend, so this is a one-legend line by construction, and the Calm/Chaos identity is hers.
• 1 rainbow Power for her trigger's base cost, and a friendly unit somewhere worth relocating.

Prerequisites

• THE RULES BOOK NAMES THIS CARD, AND THE QUOTE IS THE REASON THE SWAP IS NOT CONFINED. 811.1.d.2 confines a hidden card's play-effect targets to the battlefield it was hidden at 'unless the ability explicitly restricts targeting in a way that makes this impossible', and Riot's own example under it reads: 'Tideturner is a unit with Hidden and "When you play me, you may choose a unit you control at another location. Move me to its location and it to my original location." Because its play effect has a targeting restriction that can never be fulfilled by a unit at its battlefield, its target may be chosen freely from among the available options.' So the swap reaches the whole board — the one hidden play effect in the pool that does.
• TWO UNITS MOVE AND NEITHER PAYS. 420.3.a puts the exhaust cost on the Standard Move alone ('The Cost is Exhausting one or more Units'), and this is an effect move, so a big body walks to the front and a small one walks home with nothing exhausted and no [Ganking] needed (810.1.c.3).
• AND BLADE DANCER READIES THE ONE THAT WAS CHOSEN. Her trigger watches 'when you choose a friendly unit', which the Tideturner's play effect does; 204.3.a makes the cost written at the start of a Triggered Ability's effect its BASE cost, so exhausting her and paying 1 rainbow is what finalizes the trigger onto the Chain, not something you decide on resolution. The readied unit is the swapped one — so it arrives at its new location with its exhaust available.
• WHAT THE READY IS WORTH DEPENDS ON WHOSE TURN IT IS, AND THE ENTRY IS EXPLICIT. On your own turn it is a Standard Move (144.2) or an exhaust-cost ability. Inside a Closed State it is worth nothing unless the readied unit's ability carries [Action] or [Reaction] — 144.1.b forbids the move and 381 confines Activated Abilities to 'the Controlling Player's Turn and during an Open State'. So play the Tideturner from face down on YOUR turn for this line; the free-on-their-turn option is a different, weaker use.
• Her second sentence is the refill: 'When you conquer, you may pay :rb_energy_1: to ready me', so a conquer buys a second choose-and-ready in the same turn — and 470 plus 485.4 cap a Duel at two conquers, so at most three of her triggers a turn (one from the Awakening, two from conquers).
• The Tideturner's arrival applies Contested (190.3.a.1) if it lands where you do not already control, which makes you the Attacker (464.2.c.1); the unit swapped OUT leaves that battlefield, which by 323.6 can cost you control of it if it was the only body there. Swap into a fight, not out of one you are holding.
• 355.5.b IS WHY THE CHOICE CANNOT BE ANSWERED AT THE MOMENT OF PLAY (upgrade 2026-09-12, #187 batch 7). 355.5.b exempts a permanent`s own Triggered Abilities from the Make Relevant Choices step - *"The target will be chosen when the ability triggers"* - so the body is already on the board when its own ETB chooses, and an opponent reacting to the card BEING PLAYED is acting before the choice exists. Their real window is after finalization, when 337.1 has already locked it.

Steps

1. Run Blade Dancer as the legend. Hide Tideturner at a battlefield you control for 1 rainbow (811.1.b).
2. On your own turn, play Tideturner from face down for 0 Energy.
3. Its play effect chooses a unit you control at another location — unconfined, per 811.1.d.2's own worked example — and swaps the two.
4. Blade Dancer's trigger fires on that choice: exhaust her and pay 1 rainbow to finalize it (204.3.a, 383.3.b.1).
5. Ready the swapped unit. It is now at its new location with its exhaust available for a Standard Move (144.2) or an exhaust-cost ability.
6. If you conquer this turn, pay 1 Energy to ready Blade Dancer and do it again on the next choose.

Per iteration

-1 rainbow, two units relocated with nothing exhausted, one of them readied

How it ends

engine — one free board-wide swap and one ready per choose, up to three times a turn (Awakening plus two conquers, 470 + 485.4); 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

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-07, issue #169 — matrix families rows 6-18, second pass 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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