Combo · ENGINE

Charm — the Conquer that never opens a Combat

1 card · calm · verified

Pieces

• Charm ×1 OGN-043 · engine · calm

  Move an enemy unit.

Payoff

Deck

• Legend domains cover Calm. Charm is mono-Calm, so any legend with Calm runs it.
• A ready friendly unit at your base to walk in afterwards — its Standard Move is the only other cost.

Prerequisites

• THE ORDER IS MANDATORY, NOT PREFERRED, AND THAT IS THIS ENTRY'S CORRECTION TO ISSUE #58. Evacuate first, enter second. If you move in first, the Cleanup that 453 requires when the move completes marks the Combat at 323.9 and OPENS it at 323.13 in the same Cleanup, because the state is Neutral Open (310.1) — there is no window in between. And once a Showdown is in progress, 155 bars the spell outright: 'A spell can be played during an Open State outside of Showdowns on its controller's turn', and Charm carries neither [Action] nor [Reaction].
• THE CONQUER, RULE BY RULE. Charm empties the battlefield; the Cleanup strips the opponent's Control at 323.6 ('Players lose control of any controlled Battlefields without their Units occupying them if the turn is in an Open State and there is no Showdown or Combat ongoing there'). Your unit walks in with its Standard Move (144.4.a, cost 144.2 / 420.3.a) and applies Contested (450, 190.3.a.1). The next Cleanup stages a Showdown (323.8) and NO Combat, because 323.9 requires 'Units present controlled by opposing players'. 323.12 opens it, 345 gives you Focus, 348 closes it, 348.2.a establishes Control and 348.2.a.1 says outright 'This results in a Conquer'. 471.1 gives the point.
• TRAP 1 IS NOT WORKED AROUND, IT IS AVOIDED. No Combat is ever staged, so no Attacker designation is handed out (464.2.c.3) and no 'When I attack' ability exists to claim — which is exactly what 383.4.e, 807.1.d and 461 say. This entry declares no attack at all.
• THE ARITHMETIC WITH THE QUANTITIES DECLARED. One Charm moves ONE unit, so the line closes only against a garrison of exactly one. Total: 1 Energy + 1 Calm Power plus a Standard Move you already had. Against two or more defenders it empties nothing and entering stages a real Combat.
• THE ALTERNATIVES ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE — 103.1.b.1 binds each to its own domain. UNL-124 Isolate (Chaos, E2, one, +1 card if an enemy is left alone), UNL-038 Skyward Strike (Calm, E2 + 1 Power, one), SFD-129 Temptation (Chaos, E2 + E2 [Repeat], TWO and not more: 820.1.c.3, 'Each Repeat Cost can be paid only a single time'), UNL-107 Stare Down (Body, E2, ALL enemies at one battlefield under a chosen friendly unit's Might, +1 XP) and UNL-054 Tricksy Tentacles (Calm, E4 + 1 Power, all of one controller's up to 8 total Might). Stare Down is the one that scales and it is the Body twin of this entry, not a version of it.
• MOVING IT TO YOUR OWN BASE ACHIEVES NOTHING: 323.7 recalls 'all Permanents and Runes in Bases other than their controller's' at the next Cleanup.
• THE BATTLEFIELD IT LEAVES BEHIND IS 'OPEN', AND 'OPEN' IS TWO CONDITIONS, NOT ONE. CORRECTED 2026-09-06 (issue #146): this notable used to read 'so open = without a Controller', which is half the definition. 170.11.c: 'Battlefields can be "open." This means they are unoccupied and uncontrolled.' Both halves hold here and the entry's verdict is unchanged — 170.11.a ('occupied … means they have a Unit present') fails because the garrison of exactly one has gone to its own base, and 170.11.b ('uncontrolled … means no player controls them') holds because 323.6 stripped their Control in the Cleanup, with your own body not yet walked in. Riot's Spiritforged errata (2026-01-14, in data/errata.json) rewrote Yone, Blademaster's 'When I conquer an open battlefield' as 'When I conquer a battlefield that was uncontrolled', and that is consistent rather than contradictory: an uncontrolled battlefield that still has units on it is not open, so the errata narrows Yone's trigger without redefining the word.
• THE WALK-IN CAN COME STRAIGHT FROM HAND, AND 190.3.a.1 SAYS SO IN SO MANY WORDS (issue #146, walked 2026-09-06). 355.2.a limits play locations to 'the controller's Base or a Battlefield the controller controls'; 355.2.b: 'Some Game Effects may grant players permission to play Units to locations that are not normally Valid. Such locations become Valid for the purposes of Playing the Unit.' FOUR printings in the pool carry exactly that permission on the word this entry's battlefield now satisfies (170.11.c): OGN-176 Sneaky Deckhand (E3 M2), OGN-193 Miss Fortune, Buccaneer (E4 P1 M4), OGN-174 Sai Scout (E6 M5) and VEN-115 Ocean Drake (E8 P2 M7) — all mono-Chaos, none banned, none signature: true. Miss Fortune is the one that generalises — her second sentence, 'Friendly units may be played to open battlefields', is a static grant with no location clause of its own, so once she is on the board any friendly unit is a walker, and she reaches the board through her own first sentence. The route is unchanged because 190.3.a.1 covers both verbs: 'Units moving to or being played to a battlefield apply Contested status if that battlefield is not already Contested and that Unit's controller does not already control that battlefield.' 450 is NOT the citation for this half — it is written about 'the Unit or Units that moved' — so the play route stands on 190.3.a.1 alone and then follows 323.8 / 323.9 / 323.12 / 348.2.a / 348.2.a.1 as written. IT IS A TRADE, NOT AN UPGRADE: the Standard Move costs 0 Energy and one exhaust off a body already deployed (144.2 / 420.3.a), while the play costs the walker's full printed Energy and needs no prior board presence, no readying and no exhaust (143.4 makes it enter exhausted, which costs nothing here because 323.9 never stages a Combat). DOMAIN: Charm is mono-Calm and the four are mono-Chaos, so 103.1.b.1 asks for a Calm/Chaos legend — OGN-259 Unforgiven, SFD-195 Blade Dancer, UNL-193 Gloomist. The mono-Chaos version of the whole line needs no Calm at all: swap Charm for UNL-124 Isolate (E2), already listed among this entry's alternatives, and the Conquer is Isolate + Sneaky Deckhand = 5 Energy, two cards, one Main Phase, nothing on the board beforehand — that version is catalogued in its own right as isolate-deckhand-open-conquer, because it is a different cost shape (Energy from hand instead of a Standard Move off a body deployed a turn earlier) and not a variant of this entry. ONE CORRECTION TO #146's CENSUS: it counts five printings and includes SFD-079 Bard, Mercurial; his text is 'move any number of your units to an open battlefield', a Move by effect (449), not a play permission. NOT ADDED TO uses: uses is what the matcher and planDeck price, and this entry's declared line is Charm plus a Standard Move.
• TWO CHAOS BODIES ARE ALTERNATE EVACUATORS, AND NEITHER IS A WALKER (issue #146, walked 2026-09-06). OGN-191 Maddened Marauder (mono-Chaos, E5 M4, [Tank]): 'When you play me, move a unit from a battlefield to its base.' OGN-188 Zaunite Bouncer (mono-Chaos, E4 P2 M2): 'When you play me, return another unit at a battlefield to its owner's hand.' Both reach the enemy garrison for the reason this entry's sibling amateur-recital-free-evacuation already documents — 355.9.a.1, "'Unit,' 'gear,' and 'rune' refer to objects on the Board unless specified otherwise", carries no ownership default, and OGN-168 Fight or Flight prints the same unqualified sentence and is banned in both formats as removal. Two differences from Charm. The Marauder's destination is the moved unit's OWN base, so 323.7 ('Recall … all Permanents and Runes in Bases other than their controller's') never bites, the trap this entry names for moving an enemy to your base. The Bouncer returns to HAND, which costs the opponent the replay, and being a return and not a Move (449) it fires no 'when I move' ability on the body it removes, where the Marauder does (455 carves Recalls out of Move and this is neither). WHAT NEITHER OF THEM CAN DO IS TAKE THE BATTLEFIELD: neither carries the 355.2.b permission, so 355.2.a puts each at your base or a battlefield you already control, and the play location is chosen at 355.2 during the play steps — before the trigger that empties the enemy battlefield has resolved and before the Cleanup of 323.6 makes it open. A second card still walks in. Each moves ONE unit, so like Charm they close only against a garrison of exactly one. notable, not uses.

Steps

1. In your Main Phase, in a Neutral Open State (310.1, 155), play Charm for 1 Energy + 1 Calm Power and send the single defender of the opponent's battlefield to their base (355.4 chooses the destination).
2. The Cleanup that follows strips their Control of that battlefield (323.6).
3. Standard-Move a ready friendly unit from your base into it (144.4.a; the cost is that unit's own exhaust, 144.2 / 420.3.a). 450 and 190.3.a.1 apply Contested.
4. The next Cleanup stages a Showdown (323.8) but no Combat (323.9 needs units of opposing players) and opens it (323.12).
5. Everyone passes, the Showdown closes (348), you establish Control (348.2.a) and 348.2.a.1 makes it a Conquer: 1 point by 471.1.

Per iteration

one Conquer for 1 Energy + 1 Calm Power and one Standard Move, with no combat damage dealt or taken

How it ends

engine only — one point per casting, bounded by the 3 copies of 103.2.b and by 470 (one Score per battlefield per 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
• Combo hunt: uncatalogued Chaos units — issue #146 (GitHub) 2026-09-06

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-06 2026-09-06 record
• Hand walk 2026-09-06 2026-09-06 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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