Combo · ENGINE

821.1.c is longer than the reminder text - Weaponmaster reactivates an Inactive Rules Text, and activates no ability at all

6 cards · body · verified

Pieces

• Combat Chef ×3 SFD-092 · engine · body

  [Weaponmaster] (When you play me, you may [Equip] one of your Equipment to me for 1 Power of any domain less, even if it's already attached.)

• Hexdrinker ×3 SFD-102 · payoff · body

  [Equip] 1 Body Power (1 Body Power: Attach this to a unit you control.)

  [Deflect] (Opponents must pay 1 Power of any domain to choose me with a spell or ability.)

Payoff

Deck

• All cards are mono-Body, so 103.1.b.3 admits any legend with Body in its pair: SFD-203/SFD-250 Battle Mistress, OGN-257/OGN-304 Blind Monk, OGN-267/OGN-309 Bounty Hunter, VEN-141/VEN-190 Butcher of the Sands, VEN-149/VEN-194 Defender of Tomorrow, SFD-205/SFD-251 Grand Duelist, SFD-193/SFD-245 Grandmaster at Arms, UNL-203/UNL-237 Keeper of the Hammer, VEN-153/VEN-196 Matriarch of War, OGS-023 Might of Demacia - Starter, UNL-183/UNL-227 Pridestalker, SFD-183/SFD-241 Purifier, OGN-249/OGN-300 Relentless Storm, OGN-269/OGN-310 The Boss, UNL-201/UNL-236 Voidreaver, OGS-019 Wuju Bladesman - Starter, UNL-191/UNL-231 Wuju Master.
• Neither card is banned or restricted in either format, and neither is a Signature card.
• The Hexdrinker already on the board, attached or not. 821.1.c.4 is why a gear with no Equip cost cannot be moved this way at all.

Prerequisites

• THE KEYWORD'S FULL TEXT, WHICH THE REMINDER LEAVES OUT, AND WHICH IS CITED HERE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THIS CATALOGUE. 821.1.c: 'Weaponmaster is functionally short for: "When you play me, you may choose a Card you control with the Equipment tag. Necessary portions of its Rules Text are no longer Inactive if they are currently Inactive. Pay the cost of its Equip ability, reduced by [A], to attach it to this unit."' That middle sentence is the whole mechanism behind 'even if it's already attached': 434.1.e and 718.2 make an attached card's printed Rules Text Inactive, which would otherwise hide the [Equip] ability the keyword needs to price.
• AND THE PARAGRAPH THAT TAKES TWO PAYOFFS AWAY. 821.1.c.6: 'The Equip ability is not activated this way, and the unit with the Weaponmaster ability is not chosen.' So a Weaponmaster attach fires no 'when you use an activated ability of a gear' payoff, and no 'when you choose me' payoff on the carrier - which a normal [Equip] would, since 818.1.b.1 makes its choice a Target. Anyone pricing Weaponmaster as a free activation of the gear's ability is pricing something the rules explicitly deny.
• THREE MORE CLAUSES THAT BOUND IT. 821.1.c.2: the Equip cost 'is determined as though that Equip ability was being activated choosing the unit with the Weaponmaster ability, as modulated by any abilities that alter Equip costs.' 821.1.c.3: 'If the chosen card's Equip cost does not contain [A], it can still be paid, but will not be reduced' - so an Energy-only Equip gets nothing from the keyword. 821.1.c.4: 'If the chosen card doesn't have an Equip cost, it can't be paid', and 821.1.c.5 leaves it attached to whatever it was on. 821.1.c.7: multiple instances trigger separately and may choose different targets.
• WHICH EQUIPMENT IT ACTUALLY FREES. Measured over the corpus in the sibling walk on issue #180: every [Equip] cost in the pool that contains Energy ALSO contains a rune, and 29 Equipment carry a one-rune cost - those are the ones 'one rainbow less' takes to nothing. And because the keyword attaches 'to ME', it only pays on Equipment whose text does not depend on which body carries it: SFD-102 Hexdrinker qualifies (its [Effect] grants [Deflect] to whatever carries it), while a copy-the-carrier Equipment never does.
• AND THE 'ME' IN THE HEXDRINKER'S TEXT IS THE CARRIER, NOT THE GEAR. 136.2.b makes Effect Text Inactive unless attached, 136.2.c appends it to the Top-Most Card's Rules Text, and 053.1 with 136.2.d makes 'I'/'me' in appended Effect Text the CARRIER while 'this' and the gear's own name stay with the gear - Riot's worked examples are Guardian Angel and Brutalizer. So '[Deflect] ... to choose me' protects the Combat Chef.
• STEALING IT BACK IS A DETACH, NOT A SECOND ATTACH. 434.1.f: 'Attaching a card to a new Top-Most Card will cause it to Detach from the card to which it is currently Attached', and 434.1.g makes attaching to the CURRENT host a no-op - so the Chef can take the Hexdrinker off another of your bodies but can never 'refresh' it on a body that already has it.
• THE LEDGER. 5 Energy for the Chef and 2 for the Hexdrinker, once; the attach itself is free every time a Chef is played (three copies, 103.2.b). The result is a 6 Might body ([Deflect]) for 7 Energy and no Power at all.
• WHAT IT IS NOT. Nothing here scores; 469 defines Scoring as Conquer or Hold. And [Deflect] answers only effects that CHOOSE - 355.10.d lets every programmatically-selected sweeper through.

Steps

1. Play Hexdrinker (2 Energy) at some point; it may already be attached to another of your units.
2. Play Combat Chef (5 Energy). Its [Weaponmaster] trigger fires on the play (821.1.a, 821.1.b).
3. Choose the Hexdrinker. 821.1.c reactivates the necessary portions of its Rules Text even though 434.1.e had made them Inactive while attached.
4. Its Equip cost is one Body rune; 'reduced by [A]' takes it to nothing (821.1.c.2, 821.1.c.3). 434.1.f detaches it from its previous host and attaches it to the Chef.
5. The Chef is now Might 6 with [Deflect] - 136.2.c appended the Effect Text to his Rules Text and 053.1 with 136.2.d make its 'me' him.
6. Expect nothing else to fire: 821.1.c.6 says the Equip ability was not activated and the Chef was not chosen.

Per iteration

one free attach of a one-rune Equipment per Combat Chef played, taken off any of your bodies

How it ends

engine only - one free attach per Chef, three by 103.2.b, and only on Equipment whose text does not depend on its carrier; 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
• Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt (built from Riot's gallery content API) 2026-09-07

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-07 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-07-uncatalogued-body.md, batch 3) 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue