Combo · ALT WIN

Corina Veraza × Svellsongur — the two-card Grand Plaza

3 cards · order + calm · verified

Pieces

• The Grand Plaza ×1 OGN-293 · payoff

  When you hold here, if you have 7+ units here, you win the game.

• Corina Veraza ×1 SFD-179 · engine · order

  [Accelerate] (You may pay 1 Energy + 1 Order Power as an additional cost to have me enter ready.) When I move to a battlefield, play three 1 Might Recruit unit tokens here.

• Svellsongur ×1 SFD-059 · engine · calm

  [Equip] 1 Energy + 1 Calm Power (1 Energy + 1 Calm Power: Attach this to a unit you control.) As this is attached to a unit, copy that unit's text to this Equipment's effect text for as long as this is attached to it.

Payoff

Deck

• Legend domains cover Calm and Order — Emperor of the Sands (SFD-247), Radiant Dawn (OGN-261), Green Father (UNL-195) or Eye of Twilight (VEN-147). None carries a ban marker.

Prerequisites

• The Grand Plaza must be the battlefield in play, and a deck may not carry two of it (Core Rules 103.4.c, Tournament Rules 402.1): random 1 of 3 in Duel (485.5) and Skirmish (487.5), chosen in Match (486.5).
• EIGHT UNITS, NOT SEVEN — issue #48's own count was one body short, in this entry's favour. The Recruits are played 'here', and 355.2.a makes a battlefield valid only if you control it, so the Plaza must be conquered BEFORE Corina walks in: 190.3.a.1 Contested → 344.2 Showdown at the next Cleanup → 348.2.a Control → 348.2.a.1 Conquer. That conquering body is still standing (its Standard Move exhausted it this turn, 144.2) and 323.6 requires a unit to keep occupying the Plaza anyway. Board at the Hold: conqueror + Corina + 6 Recruits = 8, one over the bar. The catalogue counts pre-existing bodies the same way — flurry-of-feathers-grand-plaza-win counts three units already there plus four Birds to reach exactly 7.
• THE ARITHMETIC, WITH THE QUANTITIES DECLARED. One Svellsongur gives Corina two instances of 'when I move to a battlefield, play three Recruits here' (434.1.c; and #45's composition result 2^v is 2 for v = 1, the same number the additive reading gives, so nothing here turns on which formula you use). One Standard Move, 2 instances × 3 = 6 Recruits, all at the Plaza because 359.3.f.2 reads 'here' on execution. Cost 12 Energy + 4 Power on two cards: Corina 7E + 1P, [Accelerate] 1E + 1 Order Power (she enters exhausted, 143.4, and the Standard Move costs exhausting her, 144.2), Svellsongur 3E + 1P and [Equip] 1E + 1 Calm Power. Against noxian-drummer-eye-svellsongur-plaza — 5 cards, 10 Energy + 5 Power, 10 units — this is three cards and one Power cheaper for two fewer bodies.
• THE FORGOTTEN SIGNPOST DOES NOT STACK HER RECRUITS, and issue #58's reading of it as '2 moves × 6 = 12 at the Plaza' is wrong. UNL-045 Forgotten Signpost (Calm, E2, '[Action][>] Exhaust a unit you control, [exhaust]: Move a different unit you control to the location of the unit you exhausted') is a genuine effect move — 144.4 restricts destinations only for the Standard Move and 420.3.a puts the exhaust cost only there, so it moves an exhausted unit battlefield-to-battlefield. But Corina's tokens are played 'here', read at execution (359.3.f.2), so each landing drops its six at whatever battlefield she landed on; two landings are two different battlefields and the Plaza receives only the final six. What the Signpost genuinely buys: Corina no longer needs [Accelerate] (−1 Energy, −1 Order Power, +2 Energy for the gear), at the price of needing a READY friendly unit already at the destination to pay the cost — which means conquering the Plaza a turn earlier so the conqueror readies in your Awaken (315.1.b) — and it exhausts itself, so it is one extra move per turn cycle, not a loop.
• THE UPGRADE THAT BUYS MARGIN. SFD-153 Eye of the Herald attached to Corina BEFORE Svellsongur makes each instance worth 3 + 1 = 4, so 2 × 4 = 8 Recruits, + Corina + conqueror = 10, for +1 Energy and +1 Order Power. Same shape as the Drummer entry, and the answer if the opponent holds a sweeper.
• MARGIN 1 IS A MARGIN AGAINST SPOT REMOVAL, NOT AGAINST A SWEEPER. OGN-133 Flurry of Blades (Body, E1, '[Reaction] Deal 1 to all units at battlefields') kills all six 1 Might Recruits and a 1 Might conqueror for a single Energy. And there is no answer in the window: 315.2.b.2 puts the Hold in the Scoring Step of your Beginning Phase, 312.2.a gives Priority in a Neutral Open State only during the Main Phase, and 383.2.a.1 makes 'if you have 7+ units here' part of the Trigger Condition, measured when the trigger is placed. The eight must survive the opponent's whole turn. CORRECTED 2026-10-27 (#503): seven of the eight must survive, not all eight; the opponent has to kill two units, and they pick the cheapest, two 1-Might Recruits for 2 damage (465.2.c, 465.2.c.3, 143.2.a, 187.1), see the OPPONENT BOARD AND KILL PRICE notable.
• The Recruits carry no [Temporary] (187.1), so 816.1.b never touches them, and they enter exhausted (143.4), which does not matter for Holding.
• THE EQUIPMENT THIS LINE STANDS ON (Svellsongur x1) IS A LEGAL TARGET THE WHOLE TIME IT SITS THERE. 718.5.b: "Attached cards still can be chosen or targeted by game effects while Attached." Its printed Rules Text is Inactive while attached (718.2) and its [Equip] is unusable (721.2), but neither of those protects the CARD. The single copy here does not need the mass answer: SFD-005 Detonate (Fury, E1 + 1 Fury Power, "Kill a gear. Its controller draws 2.") is the cheapest KILL in the pool for it - but NOT the cheapest ANSWER, corrected 2026-09-14: SFD-135 Factory Recall is chaos, E1 and NO POWER, [Action], 'Return a gear to its owner's hand.', which is strictly cheaper and answers the Equipment for the window that matters, since 719.5 detaches it on the zone change and 434.1.c stops appending its Effect Text to the carrier. A KILL predicate cannot see a BOUNCE, which is the same narrowness that once made 36 shipped notables claim less than their own question, and the two cards it hands back do not replace what was attached. The unconditional enemy-facing gear kills are OGN-022 Thermo Beam (fury), OGN-224 Salvage (order), SFD-005 Detonate (fury), SFD-032 Disarming Rake (calm), SFD-077 Rocket Barrage (mind), VEN-003 Brittle Steel (fury) - four domains, so there is no identity this line can hide in. (The full swept set is 16 base codes across all six domains; the predicate is /\bkills?\b[^.]{0,80}\bgear\b/i over text+effect of every deckable base in data/cards.json, and the rest either reach only a friendly gear or are gated below this line's costs. Run npm run adversarial to re-derive it.)
• NO GEAR KILL IN THE POOL CARRIES [Reaction] - BUT A KILL IS NOT THE ONLY ANSWER, AND THE PREDICATE THAT MEASURED THAT SET COULD NOT SEE THE OTHER FAMILY. Swept over all 16 kills: Thermo Beam and Salvage are [Action], which 806.1.c.1 makes short for "This can be played during showdowns on any player's turn", and Detonate and Brittle Steel are plain spells, which 155 confines to "an Open State outside of Showdowns on its controller's turn". WHICH OF THOSE PROTECTS THIS LINE DEPENDS ON WHERE IT PAYS, so check before relying on it. If it pays on a HOLD, the Score happens at 315.2.b.2 inside your own Beginning Phase, where 312.2.a gives the opponent no priority in a Neutral Open State and 813.1.c.1 admits only a [Reaction] in the Closed State the trigger opens - no kill in the pool reaches that window at all, so each must be cast on THEIR own turn, a full turn early and fully telegraphed, and that spell on the Chain is itself a Closed State where 312.2.c hands out priority and 813.1.c.1 admits a [Reaction] in response. If it instead pays in your MAIN PHASE, that protection does not exist: 806.1.c.1 puts Thermo Beam and Salvage inside any showdown on any player's turn, so they reach the scoring window itself. THE SECOND FAMILY IS DETACHMENT, AND IT DOES CARRY [Reaction]. 719.1 appends an attached card's Effect Text to its carrier "for as long as they remain Attached" and 137.3.a stops the Might Bonus "as soon as the card with the Might Bonus is no longer Attached", so taking the Equipment OFF switches the payoff off without killing anything. Swept with /\bdetach/i over text+effect of every deckable base: 5 base codes (4 names - Grandmaster at Arms is printed twice), of which only 1 is ENEMY-FACING, because Strike Down says "an equipped friendly unit", Veiled Temple "a friendly gear" and Grandmaster at Arms "you control". That one is SFD-011 Angle Shot - Fury, 2 Energy, NO Power, and it cantrips: "[Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Choose a unit and an Equipment with the same controller. Attach that Equipment to that unit or detach that Equipment from that unit. Draw 1." The words that make it an answer are "the same controller", which need not be you. WHAT IT PROVABLY DOES is strip the text and the Might Bonus BEFORE the trigger condition is ever met. WHAT IS NOT WALKED, and a reader should not reach for it here until somebody does, is whether a detach inside the scoring window itself accomplishes anything. The reason to DOUBT it - not a paragraph that settles it - is that a Trigger Condition is measured when the trigger is PLACED (383.2.a.1 makes a clause immediately after the trigger "part of the Trigger Condition and not the Effect"), so stripping the Equipment once its trigger is already on the Chain may well change nothing. Nobody has walked what becomes of a chain item whose source text has gone. Until somebody does, treat Angle Shot as a cheap answer cast EARLY, and do not claim it answers the trigger.
• A BLOODLESS CONQUER IS NOT A FAIT ACCOMPLI, AND 46 OF THE 47 ENTRIES CITING 344.2 DID NOT SAY SO (added 2026-09-12, #187 batch 25). **316.8.b.1.a**: during a Non-Combat Showdown *"units controlled by a different player may become present at the Battlefield where the Showdown is"*, which converts it to a COMBAT Showdown in the following cleanup - so the opponent can turn your uncontested walk-in into a fight. 316.8.c is the permission (a Showdown is a Window of Opportunity for [Action] and [Reaction] cards). **The answer set is THREE CARDS, swept on the ACTOR rather than on the destination**: `OGN-173 Ride the Wind` (Chaos, E2+1), `OGN-262 Zenith Blade` (Calm/Order, E3+2) and `SFD-184 Relentless Pursuit` (Fury/Body, E2+1) - twelve printings move a friendly unit, and nine of them send it to base or need a body already there. They span three identities, so **no identity is safe**; and `OGN-262 Zenith Blade` is the worst to walk into, because it STUNS your body on the way in, and 423.1.b removes a stunned unit`s contribution to the damage step while 423.1.c keeps its full Might as the price to kill it - one 3-Energy card takes the unit and the battlefield. **[Ambush] is not a fourth answer**: 822.1.b needs a battlefield where the player already has units, and the defining feature of that board is that they have none there. **THE REMEDY IS A COUNTERSPELL, AND A FIRST VERSION OF THIS NOTABLE SAID SOMETHING FALSE THAT IS WITHDRAWN HERE (corrected within the hour, 2026-09-12).** It said that because all three answers are [Action] and 358.4 admits an Action card only as the card that CLOSES the state, the attacker - who holds Focus by 345 and priority by 335.1 - could shut them out by playing any cheap Action card first. Every step is true and the conclusion is false, because **a Showdown is a LOOP, not a single window**: 346 - *"When the last item on the chain resolves and the turn returns to an Open State during a Showdown, Focus passes, and the next Player gains both Focus and Priority"* - with 347.1.b and 347.2.a. Closing the state buys a lock-out lasting exactly that CHAIN; when it resolves the Showdown reopens, Focus passes TO THE DEFENDER, and they play their answer into an open Showdown after all. **The real sequence**: walk in, take Focus, **PASS** (acting first gains nothing); they play the answer, which closes the state as it is played; **you COUNTER it**, since 358.4`s other half now admits only [Reaction] and all eleven of the pool`s counters are Reaction, and 425.1.c refunds them nothing; all players then pass in sequence, 347.2.a ends the Showdown, and 348.2.a with 348.2.a.1 give you Control and the Conquer. The cheap counter is `OGN-045 Defy` (Calm, E1 + 1 Power, *"counter a spell that costs no more than 4 Energy and no more than one rainbow"*), which covers all three answers; `OGN-064 Wind Wall` is the unconditional one. **So the protection narrows to pairs containing CALM** - it is not the one-Energy insurance any deck can buy.
• THE PARAGRAPH THAT AUTHORISES THE NAMED DESTINATION, ADDED BESIDE 355.2.a RATHER THAN INSTEAD OF IT (#204, from #187 batch 18). 355.2.a is the DEFAULT for playing a card - 'By default, Valid locations include the controller's Base or a Battlefield the controller controls' - and it is what this entry already cites. It is not a permission for a token-creating effect to NARROW that, and the paragraph that is has been cited by nothing in 766 entries: 184.2, 'The effect may restrict the location to which the token may be played.' That is what makes a printed 'here' a legal instruction rather than a contradiction of the default. The system is three paragraphs - 184.2 narrows, 355.2.a defaults, 355.2.b widens - and this catalogue was citing two of the three. Both are true here and the pair is the finding.
• A DOMAIN-LEGAL +1 EXISTS, IT COSTS NO EXTRA SLOT, AND IT BUYS EXACTLY ONE CARD. `OGS-013 Garen, Commander` and `OGN-243 Darius, Executioner` are both mono-Order and print the identical sentence — *"Other friendly units have +1 :rb_might: here"* — so either is legal in this identity, stands at the Plaza as one of the seven, and takes the Recruits to Might 2. Measured over the twenty cards in the pool that remove more than one body in one action (the table is in `docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-13-might-1-survivability.md`), Might 2 escapes exactly THREE: `OGN-133 Flurry of Blades`, `OGN-200 Twisted Fate, Gambler`’s one-damage mode and `OGN-041 Volibear, Furious`’s split. It does NOT escape `UNL-132 Angler Beast` — *"return all units with 2 :rb_might: or less to their owners' hands"* — which is a BOUNCE, so a Might-2 body is still caught and the Plaza’s count fails exactly as completely as it would to a kill. It does NOT escape `UNL-107 Stare Down` (Body, E2, the cheapest unconditional answer in the pool — the threshold is the ATTACKER’s chosen unit, so no amount of Might escapes it, and 355.10.d makes it programmatic so no `[Deflect]` tax is paid for any number of bodies), `OGN-268 Bullet Time` (E1 plus any amount of rainbow), or the two that take everything and carry no location clause at all — `UNL-180 The Ruination` and `SFD-147 Downwell`. Parking bodies at the base is a defence against Flurry and NOT against the lens. So the +1 answers the one card this entry already names, and moves the cheapest answer from one Energy to two.
• OPPONENT BOARD AND KILL PRICE - ADDED 2026-10-27 (#503). THE BOARD IT WINS ON: nothing of theirs that can reach the Plaza and deal 2 damage on their turn. An enemy unit in their base readies in their Awaken and can Standard Move to the Plaza (144.4.a, exhausting it as the cost, 144.2); units at their own battlefield cannot reach it (144.4.a, 144.4.b) unless they have Ganking (144.4.c.1); units they play that turn enter exhausted (143.4) unless [Accelerate]. The Hold counts the eight when it happens (383.2.a.1), so the fight is on their turn. None of the eight has [Tank] or [Backline], so the attacker orders the assignment (465.2.c.7). With eight the attacker has to kill N - 6 = 2, and the cheapest two are two of the six 1-Might Recruits (187.1): 2 damage, from one ready Might-2 body or two ready Might-1 bodies, not a full clear and not the Might of Corina (6). One Might-1 attacker alone leaves seven and the Hold still wins.

Steps

1. Play Svellsongur (3 Energy + 1 Power). Gear enters ready — 143.4 exhausts units only.
2. Play Corina Veraza for 7 Energy + 1 Power, paying [Accelerate]'s extra 1 Energy + 1 Order Power so she enters ready and can use her Standard Move this turn.
3. Attach Svellsongur to Corina: 1 Energy + 1 Calm Power. Her Rules Text now carries the move trigger twice (434.1.c, 053.1).
4. Still in the same Main Phase, walk any cheap body into The Grand Plaza while it is uncontrolled and take it: 190.3.a.1 → 344.2 → 348.2.a → 348.2.a.1. The Plaza is yours, with that body on it.
5. Standard-Move Corina from base to the Plaza (144.1.a, exhausting her as the cost, 144.2). Both instances resolve and six Recruits join her there — eight friendly units in total.
6. Survive one opponent turn with 7+ units there. At your next Beginning Phase you Hold the Plaza (315.2.b.2), its trigger finds eight units, and rule 195 gives you the game.

How it ends

win the game at the next Hold

Sources

Published elsewhere

• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
• Token lens — issue #48 (GitHub) 2026-09-06

Walked here, in this project

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

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue