Combo · ENGINE

Two bodies that are only big while attacking, and 144.3 brings them for one action - but an empty battlefield pays neither

6 cards · order · verified

Pieces

Crimson Pigeons ×3 UNL-154 · engine · order
I have +2 Might while I'm attacking with another unit.
Laurent Duelist ×3 SFD-156 · engine · order
[Assault 2] (+2 Might while I'm an attacker.)

Payoff

Combat Might

Deck

Both cards are mono-Order, so 103.1.b.3 admits any legend with Order in its pair: SFD-201/SFD-249 Chem-Baroness, UNL-199/UNL-235 Deceiver, SFD-197/SFD-247 Emperor of the Sands, VEN-147/VEN-193 Eye of Twilight, SFD-205/SFD-251 Grand Duelist, UNL-195/UNL-233 Green Father, OGN-253/OGN-302 Hand of Noxus, VEN-155/VEN-197 Heart of the Tempest, OGN-265/OGN-308 Herald of the Arcane, UNL-203/UNL-237 Keeper of the Hammer, OGS-021 Lady of Luminosity - Starter, VEN-153/VEN-196 Matriarch of War, OGS-023 Might of Demacia - Starter, UNL-187/UNL-229 Piltover Enforcer, OGN-261/OGN-306 Radiant Dawn, OGN-269/OGN-310 The Boss, SFD-187/SFD-243 Void Burrower.
Neither card is banned or restricted in either format, and neither is a Signature card.
An enemy garrison to attack into. This is the entry's own trap and it is stated in the notables: an empty enemy battlefield pays neither card.

Prerequisites

THE TRAP THIS ENTRY IS WRITTEN AROUND: AN EMPTY BATTLEFIELD IS NOT AN ATTACK. 807.1.d: 'Being an attacker means the Unit has gained the Attacker designation during Combat', and 464.2.c.3 hands that designation out inside a Combat - which 323.9 only stages 'at each Battlefield that Contested was applied to that have Units present controlled by opposing players'. Walking into an unoccupied battlefield takes it through 344.2's Showdown with no Combat, no Attacker designation and no damage step. So both cards are printed Might 3 on exactly the board most token and evacuation lines are built for, and Might 5 only where there is somebody to fight.
144.3 IS WHY THE PIGEONS' CONDITION IS NEARLY FREE. 'Players may perform multiple Units' standard move simultaneously. This is treated as one game action performed on multiple Units', with 144.3.a fixing a shared Destination, 144.3.b allowing different Origins and 144.3.c paying the exhausts (420.3.a) simultaneously. So bringing a second body is not a second turn or a second action - it is the same declaration, and 'attacking with another unit' costs nothing to satisfy once you have the bodies.
THE ARITHMETIC, WITH THE QUANTITIES DECLARED. 3 Energy + 4 Energy, no Power, for two Might-3 bodies that both read 5 the moment the Attacker designation lands: 10 summed Might for 7 Energy. 465.2.c gives the attacker 'an amount of damage equal to their summed Might', read at assignment, so the +4 is real damage and not a display value. Printed, the same two bodies are 6.
WHERE THE +4 GOES IF THE DEFENDERS ARE ALREADY DEAD. 465.2.c.4 caps assignment at 'the minimum required to constitute lethal damage', so attacking Might that is never assigned is what this project calls excess damage (R28 = A). Two cheap bodies that swing to 10 is the cheapest excess in the domain, and the payoffs are already catalogued: OGN-034 Tryndamere, Barbarian scores on 5 or more excess (tryndamere-call-to-glory-trapping-grounds, tryndamere-hextech-gauntlets-enforcer, tryndamere-thousand-tailed-watcher-shrink), UNL-187 Piltover Enforcer readies on 3 or more (gauntlets-enforcer-conquer), and UNL-217 Trapping Grounds plays a Bird on 3 or more. They are named here rather than added to uses[], because this entry is the Might source and each of those is its own line.
WHY THE TWO CARDS ARE NOT THE SAME CARD. Laurent Duelist's [Assault 2] is unconditional on the designation and 807.2 sums it with any granted Assault ('Petty Officer has Assault. It is chosen as the target of Cleave ... After Cleave resolves, Petty Officer has Assault 4'). Crimson Pigeons' clause is a plain conditional modifier, not the keyword, so 807.2 never touches it and it needs a companion rather than a grant. One scales with grants, the other scales with bodies.
AND WHY NEITHER IS A BUFF. Both print a Might modifier tied to a state, not a counter, so 702.3's one-buff-per-unit cap and 703's fixed +1 are silent here - the same distinction this project drew for a static '+N Might' modifier. A buff on top of either still lands.
WHAT IT IS NOT. Nothing here scores. 469 defines Scoring as Conquer or Hold, and these are two attacking bodies with no trigger between them.
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.

Steps

Develop Crimson Pigeons (3 Energy) and Laurent Duelist (4 Energy) at your base or a battlefield you hold.
Declare one Standard Move for both to the same enemy-held battlefield: 144.3 makes it a single game action, 144.3.a fixes the shared destination and 144.3.c pays both exhausts at once.
Contested is applied, 323.9 stages the Combat because opposing units are present, and 464.2.c.3 hands out the Attacker designation.
Both conditions are now met: [Assault 2] gives the Duelist +2 (807.1.c) and the Pigeons read '+2 while I'm attacking with another unit'. Summed Might is 10.
465.2.c assigns that 10 among the defenders, capped per body at minimum lethal by 465.2.c.4; whatever is never assigned is excess damage for a payoff that reads it.
Do NOT run this line into an empty battlefield: with no opposing units 323.9 stages no Combat, 464.2.c.3 never happens, and both cards are Might 3.

Per iteration

+4 summed attacking Might for 7 Energy and no Power, on any attack into a garrisoned battlefield

How it ends

engine only - a per-attack Might bonus, three of each body by 103.2.b, worth nothing on an unoccupied battlefield (807.1.d + 323.9); 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-order.md, batch 6) 2026-09-07 record

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 2026-09-07 (issue #180, batch 6). The first entry to use UNL-154 Crimson Pigeons or SFD-156 Laurent Duelist. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. Citations opened and quoted: 103.1.b.3, 103.2.b, 144.3, 144.3.a, 144.3.b, 144.3.c, 323.9, 344.2, 420.3.a, 464.2.c.3, 465.2.c, 465.2.c.4, 469, 702.3, 703, 807.1.c, 807.1.d, 807.2. The empty-battlefield trap is stated as a prerequisite AND as a step, because this pair is exactly the kind of cheap attacking package a reader would otherwise point at an evacuated battlefield. The excess-damage payoffs are named in a notable rather than put in uses[], since each already has its own entry and none of them is required for this one to be true. Ban check: neither card is banned or restricted; neither is a Signature card. No unruled reading.

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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