Combo · ENGINE

Curator of the Sands reads the printed cost — the discount is free, the Empower discount is not

5 cards · calm + mind · verified

Pieces

• Curator of the Sands ×1 VEN-145 · legend · calm/mind

  When you play a unit, gear, or activated ability with Energy cost 7 Energy or more, you may exhaust me to ready up to 2 runes.

• Plaza Guardian ×1 VEN-064 · payoff · mind

  I cost 1 Energy less for each gear you control. [Deflect] (Opponents must pay 1 Power of any domain to choose me with a spell or ability.)

• Seal of Insight ×3 OGN-120 · resource · mind

  Exhaust: [Reaction] — [Add] 1 Mind Power. (Abilities that add resources can't be reacted to.)

Payoff

Deck

• The legend must be VEN-145 Curator of the Sands; the identity is Calm/Mind and every card here is Mind.

Prerequisites

• THE CANDIDATE'S HEADLINE LINE IS DEAD, AND 827.1.c.3 IS WHY. Issue #47 proposed VEN-050 Grumpy Rockbear and VEN-032 Frostcoat Mother, whose '[Empower] 12 Energy. This ability costs 1 Energy less for each rune you control' would cost 0 at 12 runes while 206.1 read the base 12. But 206.1 says 'ignoring any alterations to that base cost unless otherwise specified', and 827.1.c.3 is the specification: 'Empower abilities may also include text that alters the Empower cost. Such text is taken into account when determining a card's Empower cost for any reason.' At 12 runes that Empower costs 0 and Curator does not trigger.
• 206 HAS NO SUCH ESCAPE CLAUSE, AND THAT ASYMMETRY IS THE ENTRY. 'Effects that need to determine a card's cost for any purpose always use its printed or copied cost, even if that cost is increased, decreased, or ignored as the card is played.' Curator's trigger names units and gear as well as abilities, so a discounted CARD still turns her on while a discounted EMPOWER does not.
• THE ARITHMETIC, WITH THE DECLARED QUANTITIES. Plaza Guardian is printed at 10. With the three Seals on the board he is played for 7; every further gear takes another Energy off, and 206 holds the read at 10 the whole way down. Curator then readies 2 runes, worth 2 Energy through 164.2.a or 2 Power through 164.2.b - an M8 [Deflect] body for a net 5 Energy at three gear and a net 2 at six, with no Power.
• ONLY TWO ACTIVATED ABILITIES IN THE POOL CAN EVER TRIGGER HER, AND THEY ARE THE FLAT EMPOWERS. A sweep of the whole corpus for an activated ability costing 7+ Energy returns four printings: VEN-032 and VEN-050, both dead by 827.1.c.3, and VEN-043 Steel Paws ([Empower] 7, a 1-Energy card that becomes an M7 [Deflect] body) and VEN-046 Nasus, Ascended ([Empower] 8). Both are Calm and both are in identity. 827.1 is what lets them in at all: 'Empower is an Activated Ability keyword.'
• THE OTHER FALLBACK #47 OFFERED IS DEAD TOO. SFD-084 Jayce, Man of Progress plays 'a gear with Energy cost no more than 7 from hand this turn, ignoring its Energy cost', and 206 would indeed keep the read at the printed cost - but the only gear in the entire pool printed at exactly 7 Energy is SFD-168 Vanguard Armory, which is Order and outside Curator's Calm/Mind identity (103.1.b).
• ONCE PER TURN. Curator pays an exhaust and 415.3.a returns it only in your own Awakening, so the rebate is 2 runes a turn whatever else happens. nasus-ascended-sentinel-arena-hold already carries the Nasus half of this as a notable and is untouched by this entry.
• UNL-059 Master Yi, Unstoppable (Calm, printed E12, discounted by [Level 3]/[Level 6]/[Level 11]) and VEN-044 Astral Heron (Calm, E7, which discounts the NEXT card you play) are the other two 206 cases inside the identity.
• THE TRIGGER FIRES ON RESOLUTION, SO A COUNTERED ABILITY NEVER PAYS HIM (added 2026-09-09, #187 lane). VEN-145 reads "When you play a unit, gear, or activated ability with Energy cost 7 or more", and 377.2 says card text refers to activating Activated Abilities with the word "use" or "play" - with 377.2.a: "If `using` or `playing` an Activated Ability is part of a trigger condition, that condition is fulfilled when the Activated Ability resolves." So the ability half of this legend is answerable in a way the unit and gear halves are not.

Steps

1. Bootstrap the three Seals of Insight for one recycled rune and no Energy (the line in seal-power-faucet-bootstrap).
2. Play Plaza Guardian. With three gear he costs 7 Energy; with six he costs 4.
3. Curator's trigger reads the PRINTED cost of 10 (206), not what you paid. Exhaust her: ready up to 2 runes.
4. Exhaust those two runes for 2 Energy (164.2.a), or recycle them for 2 Power (164.2.b, no exhaust in its cost).
5. Next turn 415.3.a readies Curator again, for the next unit or gear printed at 7 or more - or for VEN-043 Steel Paws' flat [Empower] 7.

Per iteration

+2 readied runes per turn, on a card whose actual cost may be anything down to 0

How it ends

engine only - 2 Energy or 2 Power a turn, and only on a turn you play something printed at 7+ Energy

Sources

Published elsewhere

• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
• Legend lens — issue #47 (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