Combo · ENGINE
Dark Child — two Energy that survive into the opponent's turn
Pieces
- Dark Child - Starter ×1
OGS-017 · engine · fury/chaos
At the end of your turn, ready up to 2 runes.
- Inferna ×3
UNL-002 · payoff · fury
[Ambush] (You may play me as a [Reaction] to a battlefield where you have units.) [Assault 2] (+2 Might while I'm an attacker.)
Payoff
Deck
- Fury + Chaos: Dark Child is itself the legend, and Inferna is mono-Fury (103.1.b.3).
- You must have units at the battlefield you want to reinforce — that is [Ambush]'s own condition.
Prerequisites
- What Dark Child does and does not give. 164.2.b, 'Recycle this: [Reaction] — Add [C]', carries no exhaust in its cost, so an already-tapped rune ALREADY pays 1 Power on any player's turn — that is the free floor of 2 Power per turn #44 measured, and Dark Child adds nothing to it. What she adds is ENERGY: 164.2.a is '[E]: [Reaction] — Add [1]', an exhaust ability, so it needs a rune that is ready, and after your own Main Phase none of yours are.
- 167 empties the Rune Pool at the start of your Main Phase, not at the end of your turn, so the two runes she readies are still ready when the opponent takes their turn and 813.1.c.1 lets a [Reaction] card be played 'during Closed States on any player's turn'.
- The body arrives in time to matter. #150's finding: a body entering mid-combat gets the Defender designation at the next Cleanup, before 465.2 resolves (319.6 + 323.2.a). So an Ambush unit played into the opponent's attack is counted in 465.2.c's summed Might.
- Inferna is the exact fit at E2 with no Power, but she is one of 26 [Ambush] units; anything at E2 or less in Fury or Chaos is bought by the same two runes. Her [Assault 2] is dead on defence — 807.1.d.1: 'Assault remains in effect as long as the Unit maintains the Attacker designation' — and the entry does not count it.
- 'Ready UP TO 2' — there is no cost and no downside, but there is also nothing to bank: the runes ready at the end of every one of your turns whether you spend them or not, so this is 2 Energy per turn cycle, not an accumulating pool.
Bodies no card supplies
On the opponent's turn, when they attack a battlefield where you have units, wait for a Closed State (312.2.c) — 813.1.c.1 lets a [Reaction] card be played there
Steps
- Play your turn normally, tapping runes for Energy as usual. At the end of it, Dark Child readies up to 2 of them.
- On the opponent's turn, when they attack a battlefield where you have units, wait for a Closed State (312.2.c) — 813.1.c.1 lets a [Reaction] card be played there.
- Tap the two readied runes for E2 (164.2.a, itself a [Reaction]) and play Inferna as an [Ambush] to that battlefield.
- The Cleanup gives her the Defender designation before the damage step resolves (319.6, 323.2.a), so 465.2.c counts her Might on your side.
- Your own Main Phase empties the Rune Pool (167) and the cycle starts again.
How it ends
engine only — 2 Energy available on every opponent's turn, which is one E2 [Ambush] body or one E2 [Reaction] spell per turn cycle. 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
- Issue #153 (GitHub) 2026-09-06
Walked here, in this project
- Hand walk 2026-09-06, issue #153 — the 55 synergy rules no catalogued entry stands on 2026-09-06 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 2026-09-06 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-orphan-synergy-rules.md §15), issue #153, from the orphan rule dark-child-off-turn-reaction-units. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. Citations opened: 103.1.b.3, 164.2.a, 164.2.b, 167, 312.2.c, 319.6, 323.2.a, 465.2.c, 807.1, 807.1.d.1, 813.1.c.1. The walk narrowed the rule's own claim: Dark Child's readies are worth ENERGY off-turn and nothing at all in Power, because 164.2.b has no exhaust in its cost and an exhausted rune already pays Power on any turn (#44's free floor of 2). Trap check: no attack of your own and no Attacker designation on your side; no [Repeat]; no [Temporary]; no token; no recall; 167 is respected explicitly rather than assumed — the Energy is spent on the opponent's turn, before your own Main Phase empties the pool. Depends on no unruled reading.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16