Combo · ENGINE

Dauntless Vanguard — the Attacker designation with no move, and a Quick-Draw inside the combat

6 cards · body + fury · verified

Pieces

• Dauntless Vanguard ×3 SFD-093 · engine · body

  You may play me to an occupied enemy battlefield.

• Long Sword ×3 SFD-022 · payoff · fury

  [Quick-Draw] (This has [Reaction]. When you play it, attach it to a unit you control.) [Equip] 1 Fury Power (1 Fury Power: Attach this to a unit you control.)

Payoff

Deck

• Body + Fury: VEN-141 Butcher of the Sands (Renekton) is the legend (103.1.b.2).
• The target battlefield must be OCCUPIED by an opponent — that is the Vanguard's own condition, and it is also what 323.9 needs to stage a Combat.

Prerequisites

• The whole value is one turn of tempo, and the rules chain is short. 190.3.a.1 — 'Units moving to or being played to a battlefield apply Contested status' — so being played there is enough; 464.2.c.1 makes 'the player whose unit(s) applied the Contested status' the Attacker; 323.9 stages the Combat at the next Cleanup and 323.13 opens it in the Neutral Open State of your own Main Phase. The Vanguard never moves, so 144.2's exhaust is never paid and 143.4's 'units enter exhausted' costs him nothing — exhausted is not stunned, and 464.2.c.3 / 465.2.b do not filter by state.
• Ordinary units telegraph: play on turn N, move on turn N+1, attack on turn N+1. The Vanguard collapses that to one turn, which is the same delta [Accelerate] buys — except [Accelerate] costs extra and still needs the move.
• There is NO pre-open window here. 323.10 lets a staged Combat un-stage if both sides empty out BEFORE it opens, but after a play or a move the very next Cleanup stages AND opens it with no gap (the #58 finding). So the evacuation route is not available on this line, and a plain spell cannot help either: 155 confines a spell with no [Action] or [Reaction] to 'an Open State outside of Showdowns'.
• What DOES reach the opened combat is a [Reaction], through 464.2.f.1 / 464.2.g ('Players proceed with any play on the Chain as normal'). The Long Sword's Quick-Draw is exactly that, and its M+2 is read by 465.2.c's assignment because Might is measured when damage is assigned, not when the Attacker was designated.
• The Vanguard is not a way to reach an EMPTY enemy battlefield. His text says occupied, and an empty enemy battlefield is not an attack anyway — 807.1.d / 383.4.e / 461 put the Attacker designation only inside a Combat with a garrison.

Steps

1. In your Main Phase, play Dauntless Vanguard for E4 + 1 Power directly to an occupied enemy battlefield (his own text; 002 over 355.2.a's default).
2. The Cleanup applies Contested (190.3.a.1) and stages the Combat (323.9). 323.13 opens it, because your Main Phase is a Neutral Open State.
3. 464.2.c.1 makes you the Attacker and 464.2.c.3 hands the designation to the Vanguard. He is exhausted from 143.4 and it does not matter.
4. Inside the Combat Showdown (464.2.f.1, 464.2.g), play the Long Sword as a [Reaction] (819.1.d) and attach it to the Vanguard: M6 this combat, chosen after you have seen the garrison.
5. 465.2.c assigns each side damage equal to its summed Might. If the garrison falls, 466.5 establishes your Control and 466.5.d makes it a Conquer — on the turn the Vanguard was played.

How it ends

engine only — one conquer a turn earlier than any other Body body could reach it, with the Might chosen after the defenders are known. Nothing here scores by itself; the point comes from the Conquer (469) or from whatever payoff rides on it.

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

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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