Combo · ALT WIN

Desert's Call recycled by Vi, drawn back by the Stellacorn — unbounded Sand Soldiers onto the Plaza

9 cards · fury + calm · verified

Pieces

• Twilight Reveler ×2 VEN-020 · engine · fury

  When I attack, ready another friendly unit.

• 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.

• Jhin, Murderous Artist ×1 UNL-022 · resource · fury

  [Deflect] (Opponents must pay 1 Power of any domain to choose me with a spell or ability.) [Ganking] (I can move from battlefield to battlefield.) When I move, [Add] 1 Energy + 1 Power of any domain. (Abilities that add resources can't be reacted to.)

• Stellacorn Herder ×1 SFD-048 · resource · calm

  When I move, draw 1.

• Vi, Destructive ×1 OGN-036 · engine · fury

  [Ganking] (I can move from battlefield to battlefield.) Recycle 1 from your trash: Give me +1 Might this turn.

• Desert's Call ×1 SFD-031 · payoff · calm

  [Repeat] 2 Energy (You may pay the additional cost to repeat this spell's effect.) Play a 2 Might Sand Soldier unit token.

• Back Off ×1 UNL-042 · enabler · calm

  [Hidden] (Hide now for 1 Power of any domain to react with later for 0 Energy.) [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) [Stun] a unit. (It doesn't deal combat damage this turn.) If you played this from your hand, draw 1.

• The Grand Plaza ×1 OGN-293 · battlefield

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

Payoff

Deck

• Legend domains are Fury and Calm: VEN-139 Rogue Assassin (Akali). The Grand Plaza is Colorless, so 103.1.b.1 does not touch it.

Prerequisites

• THE PLAZA IS RANDOM AND CANNOT BE DOUBLED UP: random 1 of 3 in Duel (485.5) and Skirmish (487.5), chosen in Match (486.5); 103.4.c and Tournament Rules 402.1 forbid a second copy by name. Without it the line is still unbounded bodies, but it does not win by itself - 470 caps Scoring at once per battlefield per turn.
• A BATTLEFIELD YOU BRING STARTS UNCONTROLLED (190.1), so taking the Plaza with a body is part of the cost, and that body is also what keeps 323.6 from stripping your Control when Jhin bounces off it.
• MAIN DECK EMPTY, AND THE DRAW LEDGER HAS ZERO SLACK. Each pass recycles exactly one card (Desert's Call, by Vi) and draws exactly one (the Stellacorn's single move). A second Stellacorn move in the same pass draws on an empty deck: 431.1.a Burns Out and 194.1.d hands the opponent a point. The spare readies must go to Jhin, not to a second draw. This is the #59 wall respected, not widened.
• SAME OPPONENT-BOARD CONDITIONS AS THE FAMILY: the attacked battlefield already the opponent's (466.5, 466.5.d), exactly one defender of 4+ Might, stunned once for the turn. Jhin never joins that attack (465.2.c, 465.2.c.3).
• ONE PASS COSTS FIVE SPARE READIES: one for the Stellacorn's draw and four for the Jhin moves that pay Desert's Call's 4 Energy. At one spare ready per two Reveler attacks that is ten attacks per pass - unbounded is still unbounded, and a second Svellsongur halves it.
• THE TOKENS NEED NO WALK, WHICH IS WHY THIS LINE ESCAPES #48's BOTTLENECK. Desert's Call prints no destination, so 355.2.a puts each Sand Soldier straight onto the Plaza. They enter exhausted (143.4) and it does not matter: the Plaza counts units present, not ready ones.
• ONE TURN OF EXPOSURE, LIKE EVERY PLAZA LINE. 383.2.a.1 measures 'if you have 7+ units here' when the Hold trigger is placed, so the bodies must survive the opponent's whole turn. With the count unbounded rather than exactly seven, that is the cheapest version of that risk in the catalogue.
• 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.
• 6 ENERGY ANSWERS THE GARRISON THIS LINE NEEDS, AND THE BODIES ARE TOKENS SO NO uses[] ROW SHOWS IT. OGS-002 Firestorm is fury, 6 Energy + 1 Power: "Deal 3 to all enemy units at a battlefield.". This line's garrison is Sand Soldier tokens, whose Might is fixed by rule 187 (Sand Soldier 2) rather than by any card in uses[] - which is why no ingredient row warns you. 143.2.a kills on marked damage at or above Might, so it kills every body at or below Might 3 SIMULTANEOUSLY however many there are: the binding constraint is MIGHT PER BODY, not the number of bodies, so going wider answers nothing. A CHEAPER ANSWER EXISTS AND IT IS NOT AVAILABLE TO EVERY OPPONENT: OGN-268 Bullet Time costs 1 Energy + 2 Power here (it pays per point of damage, so it scales to any garrison) and is [Action], so 806.1.c.1 puts it inside any showdown on any player's turn - but it is a SIGNATURE card tagged Miss Fortune, and 103.2.d.2 requires every Signature card to carry the Chosen Champion Legend's tag, so only a Miss Fortune legend can run it. Count it as a matchup, not as the field. THE IDENTITY DOES HOLD AN ANSWER, BUT ONLY ITS EMPOWERED HALF - VEN-018 Rage Amplifier at +1 DOES NOT BEAT THE FIRESTORM NAMED IN THIS SAME NOTABLE (corrected 2026-09-14): 187.3 makes a Sand Soldier 2 Might, +1 is 3, Firestorm deals 3, and 143.2.a kills on damage EQUALLING Might, so the garrison still dies; only the Empowered +2 reaches it, at E10 + 2 Power rather than E4 + 1. See the notable below. A permanent, garrison-wide +Might is still the only SHAPE that lifts every body at once, since a single-target pump is useless against a sweep that hits all of them. (A battlefield-based protection is NOT available here, because this line already requires a battlefield: 485.4.a gives each player three and "Only 1 will be used, chosen during setup", and 103.4.c forbids duplicate names, so two of your own battlefields never share a board.) WHEN THE ANSWER LANDS, AND IT IS NOT INSIDE THE HOLD. A Hold resolves at 315.2.b.2, which Holds "all Battlefields they Control", inside YOUR Beginning Phase - and 312.2.a gives a player priority only "When the turn is in a Neutral Open State during their Main Phase", i.e. their own. So the opponent cannot answer in the Hold window itself; they answer on THEIR turn, which is the turn immediately before it. The cost of that is yours, not theirs: your own Main Phase comes AFTER your Beginning Phase (315 then 316), so there is no window in which to rebuild the garrison. Holding up a [Reaction] on their turn is the only response this line has.
• A SPELL PAYOFF IS ANSWERED IN A WINDOW THE RULES CREATE FOR IT, AFTER EVERY COST IS ALREADY SPENT (added 2026-09-13, #200). **359.3.c**: *"Other players have an opportunity to play Reactions before the resolution of spells."* A UNIT or GEAR payoff never gets that window — 337.2 sends it straight to Step 4 Resolve — and a BATTLEFIELD payoff is not removable at all (170.3, 170.4). A SPELL is the one payoff class the process stops for, and **425.1.c** with **425.1.c.1** refunds nothing: *"Countering does not refund any costs paid to play a card"*, *"This includes additional costs."* This line's payoff is `SFD-031 Desert's Call` at **E2**, and all of it is spent before the counter resolves. Swept on the bare word *counter*: 14 printings, of which three are not counters (`SFD-194 Counter Strike` is a PREVENT carrying the word in its name; `VEN-015` and `VEN-069` GRANT can't-be-countered), leaving **ELEVEN**, every one `[Reaction]`, of which **CALM PRINTS FIVE**. And `VEN-152 Rebuttal` (Mind/Chaos, `[Reaction]`) is worse than a counter against a payoff this cheap: *"Choose a spell with Energy cost no more than :rb_energy_4:. You may pay :rb_rune_rainbow:. If you do, gain control of it and you may make new choices for it. Otherwise, counter it."* — at E2 it is in range, so the opponent does not have to deny the line, they can TAKE it. AND THIS IDENTITY CANNOT BUY THE ONE ANSWER: swept on the word *countered*, the pool holds exactly one card that protects your other spells — `VEN-069 Mel, Newly Awakened`, **mono-Mind** — and 103.1.b keeps her out of ["fury","calm"]. (`VEN-015 Decree of Rage` is the only other mention and protects only itself.) There is no counter-proofing available to this shell at all.
• THE +1 NAMED ABOVE DOES NOT BEAT THE THREAT NAMED ABOVE, AND THE TWO SENTENCES SIT IN THE SAME NOTABLE (corrected 2026-09-14, #200). That notable names `OGS-002 Firestorm` (fury, E6 + 1 Power, *"Deal 3 to all enemy units at a battlefield"*) as the answer to this garrison and then offers `VEN-018 Rage Amplifier` *"+1"* as the repair. **187.3 makes a Sand Soldier 2 Might; +1 is 3; Firestorm deals 3; and 143.2.a kills on damage EQUALLING or exceeding Might. The garrison still dies.** The unempowered half of the Amplifier buys exactly nothing against the card the entry itself identifies. **ONLY THE EMPOWERED HALF REACHES IT** - *"If I'm [Empowered], they have +2 :rb_might: instead"* - taking the Sand Soldiers to Might 4, which 3 damage does not kill; and that is E4 + 1 Power to play **plus E6 and a Fury rune to Empower**, so **E10 + 2 Power** for the pair rather than the E4 + 1 Power the sentence implies. It remains a real answer at that price, and the price has to be stated with it. (The +1 is not wasted against the other half of the ladder: `OGN-133 Flurry of Blades` at 1 damage never reached a 2-Might garrison in the first place, which is why this line's named threat is the 6-Energy card and not the 1-Energy one.)
• 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 enough damage on their turn. An enemy unit in their base readies in their Awaken and can Standard Move to the Plaza (144.4.a, 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 seven or more are counted when the Hold happens (383.2.a.1), after the opponent's last window. None of the Sand Soldiers has [Tank] or [Backline] (465.2.c.6). The price is the summed Might of the N - 6 cheapest units: at the minimum N = 7 (the Plaza-holding body plus six 2-Might Sand Soldiers, 187.3, three passes) it is one Sand Soldier, 2 damage, or 1 if the holder has Might 0 or 1 (142.4.b), because the entry does not fix that body; every further pair of Sand Soldiers the loop adds raises it by 4 (N units cost 2 x (N - 6), or 2 x (N - 7) + 1 with a 0- or 1-Might holder), so this is the one Plaza line whose combat price the player can set by looping longer, not a fixed number. A combat answer is still not the cheapest: OGS-002 Firestorm, named above, kills them all at once.

Steps

1. Run reveler-svellsongur-jhin-infinite-power first: Back Off from hand, the two Revelers alternating into the opponent's battlefield, Jhin on the spare ready. Take the Plaza with a body and leave it there.
2. Bank 4 Energy from four Jhin moves.
3. Play Desert's Call for 2 Energy and pay its [Repeat] for 2 more (820.1.d.1): two 2 Might Sand Soldier tokens, played straight to the Plaza (355.2.a). The spell resolves to the trash.
4. Activate Vi: 'Recycle 1 from your trash' — choose Desert's Call (416.6) and it goes to the bottom of the Main Deck (416.1.a). Her cost carries no exhaust, so it is repeatable (377, 378).
5. Spend ONE spare ready on the Stellacorn Herder and Standard Move it once: draw 1, which is Desert's Call. The Main Deck is empty again and nothing burns out.
6. Repeat. Every pass is +2 Sand Soldiers on the Plaza for 0 net cards.
7. Stop when the Plaza holds well past 7. Survive the opponent's turn; at your Beginning Phase the Plaza's hold trigger finds 7+ units there and you win the game (195).

Per iteration

+2 Sand Soldiers on the Plaza per pass; 4 Energy in, 1 card recycled and 1 card drawn, net 0 cards

How it ends

win the game at the next Hold

Sources

Published elsewhere

• YouTube — Frobei - Riftbound, mismo video — la cola de Sand Soldiers, cerrada en partida, con la cautela del autor 2026-07-17
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
• Minería por leyenda — issue #62 (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