Combo · ENGINE
Dragon Roost plays a Dragon straight onto the battlefield — the walk 143.4 and 144.2 normally charge a whole turn for
Pieces
- Dragon Roost ×1
VEN-157 · battlefield
Any player may pay 2 Power of any domain as an additional cost to play a Dragon. If they do, they play it to this battlefield.
- Mountain Drake ×3 OGN-142 · payoff · body
Payoff
Deck
- Mountain Drake is mono-Body and the Roost is Colorless, so 103.1.b.3 admits any legend with Body in its pair: OGN-257/OGN-304 Blind Monk, OGN-267/OGN-309 Bounty Hunter, VEN-141/VEN-190 Butcher of the Sands, VEN-149/VEN-194 Defender of Tomorrow, SFD-205/SFD-251 Grand Duelist, SFD-193/SFD-245 Grandmaster at Arms, UNL-203/UNL-237 Keeper of the Hammer, VEN-153/VEN-196 Matriarch of War, OGS-023 Might of Demacia - Starter, UNL-183/UNL-227 Pridestalker, SFD-183/SFD-241 Purifier, OGN-249/OGN-300 Relentless Storm, SFD-203/SFD-250 Battle Mistress, OGN-269/OGN-310 The Boss, UNL-201/UNL-236 Voidreaver, OGS-019 Wuju Bladesman - Starter, UNL-191/UNL-231 Wuju Master.
Prerequisites
- AND IF THE OPPONENT IS STANDING THERE, THE DRAGON IS THE ATTACKER WITH NO MOVE AT ALL. 190.3.a.1 — 'Units moving to or being played to a battlefield apply Contested status' — with 464.2.c.1, which makes the Attacker 'the player whose unit(s) applied the Contested status'. So 144.2's exhaust never comes up, and 143.4's entering exhausted costs nothing, because 464.2.c.3 and 465.2.b do not filter by state. This is the SFD-093 Dauntless Vanguard trick printed on a battlefield instead of on one body, and it applies to every Dragon in the deck.
- THE PRICE IS TWO RAINBOW POWER, PAID AS AN ADDITIONAL COST, and it is not small: on Mountain Drake the real line is E9 plus 2 Power. What it buys is a turn, and against an opponent who wins the battlefield on their turn a turn is the whole game.
- IT IS SYMMETRIC AND THAT IS A REAL COST. 'Any player may pay' — the opponent's Dragons get the same door onto this battlefield, and it is a battlefield you brought.
- SFD-015 PERCHED GRIMWYRM IS THE ONE DRAGON THIS CANNOT CARRY: 'Play me only to a battlefield you conquered this turn. (You can't play me anywhere else.)' 054.2 — 'If a card specifies that an action can "only" be performed under certain circumstances, it cannot be performed under any other circumstances' — beats the Roost's permission unless the Roost itself was conquered this turn, in which case the Roost adds nothing the Grimwyrm did not already have.
- TWO DRAGONS THAT MAKE THE SECOND LANDING BETTER: SFD-094 Direwing ('I enter ready if you control another Dragon') lands ready and can still take its Standard Move the same turn, and UNL-104 Gentle Gemdragon ('When you play me or another Dragon, ready up to 2 runes') refunds part of the toll in Energy on every Dragon after it. Both are catalogued elsewhere; neither is required here and neither is in uses[] for that reason.
- DRAGON ROOST IS NOT GUARANTEED TO BE ON THE TABLE: 485.4.a, 485.5, 486.5 and 103.4.c as for every battlefield entry.
Steps
- Bring Dragon Roost as one of your three battlefields. It needs no Control: it says 'any player', never 'you'.
- Play Mountain Drake (E9) and choose to pay the additional 2 rainbow Power at step 2 of playing (356.2.b.1).
- 355.2 asks for a valid location; 355.2.b makes this battlefield valid because the Roost grants the permission, and the Roost's own text fixes the destination — 'they play it to this battlefield'.
- The Dragon enters exhausted (143.4) and garrisons the battlefield immediately. An exhausted defender fights at its full Might: 465.2.c sums Might at assignment and neither 464.2.c.3 nor 465.2.b filters by state.
- If the opponent already had units there, 190.3.a.1 applied Contested as the Dragon was played and 464.2.c.1 makes you the Attacker in the Combat that 323.9 stages — an attack made on the turn the body was bought, with no Standard Move spent.
How it ends
engine only — one turn of tempo per Dragon, bought for 2 rainbow Power; it scores nothing by itself and 103.2.b caps the named payoff at three copies
Sources
Published elsewhere
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
Walked here, in this project
- Hand walk 2026-09-07 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-07-uncatalogued-cards.md), issue #171 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 #171. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. This is the third battlefield in the catalogue whose text survives 190.6.d by never saying 'you' — Ripper's Bay (#161), Sandswept Tomb and Frozen Fortress (this walk) are the others found so far, and the check is worth running on every battlefield before assuming it needs Control. Trap check: the attack half is stated with 190.3.a.1 + 464.2.c.1 rather than assumed, so the 'empty battlefield is not an attack' trap (807.1.d / 383.4.e / 461) is respected — with no enemy garrison this is a garrison, not an attack; 054.2 is cited for the one Dragon the permission cannot carry; no token, no [Temporary], no rune recycled; exactly one battlefield is named, so 485.4.a is respected.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16