Combo · ALT WIN

The Dragonstorm walks onto The Grand Plaza — fourteen ready bodies, zero Energy

2 cards · body · verified

Pieces

• The Grand Plaza ×1 OGN-293 · payoff

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

• Confront ×1 OGN-129 · enabler · body

  [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Units you play this turn enter ready. Draw 1.

Payoff

Deck

• Legend domains cover Body and Fury — the engine's own list (OGN-249 Relentless Storm, SFD-183 Purifier, UNL-183 Pridestalker, VEN-141 Butcher of the Sands).

Prerequisites

• The Grand Plaza in play: each player provides three battlefields and only 1 is used (485.4.a), randomly in Duel (485.5) and Skirmish (487.5), chosen in Match (486.5). 103.4.c and Tournament Rules 402.1 forbid bringing three copies to force it.
• THE LOOP IS NOT REQUIRED FOR THE SEVEN, and the entry says so rather than borrowing the engine's grandeur. The Dragonstorm's resident board is three Gemdragons, two Heralds, two Kadregrin and Vi = EIGHT units, and 315.1.b readies all of them every Awaken. What a completed pass adds is the six 5-Might Dragons standing on the board at its end, ready through Confront (143.4.a): fourteen bodies, which is the version that survives removal.
• THE MOVE COSTS NOTHING. 144.2 makes exhausting the unit the whole cost, 144.3 makes several standard moves ONE game action (same destination 144.3.a, origins free 144.3.b, exhausts paid together 144.3.c) and 144.4.a allows base to battlefield. Zero Energy, zero cards.
• A BATTLEFIELD YOU BRING STARTS UNCONTROLLED (190.1) AND ITS TEXT IS OFF: 190.6.d's second sentence — 'If the battlefield has no Controller, "you" refers to no one, and all such instructions are ignored.' Walking in makes it Contested (190.3.a), 344.2 opens a Showdown at the next Cleanup, 348.2.a gives Control and 348.2.a.1 makes it a Conquer worth 1 point. Only from the next Beginning Phase does 315.2.b.2 Hold it.
• THE COUNT IS MEASURED AT THE HOLD AND INCLUDES THE BODIES THAT CONQUERED IT. 'if you have 7+ units here' sits immediately after the When clause, so 383.2.a.1 makes it part of the Trigger Condition; no body can be added at that instant, and the seven must survive the opponent's whole turn. That is the price of this route against dragonstorm-brambleback-trinity-conquer, which wins inside the combo turn; the mitigation is size, since M8 x3, M9 x2 and M5 x6 is not a board the pool's removal clears to under seven. CORRECTED 2026-10-27 (#503): that list names eleven of the fourteen bodies; the other three are the two Heralds of Scales and Vi, all Might 3, and they are the cheapest to kill. The price of the 14-body board is the 8 cheapest bodies, 34 damage (three Might-3 bodies and five Dragons), and of the 8-body resident board without the loop 6 damage (two Might-3 bodies).
• 323.6 strips Control the moment your last body leaves, so the garrison cannot be pulled back to keep looping and hold the Plaza at the same time. Standing the engine at the Plaza costs it nothing else: every resident ability (the Gemdragons' rune-ready, the Heralds' Dragon discount, Kadregrin's play trigger, Vi's recycle) is location-free, and newly played Dragons still arrive at the base.
• A BLOODLESS CONQUER IS NOT A FAIT ACCOMPLI, AND 46 OF THE 47 ENTRIES CITING 344.2 DID NOT SAY SO (added 2026-09-12, #187 batch 25). **316.8.b.1.a**: during a Non-Combat Showdown *"units controlled by a different player may become present at the Battlefield where the Showdown is"*, which converts it to a COMBAT Showdown in the following cleanup - so the opponent can turn your uncontested walk-in into a fight. 316.8.c is the permission (a Showdown is a Window of Opportunity for [Action] and [Reaction] cards). **The answer set is THREE CARDS, swept on the ACTOR rather than on the destination**: `OGN-173 Ride the Wind` (Chaos, E2+1), `OGN-262 Zenith Blade` (Calm/Order, E3+2) and `SFD-184 Relentless Pursuit` (Fury/Body, E2+1) - twelve printings move a friendly unit, and nine of them send it to base or need a body already there. They span three identities, so **no identity is safe**; and `OGN-262 Zenith Blade` is the worst to walk into, because it STUNS your body on the way in, and 423.1.b removes a stunned unit`s contribution to the damage step while 423.1.c keeps its full Might as the price to kill it - one 3-Energy card takes the unit and the battlefield. **[Ambush] is not a fourth answer**: 822.1.b needs a battlefield where the player already has units, and the defining feature of that board is that they have none there. **THE REMEDY IS A COUNTERSPELL, AND A FIRST VERSION OF THIS NOTABLE SAID SOMETHING FALSE THAT IS WITHDRAWN HERE (corrected within the hour, 2026-09-12).** It said that because all three answers are [Action] and 358.4 admits an Action card only as the card that CLOSES the state, the attacker - who holds Focus by 345 and priority by 335.1 - could shut them out by playing any cheap Action card first. Every step is true and the conclusion is false, because **a Showdown is a LOOP, not a single window**: 346 - *"When the last item on the chain resolves and the turn returns to an Open State during a Showdown, Focus passes, and the next Player gains both Focus and Priority"* - with 347.1.b and 347.2.a. Closing the state buys a lock-out lasting exactly that CHAIN; when it resolves the Showdown reopens, Focus passes TO THE DEFENDER, and they play their answer into an open Showdown after all. **The real sequence**: walk in, take Focus, **PASS** (acting first gains nothing); they play the answer, which closes the state as it is played; **you COUNTER it**, since 358.4`s other half now admits only [Reaction] and all eleven of the pool`s counters are Reaction, and 425.1.c refunds them nothing; all players then pass in sequence, 347.2.a ends the Showdown, and 348.2.a with 348.2.a.1 give you Control and the Conquer. The cheap counter is `OGN-045 Defy` (Calm, E1 + 1 Power, *"counter a spell that costs no more than 4 Energy and no more than one rainbow"*), which covers all three answers; `OGN-064 Wind Wall` is the unconditional one. **So the protection narrows to pairs containing CALM** - it is not the one-Energy insurance any deck can buy.
• OPPONENT BOARD AND KILL PRICE - ADDED 2026-10-27 (#503). THE BOARD IT WINS ON: nothing of theirs that can bring 34 Might of attackers (6 if the loop was not run) to the Plaza on their own turn. The Plaza count is taken at the Hold in your next Beginning Phase (383.2.a.1, 315.2.b.2), so the units must survive their whole turn; a body of theirs ready in their base after their Awaken can Standard Move to the Plaza (144.2, 144.4.a), a body at their own battlefield cannot (144.4.a, 144.4.b) unless it has Ganking (144.4.c.1), and a body they play that turn enters exhausted (143.4) unless it has [Accelerate]. THE KILL PRICE: the pass-complete board is 14 units (three Gemdragons M8, two Kadregrin M9, two Heralds of Scales M3, Vi M3, six Dragons M5), none with [Tank] or [Backline], so the attacker has to kill 14 - 6 = 8 and the cheapest eight are the three Might-3 bodies (Herald, Herald, Vi: 9) and five of the Might-5 Dragons (25): 34 damage (465.2.c, 142.4.b), not the 81 to clear the board. Without the loop the board is the 8 residents, the attacker kills 8 - 6 = 2, and the two cheapest are Might-3 bodies: 6 damage.

Steps

1. Run the Dragonstorm to the end of a pass, or do not run it at all — the eight resident bodies already clear the seven.
2. Standard-Move every ready body to The Grand Plaza as ONE action (144.3): the six Dragons played this pass plus the eight residents, all from the base (144.4.a). No Energy is paid.
3. At the next Cleanup the Showdown opens (344.2) and you establish Control (348.2.a), which is a Conquer (348.2.a.1) worth 1 point. The Plaza's text is only now switched on for you (190.6.d).
4. Survive the opponent's turn with at least seven units still there.
5. Your Beginning Phase: 315.1.b readies them, 315.2.b.2 Holds the Plaza, the Trigger Condition finds 7+ units here (383.2.a.1) and 195 wins the game.

How it ends

win the game

Sources

Walked here, in this project

• Issue #63 — the payoff lens, candidate C3 2026-09-06
• Hand walk 2026-09-06 2026-09-06 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue