Combo · ENGINE

XP into a Buff into a free spell — and 702.3 is exactly why the sink needs a spender to repeat

6 cards · order · verified

Pieces

• Enthralling Protector ×3 UNL-162 · engine · order

  [Hunt] (When I conquer or hold, gain 1 XP.) Spend 2 XP: [Buff] me. (Give me a +1 Might buff if I don't have one.)

• Call to Glory ×3 OGN-207 · payoff · order

  [Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) As you play this, you may spend a buff as an additional cost. If you do, ignore this spell's cost. Give a unit +3 Might this turn.

Payoff

Deck

• Both cards are mono-Order, so 103.1.b.1 is satisfied by any legend with Order as one of its two domains. Neither is Signature, so 103.2.d.2 imposes nothing.

Prerequisites

• 702.3 IS THE WHOLE REASON THIS NEEDS TWO CARDS. 'There can only be one Buff on a Unit at a time', and the Protector's sink only ever buffs HIMSELF. So 'Spend 2 XP: [Buff] me' is worth exactly 2 XP ONCE, forever, unless something takes the counter back off him — 702.3.a would refuse to place the second. The standing project claim that every XP sink in the pool is bounded is right, and this names the bound: it is 702.3, not the XP.
• THE RATE, EXACTLY. 315.2.b.2 Holds EVERY battlefield you control, and a Duel puts two on the table (485.4), so a board holding both pays 2 XP a turn from [Hunt] — precisely the price of one buff. One buff is one free Call to Glory. Holding one battlefield halves it to a buff every other turn.
• AND THE SPELL IS GENUINELY FREE, NOT DISCOUNTED. 'If you do, ignore this spell's cost' removes the 3 Energy outright; the buff is an ADDITIONAL cost, so what is being converted is 2 XP into an E3 [Reaction] spell, not into a discount.
• THE CEILING IS 103.2.b, AND IT IS THE HONEST NUMBER: three Call to Glory in a deck, each consumed on play, so three free spells a game. The unbounded spender for the same counter is `OGN-282 Monastery of Hirana` ('you may spend a buff to draw 1'), which never runs out but needs a Conquer at a specific battlefield — a different entry with a different dependency.
• DO NOT PAIR THIS WITH A `While I'm buffed` STATIC. `OGN-065 Wizened Elder` and `OGN-125 Bilgewater Bully` are the pool's only two, and this line's whole product is removing the counter — the same fork between carrying a buff and spending one that the catalogue already draws elsewhere.
• 824.1.d AND 730.2 ARE THE COLLATERAL COST. A [Level N] ability is 'Inactive as soon as the controlling player has less than [N] XP' and 730.2 makes spending XP your own reduction, so every 2 XP spent here switches off any Level threshold the deck is sitting above. A deck that runs both is choosing between them turn by turn.
• IT DOES NOT SCORE. +3 Might at Reaction speed on the defender's side is a body saved (465.2.c reads current Might); on the attacker's side it is excess damage under R28, which only OGN-034 and SFD-120 convert.
• 745.2 IS WHY AN UNQUALIFIED "SPEND A BUFF" CAN ONLY TAKE ONE OFF YOUR OWN BOARD, AND THE 741-749 BLOCK WAS CITED BY NOTHING (upgrade 2026-09-12, #191 batch 26 - diagnosed five days earlier by #187 batch 2 and never applied). The cards that print this cost say *"spend a buff"* with NO owner stated, and none of them has ever had to, because the rules say it: **745.2** - *"In order to spend a Counter, the spending player must control the Game Object the Counter is placed on."* It is the general form of the 702.2.b.2 this project cites fourteen times, and its neighbours finish the picture: **749** (*"Counters do not have a controller"*) and **748** (*"Game Objects that change zones to a non-board zone lose all of their Counters"*), which is the real rule behind buff recovery rather than the 702.x usually cited. Measured consequence from the same walk: a change of CONTROL is not a zone change, so **a buff survives a theft and becomes the thief`s to spend** - the exact complement of 718.5.f, under which an Equipment`s Control does NOT follow its carrier while a buff`s spendability DOES.

Steps

1. Play Enthralling Protector (E2) and get him to a battlefield you control.
2. Each Beginning Phase, 315.2.b.2 Holds every battlefield you control; his [Hunt] pays 1 XP per Hold, so a two-battlefield board banks 2 XP a turn (823.1.c.1).
3. In your Main Phase, activate 'Spend 2 XP: [Buff] me'. 381 allows the activation on your own turn in an Open State. He now carries one 702 Buff counter and, by 702.3.a, cannot be given a second.
4. At any later point — including inside the opponent's combat, since 813.1.c.1 admits a [Reaction] card 'during Closed States on any player's turn' — play Call to Glory and spend that counter as its additional cost.
5. The spell's own cost is ignored and a unit gets +3 Might this turn. 702.2.b has removed the counter, so the Protector's sink is live again.
6. Two more Holds refill the 2 XP and the cycle repeats, bounded only by the three copies of Call to Glory.

How it ends

engine only — one free E3 [Reaction] spell per two XP, three times a game (103.2.b); the XP faucet keeps running afterwards but 702.3 leaves it with nowhere to put the buff, and 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
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
• 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-rules-second-pass.md), issue #170 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue