Combo · ENGINE
Escaped Grayback's Empower cost is a body, and 185.2.d makes a token a legal one — Royal Guard supplies it at a battlefield
Pieces
- Escaped Grayback ×3
VEN-124 · payoff · order
[Empower] — Kill a friendly unit (Pay the cost: Empower me. Use only if not Empowered.) [Empowered][>] I have +2 Might.
- Royal Guard ×3
SFD-157 · engine · order
When you play me, play a 2 Might Sand Soldier unit token here.
Payoff
Deck
- Both cards are mono-Order, so 103.1.b.3 admits any legend with Order in its pair: SFD-201/SFD-249 Chem-Baroness, UNL-199/UNL-235 Deceiver, SFD-197/SFD-247 Emperor of the Sands, VEN-147/VEN-193 Eye of Twilight, SFD-205/SFD-251 Grand Duelist, UNL-195/UNL-233 Green Father, OGN-253/OGN-302 Hand of Noxus, VEN-155/VEN-197 Heart of the Tempest, OGN-265/OGN-308 Herald of the Arcane, UNL-203/UNL-237 Keeper of the Hammer, OGS-021 Lady of Luminosity, VEN-153/VEN-196 Matriarch of War, OGS-023 Might of Demacia - Starter, UNL-187/UNL-229 Piltover Enforcer, OGN-261/OGN-306 Radiant Dawn, OGN-269/OGN-310 The Boss, SFD-187/SFD-243 Void Burrower.
Prerequisites
- A TOKEN IS A LEGAL BODY TO KILL, AND 185.2.d IS THE PARAGRAPH: 'Tokens have a type. They follow all rules for their type unless otherwise specified. Example: A token unit is a unit. It enters exhausted, can take the standard move action, deals damage equal to its Might in combat, is destroyed if it takes damage…' So 203.3 — a cost whose action is impossible cannot be paid — is satisfied, and the Empower is genuinely free of Energy, Power and cards. This is the OPPOSITE case to the recycle traps: 416.1 is defined over CARDS and 185 keeps tokens out of it, but killing is defined over units and 185.2.d puts tokens squarely in.
- THE PROJECT'S 'CHEAPEST [EMPOWER] COST IN THE POOL' CLAIM NEEDS QUALIFYING. It is recorded as VEN-110 Mel, Defiant Soul ('Discard a spell', no Energy, no Power). Reading every [Empower] cost string in the corpus, FIVE pay neither Energy nor Power: VEN-054 Questionable Tome and VEN-087 Hextech Disc pay only an exhaust, VEN-007 Punching Poro discards 1, VEN-110 Mel discards a spell, and VEN-124 Escaped Grayback kills a friendly unit — which costs literally nothing when the unit is a token. Members named so the count is refutable in one command.
- 441.1.b CAPS IT AT ONE PER BODY ('An Empowered Game Object can not be Empowered'), so one token per Grayback and no more; three copies are three tokens and +6 Might in total, permanently.
- THE SAND SOLDIER IS WORTH KILLING RATHER THAN KEEPING ONLY BECAUSE IT IS SPARE. At 2 Might it survives the pool's 1-damage sweepers (143.2.a), so a deck that wants bodies should keep it; this entry is for the turn when the Grayback's +2 matters more, and the Royal Guard's own 2-Might body stays either way.
- IT DOES NOT SCORE AND IT IS NOT A LOOP. 186.1 makes the token cease to exist the moment it leaves the board, so nothing recurs it; 185 and 416.1 keep it out of every card count and every recycle.
Steps
- Play Royal Guard (E4) to a battlefield you control. Its play trigger puts a 2-Might Sand Soldier unit token at that same battlefield (359.3.f.2 reads 'here' at execution).
- Play Escaped Grayback (E3).
- Activate his [Empower] and pay its cost by killing the Sand Soldier token. 185.2.d makes a token unit a unit for every rule of its type, so 203.3's impossibility bar is not reached and no Energy, Power or card leaves your hand.
- 441.1 performs the act and 441.2 makes Empowered a permanent state: the Grayback is +2 Might for the rest of the game, at M5 and therefore [Mighty] under 709.
- 441.1.b forbids a second Empower on the same body, so each further Grayback needs its own token.
Per iteration
+2 Might permanently on a 3-Energy body, paid for with a token that cost nothing
How it ends
engine only — one Empower per Grayback (441.1.b) and three of each card (103.2.b); nothing here scores and nothing recurs
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-order.md), issue #180 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 #180 — the first entry to use VEN-124 or SFD-157. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. 185.2.d is cited rather than 185.2.a because the question here is whether a token can be KILLED as a cost, which is a rules-for-its-type question and not a played-or-a-card question; this project's token traps are all on the other side of that line (416.1 over cards, 186.1 over zones) and it is worth keeping the two apart. The 'cheapest Empower cost' qualification in the notable is offered as a correction to a recorded claim, with all five members named. Trap check: 203.3 is cited so the cost is shown to be payable; 441.1.b and 441.2 are cited so the Empower is counted once and known to be permanent; 359.3.f.2 is cited so the token's location is a rule; 186.1 is cited so nothing is imagined to recur it.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16