Combo · ENGINE

The other two cards on the seven-rune clock - one is immune to spells and not to combat, the other answers a gear either way

6 cards · calm · verified

Pieces

• Esteemed Hierophant ×3 VEN-025 · payoff · calm

  While you control 7 or more runes, prevent all damage that enemy spells and abilities would deal to me.

• Tomb-Raider Barbara ×3 VEN-037 · payoff · calm

  When you play me, if you control 7 or more runes, choose an enemy gear. If it's [Empowered], disempower it. Otherwise, kill it.

Payoff

Deck

• Both cards are mono-Calm, so 103.1.b.3 admits any legend with Calm in its pair. If the deck also runs VEN-146 Siphoning Strike - the third card on this clock - 103.2.d.2 forces VEN-145 / VEN-192 Curator of the Sands, the only Nasus legend, and that is the shell the family is usually built in.
• Neither card is banned or restricted in either format, and neither is a Signature card.
• Seven runes controlled. 315.3.b channels two free every Channel Phase, so the threshold arrives on its own around turn four; 161.2.a caps the Rune Deck at exactly twelve.

Prerequisites

• THE FAMILY IS EXACTLY THREE CARDS AND THEY SHARE ONE CLOCK. `grep -in "7 or more runes" data/corpus_flat.txt` returns VEN-025 Esteemed Hierophant, VEN-037 Tomb-Raider Barbara and VEN-146 Siphoning Strike, and nothing else. A deck that pays the rune curve for one of them is paid three times, which is the only reason a threshold this high is worth building toward. The Strike is walked as siphoning-strike-nasus-guardian-rune-threshold.
• AND AN EXHAUSTED RUNE COUNTS. 164.2.b's cost is the RECYCLE and not the rune's exhaust, so a rune tapped for Energy this turn is still a rune you control, and 415.3.a hands it back at your own Awakening. The threshold is a board count, never a mana count.
• WHAT 'PREVENT' MEANS, AND WHY THE HIEROPHANT IS NOT A WALL. 437.4: 'Damage dealt to a Unit that has that all of that damage Prevented is not considered to have been dealt to it at all' - so a burn spell aimed at him generates no damage and therefore no kill event, which is a different mechanism from a would-die replacement (808.1.d.1) and cannot be answered the same way. But the clause is scoped to 'enemy spells and abilities', and 417.6.c says 'Damage Dealt as a result of being assigned during Combat has the Units as its source' - so combat damage is not spell or ability damage and goes straight through. He is immune to removal and ordinary in a fight.
• AND HE IS ALSO NOT IMMUNE TO THE CHALLENGE FAMILY. 417.6.b.3 makes 'they deal damage equal to their Mights to each other' UNIT damage dealt by the chosen units rather than by the spell - Riot's worked example is Challenge - so every card in that family reaches him. Seven cards print it and six are Body; the entry pairing that mechanism with a [Tank] wall is carnivorous-snapvine-rampage-tank-bypass.
• THE BARBARA IS THE POOL'S ONE ANSWER TO AN EMPOWERED GEAR THAT DOES NOT NEED TO KILL IT. 441.2 makes Empowered 'a state for Game Objects on the board' and 441.1.b forbids re-Empowering, so stripping the state is permanent unless the opponent has another Empower source pointed at that gear. Every other answer in the pool destroys the gear instead, which a would-die replacement or a Deathknell can profit from; this one does not generate a death at all. Against an unempowered gear it simply kills.
• THE THRESHOLD IS CHECKED AT DIFFERENT TIMES ON THE TWO CARDS, AND THAT MATTERS. The Hierophant's is a continuous 'While you control...', re-read at every moment; the Barbara's is inside a play trigger, so 359.3.f.2 checks it on execution of that trigger and a rune channelled earlier the same turn counts. A Barbara played at six runes does nothing at all - 055's 'do as much as you can' does not manufacture the condition - so hold her.
• THE ARITHMETIC. 5 Energy for a 5 Might body that no removal spell in the pool can touch past the threshold, and 4 Energy for a body that answers a gear. Three of each by 103.2.b. Neither is worth a slot before turn four, which is the honest cost of the clock.
• WHAT IT IS NOT. Nothing here scores; 469 defines Scoring as Conquer or Hold.
• 437.2 IS WHY 437.4 WORKS, AND IT SITS ONE PARAGRAPH AWAY IN THE SAME BLOCK: "When damage is Prevented, it is replaced with an event where it deals that much damage reduced by the Prevent Value tracked on the Unit specifically." Prevent does not undo damage after the fact - it REPLACES the damage event with a smaller one, and at zero there is nothing left to mark, which is the mechanism behind 437.4's "not considered to have been dealt to it at all." 369.2 puts it beyond argument by naming it: "Some Game Actions are themselves Replacement Effects. Example: Burning Out is a replacement effect. Example: Preventing Damage is a replacement effect." So a Prevent and a heal/exhaust/recall would-die shield are BOTH Replacement Effects and differ in WHICH EVENT they replace - the damage event against the death event - which is the precise reason this line generates no kill event.

Steps

1. Channel the curve. 315.3.b gives two runes every Channel Phase and 161.2.a caps the deck at twelve, so seven arrives around turn four without any card being spent on it.
2. Play Esteemed Hierophant (5 Energy). Past the threshold, 437.4 means no enemy spell or ability can deal him damage at all.
3. Expect him to die in combat anyway if he is outmatched: 417.6.c makes combat damage come from the units, not from a spell or ability.
4. Hold Tomb-Raider Barbara until the count is at seven - her check is inside her play trigger and is read on execution (359.3.f.2).
5. Play her (4 Energy) and choose an enemy gear: Empowered, it is disempowered permanently (441.1.b); otherwise it dies.
6. If the deck also runs Siphoning Strike, every rune the Strike's rider channels moves all three cards forward together.

Per iteration

one enemy gear answered per Barbara, and a body immune to spell and ability damage for as long as the count holds

How it ends

engine only - three of each card by 103.2.b, nothing before the threshold, and the Hierophant's protection stops at combat damage (417.6.c); 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
• Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt (built from Riot's gallery content API) 2026-09-07

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-07 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-07-uncatalogued-calm-mind-order.md, batch 3) 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue