Combo · ALT WIN

Flurry of Feathers on the opponent's turn — four Birds at Reaction speed, out of reach of their attacks only if cast in their last window

2 cards · calm · candidate

Pieces

• The Grand Plaza ×1 OGN-293 · battlefield

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

• Flurry of Feathers ×1 UNL-044 · enabler · calm

  [Reaction] Choose one — • Counter a spell. • Play four 1 Might Bird unit tokens with [Deflect]. (Opponents must pay 1 Power of any domain to choose them with a spell or ability.)

Payoff

Deck

• Mono-Calm: any Calm legend. The Grand Plaza is domainless.

Prerequisites

• The Grand Plaza must be the battlefield in play: random 1 of 3 in Duel (485.5) and Skirmish (487.5), chosen in Match (486.5). 103.4.c and Tournament Rules 402.1 forbid bringing two battlefields of the same name, so a second copy is not a way to raise the odds.
• THREE OF YOUR UNITS ALREADY ON THE PLAZA, and the Plaza already yours - a Hold needs Control.
• THE WINDOW IS THE OPPONENT'S TURN, NOT YOUR BEGINNING PHASE, and that is the whole point of the card. 813.1.c.1 makes a [Reaction] card playable 'during Closed States on any player's turn', and 331.1 says the turn is in a Closed State exactly when a Chain exists. So the moment the opponent plays anything or any trigger fires on their turn, the four Birds land - and then they get no further turn before your Beginning Phase measures the Hold. That is strictly better than grand-plaza-recruit-vanguard, whose own note has to say 'survive one opponent turn with 7+ units on it'. CORRECTED 2026-10-27 (#503): they get no further TURN, but they keep the rest of the CURRENT one: a Chain early in their Main Phase leaves them every Standard Move and attack against the seven (144.4.a), so the Birds land after their last window only if the Flurry is played in the last window of their turn. A [Reaction] has two kinds of window on their turn, a Chain (813.1.c.1, 331.1) and a Showdown (813.1.b, 806.1.c.1, 316.8.c), which any combat opens (316.8.a), their attack on the Plaza for instance, and so does a move onto an empty battlefield (316.8.b.1); only an opponent who plays no card, fires no trigger, starts no combat and moves onto no empty battlefield gives no window at all. Status downgraded from verified to candidate for this reason: the entry's name and this note claim a timing its own step 1 does not deliver.
• WHAT DOES NOT WORK, AND THE COMMUNITY LINE THAT DOES IT. You cannot hold three units, let the Plaza trigger, and add the Birds in response. Two independent rules stop it. 383.2.a.1: 'Any additional conditional statement immediately after the Condition must be true in order for the Condition to be fulfilled' - the 'if you have 7+ units here' sits immediately after 'When you hold here', so with three units the ability never reaches the chain and there is nothing to respond to. And 335: with no chain, no showdown and no combat, 'if it is any other phase of the turn, proceed to the next substep, step, phase, or turn' - nobody receives priority in the Beginning Phase at all.
• The Birds carry [Deflect], so every removal the opponent aims at one costs them a rainbow Power (809.1.c). That is what this line buys over Recruit the Vanguard's plain Recruits, along with Calm instead of Order and 4 Energy + 2 Power instead of 6 Energy.
• The Plaza is symmetric and visible. Dropping the count below 7 is easier than conquering it, which is the honest counter - and the Deflect tax is the answer to it.
• 1 ENERGY ANSWERS THE GARRISON THIS LINE NEEDS, AND THE BODIES ARE TOKENS SO NO uses[] ROW SHOWS IT. OGN-133 Flurry of Blades is body, 1 Energy: "[Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Deal 1 to all units at battlefields.". This line's garrison is Recruit and Bird tokens, whose Might is fixed by rule 187 (Recruit 1, Bird 1) rather than by any card in uses[] - which is why no ingredient row warns you. 143.2.a kills on marked damage at or above Might, so it kills every body at or below Might 1 SIMULTANEOUSLY however many there are: the binding constraint is MIGHT PER BODY, not the number of bodies, so going wider answers nothing. THE IDENTITY DOES HOLD AN ANSWER: OGS-013 Garen, Commander +1, SFD-089 Rumble, Scrapper +1 (Mech bodies only), UNL-077 Soul Shepherd +1 (token bodies only) - a permanent, garrison-wide +Might is the only thing that lifts every body at once, since a single-target pump is useless against a sweep that hits all of them. (A battlefield-based protection is NOT available here, because this line already requires a battlefield: 485.4.a gives each player three and "Only 1 will be used, chosen during setup", and 103.4.c forbids duplicate names, so two of your own battlefields never share a board.) WHEN THE ANSWER LANDS, AND IT IS NOT INSIDE THE HOLD. A Hold resolves at 315.2.b.2, which Holds "all Battlefields they Control", inside YOUR Beginning Phase - and 312.2.a gives a player priority only "When the turn is in a Neutral Open State during their Main Phase", i.e. their own. So the opponent cannot answer in the Hold window itself; they answer on THEIR turn, which is the turn immediately before it. The cost of that is yours, not theirs: your own Main Phase comes AFTER your Beginning Phase (315 then 316), so there is no window in which to rebuild the garrison. Holding up a [Reaction] on their turn is the only response this line has.
• THE SENTENCE ABOVE IS THE ONE OF ITS TWENTY-EIGHT THAT IS FALSE, AND IT IS FALSE BECAUSE THIS LINE IS MONO-CALM (corrected 2026-09-14, #200). "THE IDENTITY DOES HOLD AN ANSWER" is emitted on 28 entries; checked name by name against each entry's own implied identity under 103.1.b, **27 list at least one in-domain card and this one lists none** - `OGS-013 Garen, Commander` is order, `SFD-089 Rumble, Scrapper` is mind AND Mech-scoped against a garrison of Birds (its tenth listing and still live zero), `UNL-077 Soul Shepherd` is mind. All three cost the second domain slot, so the identity holds no answer at all and a partner domain does. **THE TWO REAL ANSWERS, NEITHER NAMED BY ANY OF THE 23 GRAND PLAZA ENTRIES.** `UNL-191 Wuju Master` - *"[Level 6][>] Your units have +1 :rb_might:"* - is a **LEGEND**, so it is the only garrison-wide +1 in the pool that costs **no card slot at all**; body/calm prints four legend names, and Calm prints five mono-calm-or-colourless XP faucets (`UNL-034`, `UNL-040`, `UNL-047`, `UNL-053`, `UNL-213`), so [Level 6] is reachable without spending the partner domain on the faucet either. Its price is printed in the rule rather than on the card: **824.1.b.1** makes [Level] a CONDITIONAL GRANT and not a rung (it is functionally short for *"While you have [N] or more XP, this card gains"* that text) - and **824.1.d** says *"The Dependent Ability will be Inactive as soon as the controlling player has less than [N] XP."*, so the deck must HOLD the XP, never spend it. `VEN-018 Rage Amplifier` (fury gear, E4 + 1 Power) is the immediate alternative with no XP at all, and 359.2.d enters a non-unit gear READY at the base so it costs none of the seven - but **calm/fury is ONE legend name, `Rogue Assassin`**, one of the three single-name pairs in the legend census, where the Wuju Master route narrows nothing.
• THE ONE-ENERGY ANSWER IS TWO CARDS, NOT ONE, AND THE SECOND IS IN A DIFFERENT DOMAIN (added 2026-09-14, #200). Swept over every row of `data/corpus_flat.txt` with `/(deal|kill)[^|]{0,70}\ball\b[^|]{0,50}unit/i` and again with an independent `/deal..(2-19)..(each|every|all|among|split|units)/i`, 15 hits each, all read: besides `OGN-133 Flurry of Blades` (body, E1, [Reaction]) the pool prints **`UNL-072 Crescent Strike`** (**mind**, E3 + 1 Power, [Action], NOT Signature) - *"Choose a battlefield and an enemy unit there. Deal 4 to that unit and **1 to each other enemy unit there**."* Against seven Might-1 Birds it clears all seven; against Might-2 bodies it kills exactly one. **So the 1-damage tier spans TWO domains and this garrison cannot be treated as a Body matchup.** `scripts/adversarial-check.mjs` cannot see it: `sweepMassAnswers()` requires *"to all units at a battlefield"* and this card says *"each other enemy unit there"* - reported to that script's owner rather than patched here. **AND BETWEEN 1 AND 3 DAMAGE THE POOL PRINTS NOTHING THAT REACHES A PASSIVE GARRISON**: every 2-damage mass card is combat- or attack-gated (`OGN-127` *"in combat"*; `OGN-148`, `OGN-159`, `OGN-200`, `VEN-019`, `SFD-190` *"when I attack"*), so a single +1 moves the cheapest non-Signature mass answer from **E1 to E6 + 1 Power** (`OGS-002 Firestorm`, fury). **THE HONEST LIMIT IS THAT A +1 DOES NOT MAKE THE GARRISON SAFE, IT MAKES THE ANSWER TWO CARDS**: `VEN-018` is a gear, and although it carries no Equipment tag - so `SFD-011 Angle Shot`, the pool's only Reaction-speed gear answer, cannot reach it - eight enemy-facing cards can, cheapest `SFD-135 Factory Recall` (chaos, E1) and `SFD-005 Detonate` (fury, E1 + 1 Power). Body, the domain that prints the E1 sweep, has exactly ONE (swept widest: nine mono-Body cards mention gear, eight are friendly-facing or own-zone): `SFD-109 Akshan, Mischievous` at E4 + 2 Body Power, which **STEALS rather than kills** - *"You control it until I leave the board"* - so *"Your units have +1 :rb_might:"* then reads for them.
• OPPONENT BOARD AND KILL PRICE - ADDED 2026-10-27 (#503). THE BOARD IT WINS ON: what the opponent can still do depends on WHERE in their turn the Flurry is cast. A [Reaction] has two kinds of window on their turn, a Chain (813.1.c.1, 331.1) and a Showdown (813.1.b, 806.1.c.1, 316.8.c), which any combat opens (316.8.a), their attack on the Plaza for instance, and so does a move onto an empty battlefield (316.8.b.1): an opponent who plays no card, fires no trigger, starts no combat and moves onto no empty battlefield gives no window at all, and one whose first window comes early keeps the rest of the turn, so a ready body in their base can still Standard Move onto the Plaza (144.4.a) and fight the seven. Cast in a Chain after their last attack, no combat is left and the only answers are Reaction-speed: counter the Flurry (425.1.c refunds nothing) or kill or bounce one of your three units in response, which leaves six after the Birds. Cast earlier, N is seven and the cheapest of the N - 6 = 1 units to kill is a 1-Might Bird (187.7, 142.4.b), so 1 damage, because [Deflect] taxes only choosing it with a spell or ability (809.1.c), not combat damage; the three units' Might is not fixed by the entry.
• COMPARED WITH frisky-hunter-grand-plaza - ADDED 2026-10-27 (#503, from the #496 play's Leads). This line is four cards for the seven (Flurry of Feathers and the three units) against Frisky's five, but it costs 4 Energy and 2 Calm Power (UNL-044) where Frisky's line costs no Power, and Flurry is a spell where every card in Frisky's line is a unit. A counterspell answers it and refunds nothing (425.1.c), and VEN-045 Helm of Suppression makes it one Energy dearer, neither of which touches Frisky's board. Frisky's Birds also come from a trigger on your own turn, while this line needs the opponent to open a window on their turn, a Chain (331.1) or a Showdown (316.8.a, 316.8.b.1), before the Birds can land.

Bodies no card supplies

Get three of your units onto The Grand Plaza and keep Control of it

Steps

1. Get three of your units onto The Grand Plaza and keep Control of it.
2. On the opponent's turn, the first time a Chain exists (331.1) - they play a card, or any trigger fires - play Flurry of Feathers for 4 Energy + 2 Calm Power and choose the second mode.
3. Place all four Birds on the Plaza (355.2, 355.2.a). Seven units.
4. Your Beginning Phase, Scoring Step (315.2.b.2): you Hold the Plaza, the count is 7, and rule 195 gives you the game.

How it ends

win the game

Sources

Published elsewhere

• YouTube — AkeenaTV, "Lillia Aggro Riftbound Deck" — el mismo creador de la línea vieja, corrigiéndose en video 2026-04-07
• YouTube - AkeenaTV, "Sneaky Insta-Win Combo in a Control Deck?" - the card and the four Birds; its SEQUENCE is refuted by this walk 2026-03-27
• YouTube - Turn 'em Sideways!, "GUTTER PALACE COMBO IS REAL?!?!", 16.465 views - a player saying in his own words what rule 335 says 2026-06-25
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
• Internet mining lens — issue #46 (GitHub) 2026-09-06
• Regional Qualifier Sydney — "Sydney's Top Decks" (playriftbound.com) 2026-05-21
• Riftbound: Unleashed Win-A-Case @ Nexus (riftbound.gg) 2026-05-09

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-06 2026-09-06 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue