Combo · ENGINE

A Tank's Might is a toll, not a stat - and Order has two ways to raise it after the attackers are declared, one of which costs nothing

9 cards · order · verified

Pieces

• Galio, Indefatigable ×3 UNL-171 · payoff · order

  [Deflect] (Opponents must pay 1 Power of any domain to choose me with a spell or ability.) [Tank] (I must be assigned combat damage first.) I don't deal combat damage.

• Back to Back ×3 OGN-206 · enabler · order

  [Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Give two friendly units each +2 Might this turn.

• Divining Shells ×3 UNL-161 · enabler · order

  [Vision] (When you play this, look at the top card of your Main Deck. You may recycle it.) [Action][>] Kill this, Exhaust: Give a unit +2 Might this turn.

Payoff

Deck

• All three 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 - Starter, 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.
• None of the three is banned or restricted in either format, and none is a Signature card.
• Galio at a battlefield with the rest of your garrison, since [Tank] only orders the assignment among units the same player controls (815.1.b).

Prerequisites

• WHAT [TANK] ACTUALLY SAYS, WHICH IS STRONGER THAN THE REMINDER TEXT. 815.1.b: 'I must be assigned lethal damage before any other unit with the same controller as me that does not have [Tank] during the Combat Damage step', and 815.1.c.2: 'Units without Tank are invalid assignments until all units with Tank have lethal damage assigned to them.' Read with 465.2.c.3 ('Units must have lethal damage assigned to them in full before damage is assigned to a different Unit') the consequence is a hard threshold, not a soft one: an attacker whose summed Might is BELOW the Tank's Might kills nothing at all, because the Tank cannot be finished and nobody else is a legal assignment.
• THE ARITHMETIC, WITH THE QUANTITIES DECLARED. Galio is Might 6. Back to Back puts him at 8 and a second body at +2 with him. Divining Shells puts him at 10. 465.2.c gives the attacker 'an amount of damage equal to their summed Might', so an attack summing 9 - two Might-4 bodies and a Might-1 - kills NOTHING against a Might-10 Galio, and 466.1.a.1 ('Insert "3c. Heal all Units."') with 143.3.b.2 erases the 9 at the combat cleanup. Both pumps say 'this turn', so the toll is rebuilt from 6 next turn: this is a defensive turn you buy, not a wall you build.
• WHY BOTH PUMPS ARE IN uses[] RATHER THAN ONE. They are not alternatives, they are cumulative and they are paid from different places. Back to Back is a card in hand and costs 3 Energy; Divining Shells is a permanent already on the board and its activation is 'Kill this, :rb_exhaust:' - NO Energy and NO Power. On the turn you have tapped out to develop, the Shells is the only pump in the domain you can still make. Swept over every Order card that grants Might this turn - OGN-206 Back to Back (E3), OGN-207 Call to Glory (E3, or free by spending a buff), OGN-233 Grand Strategem (E6 + 3 Power), SFD-151 Bonds of Strength (E2, E4 with its [Repeat]), UNL-155 Heroic Charge (E3), UNL-161 Divining Shells (0), VEN-121 Reluctant Leader and VEN-125 Hungry Wolf (self-only) - the Shells is the only free one, and Call to Glory's free mode costs a buff, which 702.2.b removes from the body carrying it.
• BOTH LAND AFTER THE ATTACKERS ARE DECLARED, WHICH IS THE WHOLE POINT. 464.2.c.3 gives the Attacker and Defender designations, and only then is the attacker's summed Might countable under 465.2.c. 813.1.c.1 lets a [Reaction] card be played 'during Closed States on any player's turn' and 813.1.b grants Reaction every permission of Action; 806.1.c.2 says an [Action] ability 'can be activated during showdowns on any player's turn'. So you buy exactly the toll the board in front of you requires and never a point more.
• GALIO'S [DEFLECT] IS WHAT STOPS THE CHEAP ANSWER. 809.1.c prices Deflect as extra Power 'for each time they choose', 809.1.c.1 in any Domain - so removing the toll before combat costs an extra rainbow on top of the removal. And 815.2 ('Multiple instances of Tank are redundant') is why a second Tank grant on Galio is worth nothing: the lever is his Might, not the keyword.
• THE SECOND +2 IS NOT WASTED. Back to Back names TWO friendly units, and 815.1.c.2 only bars assignment to non-Tank bodies until the Tanks have lethal - so once Galio is finished the extra +2 raises the next body's own lethal threshold under 465.2.c.4 ('Units cannot have more damage assigned to them than the minimum required'). Against an attack big enough to kill Galio, the spell is still worth 2 more damage the attacker has to find.
• DISTINCT FROM THE THREE CATALOGUED [TANK] ENTRIES, AND THE DIFFERENCE IS THE LEVER. tianna-wildclaw-point-lock stacks BODIES behind a Tank; eye-of-twilight-zephyr-sage-tank-redirect and royal-entourage-eye-of-twilight-double-tank GRANT the keyword to a body that lacked it. This entry changes neither the number of Tanks nor who has the keyword - it raises the Might of a Tank that already has it, which 815.1.c.2 turns into damage the attacker must spend and 815.2 says a second grant never could.
• WHAT IT IS NOT. Nothing here scores, and Galio 'doesn't deal combat damage', so this line never wins a combat by damage - it survives one. The point it protects has to come from elsewhere.

Steps

1. Play Galio, Indefatigable (3 Energy + 1 Power) to a battlefield and play Divining Shells (2 Energy); 143.4 exhausts units only, so the gear is ready to use the turn it lands.
2. Let the opponent declare the attack. 464.2.c.3 hands out the Attacker and Defender designations and 465.2.c fixes their summed Might, which is now countable.
3. In the resulting Closed State play Back to Back (3 Energy, [Reaction], 813.1.c.1): +2 on Galio and +2 on a second body of yours. Galio is Might 8.
4. If the attack still reaches 8, activate Divining Shells - 'Kill this, exhaust', no Energy and no Power, at [Action] speed (806.1.c.2) - for +2 more. Galio is Might 10.
5. The attacker assigns their whole summed Might and, being short of Galio's Might, cannot assign lethal to him; 815.1.c.2 makes every other body of yours an invalid assignment, so nothing dies. 466.1.a.1 heals the marked damage at the combat cleanup.
6. Both pumps expire at end of turn; the toll is back to 6 next turn and the Shells is gone.

Per iteration

up to +4 Might on the toll in one combat, of which +2 costs no Energy and no Power

How it ends

engine only - one defensive turn per Back to Back and per Divining Shells, three of each by 103.2.b, and both pumps say 'this turn' so the toll resets to Galio's printed 6; nothing here scores and Galio deals no combat damage

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-order.md, batch 6) 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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