Combo · INFINITE

Dragonstorm — six Dragons a pass, Vi recycles them one at a time, the Henge reconverts

19 cards · body + fury · verified

Pieces

• Gentle Gemdragon ×3 UNL-104 · engine · body

  When you play me or another Dragon, ready up to 2 runes.

• Herald of Scales ×2 OGN-140 · enabler · body

  Your Dragons' Energy costs are reduced by 2 Energy, to a minimum of 1 Energy.

• Blazing Scorcher ×3 OGN-001 · engine · fury

  [Accelerate] (You may pay 1 Energy + 1 Fury Power as an additional cost to have me enter ready.)

• Dune Drake ×3 OGN-131 · engine · body

  When I attack, give me +2 Might this turn if there is a ready enemy unit here.

• Kadregrin the Infernal ×2 OGN-038 · enabler · fury

  When you play me, draw 1 for each of your [Mighty] units. (A unit is Mighty while it has 5+ Might.)

• Vi, Destructive ×1 OGN-036 · engine · fury

  [Ganking] (I can move from battlefield to battlefield.) Recycle 1 from your trash: Give me +1 Might this turn.

• Dancing Grenade ×1 UNL-020 · enabler · fury

  Deal 2 to a unit. Its controller may play this spell again for 1 Power of any domain. If they do, this deals 1 additional Bonus Damage for each time this spell has dealt damage this turn.

• Detonate ×1 SFD-005 · enabler · fury

  Kill a gear. Its controller draws 2.

• Show of Strength ×1 SFD-106 · enabler · body

  [Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Draw 1 for each of your [Mighty] units. (A unit is Mighty while it has 5+ Might.)

• Confront ×1 OGN-129 · enabler · body

  [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Units you play this turn enter ready. Draw 1.

• Ancient Henge ×1 SFD-117 · engine · body

  Exhaust: [Reaction] — Pay any amount of Energy to [Add] that much 1 Power of any domain. (Abilities that add resources can't be reacted to.)

Payoff

Deck

• Legend domains cover Fury and Body: OGN-249 Relentless Storm (Volibear, which the source recommends), SFD-183 Purifier, UNL-183 Pridestalker, VEN-141 Butcher of the Sands. Every card here is Body or Fury.

Prerequisites

• SETUP: three Gemdragons, two Heralds, Vi and the two Kadregrin already on the board, the Ancient Henge in play, and the Main Deck emptied down to the loop's own cards. A Volibear player's own caveat, quoted: with that board 'you win in 100% of scenarios just by playing normally'.
• PRIME THE FIRST PASS WITH 11 POWER. The replayed Henge lands AFTER the Grenade has already spent its 8 Power, so each pass is paid for by the conversion made at the end of the previous one. 167 empties the Rune Pool only at the start of the Main Phase and at end of turn, so Energy and Power float across the whole combo turn.
• THE CARD LEDGER CLOSES EXACTLY, WITH NO SLACK. Spent per pass: 6 Dragons + Dancing Grenade + Detonate + Show of Strength + Confront + Ancient Henge = 11. Drawn per pass: Detonate 2, Show of Strength 8, Confront 1 = 11.
• AND IT CONSTRAINS THE BOARD, WHICH IS THE THING NOBODY HAD WRITTEN. When Show of Strength resolves the deck holds exactly 8 cards, so it must draw exactly 8, so the Mighty count must be exactly 8: three Gemdragons, Vi, the two Dragons replayed before it, and the two Kadregrin. The Heralds are 3 Might and never count. Two residents is not a preference — Show of Strength's draw is mandatory, and if the Mighty count exceeds the deck the draw Burns Out (431) and hands the opponent a point (194.1.d).
• THE GENERAL LAW, IF YOU WANT A DIFFERENT SIZE. With D cycling Dragons the deck holds D+2 at Show of Strength and the Mighty count is 6+R, so the loop balances whenever R = D − 4 — and it always balances on cards, since both sides come to D+5. D = 6 with two residents is the source's build at +10 Energy a pass; D = 4 with NO residents is the minimum viable version and nets +2 Energy a pass.
• WHY VI'S RECYCLING IS NOT GARBAGE GRABBER'S. 416.5 randomises the bottom of the Main Deck only when '2 or more cards are Recycled … simultaneously', and its own worked example is Garbage Grabber recycling 3 at once. Vi recycles ONE at a time, so 416.5 never engages and the order of the bottom is hers — which is what lets Confront find the Show of Strength she just put under an empty deck. The refuted Garbage Grabber variant of platewyrm-egg-defender-gate died on exactly this distinction.
• IT STANDS ON R15, RULED A ON 2026-09-06. Dancing Grenade's counter is per card per turn and survives the trash between recasts. Under the other reading every cast would deal 2, six Dragons would need 18 casts, and the pass would net exactly 0 — an engine, not a loop.
• THE BLIND FURY FINISH IS STILL NOT A DECK-OUT. The spell banishes the opponent's top card and then plays it, which sends it to their trash, and Burn Out recycles their whole trash back into their deck for a single point (431.2). Blind Fury is a way to spend the Energy, not a way to win by decking.
• The extra card per pass this line can afford (Blind Fury, or anything else) has to be paid for in Mighty bodies: one more resident buys one more draw, and R = D − 4 is the accounting.
• IT HAS TWO WIN CONDITIONS AS OF 2026-09-06 (issue #63), and until then it had none written down. dragonstorm-brambleback-trinity-conquer spends 24 Energy + 6 Power on two Red Brambleback, three Trinity Force and a Skyfall of Areion for 10 points in one Conquer — 30 Energy through the Henge, TWO passes, 3 Energy per point, the cheapest in the catalogue. dragonstorm-confront-grand-plaza spends nothing: the eight resident bodies (fourteen after a pass, ready through Confront) walk to The Grand Plaza as one free action. The only ordering constraint the first one adds is that the gear goes on AFTER the last Show of Strength, because a carrier at 4 + 6 + 2 = 12 Might is a ninth Mighty body and the ledger below wants exactly eight.
• TOURNAMENT RULES 505 IS WHY THIS LOOP MAY BE SHORTCUT AT AN EVENT, AND IT WAS CITED BY NOTHING (upgrade 2026-09-12, #191 batch 27; Tournament Rules, labelled). **505.2** - *"Players performing a loop must have each iteration of the loop be identical with no conditional actions"* - and **505.9** - *"If a sequence of actions is non-deterministic, it may not be shortcut and iterations must be performed manually."* Read against Core Rules 416.5, two or more cards recycled to the Main Deck simultaneously go to the bottom in RANDOM order, so a loop that recycles 2+ per pass is non-deterministic unless it draws all of them back. **The condition is checkable and this entry meets it**: the Main Deck is empty by construction, so every card recycled in a pass is drawn back inside that same pass and the random order never selects a subset. That means the *"zero spare draws"* invariant this catalogue maintains for a different reason - a fifth draw is Burn Out (431.1.a) on one side and a stranded random card on the other - is load-bearing a SECOND time, against a procedural rule it was not written for: it is exactly what makes the loop shortcuttable rather than hand-iterated at a table.
• THE EMPTY MAIN DECK IS A ONE-TURN STATE THAT DESTROYS ITSELF, WHICH NO ENTRY SAYS AND NONE CITED. This loop’s premise is an empty Main Deck, and the Core Rules put a clock on it that is separate from 431.1.a’s Burn Out on a fifth draw. 315.4.b is the Draw Phase task, "The Turn Player draws 1", and 315.4.b.1 is automatic: "If there are no cards remaining in their Main Deck to draw, the Turn Player has been Burned Out." There is no "may". The Burn Out then costs three things in sequence — 431.2.b, "Recycles their trash into their Main Deck", whose own reminder reads "When multiple cards are Recycled to the Main Deck at the same time, those cards must be randomized", which ERASES the known bottom this loop stands on; 431.2.c, "Chooses an opponent to gain 1 point"; and 431.2.d, "Completes the remainder of the action that caused them to burn out", restated at 315.4.b.2 as "After completing the Burn Out the Turn Player still Draws 1." Riot’s worked example at 431.2.d IS this situation, word for word: "A player attempts to draw 1 during their Draw Phase while their Main Deck is empty." Since 315.4 Draw Phase precedes 316 Main Phase, THE DECK MUST BE EMPTIED AND THE LOOP MUST WIN INSIDE THE SAME MAIN PHASE — an empty Main Deck cannot be carried across a turn boundary at all, and the landing is exact rather than approximate: the turn before the kill must end with enough cards for that turn’s forced removals and no more. A mandatory mill makes it tighter, because 431.1 is written over moving cards "to any other zone in excess of the number of cards remaining", so 431.1.b Burns you Out for a [Burn N] exactly as 431.1.a does for a draw. And the one escape does not exist: VEN-022 Endless Riches is the pool’s ONLY card printing "Skip" (one row in the corpus), it is Fury, it banishes your hand and trash on entry, and its own "[Burn 7]" is itself a Burn Out under 431.1 against an empty deck — so it cannot save a loop even in principle.
• THE GEAR THIS LOOP RUNS ON IS *NOT* AN EQUIPMENT, SO ITS ANSWER SET IS NARROWER THAN THE REST OF THE CLASS — AND NO ANSWER REACHES IT AT `[Reaction]` SPEED (added 2026-09-13, #200). A loop is a SERIAL dependency, so every link is load-bearing and one removal ends it. Of the fifteen enemy-facing printings that reach a gear, **exactly one is `[Reaction]` — `SFD-011 Angle Shot` — and it is a DETACH that names *"an Equipment"*.** `OGN-212 Forge of the Future` and `SFD-117 Ancient Henge` carry `type: gear` and an EMPTY tag list, so neither is an Equipment and neither is ever attached: **a gear that is never attached cannot be detached, so Angle Shot cannot touch them at all.** Of the remaining fourteen, four carry `[Action]` and reach a Showdown on either player’s turn (806.1.c.1) and the rest are plain spells that 155 confines to their controller’s own Main Phase. **SO EVERY ANSWER TO THIS LOOP MUST BE CAST ON THE OPPONENT’S OWN TURN, A FULL TURN AHEAD AND TELEGRAPHED** — the loop itself runs entirely inside your Main Phase. That is the second disjointness on the same halving of the gear pool this project already records from the exhaust side, where the 40 Equipment carry ZERO exhaust symbols and 40 of the other 67 do. **AND THE FORGE IS ALREADY DYING EVERY PASS, WHICH CUTS BOTH WAYS**: its own text is *"Kill this: Recycle up to 4 cards from trashes"*, so the recycle is PAID by killing it and the line rebuys it each pass — but an opponent’s kill removes it WITHOUT handing over the recycle, and that recycle is this loop’s only refill against a ledger that runs with zero spare draws. Whether the Burn Out lands in the same pass depends on where in the pass the kill falls, which only this entry’s own ledger can settle and none of these entries states.

Steps

1. Board set up as above, 11 Power banked, six 5 Might Dragons on the board.
2. Dancing Grenade, targeting only the six 5 Might Dragons and never a Gemdragon or a Kadregrin: eight casts dealing 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 kill all six. 2 Energy + 8 Power.
3. Vi recycles, one card at a time, the six Dragons plus the Grenade plus last pass's Confront: deck 8. Every recycle gives her +1 Might, so she is comfortably Mighty.
4. Detonate (1 Energy + 1 Power): kill your own Ancient Henge, draw 2 Dragons. Deck 6.
5. Vi recycles Detonate and the Henge: deck 8.
6. Play the two drawn Dragons for 1 Energy each; the three Gemdragons ready 6 runes apiece, and exhausting them is +6 Energy per Dragon. +10 Energy.
7. Show of Strength (2 Energy + 1 Power): eight Mighty units — three Gemdragons, Vi, the two Kadregrin, the two fresh Dragons — draw exactly the 8 cards in the deck. Deck 0.
8. Replay Ancient Henge (2 Energy + 1 Power). It enters ready (143.4).
9. Vi recycles the spent Show of Strength: deck 1. Confront (2 Energy) draws it back. Deck 0.
10. Play the remaining four Dragons: +20 Energy. The board is exactly as it was at step 1.
11. REPEAT from step 2. Nothing decremented: 11 cards drawn against 11 spent, and +21 Energy against 11 Power, which one Henge activation converts one for one. Each pass banks +10 Energy and the loop has no exit condition.

Per iteration

+10 Energy a pass (+30 from six Dragons, −9 Energy and −11 Power in spells, the Power bought back one for one by the Henge), and 11 cards drawn against 11 spent

How it ends

unbounded Energy and, through the Henge's uncapped one-for-one conversion, unbounded Power in a single turn; it wins by buying dragonstorm-brambleback-trinity-conquer (30 Energy, 10 points in one Conquer) or, for nothing at all, by walking its own board onto The Grand Plaza (dragonstorm-confront-grand-plaza)

Sources

Published elsewhere

• Reddit r/riftboundtcg — "Explanation for Ancient Henge infinite power combo", verylaggy — RQ Sydney Round 1 stream, Voli-Dragon vs Irelia 2026-05-16
• Reddit r/riftboundtcg — "The Rengar combo player from RQ Sydney R1 Stream is back with his 12th place Endless Riches Rengar deck!", Sylencia 2026-08-18
• Turn 'em Sideways!, "Riftbound's Infinite Combos EXPLAINED" — chapter 'Rengar/Volibear' 6:40–13:08 2026-07-02
• YouTube - Laggy, "Riftbound's FIRST INFINITE COMBO? - Riftbound Unleashed", 11.298 views - the full walkthrough this entry had been written without 2026-05-06

Walked here, in this project

• REFUTE pass 2, 2026-09-03 2026-09-03 record
• Hand walk 2026-09-04 2026-09-04 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue