Combo · ALT WIN

Gutter Palace — exactly 4 and 4

1 card · mind · verified

Pieces

Gutter Palace ×1 UNL-088 · payoff · mind
At the start of your Beginning Phase, if you have exactly 4 cards in hand and exactly 4 units at battlefields, you win the game. Discard 1, Exhaust: Play a 1 Might Bird unit token with [Deflect]. (Opponents must pay 1 Power of any domain to choose it with a spell or ability.)

Payoff

Win the game

Deck

Mono-Mind: any Mind legend.

Run play

two dials and a hand you keep spending: what "exactly 4 and exactly 4" costs

Prerequisites

End your turn at exactly 4 cards in hand and exactly 4 units at battlefields; its own ability tunes both counts at once, in the direction the check needs (hand -1, units +1).
The Bird reaches a battlefield: 355.2 has you choose the location a played Unit enters, and 355.2.a makes the controller's Base or a Battlefield they control valid by default. The instruction names no location, so the ordinary choice applies.
Timing is why this works with a normal hand: the check is the Beginning Step (315.2.a), while the draw is two phases later in the Draw Phase (315.4). The count is taken against the hand you passed the turn with.
Gear enters ready (143.4 makes only Units enter exhausted), so the ability is live the turn Gutter Palace lands, but it exhausts: one adjustment per turn.
Exposed for a full opponent turn. Killing one unit at a battlefield breaks the count; [Deflect] on the Bird is the only protection in the card. Time Warp (OGN-122) removes the exposure by giving you the next Beginning Phase with no opponent turn between - count Time Warp itself leaving the hand.
ONE ENERGY ANSWERS THE DIAL ITSELF, AND *EXACTLY* IS WHY ONE BODY IS ENOUGH (added 2026-09-13, #200). `UNL-088 Gutter Palace` makes its own bodies — *"Discard 1, :rb_exhaust:: Play a 1 :rb_might: Bird unit token with [Deflect]"* — and 187.7 fixes that token at 1 Might by rule, so `OGN-133 Flurry of Blades` (Body, E1, `[Reaction]`, *"Deal 1 to all units at battlefields"*) kills every Bird on the board at once under 143.2.a. [Deflect] does not help: 355.10.d makes a deal-to-ALL programmatic rather than targeted, so 809.1.c charges nothing however many Birds are standing. AND THIS WIN CONDITION IS THE ONE THE CATALOGUE HAS THAT CAN BE OVERSHOT: the Palace asks for *"exactly 4 cards in hand and exactly 4 units at battlefields"*, so an opponent does not have to clear the board — REMOVING ONE BODY IS ENOUGH, and so is HANDING YOU A CARD. Every other finisher here asks for MORE of something — with ONE exception, `VEN-138 Shen, Leader of the Kinkou Order`, which pays *"if there is exactly one other unit you control here"* and heads two finishers (narrowed 2026-09-13). What is still unique to the Palace is the axis: **Shen’s count is something the opponent can only push DOWN, while the Palace’s hand size is one they can push UP BY HELPING YOU.** And that half has a card: `SFD-005 Detonate` (Fury, E1 + 1 Power) reads *"Kill a gear. Its controller draws 2."* — **the Gutter Palace IS a gear**, so one Energy and one Fury Power destroys the win condition AND pushes the hand dial in the same card. `OGN-033 Shakedown` (Fury, E2 + 1 Power, `[Reaction]`) offers *"Deal 6 to it unless its controller has you draw 2"* — either axis, the OPPONENT’s choice, inside the window. Before this note no Gutter Palace entry named gear removal at all, against a win condition that IS the gear. The timing is what makes it hard to defend rather than merely fragile. The clause sits immediately after *"At the start of your Beginning Phase"*, so 383.2.a.1 makes it part of the Trigger Condition and it is READ WHEN THE TRIGGER IS PLACED — there is nothing to respond to afterwards. And the Palace’s own dial is an Activated Ability with an exhaust in its cost, so 381 (*"All Activated Abilities can only be activated on the Controlling Player’s Turn and during an Open State"*) confines it to YOUR turn, which is never the turn on which the opponent moves a dial. The answer therefore has to be BANKED and held through their whole turn, which is what `gutter-palace-reaction-dials` buys and what this line does not.

Bodies no card supplies

UNL-088 Gutter Palace: "if you have exactly 4 cards in hand and exactly 4 units at battlefields, you win the game"

Steps

Play Gutter Palace (gear enters ready). Adjust with its discard/exhaust ability: hand −1, units at battlefields +1.
Pass at 4/4. At the start of your next Beginning Phase the check fires: you win.

How it ends

win the game

Sources

Published elsewhere

Walked here, in this project

Phase 0 hunt, entry A-04 2026-09-02 record
REFUTE pass 2026-09-03 2026-09-03 record
Hand walk, 2026-09-04 — full pass against Core Rules 2026-07-16 2026-09-04 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.

With Time Warp (OGN-122) the check comes at your very next Beginning Phase with no opponent turn between; adjust the hand count for Time Warp leaving the hand. Whether a Temporary body can be counted was filed as an open reading on 2026-09-03 and settled in this entry's favour on 2026-09-04; the reasoning follows and the entry carries no open reading today. 816.1.b is "at the start of ... Beginning Phase, before scoring, kill this" - before the Scoring Step (315.2.b), whereas the win check is the Beginning Step (315.2.a). Both trigger at the same instant and both are yours, so 383.3.d puts the order in your hands ("the player that controls the Abilities selects the order to place them on the Chain"). SETTLED 2026-09-04 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-04-reddit-mining-and-gutter-palace.md): a Temporary body CAN be counted, and this is no longer an open reading. 816.1 makes Temporary a Triggered Ability keyword and 816.1.c fixes its trigger condition as the controller's Beginning Phase starting - the same instant as this card's win check - so 383.3.d applies verbatim: "the player that controls the Abilities selects the order to place them on the Chain". Both are yours, so the win resolves first. 816.1.b's "before scoring" forces nothing against it, since the Scoring Step (315.2.b) is later than the Beginning Step (315.2.a) where both trigger. (L4-13) REFUTE 2026-09-03: SURVIVES. HAND-WALKED 2026-09-04 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-04-three-alt-win-and-burst.md), promoted to verified. 195 grants the win; the load-bearing checks were the Bird’s legal destination (355.2/355.2.a) and the Beginning-Step-before-Draw-Phase ordering (315.2.a vs 315.4). See gutter-palace-keeper-time-warp for the concrete one-turn assembly the community found.

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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