Combo · ALT WIN

Herald of the Arcane + Heimerdinger + one Vanguard Armory — seven Recruits at the Grand Plaza for 1 Energy

4 cards · mind + order · verified

Pieces

• The Grand Plaza ×1 OGN-293 · battlefield

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

• Herald of the Arcane ×1 OGN-265 · legend · mind/order

  1 Energy, Exhaust: Play a 1 Might Recruit unit token.

• Heimerdinger, Inventor ×1 OGN-111 · engine · mind

  I have all Exhaust abilities of all friendly legends, units, and gear.

• Vanguard Armory ×1 SFD-168 · engine · order

  Exhaust: Play three 1 Might Recruit unit tokens. (You may play them to different locations.)

Payoff

Deck

• The legend IS Herald of the Arcane (Mind/Order). Heimerdinger is Mind and Vanguard Armory is Order — each a subset of the legend's two domains (103.1.b.1) — and The Grand Plaza is colorless (103.1.b.3).

Prerequisites

• SEVEN IN ONE MAIN PHASE FOR ONE ENERGY, WHICH IS THE WHOLE POINT. Exhaust the Armory: three Recruits. Exhaust Heimerdinger, using his copy of the Armory's ability: three more. Pay 1 Energy and exhaust the legend: the seventh. The Armory's own reminder permits different locations and 355.2.a makes a battlefield you control a default destination anyway, so all seven land on the Plaza. The Armory's and Heimerdinger's abilities cost only an exhaust, so the finishing turn is 1 Energy and 0 Power.
• IT IS AUTHORED BECAUSE TWO VERIFIED ENTRIES STATE THIS COUNT IN PROSE AND NEITHER CAN BE MATCHED AS A WIN. heimerdinger-vanguard-armory-recruits notable[2] says 'Armory 3 + Heimerdinger's copy of the Armory 3 + the legend's own ... 1 = SEVEN in a single Main Phase', and heimerdinger-herald-legend-recruits notable[3] says the same from the other side; both classify as ENGINE and both end their terminatesIn at 'it wins through a Grand Plaza hold at 7+ units, not on its own'. A deck holding all four cards therefore matches two ENGINEs today and no win at all.
• NEAR-DUPLICATE CHECK, RUN EXPLICITLY (#152's criterion). The catalogue holds sixteen Grand Plaza entries. The two that use the same token source are grand-plaza-recruit-vanguard (OGN-293 + 2 × OGS-015, a spell, 12 Energy in one turn) and plaza-armory-miss-fortune (OGN-293 + 2 × SFD-168 + OGN-162, Body/Order, ten bodies). This line shares only the Plaza and one Armory with the second, uses a DIFFERENT identity — Mind/Order, which plaza-armory-miss-fortune's own notable says 'can never share a list' with the Body/Order route by 103.1.b.4 — and needs ONE Armory instead of two because Heimerdinger doubles it. Distinct on cards, on domain and on cost.
• SEVEN IS EXACTLY THE BAR AND HEIMERDINGER IS THE MARGIN. The seven Recruits leave no room to lose one. Heimerdinger himself can be the eighth if he moved to the Plaza on an EARLIER turn — he cannot both move and copy in one turn, because 144.2 makes the Standard Move cost his exhaust and the copied ability costs the same exhaust, and 415.3.a readies him only once per Awakening. Standing him there is free upside and costs nothing but exposure; R30 = B does not bite, because neither the Armory nor the Herald prints a 'use only while' clause for him to inherit (377.2.b).
• THE BODIES MUST SURVIVE THE OPPONENT'S WHOLE TURN. 315.2.b.2 puts the Hold in your Beginning Phase and 383.2.a.1 makes 'if you have 7+ units here' part of the Trigger Condition, measured when the trigger is placed; 312.2.a gives priority only in the Main Phase, so there is no window to top up. The Recruits are 187.1 tokens with no [Temporary], so 816.1.b never touches them, but they are 1 Might: OGN-133 Flurry of Blades (Body, E1, [Reaction], 'Deal 1 to all units at battlefields') sweeps all seven for one Energy, exactly as it answers plaza-armory-miss-fortune.
• 143.4 — the Recruits enter exhausted, so they neither defend nor move the turn they appear; that is irrelevant to a Hold, which needs only presence.
• THE BUILD IS 10 ENERGY + 2 POWER ACROSS EARLIER TURNS (Armory 7 + 1, Heimerdinger 3 + 1) plus Control of the Plaza, which 190.1 does not give you for free — a battlefield you provide starts uncontrolled and 190.6.d blanks its 'you' until you take it (466.5). And it is 1 of 3 at random in a Duel (485.4.a, 485.5), chosen in Match (486.5); 103.4.c and Tournament Rules 402.1 forbid a second copy.
• SFD-210 Hall of Legends would ready the legend for an eighth Recruit, but it and The Grand Plaza can never share a table — 485.4.a uses only one battlefield per player and 103.4.c forbids two of the same name. The Plaza is the one that wins.
• THE PLAZA IS SYMMETRIC: 'When YOU hold here' reads for whoever holds it (190.6.d), so an opponent parking seven units on it wins the same way.
• UNL-077 Soul Shepherd (Mind, "Your token units have +1 Might") is a CONTINUOUS MODIFIER, not a 702 buff, so it applies to every token at once: 143.2.a + 465.2.c.3 make seven 1-Might Recruits cost 7 damage to clear and seven 2-Might Recruits cost 14, and it makes the whole 1-Might Plaza family immune to OGN-133 Flurry of Blades ("Deal 1 to all units at battlefields"). He is Mind, so he narrows an all-Order line to Mind/Order (#159, 2026-09-06). CORRECTED 2026-10-27 (#503): those totals price a full clear, and a full clear is not what stops the Plaza. It needs 7 units at the Hold (383.2.a.1), so against seven the opponent kills one and picks which (465.2.c, 465.2.c.3; with no [Tank] nothing orders the assignment, 465.2.c.6): the Shepherd raises that price from 1 damage to 2, not from 7 to 14. The doubling stands; the totals do not.
• CROSS-REFERENCE: heimerdinger-armory-plaza is the three-card, two-turn version of this line (no Herald: the Armory fires the turn it lands and again beside Heimerdinger's copy the next turn, ten bodies); this four-card row fixes the legend to Herald of the Arcane and wins a Hold sooner (#166, 2026-09-07).
• OPPONENT BOARD AND KILL PRICE - ADDED 2026-10-27 (#503). THE BOARD IT WINS ON: the opponent has no ready body in their base on their turn and no 1-damage effect that reaches the Plaza, because the seven complete in your main phase, their whole turn intervenes, and the Hold is your next Beginning Phase (315.2.b.2, 383.2.a.1). Any enemy unit in their base is readied in their Awaken and can Standard Move to the Plaza (144.2, 144.4.a); units at their own battlefield cannot (144.4.a, 144.4.b) unless they have Ganking (144.4.c.1), and units they play that turn enter exhausted (143.4) unless [Accelerate]. None of the seven Recruits (187.1) has [Tank] or [Backline], so nothing orders the assignment (465.2.c.6). One 1-Might Recruit dies to 1 damage (142.4.b, 465.2.c.3): any ready enemy body that attacks the Plaza leaves six, and the Hold does not win. The price of a seven-unit Plaza board is the summed Might of its N - 6 = 1 cheapest unit, here 1, not 7; if Heimerdinger stood at the Plaza as an eighth, N is 8 and the price is two Recruits, 2 damage.

Steps

1. Establish Control of The Grand Plaza (190.1, 466.5 — a battlefield you provide starts uncontrolled).
2. Land Vanguard Armory (7 Energy + 1 Power; gear enters ready) and Heimerdinger, Inventor (3 Energy + 1 Power; he enters exhausted, 143.4).
3. On the finishing turn, Awaken readies the Armory, Heimerdinger and the legend (315.1.b, 415.3.a).
4. Main Phase: exhaust the Armory for three Recruits at the Plaza. Exhaust Heimerdinger, using his copy of that same ability, for three more.
5. Pay 1 Energy and exhaust Herald of the Arcane for the seventh Recruit, played to the Plaza (355.2.a).
6. Survive the opponent's turn with seven or more still there, then Hold in your Beginning Phase (315.2.b.2): the condition is met when the trigger is placed (383.2.a.1) and rule 195 gives you the game.

How it ends

win the game — seven units at The Grand Plaza on the next Hold, assembled in one Main Phase for 1 Energy — the 1 Energy is the finishing turn on a board already holding the Armory (E7 + 1 Order Power) and Heimerdinger (E3 + 1 Mind Power): 11 Energy + 2 Power for the whole board

Sources

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-06 2026-09-06 record
• Issue #155 — Engine × payoff, candidate 2 (Herald of the Arcane + Heimerdinger + Vanguard Armory -> The Grand Plaza), with the near-duplicate question the hunt asked the walk to rule on 2026-09-06
• Hand walk 2026-09-06, issue #46 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-issue46-mining-walk.md) — the six-Recruit count and the Acceleration Gate domain refutation 2026-09-06 record
• Hand walk 2026-09-06, issue #47 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-legend-lens-candidates.md) — Heimerdinger reaching the Legend Zone through 355.9.a.4 2026-09-06 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue