Combo · ENGINE
Here to Help is how a UNIT reaches the board inside a Showdown — and from face down it is free, on the opponent's turn
Pieces
- Here to Help ×3
SFD-111 · enabler · body
[Hidden] (Hide now for 1 Power of any domain to react with later for 0 Energy.) [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) You may play a unit from hand to a battlefield you control, reducing its cost by 3 Energy.
- Mountain Drake ×1 OGN-142 · payoff · body
Payoff
Deck
- Here to Help and Mountain Drake are both mono-Body, so 103.1.b.1 is satisfied by any legend with Body as one of its two domains. Neither is Signature, so 103.2.d.2 imposes nothing.
Prerequisites
- WHAT IT ACTUALLY BREAKS. A unit is a card with no [Action] and no [Reaction], and 155 bars such a card from a Showdown while 381 keeps activated abilities to your own turn in an Open State — so bodies normally cannot arrive once a combat has opened. Here to Help carries [Action], and 806.1.b is the permission, so the unit it plays arrives inside the Showdown.
- AND THE BODY IS IN THAT COMBAT. 464.2.c.3.a: a unit of the Attacker's or Defender's that 'becomes present at this Battlefield after this moment ... will gain the Attacker or Defender designation during the Cleanup phase following the action that caused it to become present', with 323.2.a doing the assignment. So the Drake is a Defender before 465's damage step and its 10 Might is in 465.2.c's sum.
- FROM FACE DOWN IT IS FREE AND IT IS ON THE OPPONENT'S TURN. 811.1.b's tail — 'Beginning on the next turn, this gains [Reaction] and you may play this, ignoring its base cost' — means a hidden Here to Help costs 0 and 813.1.c.1 admits it 'during Closed States on any player's turn'. 811.1.d.2 then confines its effect to the battlefield it was hidden at, which is 'a battlefield you control' — exactly where the card wanted to put the body anyway.
- THE UNIT'S OWN COST IS STILL PAID, AND ON THE OPPONENT'S TURN THAT NEEDS RUNES HELD BACK. 167 empties every Rune Pool 'at the start of each player's Main Phase and the end of each player's turn', so the 6 Energy has to come from runes still ready when you act: 164.2.a is '[E]: [Reaction] — Add [1]', so six ready runes carried through your own turn pay for it in their Closed State.
- 356.6 FLOORS THE DISCOUNT AT ZERO, so the 3 Energy is worth its full value only on a unit printed at E3 or more; and the reduction is written on ENERGY, so a Power component is paid in full (the Drake has none, which is part of why it is the payload).
- IT IS NOT A REINFORCEMENT OF THE BATTLEFIELD YOU ATTACK. 'A battlefield you control' is the card's own restriction, so this is the defensive half of the family; `OGN-107 Ava Achiever` and `SFD-025 Rengar, Pouncing` are the two routes that reach a battlefield you do not control.
- AND IT IS ONE UNIT, NOT A HAND. The wording is 'a unit from hand', singular, once per copy; 103.2.b caps that at three a game.
- IT DOES NOT SCORE. What arrives is a body that the opponent's damage assignment did not price in — 465.2.c.3 and 465.2.c.4 then force lethal onto it before anything else of yours, if it is the only sensible assignment.
Steps
- Control a battlefield and, on an earlier turn, pay one rainbow Power to hide Here to Help face down there (811.1.b). Keep Mountain Drake in hand.
- Hold six runes ready through your own turn; 167 empties the POOL, not the runes, so they are still available to tap on the opponent's turn.
- The opponent attacks. 190.3.a.1 applies Contested, 323.9 stages the Combat and 323.13 opens it; 464.2.c.3 designates the sides.
- In the Closed State, where 312.2.c gives you priority, play Here to Help from face down for 0 Energy (811.1.b's tail gives it [Reaction], and 813.1.c.1 admits it on their turn).
- Its effect plays Mountain Drake from your hand to that battlefield, reducing its cost by 3: pay 6 Energy from the runes you held. 143.4 has it enter exhausted, which combat never reads.
- 323.2.a and 464.2.c.3.a give it the Defender designation at the next Cleanup, so 465.2.c sums a defence 10 Might heavier than the attacker committed to.
- 143.3.b.2 heals the marked damage at the Combat Cleanup and the Drake stays.
How it ends
engine only — one 10 Might body dropped into a Showdown for 6 Energy, or 0 for the spell if it was hidden, three times a game (103.2.b); nothing here scores
Sources
Published elsewhere
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
Walked here, in this project
- Hand walk 2026-09-07 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-07-rules-second-pass.md), issue #170 2026-09-07 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.
HAND-WALKED 2026-09-07, issue #170, from the sweep of cards NAMED IN THE CORE RULES that sit in no entry; SFD-111 Here to Help and OGN-142 Mountain Drake were both uncatalogued. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. The content is that a UNIT normally cannot arrive after a combat opens (155 + 381) and this spell's [Action] is the exception, with 464.2.c.3.a putting the body in that combat. Trap check: the unit's own cost is stated as still payable and priced against 167 plus 164.2.a rather than waved away; 356.6 is cited so the discount is not claimed below zero and the Energy-only wording is stated; the card is explicitly NOT claimed as reinforcement of an attacked battlefield, with the two cards that do that named; 103.2.b is the ceiling.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16