Combo · ENGINE

An UNFLOORED reduction is what makes a fixed-damage spell reach - and this pair is one Might apart on purpose

6 cards · mind · verified

Pieces

• Deadly Flourish ×3 UNL-073 · payoff · mind

  Deal 3 to an enemy unit. When it dies this turn, play a Gold gear token exhausted. (It has "[Reaction][>] Kill this, Exhaust: [Add] 1 Power of any domain.")

• Icevale Archer ×3 UNL-065 · engine · mind

  When I attack, you may pay 1 Energy to give a unit here -1 Might this turn.

Payoff

Deck

• Both cards are mono-Mind, so 103.1.b.3 admits any legend with Mind in its pair.
• Neither card is banned or restricted in either format, and neither is a Signature card.
• The Archer must be ATTACKING for its trigger, which 807.1.d ties to the Attacker designation and 323.9 stages only where opposing units are present - it does nothing on a walk into an empty battlefield.

Prerequisites

• THE POOL'S REDUCTIONS SPLIT BY SET, AND THIS ONE IS ON THE UNFLOORED SIDE. The nine Origins reductions carry a 'to a minimum of 1' floor and the fourteen from Spiritforged, Unleashed and Vendetta do not. That distinction is worth 1 Might exactly where it matters: a floored reducer can never take a body below 1, so it can never turn a 4 Might body into a legal target for 'Deal 3'. The Archer has no floor, so 4 becomes 3 and Deadly Flourish kills it - 143.2.a needs marked damage at or above Might, and 3 damage on a 3 Might body is lethal.
• AND THE ORDER IS FIXED BY RULE, NOT BY CHOICE. 477.3.e.2.a: 'Negative values, or decreases, to Might are applied last.' So the Archer's -1 is measured after every increase in the same evaluation, and the target cannot pump out of it within one resolution. 477.3.b's snapshotting does not bite here at all, since it applies only to an effect 'that has a LIMITATION' - an unfloored reduction has none, which is the second reason to prefer it.
• 143.2.b IS WHY A REDUCTION IS NOT DAMAGE. Negative Might READS as 0 for spells, abilities and combat damage but IS NOT 0, so nothing the Archer does generates a kill event on its own - the Flourish has to finish it, and that is the whole division of labour in the entry.
• THE RIDER IS WHY THE FLOURISH IS NOT JUST A BURN SPELL. 'When it dies this turn, play a Gold gear token exhausted' - and 187.5 makes a Gold 'a domainless GEAR token', which 185.2.d puts inside the rules for its type. So a successful Flourish also advances every 'control N or more gear' threshold in the deck, which is the axis plundering-poro-patched-porobot-gold-gear-count and pickpocket-seal-of-focus-cheap-gear-kill are built on. The Gold arrives EXHAUSTED, so it is Power only from your next Awakening (415.3.a).
• AND THE RIDER IS CONDITIONAL ON THE KILL, WHICH IS WHY THE ARCHER IS IN uses[]. 'When it dies THIS TURN' - so a Flourish that leaves a 4 Might body on 3 damage pays nothing, and the -1 is not a nicety but the difference between a card that trades and a card that trades and profits.
• THE ARCHER'S COST IS THE OTHER HALF OF ITS PRICE. 'You may pay 1 Energy' inside a triggered ability's effect is a game action taken at resolution, not a base cost, and the trigger fires on the attack - so the Energy has to be available in your own Main Phase with the combat already staged. One Energy per attack per Archer, three by 103.2.b.
• WHAT IT IS NOT. Nothing here scores; 469 defines Scoring as Conquer or Hold. And the pair kills a 4 Might body, not a large one - the ceiling is 3 + one Archer per attack.

Steps

1. Attack with Icevale Archer. 464.2.c.3 hands out the Attacker designation and the trigger fires.
2. Pay 1 Energy and give the intended target -1 Might this turn. It has no floor, so a 4 becomes a 3.
3. 477.3.e.2.a applies decreases last, so a pump resolving in the same evaluation does not undo it.
4. Play Deadly Flourish (4 Energy) and deal 3 to that unit. 143.2.a makes 3 damage lethal on a 3 Might body.
5. It dies, and the rider plays a Gold gear token exhausted - a gear for every threshold now (187.5, 185.2.d) and 1 Power from your next Awakening.
6. With a second Archer attacking the same battlefield, the reach is 5 Might for two Energy more.

Per iteration

one enemy unit of up to 4 Might removed (5 with a second Archer) and a Gold gear token, for 4 Energy and 1 per Archer

How it ends

engine only - three Flourishes by 103.2.b and one Energy per Archer per attack, with a ceiling of 3 damage plus the reductions bought that turn; 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
• 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-calm-mind-order.md, batch 5) 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue