Combo · ENGINE

The Cadet's damage is an optional ADDITIONAL cost, so it survives being played for free — and it leaves a body behind

2 cards · fury · verified

Pieces

• Blast Corps Cadet ×1 SFD-013 · engine · fury

  You may pay 1 Energy + 1 Fury Power as an additional cost to play me. When you play me, if you paid the additional cost, deal 2 to a unit at a battlefield.

• Incinerate ×1 OGS-003 · payoff · fury

  [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Deal 2 to a unit at a battlefield.

Payoff

Deck

• Mono-Fury, so any of the sixteen legend names carrying Fury holds it (103.1.b.1): Daughter of the Void (OGN-247), Relentless Storm (OGN-249), Loose Cannon (OGN-251), Hand of Noxus (OGN-253), Dark Child - Starter (OGS-017), Mechanized Menace (SFD-181), Purifier (SFD-183), Glorious Executioner (SFD-185), Void Burrower (SFD-187), Virtuoso (UNL-181), Pridestalker (UNL-183), Bloodharbor Ripper (UNL-185), Piltover Enforcer (UNL-187), Rogue Assassin (VEN-139), Butcher of the Sands (VEN-141), Master of Shadows (VEN-143).

Prerequisites

• THE CADET'S DAMAGE SURVIVES A FREE PLAY, AND RIOT'S WORKED EXAMPLE IS A CARD IN THE SAME DOMAIN. 356.1.b.3: 'Further additional costs and/or cost increases applied in subsequent steps may raise the card's Total Cost above zero. Example: Legion Rearguard is a Fury unit that costs 2 Energy and 0 Power and has Accelerate. A player plays Legion Rearguard and is instructed to ignore its costs, but chooses to pay the Accelerate cost.' The Cadet is written in exactly that shape — an optional additional cost with the payoff gated on having paid it — so any effect that plays it ignoring its base cost still lets you buy the 2 damage for 1 Energy + 1 Fury Power.
• AND THE GATE IS ON THE PAYMENT, NOT ON THE COST. 'When you play me, if you paid the additional cost, deal 2' — so 055 does not rescue it: declining the cost is legal and simply produces a 2-Energy 2-Might body with no trigger. This is a choice made during the steps of playing, before anything resolves.
• TWO DAMAGE IS A THRESHOLD, NOT A CLOCK, AND THAT IS THE POINT OF RUNNING BOTH. 143.2.a kills on marked damage equalling or exceeding Might, so a 2 clears the 1- and 2-Might bodies that every token line in the format depends on, and 466.1.a.1's combat cleanup ('Insert "3c. Heal all Units."') wipes anything that survives — so the second copy has to arrive in the SAME Main Phase to add up, and across a combat it never does.
• THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM IS THE WINDOW. `OGS-003 Incinerate` carries [Action], so 806.1.b lets it be played 'during Showdowns, even when it is not the Controlling player's turn' — it answers a body after blocks. The Cadet's ping only ever happens on your own turn, as you play a card, and 143.4 leaves it exhausted; what it buys instead is that the 2 damage comes attached to a permanent.
• BOTH CHOOSE, SO BOTH PAY THE TAX. 809.1.c charges [Deflect] an extra Power 'for each time they choose', and 054.1 makes an absolute 'can't be chosen' clause stop them dead — unlike the programmatic sweepers in this identity (`OGS-002 Firestorm`, `OGN-022 Thermo Beam`), which 355.10.d exempts. Hold the right one for the board.
• AND A BONUS DAMAGE STATIC RAISES BOTH, BECAUSE BOTH ARE SPELL-AND-ABILITY DAMAGE. 713 scopes Bonus Damage to Deal actions and 417.6.b.3 is what would exclude them if the damage were sourced to a unit — it is not, so `OGS-001 Annie, Fiery` turns each 2 into a 3, which is the difference between clearing a 2-Might body and clearing a 3.

Steps

1. Play Blast Corps Cadet, choosing to pay the optional additional cost: 2 Energy base plus 1 Energy + 1 Fury Power.
2. Its play trigger checks that you paid and deals 2 to a unit at a battlefield. You keep a 2-Might body.
3. Hold Incinerate for the opponent's turn: at [Action] speed (806.1.b) it deals the same 2 inside a Showdown, after blocks are committed.
4. If either target carries [Deflect], pay the extra Power (809.1.c); if it carries an absolute 'can't be chosen' clause, neither card can touch it (054.1).
5. Land both in the same Main Phase to add to 4 — 466.1.a.1 heals marked damage at every combat cleanup, so damage does not bank across combats.

Per iteration

2 damage plus a 2-Might body for 3 Energy + 1 Fury Power, or 2 damage at [Action] speed for 2 Energy

How it ends

engine — 2 damage on a stick and 2 more at Showdown speed, three of each 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

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-07, issue #173 — the uncatalogued Fury / Chaos cards 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue