Combo · BURST · 8 points

Ivern under Reckoner's Arena — the four-tag point cashed twice per Hold

6 cards · order + mind · verified

Pieces

• Ivern, Friend to All ×2 UNL-177 · payoff · order

  As you play me, choose Bird, Cat, Dog, or Poro. I gain that tag. When I conquer or hold, score 1 point if your units have all of the following tags among them — Bird, Cat, Dog, and Poro.

• Blue Sentinel ×1 UNL-087 · engine · mind

  [Shield 2] (+2 Might while I'm a defender.) Your hold effects for holding here trigger an additional time. When I hold, [Add] 1 Power of any domain at the start of your next Main Phase. (Abilities that add resources can't be reacted to.)

• Reckoner's Arena ×1 OGN-286 · engine

  When you hold here, activate the conquer effects of units here.

• Soaring Scout ×1 OGN-216 · enabler · order

  [Deathknell] — Channel 1 rune exhausted. (When I die, get the effect.)

• Daring Poro ×1 OGN-210 · enabler · order

  [Assault] (+1 Might while I'm an attacker.)

Payoff

Deck

• Legend domains cover Mind and Order (103.1.b.2). Reckoner's Arena is Colorless, so it costs no domain.

Prerequisites

• The battlefield must be the one in play, and a deck may not carry two of it (Core Rules 103.4.c, Tournament Rules 402.1): random 1 of 3 in Duel (485.5) and Skirmish (487.5), chosen in Match (486.5). Reckoner's Arena is one of YOUR three, and in a Duel only two battlefields are on the table (485.4).
• The Arena you provide starts UNCONTROLLED (190.1), and 190.6.d's second sentence switches its whole text off until you take it: 'If the battlefield has no Controller, “you” refers to no one, and all such instructions are ignored.' Establishing Control is part of this entry's cost, not a freebie.
• All four tags among your units — but Ivern says 'your units', NOT 'units here', so only the two Iverns and the Sentinel have to stand at the Arena. Each Ivern picks one tag as it is played, so the two of them cover Dog and Poro and two cheap bodies cover the rest anywhere on the board: OGN-216 Soaring Scout (E2 M1, Bird, Order) and VEN-132 Fallen Feline (E2 P1 M3, Cat, Order).
• Points per Hold: 1 + 2 × N × (1 + K), N = Ivern present, K = Blue Sentinel present. The factor 2 is Ivern being paid on both of his faces — once as a hold effect (383.4.d.2.a) and once per Arena run as a conquer effect (383.4.g.1) — and it is the whole reason this board is cheaper than the Arena-free one. N=2, K=1 gives 9. Neighbours, written so nobody repeats the 2026-09-04 BURST audit's mistake: N=1, K=1 gives 5; N=1, K=2 gives 7; N=2, K=2 gives 13; the 3/3 ceiling is 25.
• Cost is 20 Energy and 2 Power: two Ivern (12E, he carries no Power cost), one Blue Sentinel (4E + 1P), and the two outside taggers (4E + 1P). The Arena-free ivern-sentinel-hold needs 28E + 2P and six surviving bodies for one point more; this one needs THREE bodies at the battlefield, because the taggers stay home.
• Against ivern-sentinel-hold, which is the same cards without the battlefield: that one is always online, this one is a 1-in-3 draw. The catalogue carries both faces for the same reason it carries nasus-ascended-sentinel-arena-hold beside nasus-ascended-brambleback-conquer.
• DEFECT FIXED 2026-09-09: the tagger this entry has always named in its prose was not in uses[], so matchDeck reported a COMPLETE burst for a board on which every Ivern trigger fails its condition and the Hold is worth its 1-point Score alone, and planDeck could never suggest the missing card. That is the #165 shape - uses[] is what the matcher and the planner price, and a body a Trigger Condition requires is a use at quantity 1 with role enabler, not a phrase in a notable.
• SAME MECHANISM IN A SECOND IDENTITY: ivern-arena-trinity-body-order-hold. That entry is the same Reckoner's Arena doubling the same Ivern, with three Trinity Force in place of the Blue Sentinel, and it is BODY/ORDER - which this entry cannot be, because Blue Sentinel is Mind. The shared formula is 1 + (2N + T) x (1 + K), N = Ivern present, T = Trinity Force present, K = Blue Sentinel present: this row is N=2, T=0, K=1 = 9 and that one is N=3, T=3, K=0 = 10. Neither dominates, because K MULTIPLIES and T only ADDS, so the Sentinel is stronger per card wherever Mind is legal and the Trinity Forces are the only version a Body/Order deck can cast.
• OGN-133 FLURRY OF BLADES DOES NOT REACH THIS BODY, AND THE CARD'S OWN TEXT IS WHY. OGN-216 Soaring Scout supplies Ivern's fourth tag, and this entry declares it in zone BASE because the clause it serves reads "your units" with no location - it never has to leave. OGN-133 Flurry of Blades is Body, E1, "[Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Deal 1 to all units at battlefields", so a body at your base is outside it entirely; 143.2.a would kill it on 1 damage if it were ever there, which is exactly why the body stays home. THE BODY IS STILL ANSWERABLE, JUST NOT BY THE SWEEPER: what reaches a base is single-target removal with no location clause - OGN-229 Vengeance (Order, 4 Energy + 2 Power, "Kill a unit.") is the pool's only one with neither a location clause nor any other gate, with VEN-154 Public Execution (Body/Order, 2 Energy + 1 Power) and SFD-158 Sandshifter (Order, 5 Energy + 2 Power, Might 3 or less) beside it. And none of the three carries [Reaction], so the answer has to be cast on the opponent's own turn, a full turn ahead and fully telegraphed. OGN-133 Flurry of Blades is Body, E1: "[Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Deal 1 to all units at battlefields." 143.2.a kills on marked damage at or above Might, so it kills every 1-Might body on the board SIMULTANEOUSLY however many there are - the binding constraint is Might PER BODY, not the number of bodies, so no amount of going wider answers it - and 813.1.c.1 lets it land in any Closed State on either player's turn. CORRECTED 2026-09-13: this sentence read that the repairs are narrow and that UNL-077 Soul Shepherd is the ONLY permanent board-wide one, which narrowed the shell to Mind. It is not. FIVE OF THE SIX DOMAINS PRINT A FIX (re-swept 2026-09-13, every hit read rather than classified from the match): board-wide and ungated are VEN-018 Rage Amplifier (fury, E4 + 1 Power, a GEAR - so no body slot and no location clause - and STRICTLY WIDER than the Shepherd, since "Your units have +1 [M]" reaches every unit and not only tokens), UNL-077 Soul Shepherd (mind), UNL-147 Baron Nashor (chaos, E10 + 3 Power, +2) and UNL-191 Wuju Master (calm/body, a LEGEND at [Level 6], so no card slot at all); location-scoped, which costs a body slot AND fills one of the seven, are OGS-013 Garen, Commander and OGN-243 Darius, Executioner (both order). Excluded and named so nobody re-finds them: OGN-294 Trifarian War Camp, UNL-T03 Brush and VEN-159 Kinkou Temple are BATTLEFIELDS, which 485.4.a with 103.4.c makes mutually exclusive with a battlefield the line already needs; OGN-151 Lee Sin, Centered is buff-gated and location-scoped; SFD-089 Rumble, Scrapper is Mech-scoped; and VEN-130 Aurok General reaches only units that are [Empowered], which a token never is. UNL-077 Soul Shepherd ("Your token units have +1 Might") is one of them and is Mind, OGN-266 Siphon Power is one turn and one battlefield, and UNL-T03 Brush reaches only Bird, Cat, Dog, Poro and Ivern units.
• THE TAG BODY IS PARKED AT BASE TO DODGE `OGN-133`, AND THREE CARDS REACH IT THERE (added 2026-09-13, #200). `UNL-177 Ivern, Friend to All` reads *"When I conquer or hold, score 1 point if your units have all of the following tags among them — Bird, Cat, Dog, and Poro"*, and that clause carries NO location clause — which is exactly why this entry declares `OGN-216 Soaring Scout` (Might 1) and `OGN-210 Daring Poro` (Might 2) in zone BASE, where `OGN-133 Flurry of Blades` (*"Deal 1 to all units at battlefields"*) cannot reach it. THAT REASONING IS RIGHT AND IT IS INCOMPLETE. Measured over the twenty cards in the pool that remove more than one body in one action (the table is in `docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-13-might-1-survivability.md`), FOUR carry no location clause of their own and take the base too — corrected from THREE on 2026-09-13, and the fourth is the CHEAPEST of them: `UNL-132 Angler Beast` (Chaos, E5 P1, *"return all units with 2 :rb_might: or less to their owners' hands"*), `VEN-133 Glowstone` (Order, **E2**), `UNL-180 The Ruination` (Order, E9 P3, *"Kill all units."*) and `SFD-147 Downwell` (Chaos, E8 P2, *"Return all units and gear to their owners' hands."*). Glowstone's route is printed on the card: its own activated ability reads *"Disempower this, :rb_exhaust:: Choose a player. They gain control of this and recall it."*, and its delayed clause reads *"At the end of your turn, kill this and deal 5 to all units you control."* So an opponent plays it, Empowers it, then disempowers and exhausts to HAND IT TO YOU, and 053.2 makes a gear say "this" and *"your turn"* its CONTROLLER's turn, so the end of YOUR turn deals 5 to all units YOU control, base included. Against a Hold line the timing works: the body dies at the end of turn N and the Hold at the start of N+1 finds three tags. Two qualifications, because they decide what to do about it: it is FIVE damage, so no +Might in the pool reaches it and it belongs in this census rather than in any repair list; and it costs the opponent a cross-turn setup that sits visibly on their board first. The tag body sits inside Angler Beast's band and THERE IS NOWHERE FURTHER BACK TO PARK IT, because the base is already the safe zone. And the loss is total rather than partial — though NOT for the reason the first version of this note gave, which had 383.2.a.1 exactly backwards (corrected 2026-09-13). THAT RULE’S TEST IS POSITIONAL and Riot works both sides of it: `Sona, Harmonious` puts the *"if"* IMMEDIATELY after the Condition, so it is part of the Trigger Condition and *"if she is removed in reaction to the triggered ability, it will still resolve"*; `Loose Cannon` puts it after the effect verb and Riot says outright it *"is not immediately after the trigger condition, so it is part of the effect and not the condition"*. `UNL-177` reads *"When I conquer or hold, score 1 point if your units have all of the following tags among them"* — THE EFFECT VERB FIRST, which is the Loose Cannon shape — so the tag check is part of the EFFECT and is made ON RESOLUTION. The loss is total because the card says *"all of the following tags"*, and the TIMING runs the opposite way from a Trigger Condition: killing the tag body IN RESPONSE to the trigger BLANKS the whole Score, where a Trigger Condition would have survived it. **That makes parking the body at base MORE load-bearing, not less** — and it is why the three no-location threats above are the ones that matter. PARKING AT BASE IS A DEFENCE AGAINST FLURRY AND NOT A DEFENCE AGAINST THE LENS — eighteen entries in the catalogue park a Might-2-or-less body at base and, before this note, none named any of the three. AND THE REPAIR FOR A BASE-PARKED BODY MUST BE BOARD-WIDE, WHICH NO NOTABLE IN THIS FAMILY SAID UNTIL 2026-09-13. The six static +Might grants split on location exactly as the threats do. `OGS-013 Garen, Commander` and `OGN-243 Darius, Executioner` read *"Other friendly units have +1 :rb_might: here"* — the last word is HERE —, so they are complete against the sixteen location-scoped sweeps AND ONLY AT THAT BATTLEFIELD, and they do NOTHING for a body at base. `VEN-018 Rage Amplifier`, `UNL-077 Soul Shepherd`, `UNL-147 Baron Nashor` and `UNL-191 Wuju Master` carry no location clause, so they reach the body wherever it stands, up to their own Might threshold. A SCOPE IS SAFE EXACTLY WHEN IT MATCHES THE THREAT: `OGN-133` reads *"all units at battlefields"* and a Plaza counts its seven *here*, which is why a here-scoped +1 answers it completely — and this body is at the BASE, which is the one place that grant cannot follow it. The reason no earlier notable said so is structural rather than careless: the Ivern notables were written about the base-reaching threats and the Plaza notables about the here-scoped one, and nobody put the two halves in the same sentence.
• 7 ENERGY ANSWERS THE GARRISON THIS LINE NEEDS. OGN-123 Unchecked Power is mind, 7 Energy + 2 Power: "Exhaust all friendly units, then deal 12 to ALL units at battlefields.". 143.2.a kills on marked damage at or above Might, so it kills every body at or below Might 12 SIMULTANEOUSLY however many there are: the binding constraint is MIGHT PER BODY, not the number of bodies, so going wider answers nothing. IT IS SYMMETRIC, WHICH IS HALF THE PRICE AND THE QUOTED TEXT SAYS SO: it sweeps ALL units at battlefields, the caster's included. Against a deck with a board of its own it is a two-sided trade and they may not want it; against one playing from hand it is free. Read the matchup, not the Energy. A CHEAPER ANSWER EXISTS AND IT IS NOT AVAILABLE TO EVERY OPPONENT: OGN-268 Bullet Time costs 1 Energy + 4 Power here (it pays per point of damage, so it scales to any garrison) and is [Action], so 806.1.c.1 puts it inside any showdown on any player's turn - but it is a SIGNATURE card tagged Miss Fortune, and 103.2.d.2 requires every Signature card to carry the Chosen Champion Legend's tag, so only a Miss Fortune legend can run it. Count it as a matchup, not as the field. THE IDENTITY HOLDS NO ANSWER, and there are two ways that happens: either nothing with a permanent, garrison-wide +Might is legal beside this line under 103.1.b, or something is legal and cannot REACH - every such protection in the pool is +1 or +2, so against a sweep dealing 12 a garrison whose floor is 4 stays dead either way (143.2.a kills on damage at or above Might). This line cannot be protected against that answer and can only be rebuilt. WHEN THE ANSWER LANDS, AND IT IS NOT INSIDE THE HOLD. A Hold resolves at 315.2.b.2, which Holds "all Battlefields they Control", inside YOUR Beginning Phase - and 312.2.a gives a player priority only "When the turn is in a Neutral Open State during their Main Phase", i.e. their own. So the opponent cannot answer in the Hold window itself; they answer on THEIR turn, which is the turn immediately before it. The cost of that is yours, not theirs: your own Main Phase comes AFTER your Beginning Phase (315 then 316), so there is no window in which to rebuild the garrison. Holding up a [Reaction] on their turn is the only response this line has.

Steps

1. Establish Control of Reckoner's Arena (190.1) and assemble two Ivern and one Blue Sentinel there, with the four tags spread across your units anywhere on the board.
2. At your Beginning Phase you Hold the Arena (469.2): that is the Score, worth 1 point, capped by 470.
3. Route A — each Ivern's own hold trigger goes on the Chain (383.4.d.2.a) with its four-tag condition met, and the Sentinel runs each hold effect 1 + K = 2 times: 4 ability Gains.
4. Route B — the Arena's 'When you hold here' references the Holding player, so 190.6.a/c/d plus 383.4.d.2.b make it one of YOUR hold effects (R8 = A) and the Sentinel runs it twice as well.
5. Each Arena run activates the conquer effects of the units there (383.4.g.1). Ivern's ability is a conquer effect too (823.1.b), and its non-conquer part — the tags — is fulfilled, so it is not filtered out: 4 more ability Gains.
6. Nine points in one Hold. Eight of them are ability Gains (194.1.c), which 470 does not cap (R2 = A) and 471.1.a.1 exempts from the Final Point restriction.

How it ends

burst of nine points in one Hold, eight of them ability Gains that 470 does not cap

Sources

Published elsewhere

• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
• Issue #45 (GitHub) 2026-09-06

Walked here, in this project

• Notes audit 2026-09-06 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-notes-audit.md), which found the discarded reading was already ruled 2026-09-06 record
• Hand walk 2026-09-06, issue #45 2026-09-06 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue