Combo · CHAIN · 8 points

Three Iverns walk in twice — the cheapest CHAIN in the conquer bucket, and one Power in the whole line

5 cards · order + mind · verified

Pieces

• Ivern, Friend to All ×3 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.

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

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

• Bard, Mercurial ×1 SFD-079 · enabler · mind

  You may exhaust your legend as an additional cost to play me. When you play me, if you paid the additional cost, move any number of your units to an open battlefield.

Payoff

Deck

• Legend domains cover Mind and Order. Measured over data/cards.json 2026-09-09, the pool prints FOUR Mind/Order legend names across seven base codes: Herald of the Arcane (OGN-265 / OGN-308), Lady of Luminosity - Starter (OGS-021), Chem-Baroness (SFD-201 / SFD-249), Deceiver (UNL-199 / UNL-235).
• UNL-177 is NOT a Signature card (checked on the signature field in data/cards.json). It carries the Ivern champion tag and the pool's only Ivern legend is Green Father, which is Calm/Order — but 103.2.d.2 binds only SIGNATURE cards, so the tag forces nothing here and all four Mind/Order names are open. Neither OGN-210 nor SFD-079 is Signature either.

Prerequisites

• THE FOURTH TAGGER IS REQUIRED BY THE EFFECT, NOT BY THE TRIGGER CONDITION, AND THAT IS WHY IT IS IN uses[] AND ALSO WHY IT CAN BE ANSWERED. 383.2.a.1 puts a conditional in the Trigger Condition only when it sits IMMEDIATELY AFTER the trigger - that is its Sona, Harmonious example, of which Riot says 'If she is removed in reaction to the triggered ability, it will still resolve.' Ivern is the rule's OTHER example, Loose Cannon: the conditional follows the effect verb ('score 1 point if your units have all of the following tags among them'), and Riot says of that shape 'it is part of the effect and not the condition.' So the tags are checked on RESOLUTION, and killing this body in response to the Ivern triggers blanks every one of them at that scoring event. Each Ivern gains exactly ONE tag as it is played, so three Iverns supply three of the four and the fourth must come from another body. 383.2.a.1: 'Any additional conditional statement immediately after the Condition must be true in order for the Condition to be fulfilled. Such a conditional statement is part of the Trigger Condition and not the Effect.' Measured over data/cards.json on 2026-09-09, 67 printings carry at least one of Bird / Cat / Dog / Poro and ZERO carry two, so there is no two-for-one and the fourth body is unavoidable. Ivern says 'your units', NOT 'units here', so the tagger stays at your base and is never exposed — Daring Poro is the cheapest Order one at E2.
• THE SECOND CONQUER IS WORTH FOUR, NOT ONE. 383.4.c.2 pays only what is PRESENT at the Conquer ('This category of Triggered Abilities encompasses only those that are triggered from Units that were present during the Conquer action, or Abilities that reference the player that performed the Conquer action.'), which is why every other double-Conquer line in the catalogue gets 1 point from its second battlefield. Bard moves the payoffs themselves, so all three Iverns stand at both: 4 + 4 = EIGHT across two scoring events in one Main Phase.
• IT PASSES THE GARRISON TEST, WHICH IS WHAT MAKES IT A CHAIN AT ALL. A conquer payoff that needs an enemy garrison is worth one turn and is inert thereafter, because 323.9 stages a Combat only where units of opposing players are present and 807.1.d ties every attack trigger to the Attacker designation. Ivern's trigger is 'When I conquer or hold' — presence only — so 344.2 delivers it on an empty board: 'If Control of a Battlefield is Contested, there aren't units controlled by different players there, and the turn is in a Neutral Open State, a Showdown is opened during the next Cleanup', then 348.2.a establishes Control and 348.2.a.1 says 'This results in a Conquer if that player has not yet scored that Battlefield this turn.' Nothing in the line ever attacks, so Daring Poro's [Assault] is worth zero here (807.1.d).
• WHY IT IS NOT SIMPLY WORSE THAN ivern-sentinel-hold, WHICH IS TEN POINTS ON THE SAME PAYOFF IN THE SAME IDENTITY. That entry pays on a HOLD, and 315.2.b.2 Holds only battlefields you already Control, so the pack must have conquered on an earlier turn and SURVIVED THE OPPONENT'S ENTIRE TURN — three Might-6 Iverns and two Blue Sentinels exposed to every sweeper in the format. This line takes both battlefields and wins inside a single Main Phase from a board where you control nothing, so there is no exposure window at all. That is the same reason the catalogue carries both faces of the Nasus and the Arena lines, and ivern-arena-sentinel-hold's own last notable says so.
• EXACTLY EIGHT IS A REAL FRAGILITY AND IS STATED RATHER THAN HIDDEN. 194.2 requires a point total 'greater than or equal to the Victory Score' AND more points than any other player, and 194.2.b keeps tied players playing. This line delivers exactly 8 from zero, so against an opponent already on 8 it does not win, where a 10-point or 14-point line still would. Under 489.3's Victory Score of 11 in 2v2 it does not win at all.
• 'OPEN' IS BOTH CONDITIONS, AND IT IS THE PRICE. 170.11.c: 'Battlefields can be “open.” This means they are unoccupied and uncontrolled.' Bard's destination must be open when his trigger resolves, so the second battlefield needs no garrison AND no controller — the early board, or the board after a wipe (190.1: 'Control is established over Battlefields through the course of play.'). Against an opponent controlling it the line stops at 4.
• ONE BARD A TURN. The additional cost is exhausting your legend and 315.1.b readies it only at your own Awakening, so 103.2.b's three copies buy three TURNS, not three relocations.
• THE CHEAPEST LINE IN THIS BUCKET, AND THE POWER LEDGER IS THE REASON. Ivern is E6 with NO Power cost, Daring Poro is E2 with none, and Bard is the only Power in the whole line at 1 Mind: E24 and ONE Power all told. Against swain-bard-brambleback-double-conquer-chain's E22 + 3 Mind + 1 Fury for 14 points, this trades six points for three Power and for needing no 'played a unit, a gear and a spell this turn' filler on the finishing turn.
• SISTER LINE: swain-bard-brambleback-double-conquer-chain uses the same Bard relocation under a payoff that a multiplier CAN reach. Swept on 2026-09-09 over the pool's conquer payoffs, Swain is the ONLY one for which a conquer multiplier is in-identity — Red Brambleback is Fury, so it is three domains beside Order (Ivern) or Calm (Nasus, Ascended); Blue Sentinel multiplies hold effects only; and Reckoner's Arena BRIDGES a conquer effect onto a Hold rather than multiplying a Conquer. That is why this line is 8 flat and that one is 14.
• A BLOODLESS CONQUER IS NOT A FAIT ACCOMPLI, AND 46 OF THE 47 ENTRIES CITING 344.2 DID NOT SAY SO (added 2026-09-12, #187 batch 25). **316.8.b.1.a**: during a Non-Combat Showdown *"units controlled by a different player may become present at the Battlefield where the Showdown is"*, which converts it to a COMBAT Showdown in the following cleanup - so the opponent can turn your uncontested walk-in into a fight. 316.8.c is the permission (a Showdown is a Window of Opportunity for [Action] and [Reaction] cards). **The answer set is THREE CARDS, swept on the ACTOR rather than on the destination**: `OGN-173 Ride the Wind` (Chaos, E2+1), `OGN-262 Zenith Blade` (Calm/Order, E3+2) and `SFD-184 Relentless Pursuit` (Fury/Body, E2+1) - twelve printings move a friendly unit, and nine of them send it to base or need a body already there. They span three identities, so **no identity is safe**; and `OGN-262 Zenith Blade` is the worst to walk into, because it STUNS your body on the way in, and 423.1.b removes a stunned unit`s contribution to the damage step while 423.1.c keeps its full Might as the price to kill it - one 3-Energy card takes the unit and the battlefield. **[Ambush] is not a fourth answer**: 822.1.b needs a battlefield where the player already has units, and the defining feature of that board is that they have none there. **THE REMEDY IS A COUNTERSPELL, AND A FIRST VERSION OF THIS NOTABLE SAID SOMETHING FALSE THAT IS WITHDRAWN HERE (corrected within the hour, 2026-09-12).** It said that because all three answers are [Action] and 358.4 admits an Action card only as the card that CLOSES the state, the attacker - who holds Focus by 345 and priority by 335.1 - could shut them out by playing any cheap Action card first. Every step is true and the conclusion is false, because **a Showdown is a LOOP, not a single window**: 346 - *"When the last item on the chain resolves and the turn returns to an Open State during a Showdown, Focus passes, and the next Player gains both Focus and Priority"* - with 347.1.b and 347.2.a. Closing the state buys a lock-out lasting exactly that CHAIN; when it resolves the Showdown reopens, Focus passes TO THE DEFENDER, and they play their answer into an open Showdown after all. **The real sequence**: walk in, take Focus, **PASS** (acting first gains nothing); they play the answer, which closes the state as it is played; **you COUNTER it**, since 358.4`s other half now admits only [Reaction] and all eleven of the pool`s counters are Reaction, and 425.1.c refunds them nothing; all players then pass in sequence, 347.2.a ends the Showdown, and 348.2.a with 348.2.a.1 give you Control and the Conquer. The cheap counter is `OGN-045 Defy` (Calm, E1 + 1 Power, *"counter a spell that costs no more than 4 Energy and no more than one rainbow"*), which covers all three answers; `OGN-064 Wind Wall` is the unconditional one. **So the protection narrows to pairs containing CALM** - it is not the one-Energy insurance any deck can buy.
• 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-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.

Steps

1. Over earlier turns, deploy three Ivern, Friend to All choosing three different tags (E6 each, no Power) and one Daring Poro for the fourth (E2). The Poro can stay at your base forever.
2. On the finishing turn, with both battlefields open, standard-move the three Iverns from your base to the first battlefield in ONE action (144.3, shared destination, exhausts paid simultaneously).
3. Cleanup (319.8, 'After a Move is completed'): 450 applies Contested, 344.2 opens a Showdown, 348.2.a establishes Control, 348.2.a.1 makes it a Conquer. 1 Score plus three Ivern triggers = FOUR.
4. Still in the Main Phase, play Bard, Mercurial (E4 + 1 Mind Power) and exhaust your legend as the additional cost. His trigger moves the three Iverns to the second battlefield, which must be open. 449 is a route separate from the Standard Move, so 144.4 does not bind it and the already-exhausted Iverns move battlefield to battlefield with no [Ganking].
5. Cleanup: the second battlefield is Contested, its Showdown opens, Control is established, 348.2.a.1 makes it a Conquer. 1 Score plus three Gains = FOUR again. Eight points, two scoring events, one turn.

How it ends

eight points across two Conquers in a single Main Phase — two Scores and six ability Gains that 470 does not cap — for E24 and ONE Mind Power in the whole line, of which only Bard at E4 + 1 Mind is paid on the finishing turn

Sources

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-09, conquer-engine finisher lane, batch 3 2026-09-09 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue