Combo · ENGINE

Marching Orders chooses Jae twice for one card — and 'a friendly unit anywhere' means he fights from the base

2 cards · chaos + body · candidate

Pieces

• Jae Medarda ×1 SFD-142 · payoff · chaos

  When you choose me with a spell, draw 1.

• Marching Orders ×1 SFD-114 · engine · body

  [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) [Repeat] 3 Energy (You may pay the additional cost to repeat this spell's effect.) Choose a friendly unit anywhere and an enemy unit at a battlefield. They deal damage equal to their Mights to each other.

Payoff

Deck

• Body + Chaos, so three legend names (103.1.b.2): Bounty Hunter (OGN-267), Battle Mistress (SFD-203), Voidreaver (UNL-201).
• Six Energy for both executions, and an enemy unit at a battlefield for each of them.

Run play

• Jae draws before anything fights, and he fights the second time even if the first one killed him

Prerequisites

• TWO EXECUTIONS ARE TWO CHOICES, SO TWO DRAWS FROM ONE CARD. 820.1.b gives 'a second time' and no more; 820.2.a lets the additional execution choose differently, and here you deliberately choose the SAME friendly unit — Jae — so 'when you choose me with a spell' fires twice. Six Energy, one card, two cards drawn, and two enemy bodies traded with. CORRECTED 2026-10-18 (#387): the last step has no paragraph. 820.3.a: "Regardless of the number of times a spell or ability's instructions are executed with this keyword, it is only Played once." 820.2: "When a spell or ability’s effect is performed an additional time with Repeat, choices must be made at the usual time during the Make Relevant Choices step of Playing a Card." So the spell is one play with two choice-sets, and the #187 bullet in docs/rules-notes/rules-findings.md records that any payoff distinguishing them has no paragraph. Jae's trigger is such a payoff. 383.4.b.3 ("Although these abilities say “choose” in their Condition, they trigger specifically when an appropriate Game Object is Targeted.") and 809.1.c, which charges Deflect "for each time they choose [me/this]", point to two draws; read once, it is one. That is why the entry is a candidate (see notes).
• 'ANYWHERE' IS THE WORD THAT MAKES IT SAFE TO RUN. Marching Orders chooses 'a friendly unit anywhere', so Jae fights from your BASE — no move, no exhaust (144.2 never comes up), no Attacker designation, and none of 807.1.d / 383.4.e / 461's requirements for a combat. It is damage dealt outside combat entirely: 465's damage step is not involved.
• THE PRICE IS JAE'S OWN HEALTH, AND IT IS CUMULATIVE ACROSS THE TWO EXECUTIONS. 'They deal damage equal to their Mights to each other' — Jae deals 5 and takes the enemy's Might back, twice. 143.2.a kills at 'nonzero damage marked on it equalling or exceeding its Might', and marked damage accumulates within the turn, so two enemies of 3 Might each add up to 6 on a 5-Might Jae and kill him. Two draws are not worth the payoff card; pick the second target so the total stays under 5, or accept the trade knowingly. CORRECTED 2026-10-18 (#387, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-05-jae-draws-before-anything-fights.md): both targets are named at casting (820.2, quoted in the first notable), so the second choice cannot react to the first trade, and the first trade cannot cost you the second even when it is lethal to Jae. 321: "Similarly, while Chain Items are Resolving, a Cleanup cannot occur." 323.5: "All Units that have LethalDamage marked on themare killed and placed in their owners' Trash." So Jae deals 5 in both executions and dies, if at all, in the Cleanup after the spell. The arithmetic decides whether he survives, not whether the second trade happens: two enemies whose Mights sum to 4 or less leave him alive; bigger ones up to Might 5 still both die, and so does he.
• The [Repeat] cost is real Energy and is SPENT: 820.1.c.1 makes it 'an Additional Cost to be paid during the steps of playing the spell', which also means it counts for any 'if you spent N or more' clause elsewhere in the deck while being invisible to a 'costs N or more' one (206).
• [Action] (806.1.b) puts both executions inside a Showdown, including on the opponent's turn — so this doubles as instant-speed removal that draws two cards, at the cost of Jae taking the damage in a window where you may not want him weakened.
• The false-positive test that governs this whole row: Jae reads 'with a SPELL'. Marching Orders is a spell, so it counts; the unit, gear, battlefield and legend choosers in his matrix row do not fire him at all.
• ADDED 2026-10-18 (#387, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-05-jae-draws-before-anything-fights.md): THE DRAWS RESOLVE BEFORE EITHER TRADE, AND A COUNTER DOES NOT TAKE THEM. Jae's clause is a Targeting Effect, and 383.4.b.2 says "These Triggered Abilities are put on the Chain as Pending Items after a spell or ability that targets an appropriate Game Object is Finalized." They sit above the spell, and 340.1 resolves the top first ("The newest Finalized Chain Item resolves."). So OGN-045 Defy (Calm, E1 + 1 Power, "Counter a spell that costs no more than :rb_energy_4: and no more than :rb_rune_rainbow:.") reads the printed E3 (206) and counters Marching Orders, and the six Energy are gone (425.1.c: "Countering does not refund any costs paid to play a card, activate an ability, or trigger an ability."), but the draws already on the Chain still resolve. OGN-169 Gust (Chaos, E1, [Reaction], "Return a unit at a battlefield with 3 :rb_might: or less to its owner's hand.") returning one chosen enemy voids that trade alone, and only against an enemy of Might 3 or less; a 4 or 5 it cannot touch (359.3.e.5: "If any of the spell's targets are no longer legal, those game objects, players, or zones are unaffected by the spell as it resolves."). The clean answer is a kill on Jae before you cast: OGN-229 Vengeance (Order, E4 + 2 Power, "Kill a unit.") names no location, so it reaches him at your base. How many draws is the open reading in the first notable; the order is not.

Steps

1. Play Jae Medarda (5 Energy + 2 Chaos Power). He may stay at your base — the spell reaches him there.
2. Cast Marching Orders for 3 Energy and pay its [Repeat] cost of 3 more (820.1.c.1).
3. First execution: choose Jae and an enemy unit at a battlefield. Jae's trigger fires — draw 1. They deal damage equal to their Mights to each other: 5 out, their Might in. CORRECTED 2026-10-18 (#387, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-05-jae-draws-before-anything-fights.md): both executions' choices are made when you cast it (820.2), and Jae's trigger goes on the Chain when the spell is finalized (383.4.b.2) and resolves before either execution (340.1). Read as two choice-sets it is two draws; read as one play it is one (see the first notable).
4. Second execution: choose Jae again (820.2.a permits it) and a second enemy unit. Draw a second card, deal 5 again, take that unit's Might as well. CORRECTED 2026-10-18 (#387): this second choice is made at casting together with the first (820.2), and its draw, if there is one, resolves with the first, before any damage.
5. Check the arithmetic before the second choice: 143.2.a kills Jae once the total marked damage reaches 5. CORRECTED 2026-10-18 (#387, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-05-jae-draws-before-anything-fights.md): the second execution cannot be lost. 321 holds the Cleanup until the spell has resolved, so Jae deals his 5 both times; 143.2.a decides only whether he is alive afterwards (see the third notable).

Per iteration

-1 card, -6 Energy, +2 cards, 5 damage to each of two enemy units, and the sum of their Mights marked on Jae

How it ends

engine — two cards drawn and 5 damage dealt twice from the base, for one card and 6 Energy, 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

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-07, issue #169 — matrix families rows 6-18, second pass 2026-09-07 record
• Run play 2026-10-05, issue #262 2026-10-05 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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