Combo · INFINITE

Renata, Mastermind readied by Jayce — all-Mind point loop

3 cards · mind · verified

Pieces

• Renata Glasc, Mastermind ×1 SFD-088 · payoff · mind

  1 Energy + 1 Mind Power: Draw 1. 4 Energy + 4 Mind Power, Exhaust: Score 1 point. Use my abilities only while I'm at a battlefield.

• Jayce, Brilliant Inventor ×1 VEN-068 · engine · mind

  When you play me or the first time you play a non-token gear each turn, you may ready something besides me that's exhausted.

• Mesmerize ×1 VEN-052 · engine · mind

  [Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Choose one — • Return a friendly unit to its owner's hand. • Give an enemy unit -2 Might this turn.

Payoff

Deck

• Legend domains cover Mind and Order (the loop).

Prerequisites

• Loop running with Renata at a controlled battlefield. Each Jayce replay is a new object, so he readies Renata twice per cycle: once on play and once on the loop's next Forge play ('first non-token gear this turn'). About 7.5 Energy + 5 Mind Power per point; Retreat (1 Energy, no Power) does Mesmerize's job.
• TOURNAMENT RULES 505 IS WHY THIS LOOP MAY BE SHORTCUT AT AN EVENT, AND IT WAS CITED BY NOTHING (upgrade 2026-09-12, #191 batch 27; Tournament Rules, labelled). **505.2** - *"Players performing a loop must have each iteration of the loop be identical with no conditional actions"* - and **505.9** - *"If a sequence of actions is non-deterministic, it may not be shortcut and iterations must be performed manually."* Read against Core Rules 416.5, two or more cards recycled to the Main Deck simultaneously go to the bottom in RANDOM order, so a loop that recycles 2+ per pass is non-deterministic unless it draws all of them back. **The condition is checkable and this entry meets it**: the Main Deck is empty by construction, so every card recycled in a pass is drawn back inside that same pass and the random order never selects a subset. That means the *"zero spare draws"* invariant this catalogue maintains for a different reason - a fifth draw is Burn Out (431.1.a) on one side and a stranded random card on the other - is load-bearing a SECOND time, against a procedural rule it was not written for: it is exactly what makes the loop shortcuttable rather than hand-iterated at a table.
• THE EMPTY MAIN DECK IS A ONE-TURN STATE THAT DESTROYS ITSELF, WHICH NO ENTRY SAYS AND NONE CITED. This loop’s premise is an empty Main Deck, and the Core Rules put a clock on it that is separate from 431.1.a’s Burn Out on a fifth draw. 315.4.b is the Draw Phase task, "The Turn Player draws 1", and 315.4.b.1 is automatic: "If there are no cards remaining in their Main Deck to draw, the Turn Player has been Burned Out." There is no "may". The Burn Out then costs three things in sequence — 431.2.b, "Recycles their trash into their Main Deck", whose own reminder reads "When multiple cards are Recycled to the Main Deck at the same time, those cards must be randomized", which ERASES the known bottom this loop stands on; 431.2.c, "Chooses an opponent to gain 1 point"; and 431.2.d, "Completes the remainder of the action that caused them to burn out", restated at 315.4.b.2 as "After completing the Burn Out the Turn Player still Draws 1." Riot’s worked example at 431.2.d IS this situation, word for word: "A player attempts to draw 1 during their Draw Phase while their Main Deck is empty." Since 315.4 Draw Phase precedes 316 Main Phase, THE DECK MUST BE EMPTIED AND THE LOOP MUST WIN INSIDE THE SAME MAIN PHASE — an empty Main Deck cannot be carried across a turn boundary at all, and the landing is exact rather than approximate: the turn before the kill must end with enough cards for that turn’s forced removals and no more. A mandatory mill makes it tighter, because 431.1 is written over moving cards "to any other zone in excess of the number of cards remaining", so 431.1.b Burns you Out for a [Burn N] exactly as 431.1.a does for a draw. And the one escape does not exist: VEN-022 Endless Riches is the pool’s ONLY card printing "Skip" (one row in the corpus), it is Fury, it banishes your hand and trash on entry, and its own "[Burn 7]" is itself a Burn Out under 431.1 against an empty deck — so it cannot save a loop even in principle.
• WHAT ANSWERS THIS, AND WHEN (added 2026-09-13, #200). FIRST THE CREDENTIAL, BECAUSE IT IS HALF THE ANSWER AND SAYING WHY A LINE IS HARD TO ANSWER BEATS SAYING NOTHING. This line's payoff is `SFD-088 Renata Glasc, Mastermind` at **Might 4 — and she misses Gust's ceiling by EXACTLY ONE POINT**, and `OGN-169 Gust` — the pool's only cheap Reaction-speed single-target answer, Chaos at **E1** — is gated at *"3 :rb_might: or less"*. The only other Reaction-speed single-target answer in the pool is `UNL-128 Star-Crossed` (Chaos, E3 P1), which returns *"a friendly unit and an enemy unit"* — AND, both of them —, so answering this body in the window costs the answerer one of their own. And this loop never leaves the Main Phase, so the roughly twenty `[Action]` removals cannot reach it either: 806.1.c.1 admits an Action *"on your turn or in showdowns"* and this opens neither a combat nor a showdown. THE BOARD ANSWER HAS TO BE FOUND ON THE OPPONENT'S OWN TURN, a full turn ahead and fully telegraphed. THE ONE GUARANTEED WINDOW IS THE SPELL EACH PASS SPENDS. **359.3.c**: *"Other players have an opportunity to play Reactions before the resolution of spells."* A UNIT or GEAR payoff never gets that window — 337.2 sends it straight to Step 4 Resolve — and a BATTLEFIELD payoff is not removable at all (170.3, 170.4). A SPELL is the one thing the process stops for, and **425.1.c** with **425.1.c.1** refunds nothing. This loop spends `VEN-052 Mesmerize` (**E1 + 1 Power**) every cycle to bounce Jayce. AND THE COUNTER-CHOICE MATTERS, WHICH IS A SENTENCE A PLAYER CAN USE: 425.1.b makes a countered card *"not considered to have been played"*, so it goes to the TRASH — where this shell's own Forge recycles it. `UNL-131 Abandon` returns a countered spell *"to its owner's hand instead of putting it in their trash"*, so **Abandon is the WRONG counter to use against this loop**: it hands the card straight back. Any of the other ten is better. AND THE POOL'S ONE ANSWER TO THAT WINDOW IS LEGAL HERE: swept on the word *countered*, only two cards mention it and only one protects anything but itself — `VEN-069 Mel, Newly Awakened` (**mono-Mind**, E4 + 1 Power, M4), *"[Empower] :rb_energy_3:"* then *"Your spells and abilities can't be countered."* 441.2 makes Empowered a STATE, so once armed it is permanent, and this identity contains Mind. She is herself a Might-4 unit, so by the paragraph above she too is above Gust's ceiling.

Steps

1. Renata: pay 4E + 4 Mind Power, exhaust — score 1.
2. Mesmerize Jayce to hand; replay him: 'When you play me… ready something besides me' → Renata.
3. Repeat.

How it ends

8 points

Sources

Walked here, in this project

• Hunt v2 lens L1, entry C4 2026-09-03 record
• REFUTE pass 2026-09-03 2026-09-03 record
• Loop budget ledger 2026-09-04 2026-09-04 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue