Combo · ENGINE

356.1.b.3 — playing from face down ignores the BASE cost only, so Pyke still buys his ready and +2 for one Fury Power

2 cards · fury · verified

Pieces

• Katarina, Reckless ×1 UNL-023 · payoff · fury

  When you hide a card, ready me. When you play a card from face down, deal 2 to an enemy unit.

• Pyke, Dockside Butcher ×1 UNL-028 · engine · fury

  [Hidden] (Hide now for 1 Power of any domain to react with later for 0 Energy.) [Ganking] (I can move from battlefield to battlefield.) You may pay 1 Fury Power as an additional cost to play me. When you play me, if you paid the additional cost, ready me and give me +2 Might this turn.

Payoff

Deck

• Any legend with Fury among its two domains (103.1.b.3) — 16 names: 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).
• 1 Fury Power available at the moment the facedown card is played — on the opponent's turn that means a rune held ready and tapped at 164.2.b's Reaction speed.
• A battlefield you control with no facedown card on it, one turn earlier.

Prerequisites

• RIOT'S OWN WORKED EXAMPLE SETTLES IT, AND IT IS THE POINT OF THE ENTRY. 811.1.b lets you 'play this, ignoring its base cost', and 356.1.b sets 'the appropriate Base Cost(s) of the card to zero'. 356.1.b.3 then says outright: 'Further additional costs and/or cost increases applied in subsequent steps may raise the card's Total Cost above zero', with the example 'Legion Rearguard ... A player plays Legion Rearguard and is instructed to ignore its costs, but chooses to pay the Accelerate cost. They ignore Legion Rearguard's Base Cost of 2 Energy, but the optional additional cost of 1 Energy and 1 Fury Power is added to its Total Cost and must be paid.' 204.1.a puts the Base Cost 'in the upper left corner of the card' and 204.2 makes an Additional Cost something else entirely. So a free facedown play does NOT switch off an optional additional cost — it leaves it available at full price, which for Pyke is the whole reason to run him.
• WHAT THE 1 FURY BUYS. 'Ready me and give me +2 [M] this turn' turns a 2-Might body that entered exhausted (143.4) into a ready 4-Might body. Readying him is a real ready — 415.1 marks a Game Object already on the Board, unlike the 'I enter ready' wording that is only a play-time property — so his exhaust is available for the Standard Move (144.2), and [Ganking] widens where that move may go: 810.1.c.3, 'It does not give additional abilities or activations of Movement, only new options for the Standard Move', i.e. battlefield to battlefield.
• THE MOVE IS A YOUR-TURN OPTION ONLY. 144.1.b forbids the Standard Move during a Closed State, so playing Pyke from face down inside the opponent's combat gives you a ready 4-Might defender and nothing else until your own Main Phase. Played from face down on YOUR turn, in a Neutral Open State, he arrives at the hidden battlefield (811.1.d.1) and immediately ganks to the other one — a free body that attacks the turn it appears.
• Katarina's own 2 damage rides along on the facedown play, unrestricted by 811.1.d (it is her trigger, not Pyke's play effect), so the package is: a ready 4-Might mobile body and 2 damage anywhere, for 1 rainbow banked a turn earlier plus 1 Fury Power.
• The 'if you paid the additional cost' clause is checked by the trigger, so paying is not optional-in-effect: without the Fury Power Pyke is a bare 2-Might body that entered exhausted and the entry is worth only Katarina's 2.
• 811.1.b's cap applies as it does to every [Hidden] line: one facedown card per battlefield you control, two battlefields in a Duel (485.4).

Steps

1. On your turn, pay 1 rainbow to hide Pyke, Dockside Butcher at a battlefield you control (811.1.b). Katarina readies on the hide.
2. On a later turn, play him from face down. 356.1.b sets his base cost to zero; 811.1.d.1 puts him at that battlefield.
3. Choose to pay the optional additional cost of 1 Fury Power — 356.1.b.3 keeps it payable and its worked example is exactly this shape.
4. His play trigger fires because the cost was paid: ready him (415.1) and give him +2 Might this turn. He is a ready 4-Might body.
5. Katarina's trigger deals 2 to any enemy unit on the board.
6. On your own turn, spend his exhaust on a Standard Move; [Ganking] lets it go battlefield to battlefield (810.1.c.3).

Per iteration

-1 card, -1 rainbow, -1 Fury Power, +1 ready body at 4 Might with [Ganking], 2 damage anywhere

How it ends

engine — a ready, mobile 4-Might body plus 2 damage for 1 rainbow and 1 Fury Power, 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

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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