Combo · ENGINE
Katarina, Reckless × Hidden Blade — one rainbow Power buys a kill, two damage and a ready
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.
- Hidden Blade ×1
OGN-213 · engine · order
[Hidden] (Hide now for 1 Power of any domain to react with later for 0 Energy.) [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Kill a unit at a battlefield. Its controller draws 2.
Payoff
Deck
- Legend domains must cover Fury (Katarina) and Order (Hidden Blade) — Hand of Noxus, Void Burrower, Piltover Enforcer.
Prerequisites
- KATARINA IS PAID TWICE BY ONE CARD, ON TWO DIFFERENT TURNS, and 811.1.b is why: 'you may pay [A] to hide this facedown at a battlefield you control that doesn't already have a facedown card hidden there … BEGINNING ON THE NEXT TURN, this gains [Reaction] and you may play this, ignoring its base cost.' Hiding is turn one and readies her; playing is turn two and deals 2. 811.1.c.1 — 'Hide is not a subset of Play' — is what keeps them separate events rather than one.
- The whole package costs ONE rainbow Power. The Blade's printed 2 Energy + 1 Power is ignored when it is played from face down, so a kill of any unit at a battlefield, plus 2 damage anywhere from Katarina, plus a ready, is bought for the hide alone.
- 811.1.d.2 IS THE CONSTRAINT AND IT DECIDES WHERE YOU HIDE. 'If a hidden spell or a play effect of a hidden permanent chooses any targets, those targets must be chosen from among options at that battlefield, unless the ability explicitly restricts targeting in a way that makes this impossible.' Hidden Blade reads 'Kill a unit at a battlefield' — no such impossibility — so it kills at the battlefield you hid it at. Hide it where you expect to fight, a turn ahead. Katarina's own 'deal 2 to an enemy unit' is HER ability, not the hidden card's, so it is unrestricted.
- The drawback is real and is on the Blade: 'Its controller draws 2.' You are trading two cards of theirs for one of yours plus one Power, which is a good rate against a body that matters and a bad one against chaff.
- One hide per battlefield you control per turn (811.1.b), so in a Duel (485.4) this is one or two cycles a turn, not one per [Hidden] card in hand. That cap, not the card count, is the throughput.
- Katarina's ready falls under the same limit every ready in this slice does: it buys one extra Standard Move (144.2 charges the exhaust) and nothing on defence, since combat does not read exhaustion (464.2.c.3, 465.2.b, #61). But the hide happens on YOUR turn in an Open State (811.1.b), so unlike a defensive stun trigger the move is actually available.
- Sibling: katarina-reckless-hidden-burn already runs her with Black Market Broker for the Gold; this row is the removal half and needs no third card.
Steps
- Play Katarina, Reckless (5 Energy + 1 Fury Power) and control a battlefield with no facedown card on it.
- Turn one, in an Open State on your turn: pay 1 rainbow Power to hide Hidden Blade face down at that battlefield (811.1.b). Hiding opens no chain (811.1.c.2).
- Katarina's first trigger fires: she readies. Spend the extra Standard Move now or leave her where she is.
- Turn two: play Hidden Blade from face down, ignoring its base cost. 811.1.c.3 makes that a play from face down.
- The Blade kills a unit at the battlefield it was hidden at (811.1.d.2); its controller draws 2.
- Katarina's second trigger fires: deal 2 to an enemy unit — hers is unrestricted, so aim it anywhere. Repeat next turn with the next hidden card.
Per iteration
one unit killed, 2 damage and one ready, for 1 rainbow Power per cycle
How it ends
engine — removal paid for in Power rather than Energy, one cycle per controlled battlefield per turn
Sources
Walked here, in this project
- Two-card pair walk, cause/trigger matrix rows 6-15 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-proven-rule-instances.md §24) 2026-09-06 record
How this entry was audited
REFUTE = a refutation pass, with its date and verdict · WOUNDED = the pass found a flaw and the entry was rewritten · BUDGETED = the pass checked the recycle-and-draw ledger · lens = the hunt that proposed it.
Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt; 144.2, 464.2.c.3, 465.2.b, 485.4, 811.1.b, 811.1.c.1, 811.1.c.2, 811.1.c.3 and 811.1.d.2 opened in the Core Rules file. Both cards checked against data/legality.json by base code: legal in both formats — the matrix's first pass read that field as a scalar and let banned rows through, so it was re-checked here. No unruled reading. Hidden Blade was chosen over the cheaper mono-Fury SFD-017 Sudden Storm (deal 2, or 4 to an attacker) because it is the only unconditional KILL in the package; Sudden Storm is recorded as the cheap alternative in the family lead.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16