Combo · ENGINE

Keeper of the Hammer draws off the Holds a Body board already takes — and one [Hunt 2] partner is what makes it a card a turn

2 cards · body + order · verified

Pieces

• Keeper of the Hammer ×1 UNL-203 · legend · body/order

  When you hold, gain 1 XP. Spend 3 XP, Exhaust: Draw 1.

• Arachnoid Horror ×1 UNL-117 · engine · body

  [Hunt 2] (When I conquer or hold, gain 2 XP.) I can be played to an occupied battlefield if an enemy unit is alone there. Friendly units can be played to an occupied battlefield if an enemy unit is alone there.

Payoff

Deck

• Keeper of the Hammer is the legend, so the Domain Identity is Body/Order (103.1.b.2); UNL-117 is mono-Body and 103.1.b.3 admits it.
• The engine needs a battlefield held at the Scoring Step, which is what a Body board does anyway. It needs no spell, no gear and no second colour.

Prerequisites

• THE LEGEND'S OWN CEILING IS 2 XP A TURN, NOT 1. 315.2.b.2 is '1. The Turn Player Holds all Battlefields they Control', 469.2 defines the Hold per battlefield and 470 caps Scoring at once per battlefield per turn; 383.4.d.2.b puts a player-referencing Hold ability on the chain per Hold performed. A Duel has two battlefields (485.4, 'Battlefield Count: 2'), so two Holds is two triggers. Against a 3-XP draw that is a card every OTHER turn from the legend alone — which is why the [Hunt] partner is in uses and not in notable.
• THE ARITHMETIC, PER TURN. Legend on one battlefield = 1 XP; on two = 2. Arachnoid Horror holding as well ([Hunt 2], 823.1.b makes Hunt both a Conquer and a Hold effect, 823.1.c.1 gives the XP) adds 2. One battlefield with the Horror = 3 XP = exactly one draw. Two battlefields with the Horror on one = 4 XP = one draw and 1 banked.
• THE XP ARRIVES BEFORE IT IS SPENT, IN THE SAME TURN. The Scoring Step (315.2.b.2) sits in the Beginning Phase, ahead of the Main Phase (316), and 315.1.b has already readied the legend in the Awaken Phase. So the turn's Holds pay for the turn's draw.
• THE DRAW IS SAFE HERE, AND THE LOOP WALL DOES NOT APPLY. 431.1.a burns you out only if you must draw in excess of your Main Deck. The '0 spare draws' wall recorded for the Lux ledger is a property of a loop running with the deck EMPTY, where the draws per pass and the cards recycled back are balanced on purpose; nothing here recycles anything, the deck is a full 40+ (103.2), and the extra card is one per turn capped by the legend's exhaust. A Duel ends at 8 points long before the deck does.
• EACH DRAW WALKS YOUR LEVEL DOWN 3, AND IN THIS DOMAIN PAIR THAT MATTERS. 824.1.b.1 makes [Level N] short for 'While you have [N] or more XP...' and 824.1.d makes the ability Inactive 'as soon as the controlling player has less than [N] XP'; 730.2 says spending reduces the marked value. The Body/Order [Level] cards are UNL-151 Bandle Soldier ([Level 3] 'I enter ready'), UNL-094 Gemhand Hunter ([Level 6] +1 Might, also [Hunt]), UNL-091 Concentrate ([Level 6]/[Level 11] discount) and UNL-098 Targonian Visionary ([Level 11] +4 Might).
• AND THE TWO FAMILIES BEHAVE DIFFERENTLY. UNL-151's 'I enter ready' and UNL-091's discount are read ONCE, as the card is played (355, 356), so the rule is simply play first and draw after. UNL-094's and UNL-098's +Might are CONTINUOUS, so drawing from 6 XP shrinks a Gemhand Hunter mid-board and possibly mid-combat: the safe band is 9+ for a [Level 6] board and 14+ for [Level 11] — the same shape wuju-master-blood-rose-level already publishes as its 11-13 band.
• IT COMPETES WITH THE OTHER KEEPER LINE ALREADY IN THE CATALOGUE. poppy-confront-blood-rose names UNL-203 in its prerequisites as the legend whose 'When you hold, gain 1 XP' feeds the pool UNL-109 Blood Rose spends. Both sinks cost 3 XP, so one Blood Rose ready is one Keeper draw forgone. They are the same faucet with two taps, not two engines that stack.
• UNL-116 POPPY, PARAGON IS THE NATURAL CHOSEN CHAMPION AND IS WORTH EXACTLY ONE DRAW. It is a Champion unit with the tag Poppy, which 103.2.a.2 matches against the legend's tag, and its 'gain 3 XP' is one activation to the digit. It is named here rather than in uses because the engine does not need it.
• WHAT THE GRANT IS FOR. 170.11.a defines an occupied battlefield as one with a unit present, and 355.2.a limits play locations to 'the controller's Base or a Battlefield the controller controls' unless 355.2.b grants more. Arachnoid Horror grants exactly that, for itself and for friends, whenever the opponent is down to one body there — so a contested battlefield can be reinforced straight from hand. 'Alone' is an own-side measurement, printed as reminder text on SFD-036 Lonely Poro and UNL-210 Forbidding Waste.
• IT IS ENGINE, NOT BURST OR INFINITE. Nothing in the pool converts XP to points; the sweep of every XP row against point/score/win returns only UNL-116 (which gains XP off the opponent's score) and UNL-201 (which gains XP off a combat). The draw is one per turn by the legend's exhaust and the XP faucet is bounded by 485.4's two battlefields.

Steps

1. Keeper of the Hammer in the Legend Zone. Get Arachnoid Horror onto a battlefield you control — from your base by Standard Move (144.4.a), or straight in under its own 355.2.b grant when the opponent is down to a single body there.
2. Awaken Phase: 315.1.b readies the legend along with everything else you control.
3. Scoring Step (315.2.b.2): you Hold every battlefield you control. Each Hold is a separate Score (469.2, 470) and so a separate trigger — 'When you hold, gain 1 XP' fires per Hold under 383.4.d.2.b, and Arachnoid Horror's [Hunt 2] adds 2 more on the battlefield it stands on.
4. Main Phase (316): Spend 3 XP and exhaust the legend to Draw 1. That is the whole engine, and it is once per turn — the exhaust caps it, not the balance.
5. Sequencing rule, if the deck runs [Level] cards: play UNL-151 Bandle Soldier or UNL-091 Concentrate BEFORE drawing, because their thresholds are read once as the card is played; and keep 9+ XP before drawing if a [Level 6] +Might body is on the board, because 824.1.d switches that off the instant the balance falls.
6. Repeat every turn the board holds. XP that is not spent carries over (729, 733) and nothing the opponent controls can touch it (731, 731.1).

Per iteration

+3 XP per turn holding one battlefield with Arachnoid Horror on it, +4 holding two; -3 for one extra card

How it ends

engine only — one extra card per turn for the legend's exhaust, for as long as the board holds; no points and no loop, since nothing in the pool converts XP into Victory Points

Sources

Published elsewhere

• Combo hunt: champion progression (Level/XP/Flow/Champion Zone) — issue #116 (GitHub) 2026-09-06
• 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 2026-09-06 2026-09-06 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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