Combo · ENGINE
Kinkou Temple doubles the bill for a Tank wall — four 1-Might Birds absorb four damage, four 2-Might ones absorb eight
Pieces
- Kinkou Temple ×1
VEN-159 · battlefield
Units here with [Tank] have +1 Might.
- Lillia, Protector of Dreams ×1
UNL-058 · enabler · calm
When you play a token unit, give me +1 Might this turn. Your token units have [Tank]. (They must be assigned combat damage first.)
- Flurry of Feathers ×3
UNL-044 · payoff · calm
[Reaction] Choose one — • Counter a spell. • Play four 1 Might Bird unit tokens with [Deflect]. (Opponents must pay 1 Power of any domain to choose them with a spell or ability.)
Payoff
Deck
- The line is mono-Calm (Lillia and Flurry of Feathers; Kinkou Temple is Colorless), so 103.1.b.3 admits any legend with Calm in its pair: OGN-255/OGN-303 Nine-Tailed Fox, OGN-257/OGN-304 Blind Monk, OGN-259/OGN-305 Unforgiven, OGN-261/OGN-306 Radiant Dawn, SFD-189/SFD-244 Fire Below the Mountain, SFD-193/SFD-245 Grandmaster at Arms, SFD-195/SFD-246 Blade Dancer, SFD-197/SFD-247 Emperor of the Sands, UNL-189/UNL-230 Bashful Bloom, UNL-191/UNL-231 Wuju Master, UNL-193/UNL-232 Gloomist, UNL-195/UNL-233 Green Father, VEN-139/VEN-189 Rogue Assassin, VEN-145/VEN-192 Curator of the Sands, VEN-147/VEN-193 Eye of Twilight, OGS-019 Wuju Bladesman - Starter (restricted in 2v2).
Prerequisites
- THE ARITHMETIC, AND WHY THE +1 IS WORTH DOUBLE ITS SIZE. 815.1.c.2: 'If more than one unit with Tank is present with the same controller in Combat, damage may be assigned to any of them. Units without Tank are invalid assignments until all units with Tank have lethal damage assigned to them.' 815.1.c.1 forces lethal onto one before moving to the next, and 465.2.c.4 forbids assigning more than the minimum needed. Four 1-Might Birds are therefore exactly 4 damage and the project has already measured that; at Kinkou Temple they are 2 Might each and the bill is 8. The +1 per body doubles the wall because the wall is priced in DAMAGE, not in Might.
- AND LILLIA IS BEHIND THEM. She has no Tank herself, so 815.1.c.2 makes her an invalid assignment until all four Birds have lethal. Clearing the whole garrison on the turn the Birds land is 8 + 8 = 16 (her M4 plus +4 from four tokens played this turn); on later turns it is 8 + 4 = 12.
- THE [DEFLECT] ON THE BIRDS TAXES THE OTHER ROUTE. 809.1.c / 809.1.d charge for targeting or choosing, so removing the wall with spells instead of damage costs 1 rainbow Power per Bird — four Power to answer a wall that cost E4 + 2 Power.
- LILLIA IS ANTI-SYNERGIC WITH THE GRAND PLAZA FAMILY and this entry does not touch it. Her Tank grant makes every other body of yours an invalid damage assignment (815.1.c.2), which is the opposite of what a seven-body Plaza line needs — the project recorded that on the Plaza side and it is restated here so the two are never combined.
- IT DOES NOT SCORE AND IT IS NOT A LOCK. The Birds are ordinary units; 470 and 315.2.b.2 apply to the battlefield exactly as they would without them. What this buys is that a garrison at Kinkou Temple costs twice as much to remove.
- KINKOU TEMPLE IS NOT GUARANTEED TO BE ON THE TABLE: 485.4.a puts one of your three into a Duel, 485.5 picks it at random, 486.5 lets you choose in 1v1 Match play, and 103.4.c forbids a second copy of the name.
Steps
- Bring Kinkou Temple as one of your three battlefields. It needs no Control: there is no 'you' in its text.
- Play Lillia, Protector of Dreams (E5) and garrison Kinkou Temple with her. Her 'Your token units have [Tank]' is a static and needs nothing further.
- When the opponent attacks, play Flurry of Feathers (E4 + 2 Power) inside the Combat's Closed State — 813.1.c.1 lets a [Reaction] card be played there — and choose the second mode: four 1-Might Bird tokens with [Deflect].
- The Birds are tokens, so Lillia's static gives each of them [Tank], and Kinkou Temple's static gives each Tank unit here +1 Might. They stand at 2.
- 815.1.c.2 makes every non-Tank body of yours an invalid damage assignment until all four Birds have lethal damage; 815.1.c.1 and 465.2.c.4 make that exactly 2 each. The attacker needs 8 summed Might to get through the Birds and another 8 that turn to reach Lillia.
How it ends
engine only — a garrison that costs 8 damage to clear before the attacker may touch anything else, and 4 rainbow Power to answer with spells instead; three castings of Flurry of Feathers a game (103.2.b), and 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 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-07-uncatalogued-cards.md), issue #171 2026-09-07 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.
HAND-WALKED 2026-09-07, issue #171. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. VEN-159 Kinkou Temple is the only card in the pool that keys on [Tank] other than the cards that grant it, which is checked by grepping the corpus for the bracketed keyword and reading every row. The four-Birds-absorb-four measurement is the project's own, from the Lillia refusal on the Plaza side; this entry is the constructive half of it and restates the Plaza incompatibility so the two are never merged. Trap check: the wall is priced in DAMAGE (143.2.a needs nonzero damage equalling or exceeding Might, 465.2.c.4 forbids over-assigning), which is the same discipline that refused Black Flame Altar on a 0-Might Reflection earlier in this walk; the Birds are tokens, so 185 / 186.1 / 416.1 apply and none of them is ever recycled or counted as a card; no attack is claimed on your side; exactly one battlefield is named, so 485.4.a is respected.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16