Combo · ENGINE
Commander Ledros fed on free Birds — an 8-Might body for six Energy and no Power
Pieces
- Commander Ledros ×1
OGN-231 · payoff · order
As you play me, you may kill any number of friendly units as an additional cost. Reduce my cost by 1 Order Power for each killed this way. [Deflect] (Opponents must pay 1 Power of any domain to choose me with a spell or ability.) [Ganking] (I can move from battlefield to battlefield.)
- Ultrasoft Poro ×1
UNL-160 · engine · order
Exhaust: Play two 1 Energy Might Bird unit tokens with [Deflect]. Use this ability only while I'm at a battlefield. (Opponents must pay 1 Power of any domain to choose a [Deflect] unit with a spell or ability.)
- Carrion Dredger ×2
UNL-153 · resource · order
[Deathknell][>] Play a 1 Might Bird unit token with [Deflect] to your base. (When I die, get the effect. Opponents must pay 1 Power of any domain to choose a [Deflect] unit with a spell or ability.)
Payoff
Deck
- Mono-Order: all four cards are Order.
- A battlefield you control for Ultrasoft Poro to stand on - his ability is switched off anywhere else.
Run play
Prerequisites
- The kill is an OPTIONAL additional cost - 356.2.b.1, the phrase is "you may ... as an additional cost" - and 356.6 caps what it buys: "Energy and Power costs can't be reduced below 0", so the discount stops at the printed 4 Power and a fifth body is wasted.
- The Poro is a turn slower than it looks. He enters exhausted (143.4), so the first two Birds arrive the turn AFTER he is played, and his ability costs his own exhaust, so he activates once per turn. Four Birds is two turns of Poro, or one turn of Poro plus the two Carrion Dredgers. CORRECTED 2026-10-14 (#357, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-14-the-poro-dies-where-he-must-stand-and-the-dredgers-alone-cast-ledros-a-turn-sooner.md): this notable cited 415.3.a for the one activation per turn, and 415.3.a is the Awakening ready ('A player Readies all non-spell Game Objects they Control during the Awakening Phase on their turn.'); the cap is the exhaust in the cost, which only that ready (315.1.b) pays back in this line. And it counted the turn but not the EXPOSURE: he has to stand at a battlefield you control (355.2.a), he enters exhausted (143.4), and he stands there through the opponent's whole next turn before his first Birds. In the play OGN-130 Crackshot Corsair (Body, E3, M3, 'When I attack, deal 1 to an enemy unit here.') and UNL-092 Demacian Diplomat (Body, E2, M2), bodies played on their T2, walked in on their T3: the Corsair's 1 plus 4 of their 5 is exactly lethal on a 5 (142.4.b), and the Poro died before making a Bird.
- Sacrificing Dredgers refunds Birds. 428.1.a.1 makes a kill paid as a cost an Active Kill and 428.1.a.1.b puts the Deathknell on the chain as a Pending Item before the kill completes, so 2 Dredgers + 2 Birds is four deaths and leaves two new Birds in base.
- THE DREDGERS ALONE CAST LEDROS A TURN SOONER - ADDED 2026-10-14 (#357, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-14-the-poro-dies-where-he-must-stand-and-the-dredgers-alone-cast-ledros-a-turn-sooner.md). Ledros's cost kills 'any number of friendly units', not Birds. Two Dredgers and the Bird the first one leaves put him down on T3 at E6 + 2 Order Power: six runes exhausted for the Energy and two of them recycled for the Power (164.2.a, 164.2.b). The Poro's earliest zero-Power Ledros is T4, since the Poro played on T3 makes his first Birds on T4. Ledros can even be played to the battlefield the killed Dredger held: 355.2 ('For Units, choose a valid Location where that Unit will enter upon being Played.') is step 2, when the Dredger still holds it, and the kill is paid in step 4 (357.2); none of the checks in 358 re-tests the location, and 359.2.c reads 'If it is a Unit, it enters the Board exhausted at the Location that was chosen.' Control is not lost mid-play either: 190.4.c takes it only in an Open state, at the following cleanup, and 354.1 'Closes the State' as Ledros goes to the chain. Both lines have six runes on the board on T4 if the Poro dies; if he lives, his line has eight. So the Poro buys two runes and costs a turn, and only if he survives the opponent's turn the previous notable describes.
- What 4 Power is worth, priced honestly against the rune economy rather than against a cap that does not exist: every deck can recycle two exhausted runes a turn for 2 Power and get them back at the next Channel Phase (164.2.b, 161.2.b, 315.3.b), so 4 Power is two turns of that free rate, or four recycles in one turn of which only two are refilled. Real, and smaller than "four runes gone forever". CORRECTED 2026-10-24 (#456): not at the next Channel Phase. 416.1 puts a recycled rune on the bottom of the Rune Deck (416.1.b) and 430.1 channels from the top, so 315.3.b's two a turn are the runes above it, which the board gets whether or not anything was recycled. With only those two a turn (161.2.a, 315.3.b, 485.7), a rune recycled on any of T1 to T6 is back on T7 going first; going second the first one recycled by T5 is back on T6 and the second on T7; each two more recycled push it a turn later, and a card that channels more (430.2) brings it back sooner. Only once the Rune Deck is empty (all twelve out, T6 at the earliest from either seat) does the next Channel Phase give a recycled rune back; before that a recycle is a rune short on every turn until the deck runs dry, and two recycled every turn hold the board flat at two going first. So the saved 4 Power is worth more than 'two turns of that free rate' before the deck runs dry: four runes recycled on one of T2 to T6 going first are back on T7, T7, T8 and T8, so the board is four short on every turn through T6 and reaches twelve on T8 instead of T6. 'Smaller than four runes gone forever' still holds, and the discount is worth more than this caveat said, not less. Status unchanged.
- The tokens have nowhere illegal to go: the ability names no location, so 355.2.a sends each to your base or a battlefield you control, and 143.4 enters them exhausted, which does not matter for fodder.
- What refutes it. The Birds are 1 Might and OGN-133 Flurry of Blades (Body, 1 Energy, [Reaction], "Deal 1 to all units at battlefields") is lethal to every one of them standing at a battlefield under 142.4.b, without paying Deflect, because it chooses nothing. The discount is on Power only, so the 6 Energy is always paid. And OGN-113 Malzahar, Fanatic converts a body into 2 Power at any time rather than only while playing a card, which is a better rate - but it is [Action], it is Mind, and it is already catalogued. CORRECTED 2026-10-14 (#357, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-14-the-poro-dies-where-he-must-stand-and-the-dredgers-alone-cast-ledros-a-turn-sooner.md): the Flurry sentence is true of a Bird standing at a battlefield, but this line has no Bird there. The Dredger's Bird goes 'to your base' by its own text, and the Poro's Birds go wherever their controller picks under 355.2.a, which includes base. A Dredger the Flurry kills at a battlefield hands back a Bird in base (323.4), and the Poro, a 5, takes 1 and lives, so the Flurry removes no fodder. Re-counted here: the Body and Chaos cards in data/corpus_flat.txt whose text reaches 'all units', 'all enemy units', 'each unit', 'all other units' or 'all friendly units' are ten, and two of them reach a base. UNL-132 Angler Beast (Chaos, E5 + 1 Power, M5): 'When you play me, return all units with 2 :rb_might: or less to their owners' hands.' Every Bird is a 1, and 186.1: 'If a token is put into any Non-Board Zone besides the chain, it ceases to exist immediately after moving to its new zone.' The Dredgers go back to hand without dying, so no Deathknell fires; the Poro stays. SFD-147 Downwell (Chaos, E8 + 2 Power, 'Return all units and gear to their owners' hands.') reaches it too, at eight runes and at the price of the opponent's own board. Angler Beast is the answer to this line, not the Flurry.
Steps
- Play Ultrasoft Poro (5 Energy) to a battlefield you control. He enters exhausted (143.4).
- Next turn he readies (315.1.b): exhaust him for two 1-Might Bird tokens with [Deflect].
- Either wait one more turn for two more Birds, or put the two Carrion Dredgers on the board for 2 Energy each.
- Play Commander Ledros, killing four friendly bodies as the optional additional cost: the printed 6 Energy + 4 Order Power becomes 6 Energy + 0 Power (356.6 stops it there).
- If the four were 2 Dredgers + 2 Birds, both Deathknells resolve first (428.1.a.1.b) and two fresh Birds land in your base, ready for the next Ledros or for Stalking Wolf.
How it ends
an 8-Might [Deflect] [Ganking] body on the board for 6 Energy and no Power, plus two Birds back if Dredgers paid for it
Sources
Walked here, in this project
- Reaction/Deflect lens hunt, issue #44 candidate 4 (rc-huntF) 2026-09-05
- Hand walk 2026-09-06 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.
HAND-WALKED 2026-09-06 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-reaction-deflect-candidates.md), issue #44 candidate 4. Two corrections to the hunt's arithmetic, neither of which breaks it: the sequence skipped the turn Ultrasoft Poro spends entering exhausted, so four Birds is the third turn and not the second; and the value of the saved 4 Power was written as "4 runes that do not leave the board", which overstates it - 161.2.b returns a recycled rune to the Rune Deck and 315.3.b channels two back every turn, so 4 Power is two turns of the free rate. Verified against the corpus that UNL-153 Carrion Dredger is [Mech, Zaun] and its token is the Bird. CORRECTED 2026-10-14 (#357), from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-14-the-poro-dies-where-he-must-stand-and-the-dredgers-alone-cast-ledros-a-turn-sooner.md (#354). Its four leads were re-read against the card text and the Core Rules and all four applied: the refutation names the wrong card (the Birds stand in base, Angler Beast reaches them); the Poro's turn is also an exposure (he died in the play to two bodies on their T3); two Dredgers alone cast Ledros on T3 at 2 Order Power, a turn before the Poro's zero-Power Ledros; and 415.3.a was cited for a cap that comes from the exhaust in the cost. Status stays verified: the play cast Ledros with the kill as an additional cost, the discount reduced Power only (356.6), and the Dredgers' Deathknell handed Birds back, which is the mechanism the entry claims. The zero-Power end state needs the Poro to survive one opponent turn, which the entry now says. CORRECTED 2026-10-24 (#456): not at the next Channel Phase. A recycled rune goes to the bottom of the Rune Deck (416.1, 416.1.b) and 430.1 channels from the top, so it is back on T7 at the earliest going first and T6 at the earliest going second with only the Channel Phase's two a turn (161.2.a, 315.3.b, 485.7); each two more recycled push it a turn later, a card that channels more (430.2) brings it back sooner, and the next Channel Phase gives it back only once the Rune Deck is empty. So '4 Power is two turns of the free rate' holds only once the Rune Deck is empty; before it the four recycled runes are short on every turn until T7 and T8 going first (see the corrected caveat), so the saved Power is worth more, not less. Status unchanged.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16