Combo · ENGINE

The pool's only either-or Empower cost meets the only either-or Empower discount, and they cancel exactly

4 cards · body · verified

Pieces

• Legion Marauder ×3 VEN-074 · engine · body

  [Empower] — 1 Energy or 1 Body Power (Pay either cost: Empower me. Use only if not Empowered.) [Empowered][>] I have +1 Might.

• Risen Altar ×1 VEN-163 · battlefield

  [Empower] costs of your units here cost 1 Energy or 1 Power of any domain less.

Payoff

Deck

• Legion Marauder is mono-Body and Risen Altar is Colorless, so 103.1.b.3 admits any legend with Body in its pair: SFD-203/SFD-250 Battle Mistress, OGN-257/OGN-304 Blind Monk, OGN-267/OGN-309 Bounty Hunter, VEN-141/VEN-190 Butcher of the Sands, VEN-149/VEN-194 Defender of Tomorrow, SFD-205/SFD-251 Grand Duelist, SFD-193/SFD-245 Grandmaster at Arms, UNL-203/UNL-237 Keeper of the Hammer, VEN-153/VEN-196 Matriarch of War, OGS-023 Might of Demacia - Starter, UNL-183/UNL-227 Pridestalker, SFD-183/SFD-241 Purifier, OGN-249/OGN-300 Relentless Storm, OGN-269/OGN-310 The Boss, UNL-201/UNL-236 Voidreaver, OGS-019 Wuju Bladesman - Starter, UNL-191/UNL-231 Wuju Master.
• Neither card is banned or restricted in either format, and neither is a Signature card.
• The battlefield is not guaranteed: 485.4.a has each player provide three and 485.5 selects randomly, and 103.4.c forbids a second copy of the same name. State it in any list that depends on the Altar.
• And it must be a battlefield you CONTROL with the unit standing there. 190.1 makes a battlefield you provide start uncontrolled, and 190.6.d ignores every instruction of an uncontrolled battlefield's abilities that refers to 'you'.

Prerequisites

• TWO DISJUNCTIONS THAT LINE UP, AND BOTH WERE SWEPT. `grep -in "\[Empower\]" data/corpus_flat.txt | grep -i " or "` returns thirteen rows; twelve match on reminder text, and exactly ONE prints a disjunctive COST - VEN-074's ':rb_energy_1: or :rb_rune_body: (Pay either cost)'. The same grep is what surfaces VEN-163 Risen Altar, whose rebate is the mirror image: ':rb_energy_1: or :rb_rune_rainbow: less'. Whichever half of the Marauder's cost you elect, the Altar's matching half cancels it, and 356.6 ('Energy and Power costs can't be reduced below 0') holds it at zero rather than owing anything back.
• WHY THE DISJUNCTION IS WORTH MORE THAN THE ONE ENERGY. 167 empties every player's Rune Pool at the start of each Main Phase, so what you actually have late in a turn is whichever of Energy or Power you did not spend. A cost that accepts either is payable on a turn a fixed cost is not - which is the whole practical difference on a 1-Energy ability, and it is the reason to notice the wording at all.
• WHAT THE EMPOWER IS FOR, HONESTLY. The Marauder's own [Empowered] clause is '+1 :rb_might:' and that is not worth a card. What the free payment buys is the EVENT: 441.2.a, 'When a Game Object becomes Empowered as a result of the Empower game action, that is an event that can similarly be referenced by game effects and abilities.' Every 'when you empower something' payoff in the pool reads that event, and this is the cheapest way to produce one - free, at the Altar.
• AND THE CEILING IS ALREADY ON RECORD, SO THIS IS A RATE AND NOT A MOTOR. 441.1.b: 'An Empowered Game Object can not be Empowered', with 441.1.c ('nothing additional happens') and 441.2 making the state permanent. So each Marauder is ONE event and three copies are three; the catalogued matriarch-of-war-empower-ready refused exactly this card as an engine for that reason - 'both are one Empower per copy, six in a whole game, which is not a motor' - and that verdict stands. Making the payment free changes the price of the events, never their number.
• THE OTHER HALF OF WHAT A FREE EMPOWER BUYS, IN THIS DOMAIN. VEN-072 Guttural Roar gives a unit '+2 :rb_might: this turn. If it's [Empowered], give it +4 :rb_might: this turn instead' - 053.2 makes that condition read the TARGET - so an Empowered Marauder is a 3 Might body that takes +4 from a 2-Energy spell. That pairing is walked as guttural-roar-tools-of-empire-brutal-hunter on the expensive body; this entry is the cheap one, and the two name each other.
• DISTINCT FROM THE CATALOGUED ALTAR ENTRY. risen-altar-ambessa-empower-power-rebate takes a POWER off VEN-136's two-rune [Empower] cost, where the rebate is worth a domain rune. Here the rebate meets a cost that is already a choice, and the point is that the two disjunctions match term for term - a different fact about the same battlefield.
• WHAT IT IS NOT. Nothing here scores; 469 defines Scoring as Conquer or Hold and neither card touches either.

Steps

1. Take control of the Risen Altar - 190.1 makes a battlefield you provide start uncontrolled, so this means walking a body in and establishing Control (466.5).
2. Play Legion Marauder (2 Energy) and move it to the Altar; the Altar's text reads 'your units HERE'.
3. Activate its [Empower]. Elect either half of the cost, and the Altar's matching half reduces it to nothing (356.6 floors it at 0).
4. 441.2.a makes that a 'becomes Empowered' EVENT for anything in the deck that reads one, and 441.2 makes the Marauder's +1 Might permanent.
5. Repeat with the second and third copies (103.2.b). 441.1.b means each body is one event and no more.

Per iteration

one free Empower event per Legion Marauder standing at the Altar, in whichever currency you have left

How it ends

engine only - one Empower per body (441.1.b), three copies by 103.2.b, and the battlefield itself is one of three selected at random (485.5); 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
• Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt (built from Riot's gallery content API) 2026-09-07

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-07 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-07-uncatalogued-body.md, batch 4) 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue