Combo · ENGINE

Lotus Trap — halving what a blocker costs to kill is how you manufacture excess damage

5 cards · fury · verified

Pieces

• Lotus Trap ×3 UNL-013 · engine · fury

  [Hidden] (Hide now for 1 Power of any domain to react with later for 0 Energy.) [Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Choose a unit. Double all damage that would be dealt to it this turn.

• Yeti Brawler ×1 UNL-018 · payoff · fury

  When I conquer, if you assigned 3 or more excess damage, play two Gold gear tokens exhausted. (They have "[Reaction][>] Kill this, Exhaust: [Add] 1 Power of any domain.")

• Morgana, Vindictive ×1 VEN-017 · payoff · fury

  [Ambush] (You may play me as a [Reaction] to a battlefield where you have units.) When you play me, deal damage to a unit equal to the damage marked on it.

Payoff

Deck

• Legend's Domain Identity includes Fury (103.1.b.3); mono-Fury runs all three.
• A real combat you are attacking into, with a garrison — the Yeti's payoff is a Conquer trigger.

Prerequisites

• PLAY LOTUS TRAP FROM HAND, NOT FROM HIDDEN, WHEN YOU ARE THE ATTACKER. This is the correction to issue #40, which quotes the free-from-hidden mode as the combo's mode. From Hidden, 811.1.d.2 forces the target 'from among options at that battlefield' and 811.1.b only lets you hide at a battlefield YOU control — so the free mode can only point at a unit standing on your own battlefield, which is a DEFENSIVE mode. And defending never conquers: all six excess-damage cards read 'When I conquer' or 'When you conquer'. To feed the Yeti, play it from hand for 2 Energy under 811.3 ('may be played for its cost as normal, at its normal timing with no restrictions on targeting') plus its own [Reaction].
• HOW THE HALVING WORKS, from the rules' own example. 465.2.c.4.a: 'If the damage assigned to a Unit is modified to or replaced by an amount of damage larger than the initial value, the assigning player must choose the minimum applied value such that the unit would take lethal damage.' Its worked example uses Lotus Trap's exact text on a 3 Might unit and concludes you assign 2, which doubles to 4. So against a defender of Might M you spend ceil(M/2) of your Might pool instead of M.
• AND THE MIGHT YOU SAVED IS THE EXCESS. 'Excess damage' appears ZERO times in the Core Rules — grepped in this walk — and is printed on six cards (OGN-034, SFD-120, UNL-018, UNL-187, UNL-188, UNL-217). R28 = A (ruled 2026-09-04) defines it as attacking Might that never got assigned, and notes the tail of 465.2.c.4 it overrides ('unless no further units remain to have damage assigned to them'), which read literally would make all six cards dead letter against rule 002.
• THE SMALL CASE DOES NOT CLOSE, and it is stated rather than hidden: against a 6 Might defender you assign 3 instead of 6 and free 3, which is exactly the Yeti's threshold. Against a 3 Might defender you assign 2 instead of 3 and free 1 — not enough on its own. CORRECTED 2026-10-26 (#472, the follow-up PR #471 listed for #464): against a 6 Might defender the Yeti makes nothing, because the defender kills it. 383.4.c.2.a: 'The Conquer Abilities of Units are put on the Chain as Pending Items after the Unit(s) these effects correspond to are present at a Battlefield when a player gains control of it and gains 1 Victory Point from Conquering.' 365.1: 'Passive Abilities of Permanents are typically only active while on the Board.' The defender picks the deaths: 465.2.c: 'Starting with the Attacker, each player assigns an amount of damage equal to their summed Might among the other's Units.' With 465.2.c.3: 'Units must have lethal damage assigned to them in full before damage is assigned to a different Unit. Example: If a player has 5 damage to distribute among four 3 Might units, they may not choose to assign 2 damage to one of the units and 1 damage to each of the remaining 3. They must assign at least 3 damage to one, and the remaining 2 to another.' 143.2.a: 'If a Unit ever has nonzero damage marked on it equalling or exceeding its Might, it is Killed.' The Yeti is Might 6, so a garrison of 6 or more summed Might can assign it lethal in full whatever Lotus Trap does to the damage the Yeti assigns. Lotus Trap halves what the Yeti spends, not what it takes. With the Yeti attacking alone and no damage marked, Lotus Trap on a defender of Might m in a garrison of summed Might G makes the Yeti assign G - m + ceil(m/2), so the excess is 6 - G + floor(m/2). A garrison of 1 to 3 makes 2 Gold without Lotus Trap; a garrison of 4 makes 2 Gold only with it, on any defender of Might 2 or more (a lone 4, 2+2, 3+1 or 2+1+1; 1+1+1+1 fails); a garrison of 5 makes 2 Gold only with it, on a defender of 4 or more (a lone 5, or 4+1; 3+2 fails); 6 or more, 0. So what Lotus Trap adds is a garrison of 4 with a defender of Might 2 or more, or a garrison of 5 with a defender of 4 or more; and with attacking companions summing 2 or more Might it adds nothing, since the attack is then 8 or more and the excess already clears 3 at every garrison the Yeti survives. Re-derived on 2026-10-26 from the rules above.
• DISTINCT FROM yeti-brambleback-renata-gold, which shares the Yeti. That entry takes its excess from a LIGHT garrison ('any garrison summing under 11 Might') and multiplies it with Red Brambleback under R1 = A. This one MANUFACTURES excess against a heavy garrison with a replacement effect, in mono-Fury and without Renata, so the two Gold enter exhausted and ready at your Awaken (315.1.b). CORRECTED 2026-10-26 (#472, the follow-up PR #471 listed for #464): not against a heavy garrison. From 6 summed Might the garrison kills the Might 6 Yeti, so the excess Lotus Trap manufactures is spent on a dead payoff (the small-case notable).
• MORGANA NEEDS DAMAGE ALREADY MARKED. 465.2 deals combat damage only when the showdown closes, so her 'equal to the damage marked on it' reads whatever was marked earlier in the turn — burn, or an earlier combat. [Ambush] (822.1.b) is what lets her arrive at a battlefield you do not control, provided you have units there; 822.3 takes that permission away if those units die first.
• A REAL COMBAT IS REQUIRED: 461 needs units of two opposing players, and with no combat no damage is assigned, so the excess-damage clause can never be met on a walk-in conquer.
• ONE CONQUER PER BATTLEFIELD PER TURN (466.5.d, 470), and the Yeti has to survive it (383.4.c.2.a). CORRECTED 2026-10-26 (#472, the follow-up PR #471 listed for #464): survival bounds the whole line: the Yeti lives only against a garrison of 5 or less summed Might (the small-case notable).

Steps

1. Attack an enemy battlefield with the Yeti Brawler and whatever else you brought; a garrison is mandatory (461).
2. During the showdown, play Lotus Trap FROM HAND for 2 Energy at Reaction speed (811.3 plus its printed [Reaction]), choosing the biggest defender.
3. The showdown closes. 465.2.c.4.a makes you assign that defender ceil(M/2) instead of M, so the rest of your attacking Might has nowhere to go: that leftover is excess damage under R28 = A.
4. Win the combat and establish Control: 466.5.d makes that a Conquer.
5. Yeti's trigger checks '3 or more excess damage', finds it, and plays two Gold gear tokens exhausted; they ready at your next Awaken (315.1.b).
6. Optional, and a separate window: Morgana ambushes in (822.1.b) and deals a unit damage equal to what is already marked on it — doubled by Lotus Trap if she is aimed at the same target.

Per iteration

ceil(M/2) instead of M spent on the chosen defender, so M - ceil(M/2) of attacking Might becomes excess damage; two Gold from the Yeti when that reaches 3

How it ends

engine only — one Conquer per battlefield per turn (466.5.d, 470) and two exhausted Gold per trigger; Lotus Trap caps at 3 copies (103.2.b)

Sources

Published elsewhere

• Hunt lens [Hidden]/[Ambush] — issue #40 (GitHub) 2026-09-05
• 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 2026-09-05 2026-09-05 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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