Combo · ENGINE
Acceleration Gate readies three Malzahars - 13 Power in a turn off Sprite Fountains
Pieces
- Malzahar, Fanatic ×3
OGN-113 · engine · mind
Kill a friendly unit or gear, Exhaust: [Action] — [Add] 2 Power of any domain. (Use on your turn or in showdowns. Abilities that add resources can't be reacted to.)
- Acceleration Gate ×2
VEN-150 · enabler · mind/body
Ready up to 4 units, gear, and/or runes.
- Sprite Fountain ×3
UNL-078 · resource · mind
[Temporary] (Kill this at the start of its controller's Beginning Phase, before scoring.) When you play this, play a ready 3 Might Sprite unit token with [Temporary] to your base. [Deathknell][>] Repeat this gear's play effect. (When this dies, get the effect.)
- Defender of Tomorrow ×1
VEN-149 · legend · mind/body
[Empower] 2 Energy + 2 Power of any domain (2 Energy + 2 Power of any domain: Empower me. Use only if not Empowered.) 1 Energy, Exhaust: Ready a gear. [Empowered][>] 1 Energy, Exhaust: Ready 2 gear.
Payoff
Deck
- Legend is Defender of Tomorrow (VEN-149, Mind/Body). Acceleration Gate is Mind/Body, so 103.1.b.1 forces it: all 49 legends in the pool were swept and exactly one carries both domains.
Prerequisites
- Three Malzahars on the board from earlier turns - 12 Energy of setup - and all three ready from the Awaken (315.1.b). Each activation exhausts one and eats one friendly unit or gear.
- The Power is Added in the Main Phase, so it lasts the turn and is lost at its end (316.3). Nothing here scores: the turn has to hold its own sink.
- Bounded by copies, not by fuel: 103.2.b caps Acceleration Gate at 3 and Sprite Fountain at 3, and nothing in Mind/Body brings a spell back from the trash for free or readies a unit repeatably inside one turn. That is why this is an ENGINE and not the INFINITE its source gestured at.
Steps
- Round 1, off the Awaken readies. Play Sprite Fountain (2 Energy + 1 Mind): a ready 3 Might Sprite token with [Temporary] at your base.
- Malzahar #1 kills the Fountain as the ability's cost and exhausts: [Add] 2 rainbow. The kill as a cost is an Active Kill (428.1.a.1), and Deathknell is present on Permanents (808.1.a) with its trigger added to the chain before the card reaches the trash (808.1.d.2), so the Fountain's 'Repeat this gear's play effect' still fires and makes a second ready Sprite.
- Malzahar #2 eats one Sprite, Malzahar #3 eats the other: [Add] 2 rainbow each. Round net: -2 Energy -1 Power +6 rainbow = -2 Energy, +5 Power.
- Round 2: Acceleration Gate (3 Energy + 1 Power) readies the three exhausted Malzahars plus one exhausted rune; exhaust that rune back for 1 Energy (164.2.a). Play the second Sprite Fountain and repeat the round. Net -4 Energy, +4 Power.
- Round 3: the second Gate, the third Fountain, the same round. Net -4 Energy, +4 Power.
- Turn total: -10 Energy and +13 Power, against a catalogue whose standing rate is 9 Energy per Power. Spend it the same turn - 316.3 empties the pool at the end of it.
Per iteration
-2 Energy +5 Power per un-Gated Fountain round; -4 Energy +4 Power per Gated round; -10 Energy +13 Power for a maximal turn of 3 Fountains and 2 Gates
How it ends
engine only - up to 13 Power in one Main Phase, lost at the end of that turn (316.3); nothing here scores
Sources
Published elsewhere
Walked here, in this project
- Hand walk against Core Rules 2026-07-16 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-issue85-three-loose-ends.md, section 2) 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.
Walked for issue #85. THE SOURCE'S 'INFINITE' IS REFUTED and this is what the mechanism closes as. Two independent reasons, both measured inside Mind/Body, which 103.1.b.1 forces because VEN-149 is the only Mind/Body legend in the pool. (a) The Gate does not come back: every Mind or Body card touching the trash was read and none is a free repeatable spell recursion - OGN-112 is once per conquer, VEN-049/051/081 are [Flow] and banish themselves, OGN-099 Garbage Grabber carries an exhaust in its cost, SFD-061 returns a gear, OGN-109 recycles once a turn in the Beginning Phase, VEN-089 reads the deck and not the trash - so 103.2.b caps the Gate at 3 copies. The Order and Fury engines the catalogue usually leans on, OGN-212 Forge of the Future and OGN-036 Vi, Destructive, are both illegal here. (b) Malzahar does not come back either: the legend readies GEAR and he is a unit, VEN-068 fires on the first non-token gear each turn, UNL-109 needs 3 XP and an exhaust, OGN-132 and SFD-062 ready once per play, and OGN-146/OGN-153 are spells capped at 3 copies. NOT A DUPLICATE of sprite-fountain-malzahar-jayce: that entry is Calm/Mind, its third card is VEN-068 Jayce Brilliant Inventor, and it KEEPS the Sprites (produces temporary-body-engine, '18 Might of ready bodies'); this one is Mind/Body, its extra cards are the Gate and the Jayce legend, and it EATS them for Power (produces resource-engine). Same two-card core, opposite payload - said out loud so nobody re-merges them. TRAPS CHECKED AND CLEAR: 185/186.1 do not bite because Malzahar KILLS and never recycles - killing a token is legal and 186.1 only means the dead Sprite ceases to exist instead of sitting in the trash, which this line never wanted; 816.1.b does not bite because every [Temporary] body here is eaten in the same Main Phase it is made; 167 does not bite (the Power is Added in the Main Phase) but 316.3 does, which is why it is ENGINE. The Gate's rune readies are worth little for the reason platewyrm-egg-defender-gate already records: 164.2.a gives Energy by exhausting and 164.2.b gives Power only by recycling, and a recycled rune leaves the board. CITATION REFINED: sprite-fountain-malzahar-jayce cites 428.1.a.1.b for a GEAR Deathknell firing on a cost-kill and that rule's own sentence says 'a unit'; 808.1.a ('present on Permanents') plus 808.1.d.2 ('the card with an ability that triggers on its own death') covers gear on its face and is the citation used here.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16