Combo · ENGINE
Malzahar's sacrifice read by two watchers at once — a card and four Might a turn
Pieces
- Malzahar, Fanatic ×1
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.)
- Wraith of Echoes ×1
OGN-118 · payoff · mind
The first time a friendly unit dies each turn, draw 1.
- Spectral Centaur ×1
UNL-068 · payoff · mind
When another friendly unit dies, give me +2 Might this turn.
- Sprite Queen ×1
UNL-084 · engine · mind
When you play me or at the start of your Beginning Phase, play a ready 3 Might Sprite unit token with [Temporary] to your base. (Kill them at the start of their controller's next Beginning Phase, before scoring.)
Payoff
Deck
- Everything here is mono-Mind (103.1.b.3), so any legend carrying Mind runs the whole line.
- Malzahar must be AT a battlefield? No — his ability carries no such clause; only Renata Glasc, Mastermind does. He may stand at your base.
Prerequisites
- The two watchers are not the same shape and the entry keeps them apart. 383.1.b: 'If an ability triggers “the [Nth] time” something happens and that trigger condition is met multiple times simultaneously, the ability's controller picks one of those instances ... The ability triggers only once.' So the Wraith is one card per turn however many bodies die. Spectral Centaur has no such clause and grows +2 for every other friendly death in the turn.
- 383.2.c.2 is the trap on this family and it is why Spectral Centaur is the payoff rather than the fodder: 'A Game Object will not be able to successfully evaluate its Trigger Condition ... if it leaves the zone that its Trigger is active from at the same time that its Trigger is satisfied.' A watcher that dies in the same game action as the fodder never sees the death. Its worked example is Viktor, Leader.
- Malzahar's cost carries HIS OWN exhaust, so this is once a turn, not a loop — 315.1.b readies him each Awaken and that is the whole clock. The synergy rule calls the outlet 'free, repeatable'; it is free (a token costs no card) but repeatable only across turns, and the entry says so.
- The Sprite was going to die anyway. 816.1.b kills every [Temporary] at the start of your Beginning Phase before scoring, so killing it in your Main Phase costs nothing at all — CLAUDE.md's #115 finding that a body already condemned by 816.1.b is the cheapest fuel for a kill-as-cost hook.
- 185 and 186.1: the Sprite is a token and ceases to exist on reaching any Non-Board Zone, so it never lands in the trash and nothing downstream can recycle or reanimate it. The entry claims neither.
- Ledger per turn: 2 rainbow Power, 1 card, and +2 Might on the Centaur, for one token that costs nothing. The Power is the reason this is worth the four cards — the project's loop rate is about 9 Energy per Power (#21).
Steps
- Play Sprite Queen. From then on a ready 3 Might [Temporary] Sprite appears at your base at the start of every Beginning Phase.
- Play Wraith of Echoes and Spectral Centaur as the two watchers, and Malzahar, Fanatic as the outlet.
- In your Main Phase, pay Malzahar's cost: kill the Sprite (185.2.d makes a token unit a legal choice) and exhaust him. [Add] 2 rainbow Power.
- The death fires both watchers: the Wraith's first-time-each-turn trigger draws 1 (383.1.b), and Spectral Centaur gets +2 Might this turn.
- 315.1.b readies Malzahar at the next Awaken; 816.1.b kills last turn's leftover [Temporary] bodies and Sprite Queen mints the next Sprite in the same phase. Repeat every turn.
How it ends
engine only — 2 rainbow Power, one card and +2 Might on the Centaur per turn, capped by Malzahar's own exhaust. 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
- Issue #153 (GitHub) 2026-09-06
Walked here, in this project
- Hand walk 2026-09-06, issue #153 — the 55 synergy rules no catalogued entry stands on 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-orphan-synergy-rules.md §24), issue #153, from the orphan rule malzahar-fanatic-friendly-death-payoff, which named seven watchers that had never been grouped. Two of them are used here, and the walk narrowed the rule: the outlet is FREE (a token costs no card) but repeatable only across turns, because Malzahar's own exhaust is in the cost. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. Citations opened: 103.1.b.3, 185, 185.2.d, 186.1, 315.1.b, 383.1.b, 383.2.c.2, 816.1.b. Trap check: no attack; no [Repeat]; the [Temporary] token is used as fuel with 816.1.b stated, not hidden; 185 / 186.1 exclude any recycle or reanimation of it; no recall, so 455 and 808.1.d.1 do not bite — and note that a would-die shield on the Sprite would switch this engine OFF rather than protect it; 167 is not touched, since the Power is added and spent in the same Main Phase. Depends on no unruled reading.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16