Combo · ENGINE
Brazen Buccaneer turns Mask Mother into 2 Energy — and the body she pays for can never be her target
Pieces
- Mask Mother ×1
VEN-094 · payoff · chaos
When you discard me, you may pay 1 Energy to give a friendly unit +2 Might this turn.
- Brazen Buccaneer ×1
OGN-002 · engine · fury
As you play me, you may discard 1 as an additional cost. If you do, reduce my cost by 2 Energy.
Payoff
Deck
- Chaos + Fury, so five legend names (103.1.b.2): Loose Cannon (OGN-251), Dark Child - Starter (OGS-017), Glorious Executioner (SFD-185), Bloodharbor Ripper (UNL-185), Master of Shadows (VEN-143).
- A friendly unit already on the board to receive the +2 Might — see the third notable.
Prerequisites
- THE DISCARD IS A COST HERE, WHICH IS WHY IT IS ITS OWN ENTRY. Every other catalogued Mask Mother line spends an effect to discard her and replaces the card: mask-mother-scrapyard-champion draws two back, mask-mother-lunar-boon-reaction-trick draws two back. The Buccaneer replaces nothing — it converts the card straight into 2 Energy of discount, so the Mother is a card you sell rather than a card you cycle. Priced whole: 6 - 2 = 4 Energy for a 5-Might Fury body, plus 1 Energy for her trigger, for 5 Energy and one card.
- THE TRAP, AND IT IS THE REASON TO WRITE THIS ONE DOWN. The Buccaneer is NOT a legal target for the +2 Might he paid for. 'As you play me' puts the discard in the playing steps, so the Mother's trigger fires while the Buccaneer is still a Pending Chain Item; the trigger is Finalized above him and 340.1 resolves 'The newest Finalized Chain Item' first. Her +2 therefore resolves before he is ever on the Board. The +2 has to go on a unit that is already in play — a body in the combat you are about to open, not the body you are buying.
- 422.1.b and 385.2 are what let her fire at all: the trigger is executed after the discard has occurred, from the trash, and a Triggered Ability outside the Board self-describes its context.
- REFUSED IN THE SAME BREATH: SFD-149 Ezreal, Prodigy does not make this cheaper. His text is 'Optional additional costs you pay cost :rb_energy_1: or :rb_rune_rainbow: less', and the Buccaneer's optional additional cost is 'discard 1' — it has no Energy and no rainbow component for the reduction to bite on, and 356.6 ('Energy and Power costs can't be reduced below 0') is a floor on resource costs, not a converter. Ezreal discounts the Power-flavoured optional costs in the pool (UNL-028 Pyke, Dockside Butcher's 1 Fury; UNL-052 Nami, Headstrong's 1 Calm; VEN-120 Masa, Crashing Thunder's 1 Order; OGN-030 Jinx, Demolitionist's [Accelerate]); he does nothing for a discard.
- 203.3 gates it from the other side: with no card in hand the optional cost cannot be paid, and the Buccaneer simply costs 6.
- The +2 Might is a continuous modifier, not a 702 buff, so it stacks with a second Mother discarded the same turn and feeds nothing that spends a buff. Three Mothers and three Buccaneers is the 103.2.b ceiling.
Bodies no card supplies
Have a friendly unit already on the board — it will be the only legal target for the +2 (see the second notable)
Steps
- Have a friendly unit already on the board — it will be the only legal target for the +2 (see the second notable).
- Play Brazen Buccaneer and choose to pay the optional additional cost, discarding Mask Mother. His cost drops from 6 Energy to 4.
- Her trigger fires from the trash (422.1.b, 385.2) and is Finalized above the still-pending Buccaneer.
- Pay 1 Energy to finalize it (383.3.b.1) and give the unit already in play +2 Might this turn; 340.1 resolves this before the Buccaneer arrives.
- The Buccaneer resolves and enters as a 5-Might Fury body for a net 4 Energy.
Per iteration
-1 card, -5 Energy, +1 body at 5 Might, +2 Might this turn on a unit already in play
How it ends
engine — a 5-Might body for 4 Energy and +2 Might this turn for 1 more, at the price of one card and no replacement; 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
Walked here, in this project
- Hand walk 2026-09-07, issue #169 — matrix families rows 6-18, second pass 2026-09-07 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.
AUTHORED 2026-09-07, issue #169, second pass over matrix row 10. OGN-002 Brazen Buccaneer was in ZERO entries. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt; 103.1.b.2, 103.2.b, 203.3, 337.1.b, 340.1, 356.6, 383.3.b.1, 385.2, 422.1.b, 702.3 opened in the Core Rules file. Both cards legal in both formats. Card set VEN-094 + OGN-002 is not an existing uses[] set. No unruled reading. The chain-order finding generalises: a trigger that fires on a cost paid while playing a card resolves BEFORE that card arrives, so the card being paid for is never a legal target of what its own cost triggered.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16