Combo · ENGINE

Mel's Empower costs a spell, not Energy — Sanction re-fires the banish three more times

4 cards · chaos + calm · verified

Pieces

• Mel, Defiant Soul ×1 VEN-110 · payoff · chaos

  [Empower] — Discard a spell (Pay the cost: Empower me. Use only if not Empowered.) When I become [Empowered], banish an enemy unit at a battlefield with 3 Might or less.

• Sanction ×3 VEN-035 · engine · calm

  [Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Choose one — • Empower a unit. Disempower it at end of turn. • Disempower a unit that's [Empowered]. Empower it at end of turn.

Payoff

Deck

• A Calm/Chaos legend — Mel is Chaos and Sanction is Calm (103.1.b.1). Calm/Chaos is a printed legend pair.

Run play

• Mel's three banishes thin a battlefield nothing of yours can reach

Prerequisites

• FOUR PERMANENT REMOVALS FOR ONE DISCARDED SPELL AND NINE ENERGY. Mel's own [Empower] cost fires the first banish for a card out of hand and nothing else. Each Sanction in mode two disempowers her now and re-Empowers her at end of turn, and 441.1.c ('If a Game Object is instructed to be Empowered when it is already Empowered, nothing additional happens') is exactly why the disempower half is mandatory rather than decorative. Three copies (103.2.b) is three more banishes, at 3 Energy + 1 Calm Power each.
• IT IS BANISH, NOT KILL, AND THAT IS THE WHOLE DIFFERENCE FROM A DAMAGE ANSWER. 108.6.c returns nothing from Banishment, so a body removed this way is gone for the game — no Deathknell fires (808.1.d.1 needs the permanent to reach the Trash), no reanimation reaches it, and a [Temporary] or token body is not merely returned to nothing. Against the 1-Might token swarms the catalogue is full of it is one-for-one rather than a sweep, but it is final.
• THE RE-FIRED BANISH LANDS AT END OF TURN, NOT AT INSTANT SPEED. Sanction is a [Reaction] and can be cast in a Closed State, but the clause it uses is 'Empower it at end of turn' — so the banish resolves in the Ending Phase, after combat is over. It removes a body before the opponent's turn; it does NOT answer an attacker mid-combat. Casting Sanction in mode two during the opponent's combat buys nothing that casting it in your own Main Phase would not. CORRECTED 2026-10-14 (#374, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-14-mels-three-banishes-thin-a-battlefield-nothing-of-yours-can-reach.md): this holds only for mode two on a Mel who is already Empowered. Mode one on a Mel who is NOT Empowered ('Empower a unit. Disempower it at end of turn.') Empowers her at once, from a [Reaction], and her trigger can be put on the chain on either turn, 383.3.c: 'Triggered Abilities can be put on the Chain during Closed States or Open States on any player's turn.' That is an instant banish, in their combat too. And after mode two in your Main Phase her own [Empower] is legal again, because she is no longer Empowered (827.1, 381: her [Empower] is an activated ability, so on your turn in an Open State): a discarded spell banishes now, and the delayed Empower then does nothing, 441.1.c: 'If a Game Object is instructed to be Empowered when it is already Empowered, nothing additional happens.' The play's T4 used that to cast two Sanctions in one turn.
• IT IS NOT kharox-sanction-burn WITH A CARD SWAPPED. That entry pairs the same three Sanctions with VEN-114 Kharox, whose [Empower] cost is 6 Energy + 2 Chaos Power and whose payoff is [Burn 3] plus a free unit from the opponent's trash — deck pressure, and its own terminatesIn says it is 'not a kill (Burn Out recycles their trash before the point, 431.2.b)'. Mel costs a DISCARDED SPELL and removes a body permanently. Same enabler, opposite currency and opposite output; the two can share a list, since both are Chaos, and then three Sanctions have to be split between them.
• THE TARGET RESTRICTION IS THE REAL CEILING: 'an enemy unit AT A BATTLEFIELD with 3 Might or less'. It cannot reach a body at the opponent's base, and it cannot reach anything of 4 Might or more. Pair it with a Might reduction and the gate opens — the #97 walk inventoried 22 such gates and measured that an unfloored reduction is what clears a big body; souls-reflection-questionable-tome-disempower-cycle is a Mind/Chaos source of exactly that and cannot share this list (103.1.b.4, Calm against Mind). MEASURED 2026-10-14 (#374, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-14-mels-three-banishes-thin-a-battlefield-nothing-of-yours-can-reach.md): of the five cards in the play's section 5 that can be played onto an occupied battlefield, the one that takes G on their T3, UNL-120 Rengar, Trophy Hunter, is a 6 (E5 P1 M6), three over the gate, and this list carries no Might reduction. A buff keeps a body out of range for good: UNL-102 Crowd Favorite ('Spend 2 XP: [Buff] me.') is a 4 once buffed, 702.2.a says it 'is Buffed for as long as the buff remains on it', and 702.2.b.2 says 'A player can only spend buffs on units they control.' (The play cites 702.3 for this; 702.3 is the one-buff cap, and 702.2.a with 702.2.b.2 are what keep the buff on.)
• MEL HAS TO SURVIVE AT 4 MIGHT and she is the only body in the line; killing her ends it, and 441.2 means her Empowered state is permanent only until a Sanction takes it, so a removed Mel cannot be replaced mid-cycle by a second copy already Empowered. CORRECTED 2026-10-14 (#374, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-14-mels-three-banishes-thin-a-battlefield-nothing-of-yours-can-reach.md): the place matters and this did not name one. Her banish reaches 'an enemy unit at a battlefield' from wherever she is, so she can sit in your base, and no enemy unit can walk there: 144.4.a 'Units may move from their Base to a Battlefield.' and 144.4.b 'Units may move from a Battlefield to their Base.' At base it is a question of spells. Against Fury/Body, at two runes or less: OGN-029 Falling Star ('Deal 3 to a unit. Deal 3 to a unit.'), OGN-128 Challenge with a unit of 4 Might or more ('Choose a friendly unit and an enemy unit. They deal damage equal to their Mights to each other.'). CORRECTED 2026-10-16 (#377): this also named UNL-020 Dancing Grenade played twice (2, then 3), reading the replay as the caster's. 'Its controller' is the controller of the unit hit, 359.3.e.14 'The “its” in the second instruction references the unit in the first, so the two instructions of the spell are linked.', and 355.10.d reads 'Kill a unit. Its controller draws 2' the same way, so a Grenade on Mel deals 2 and its replay is yours to decline. Aimed first at their own units it reaches 4 on Mel only for three runes and 5 damage on their own bodies.
• NOTHING HERE SCORES. It is four permanent removals; the points come from what the cleared battlefield then allows. CORRECTED 2026-10-14 (#374, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-14-mels-three-banishes-thin-a-battlefield-nothing-of-yours-can-reach.md): the play bore the first half out, three banishes and no point. The second half needs a unit that can still move to the cleared battlefield, and from another battlefield none can without [Ganking], 144.4.c.1: 'Units with Ganking may use their Standard Move to Move from Battlefield to Battlefield.' So the unit has to be in your base (144.4.a). In the play the one unit in base was Mel; on its section 5 line two banishes left a 2 at the battlefield, Mel walked in herself, and it was 4 to 2.
• WHICH TURN TO CAST SANCTION IN MODE TWO - ADDED 2026-10-14 (#374, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-14-mels-three-banishes-thin-a-battlefield-nothing-of-yours-can-reach.md). This is about mode two, whose banish waits for the end of turn; mode one on a Mel who is not Empowered banishes at once (383.3.c), before their Main Phase can lift anything. On your own turn the end-of-turn banish finds nothing if their units are at base, since it needs 'an enemy unit at a battlefield'. On their turn you have priority only in a Closed State or a Showdown, 312.2.a giving the Neutral Open State to the player 'during their Main Phase', so a Sanction cast in response to something early on their turn resolves into their Main Phase. They then get the whole Main Phase to lift units over 3, and a 'this turn' bonus outlasts the end-of-turn banish: 317.1.a ('At the end of the turn Game Effects take place.') comes before 317.2.c, where 'this turn' effects expire. UNL-183 Pridestalker is that bonus: 'When you play a unit, give a unit +1 :rb_might: this turn.'
• NO STEP NAMED AN ANSWER - ADDED 2026-10-14 (#374, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-14-mels-three-banishes-thin-a-battlefield-nothing-of-yours-can-reach.md). UNL-106 Repulse (Body, E1 P1, [Reaction]): 'Choose a friendly unit at a battlefield. Counter an enemy spell or ability that chooses it and no other friendly unit.' Mel's banish chooses one enemy unit at a battlefield and no other (the choice is made as her trigger is finalized, 355.5.b), so one rune counters it. The play's census of a Fury/Body opponent (its section 5, not re-counted here) finds 9 cards that break the one Conquer the engine made at one rune: 3 of the 11 one-rune cards in its 59-card scope, and 6 of its 7 cards that can be hidden.

Steps

1. Play Mel, Defiant Soul (5 Energy) at a battlefield. CORRECTED 2026-10-14 (#374, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-14-mels-three-banishes-thin-a-battlefield-nothing-of-yours-can-reach.md): your base is a valid place too (355.2.a: 'a Battlefield the controller controls' or the base), and the safer one. Her banish reaches a battlefield from your base, and no enemy unit can move into your base (144.4.a, 144.4.b); see the notable on her 4 Might.
2. Pay her [Empower] cost by discarding a spell. She becomes Empowered and her trigger banishes an enemy unit at a battlefield with 3 Might or less.
3. Cast Sanction (3 Energy + 1 Calm Power) choosing mode two: disempower Mel now, and she is re-Empowered at end of turn. CORRECTED 2026-10-14 (#374): the turn matters; see the notable on which turn to cast Sanction. On a Mel who is not Empowered, mode one banishes at once instead (383.3.c).
4. At end of turn she becomes Empowered again (441.1.c is satisfied because the disempower cleared the state first), and the trigger banishes a second body.
5. Repeat with the second and third Sanction: four permanent removals in all, for one discarded spell and 9 Energy + 3 Calm Power.

Per iteration

one enemy unit of 3 Might or less banished per Sanction, for 3 Energy + 1 Calm Power

How it ends

engine — four permanent banishes of enemy units of 3 Might or less, bounded by the 3 copies of Sanction (103.2.b); nothing here scores

Sources

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-06 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-engine-payoff-walk.md, section 29) 2026-09-06 record
• Cause/trigger matrix over the pool, group 37 (empower-other, 37 partners) 2026-09-06
• Run play 2026-10-14, issue #370 2026-10-14 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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