Combo · ENGINE
One Empower pays three times — the legend, Fizz out of the trash, and a spell out of the trash behind him
Pieces
- Tail-Cloaked Matriarch ×1
VEN-104 · engine · chaos
[Empower] 2 Energy + 1 Chaos Power (2 Energy + 1 Chaos Power: Empower me. Use only if not Empowered.) When I become [Empowered], you may choose a unit in your trash with Energy cost no more than 3 Energy and Power cost no more than 1 Power of any domain. Play it to your base, ignoring its cost.
- Fizz, Trickster ×1
SFD-140 · payoff · chaos
When you play me, you may play a spell from your trash with Energy cost no more than 3 Energy, ignoring its Energy cost. Then recycle it. (You must still pay its Power cost.)
- Mel, Newly Awakened ×1
VEN-069 · payoff · mind
When you play me, draw 1. [Empower] 3 Energy (3 Energy: Empower me. Use only if not Empowered.) [Empowered][>] Your spells and abilities can't be countered. If a spell or ability you control would give -Might to a unit it chooses, it gives an additional -1 Might.
Payoff
Deck
- Legend domains are Mind and Chaos: VEN-151 Soul's Reflection (Mel). 'When you empower something else, empower me' plus 'Disempower me, exhaust: Give a unit at a battlefield -2 Might this turn' is the engine half; the three cards above are the payoff half.
Prerequisites
- THE LEGEND IS THE ONLY REPEATABLE PART, AND THE ENTRY IS SCOPED TO IT. The Matriarch's Empower reads 'Use only if not Empowered', and nothing here disempowers HER - the legend's cost disempowers the LEGEND - so each Matriarch fires her trash-recursion exactly once. What recurs is the removal: every Empower you pay anywhere re-Empowers the legend for free, and the legend converts it into -2 Might, once a turn because the cost carries an exhaust (315.1.b readies it in the next Awaken).
- THE THREE PAYOUTS COME OFF ONE PAYMENT AND THE ORDER IS FIXED. Paying 2 Energy + 1 Chaos to Empower the Matriarch (a) empowers the legend for free, (b) plays Fizz from the trash for free, (c) lets Fizz replay a spell from the trash for its Power cost only. Three effects, one bill.
- FIZZ FITS THE BARS EXACTLY. 'no more than 3 Energy and no more than 1 rainbow Power' against E3 P1. A single point more on either axis and the Matriarch cannot choose him.
- 'IGNORING ITS COST' IS BROADER THAN FIZZ'S OWN WORDING, and the difference is real: the Matriarch says 'ignoring its cost', so Fizz's Power is waived too, while Fizz himself says 'ignoring its Energy cost' and his reminder text spells out 'You must still pay its Power cost' for the spell he brings back.
- Mel, Newly Awakened must be [Empowered] for the -1, which is its own 3 Energy - and that payment is itself another 'you empower something else' for the legend.
Steps
- Fizz is in the trash and the Matriarch is on the board, not yet Empowered.
- Pay [Empower] 2 Energy + 1 Chaos on the Matriarch.
- The legend triggers first-class: 'When you empower something else, empower me' - it is now [Empowered] for nothing.
- The Matriarch's own trigger: choose Fizz in the trash (E3, P1 - inside both bars) and play him to your base ignoring his cost.
- Fizz's play trigger: play a spell from the trash with Energy cost 3 or less, ignoring its Energy cost, paying only its Power. Then recycle it.
- Any turn after: 'Disempower me, exhaust: Give a unit at a battlefield -2 Might this turn' - and -3 while Mel, Newly Awakened is [Empowered]. Any later Empower you pay re-arms the legend.
Per iteration
one Empower payment buys a free legend Empower, a free Fizz and a free spell replay; then -2 (or -3) Might a turn, refuelled by any Empower
How it ends
engine only - one removal a turn, and one three-for-one per Matriarch
Sources
Published elsewhere
- YouTube — GG Haven, "Everyone Underestimated Mel... Until Now | Mel Beginners Guide" 2026-07-24
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
- Minería por leyenda — issue #62 (GitHub) 2026-09-06
Walked here, in this project
- Hand walk 2026-09-06 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-issue62-legends-without-entries.md), issue #62 section 2.5. VEN-151 Soul's Reflection had no entry. SCOPED DOWNWARD ON PURPOSE: #62 presents the whole thing as one engine. It is two halves with different tempos, and the entry says which is which - the Matriarch's three-for-one is once per copy, because her own Empower reads 'Use only if not Empowered' and nothing in these domains disempowers her; the legend's removal is what actually repeats, because every Empower anywhere re-arms it for free and the exhaust cost resets in the Awaken (315.1.b). Calling the whole package repeatable would have been the same mistake #34 made with matriarch-of-war-empower-ready, where 'six in a whole game' was being sold as a motor. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. The two cost bars were checked against Fizz's printed cost digit by digit. Trap check: no attack designation; no [Repeat]; no [Temporary]; no token; no recall; the recycle Fizz performs is of a CARD from the trash, so 185 never comes up. Depends on no unruled reading.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16