Combo · ENGINE

Monastery of Hirana spends a buff at FINALIZATION, so Warmog's Armor has to have placed it a Conquer earlier — then it is a card every Conquer, forever

2 cards · body · verified

Pieces

• Monastery of Hirana ×1 OGN-282 · battlefield

  When you conquer here, you may spend a buff to draw 1.

• Warmog's Armor ×1 SFD-108 · engine · body

  [Equip] 1 Body Power (1 Body Power: Attach this to a unit you control.)

  When I conquer, buff me. (If I don't have a buff, I get a +1 Might buff.)

Payoff

Deck

• Warmog's Armor is mono-Body and the Monastery is Colorless, so 103.1.b.3 admits any legend with Body in its pair: OGN-257/OGN-304 Blind Monk, OGN-267/OGN-309 Bounty Hunter, VEN-141/VEN-190 Butcher of the Sands, VEN-149/VEN-194 Defender of Tomorrow, SFD-205/SFD-251 Grand Duelist, SFD-193/SFD-245 Grandmaster at Arms, UNL-203/UNL-237 Keeper of the Hammer, VEN-153/VEN-196 Matriarch of War, UNL-183/UNL-227 Pridestalker, SFD-183/SFD-241 Purifier, OGN-249/OGN-300 Relentless Storm, SFD-203/SFD-250 Battle Mistress, OGN-269/OGN-310 The Boss, UNL-201/UNL-236 Voidreaver, UNL-191/UNL-231 Wuju Master, OGS-023 Might of Demacia - Starter, OGS-019 Wuju Bladesman - Starter (restricted in 2v2).

Prerequisites

• THE ENGINE IS OFFSET BY EXACTLY ONE CONQUER, AND 383.3.b IS WHY. Both triggers fire on the same Conquer. 383.3.d lets you order them onto the Chain and 340.1 resolves the newest first, so Warmog's can be made to resolve before the Monastery — but 383.3.b.1 pays the Monastery's cost to FINALIZE it, which happens before anything resolves. So on the first Conquer there is no buff to spend and the Monastery's ability is simply not finalized (203.3: a cost whose action is impossible cannot be paid). Warmog's places the buff. From the SECOND Conquer onward the buff from last time is there to spend, and Warmog's — resolving after, onto a now-unbuffed carrier — replaces it. One card per Conquer, forever, from the second one.
• 702.3 IS WHAT MAKES THE CYCLE SELF-CLEARING RATHER THAN A JAM. 'There can only be one Buff on a Unit at a time', and 702.3.a says a second buff 'is not placed instead'. Because the Monastery spends the buff at finalization (702.2.b: 'Spending a Buff removes a single Buff counter from a Unit'), the carrier is unbuffed by the time Warmog's resolves, so the new buff lands. Without the spend, Warmog's second Conquer would do nothing at all.
• IT NEEDS A REPEATABLE CONQUER AT THIS BATTLEFIELD, WHICH IS WHY IT DECLARES needs. 315.2.b.2 makes the Hold mandatory and 470 caps Scoring at once per battlefield per turn, so a battlefield you take and keep fires its conquer clause exactly once. sprite-queen-targon-peak-conquer-cycle is the feed written for it; swap Targon's Peak for the Monastery there.
• THE BUFF IS ALSO +1 MIGHT WHILE IT SITS THERE (703: 'Each Buff individually contributes +1 Might to a Unit'), so between Conquers the carrier is a 1-Might-larger body, and the Monastery is spending something that was doing work.
• THE MONASTERY DOES NOT CARE WHOSE BUFF IT IS — 702.2.b.2 only requires that you control the unit — so any other buff on your board can pay for the draw on the first Conquer and start the cycle a turn earlier. Warmog's is in uses[] because it is the only source that refills itself off the same event.
• MONASTERY OF HIRANA IS NOT GUARANTEED TO BE ON THE TABLE: 485.4.a, 485.5, 486.5 and 103.4.c as for every battlefield entry.
• 745.2 IS WHY AN UNQUALIFIED "SPEND A BUFF" CAN ONLY TAKE ONE OFF YOUR OWN BOARD, AND THE 741-749 BLOCK WAS CITED BY NOTHING (upgrade 2026-09-12, #191 batch 26 - diagnosed five days earlier by #187 batch 2 and never applied). The cards that print this cost say *"spend a buff"* with NO owner stated, and none of them has ever had to, because the rules say it: **745.2** - *"In order to spend a Counter, the spending player must control the Game Object the Counter is placed on."* It is the general form of the 702.2.b.2 this project cites fourteen times, and its neighbours finish the picture: **749** (*"Counters do not have a controller"*) and **748** (*"Game Objects that change zones to a non-board zone lose all of their Counters"*), which is the real rule behind buff recovery rather than the 702.x usually cited. Measured consequence from the same walk: a change of CONTROL is not a zone change, so **a buff survives a theft and becomes the thief`s to spend** - the exact complement of 718.5.f, under which an Equipment`s Control does NOT follow its carrier while a buff`s spendability DOES.
• 204.3.a IS THE FIRST AND CLEANER SOURCE FOR THIS, AND IT CARRIES THE WORKED EXAMPLE: "When Costs within Instructions appear as the first part of the effect in triggered abilities, the cost is taken to be the base cost of the triggered ability. It must be paid to finalize the triggered ability", with Riot's example being Overzealous Fan - "When I defend, you may kill me to move an attacking unit to its base" - and the note that "in order to finalize the ability to the chain, its controller must kill Overzealous Fan". 383.3.b says the same thing later in the book. The companion is 204.3.b: a cost appearing in a SPELL, in an ACTIVATED ability, or in a LATER part of a trigger's effect is paid on resolution instead, which is the 205 "pay X. If you do, Y" family and the reason the two look alike on the card and behave differently on the chain.

Steps

1. Attach Warmog's Armor to the body that will be doing the conquering, for one Body rune (818.1.b). 434.1.c gives that unit 'When I conquer, buff me'.
2. Conquer Monastery of Hirana with that unit. Both triggers fire; the Monastery's has no buff to spend, so 383.3.b.1 and 203.3 leave it unfinalized. Warmog's resolves and places a +1 Might buff on the carrier (702.2.a).
3. Give the battlefield up and retake it — the conquer engine this entry needs. 315.2.b.2 would otherwise Hold it and 470 would refuse the second Score.
4. On the second Conquer, the Monastery's ability finalizes by spending the buff placed last time (702.2.b) and you draw 1.
5. Warmog's resolves afterwards onto a carrier that no longer has a buff, so 702.3.a does not block it and a fresh buff is placed for next time. Repeat every Conquer.

Per iteration

one card per Conquer at Monastery of Hirana, from the second Conquer onward, for no Energy and no Power

How it ends

engine only — one card per Conquer, at whatever rate the conquer engine feeding it supplies; with the Sprite Queen cycle that is one a turn, forever. Burn Out (431.1.a) is the only ceiling and 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 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-07-uncatalogued-cards.md), issue #171 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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