Combo · ENGINE

Moonlight Affliction into Wind and Ghosts — banish any unit in the pool, permanently

2 cards · mind + chaos · verified

Pieces

• Moonlight Affliction ×1 UNL-066 · enabler · mind

  [Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Give a unit -10 Might this turn.

• Wind and Ghosts ×1 VEN-106 · payoff · chaos

  [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Choose a unit at a battlefield. If it has 3 Might or less, banish it. Otherwise, return it to its owner's hand.

Payoff

Deck

• Legend domains must cover Mind and Chaos — OGN-263 Swift Scout, SFD-199 Prodigal Explorer, UNL-197 Scorn of the Moon, VEN-151 Soul's Reflection.

Run play

• One Apprentice brings the banish to turn 4, and the bounce alone was the better board

Prerequisites

• -10 CLEARS EVERY PRINTED BODY IN THE POOL, AND THE MARGIN IS TWO. The largest printed unit Might is 12 — UNL-059 Master Yi, Unstoppable and UNL-147 / UNL-238 Baron Nashor — so -10 leaves 2, which satisfies a "3 Might or less" gate; the reduction clears anything up to 13. Moonlight Affliction has NO "to a minimum of" clause, which is the half that matters: #97 measured that the nine Origins reductions carry a floor and the fourteen from SFD / UNL / VEN do not. 143.2.b then covers the rest — "If a unit's Might is ever less than 0, it is treated as 0 when referenced by spells and abilities."
• THE ONE THING THAT BEATS IT IS A MIGHT BONUS, and it is worth checking before casting. 137.3 applies an Attached card's Might Bonus to its bearer, the largest in the pool is +4 (SFD-178 Blade of the Ruined King), and 477.3.e.2.a applies increases BEFORE decreases — so a 12-Might body wearing the Blade stands at 16, and -10 leaves 6, over the gate. Two Afflictions fix it (143.2.b.1: the value underneath is really negative, so a second copy on the SAME body adds its full -10), or remove the gear first.
• BANISH IS THE ONLY PERMANENT ANSWER. Wind and Ghosts' two halves are not equivalent: below the gate it BANISHES, above it merely bounces to hand. 108.6.c means nothing in the pool returns a card from Banishment, so the Affliction converts a temporary tempo card into removal that cannot be undone — no Deathknell (808.1.d.1 needs the Trash), no [Flow] replay (829.1.b banishes from the trash, it does not retrieve from Banishment), no reanimation. CORRECTED 2026-10-14 (#369, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-14-one-apprentice-brings-the-banish-to-turn-4-and-the-bounce-alone-was-the-better-board.md): the heading's 'only' is scoped to Wind and Ghosts' two halves, not to the pool. In Mind/Chaos, OGN-203 Possession (Chaos, E8 P3, one card): 'Choose an enemy unit at a battlefield. Take control of it and recall it.' names no duration (the Affliction says 'this turn'), so it is also permanent and keeps the body for you; UNL-140 Conscription, in this entry's own family list below, takes control the same way.
• IT IS A [Reaction] INTO AN [Action], WHICH IS WHY THE ORDER WORKS. 813.1.b gives Reaction every permission of Action, so Moonlight Affliction may be cast in a Neutral Open State on your own Main Phase and simply resolved BEFORE Wind and Ghosts is played — no response-window argument is needed. 143.2.b.1 keeps the actual value negative underneath, so nothing can 'heal' the Might back above 3 in between: an effect calculating an increase uses the real number.
• Ten Energy and one Chaos Power to remove one body is the honest price, and it is a lot: #97's whole point is that the pool has 22 Might gates and only 5 were catalogued, not that the lens is cheap. The cheaper gate in the same lens is UNL-159 Soul Harvest (Order, 2 Energy + 1 Power, 'Kill a unit at a battlefield with 3 Might or less') at 9 Energy total, in a Mind/Order shell — it kills rather than banishes, so a Deathknell still fires and the card still reaches the trash. CORRECTED 2026-10-14 (#369, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-14-one-apprentice-brings-the-banish-to-turn-4-and-the-bounce-alone-was-the-better-board.md): ten Energy is the PRINTED price, and the entry named no discount. Going first you have 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 runes on T1 to T5 (315.3.b: '1. The Turn Player channels 2 runes from their Rune Deck.'), so the printed pair is T5. One OGN-084 Eager Apprentice ('While I'm at a battlefield, the Energy costs for spells you play is reduced by :rb_energy_1:, to a minimum of :rb_energy_1:.') makes it E6 + E2 + 1 Power, eight runes, which is T4. Two make it E5 + E1 + 1 Power, six Energy, because each is its own discount with its own floor (356.4.b: 'Discounts may say that cards "cost [amount] less" or that one or more of their costs are "reduced by [amount]."'; 356.4.e: 'If a discount applies a minimum cost, that minimum applies only to that discount.'). Of the 15 Mind/Chaos cards that print a cost that is 'less' or 'reduced by', three are discounts in 356.4.b's sense that reach these spells: the Apprentice, VEN-055 Applied Researchers once [Empowered] ('Your spells cost :rb_energy_1::rb_rune_rainbow: less, to a minimum of :rb_energy_1:.') and SFD-146 Vex, Cheerless, only while she is in combat. A fourth of the 15 reaches Wind and Ghosts by another road: OGN-112 Kai'Sa, Evolutionary (Mind, E6 P1 M6): 'When I conquer, you may play a spell from your trash with Energy cost less than your points without paying its Energy cost. Then recycle it. (You must still pay its Power cost.)' That is not a discount - it says neither 'cost less' nor 'reduced by'; it sets the Energy cost aside, the shape 356.1.b.2 gives 'ignoring its Energy cost' ('only the appropriate cost is set to zero, and the remaining cost still applies.'). Its conditions: Wind and Ghosts already in your trash, a conquest by Kai'Sa, and 4 or more points (E3 is less than 4). On a turn the Affliction has resolved on a unit at the other battlefield, that is the pair for E7 + 1 Power. The Affliction (E7) needs 8 points, which is the Duel's Victory Score (485.3 'Victory Score: 8'), so she replays only the Wind and Ghosts half. The printed price also assumes no Power paid on the turns before: the Chaos Power comes from recycling a rune (164.2.b: 'Recycle this: [Reaction] — Add [C].'), which leaves the board (161.2.b: 'When a Rune is Recycled it is returned to the Rune Deck, not the Main Deck.'), so going first the board holds 2t - r runes on turn t after r earlier Powers: one or two push the printed pair from T5 to T6, three or four to T7. (CORRECTED in review, #369: the first draft counted Kai'Sa among the 15 and left her out of the three with no reason, and said each earlier Power pushes the pair 'from T5 to T6', which holds only for one or two.)
• Both halves are spells, so 103.2.b caps this at three uses a game and every use costs two cards. It is an answer, not an engine — the feature is repeatable-removal because that is the vocabulary, not because it repeats within a turn.
• Gates in the same family that the same Affliction opens, each with its own domain: VEN-127 Lacerate (Order, kill), SFD-158 Sandshifter (Order, kill, and its text omits 'at a battlefield' so it reaches the base), UNL-140 Conscription (Chaos, take control), UNL-132 Angler Beast (Chaos, mass bounce — but it returns ALL units at 2 Might or less, yours included).
• THE BOUNCE ALONE IS THE BAR, AND THE BANISH BEATS IT ON CARDS, NOT POINTS - ADDED 2026-10-14 (#369, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-14-one-apprentice-brings-the-banish-to-turn-4-and-the-bounce-alone-was-the-better-board.md). Above the gate Wind and Ghosts returns the unit to hand, and in the walk that alone matched the pair's score, 4 to 2 after their T4, for six Energy less and with more of your own Might on the board. What the Affliction adds over the bounce is the card: the target does not come back. Over a kill it is the [Deathknell] it skips (808.1.d: 'The Trigger for this and similar effects that trigger on their source’s death is the Permanent being Killed and sent to the Trash.'); in the walk a killed SFD-021 Ferrous Forerunner left two 3-Might Mech tokens that retook the battlefield.
• WHAT BREAKS IT - ADDED 2026-10-14 (#369, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-14-one-apprentice-brings-the-banish-to-turn-4-and-the-bounce-alone-was-the-better-board.md). The Affliction resolves first, so an answer to it costs you only the Affliction. While the target is still Mighty (708: 'A Unit "is Mighty" as long as its Might is 5 or greater.'), UNL-173 Sacrifice (Order, E1, [Reaction]: 'As an additional cost to play this, kill a friendly [Mighty] unit.') kills it in response to the Affliction, and its [Deathknell] fires anyway. After the Affliction resolves, any damage kills the target (143.2.a: 'If a Unit ever has nonzero damage marked on it equalling or exceeding its Might, it is Killed.'), so a hidden SFD-017 Sudden Storm ('Deal 2 to a unit at a battlefield.'), which from the turn after it was hidden 'gains [Reaction] and you may play this, ignoring its base cost' (811.1.b), does the same in response to Wind and Ghosts. And the pair spends every rune of the turn it is cast, so nothing protects what follows: in the walk, a card hidden at the battlefield the turn before kept it through your attack. The play's census, not re-counted here: of the 61 Fury/Order cards a Piltover Enforcer deck can play on your T4, 43 break it, twelve of them for one rune - Sacrifice, nine hidden cards, OGN-009 Hextech Ray and UNL-014 Monster Harpoon.

Steps

1. Choose the target: any unit at a battlefield whose current Might is 13 or less — which is every printed body in the pool, the 12-Might Master Yi and Baron Nashor included, unless it is wearing a Might Bonus.
2. Cast Moonlight Affliction (7 Energy) on it. 813.1.b lets a [Reaction] be played wherever an [Action] could be, so this can simply be resolved on your own Main Phase before anything else is played.
3. Its Might is now 10 lower — negative for most targets, which 143.2.b treats as 0 when a spell references it.
4. Cast Wind and Ghosts (3 Energy + 1 Chaos Power) choosing the same unit. The '3 Might or less' branch is satisfied, so it is BANISHED rather than bounced.
5. 108.6.c: nothing in the pool brings it back.

How it ends

engine — permanent removal of any single unit for 10 Energy and 1 Chaos Power, three times a game CORRECTED 2026-10-14 (#369, from the run play docs/plays/2026-10-14-one-apprentice-brings-the-banish-to-turn-4-and-the-bounce-alone-was-the-better-board.md): 10 Energy and 1 Chaos Power is the printed price, T5 going first and only if no Power was paid on T1 to T4. One Eager Apprentice at a battlefield makes it 8 Energy and 1 Power (T4), two make it 6 - see the notable on the price.

Sources

Walked here, in this project

• Walk of the unwalked partners of the 66 proven synergy rules, rule moonlight-affliction-might-gate 2026-09-06 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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