Combo · BURST · 8 points

Nasus, Ascended × Red Brambleback — nine points on one Conquer, in two cards

5 cards · calm + fury · verified

Pieces

• Nasus, Ascended ×2 VEN-046 · payoff · calm

  [Deflect 2] (Opponents must pay 2 Power of any domain to choose me with a spell or ability.) [Empower] 8 Energy (8 Energy: Empower me. Use only if not Empowered.) [Empowered][>] When I conquer, you score 1 point.

• Red Brambleback ×3 UNL-029 · engine · fury

  [Accelerate] (You may pay 1 Energy + 1 Fury Power as an additional cost to have me enter ready.) Your conquer effects for conquering here trigger an additional time. When I conquer, [Buff] a friendly unit. (Give it a +1 Might buff if it doesn't have one.)

Payoff

Deck

• VEN-139 Rogue Assassin is the ONLY Fury/Calm legend in the pool — verified by grep over all 94 legends, the same close skyfall-ahri-conquer already uses.

Prerequisites

• Points on the Conquer: 1 + N × (1 + K), N = Empowered Nasus present, K = Red Bramblebacks present. N=2, K=3 gives 9. N=2, K=2 gives 7 and N=1, K=3 gives 5. CORRECTED 2026-10-26 (#472, the follow-up PR #471 listed for #464): the formula counts every Nasus and every Brambleback as present at the Conquer, and after a combat a dead one is not. 383.4.c.2.a: 'The Conquer Abilities of Units are put on the Chain as Pending Items after the Unit(s) these effects correspond to are present at a Battlefield when a player gains control of it and gains 1 Victory Point from Conquering.' 365.1: 'Passive Abilities of Permanents are typically only active while on the Board.' The defender picks the deaths: 465.2.c: 'Starting with the Attacker, each player assigns an amount of damage equal to their summed Might among the other's Units.' With 465.2.c.3: 'Units must have lethal damage assigned to them in full before damage is assigned to a different Unit. Example: If a player has 5 damage to distribute among four 3 Might units, they may not choose to assign 2 damage to one of the units and 1 damage to each of the remaining 3. They must assign at least 3 damage to one, and the remaining 2 to another.' So the count is 1 + (surviving N) x (1 + surviving K). The declared board attacks with two Nasus at 8 and three Bramblebacks at 4, 28 in all. Against a garrison of summed Might G with no damage marked and nothing else changing Might in the combat, the defender choosing the deaths that cost most, N=2 and K=3 score: an empty battlefield, since nobody fights (316.8.b.1: 'Showdowns that occur as a result of a player moving to an empty Battlefield are a stand-alone Phase and do not create a Combat.'), 9; G 1 to 3, 9; 4 to 7, 7 (a Brambleback dies); 8 to 11, 5 (a Nasus, or two Bramblebacks); 12 to 15, 3 (three Bramblebacks); 16 to 27, 1 (both Nasus die and the Bramblebacks conquer alone); 28 or more, 0 (both sides die, or the garrison survives, and 466.5: 'If no Showdown or Combat is staged at this location, the player with Units remaining here Establishes Control if they didn’t already control this Battlefield.'). N=2, K=2 is 7 against an empty battlefield or a garrison of 1 to 3, 5 at 4 to 7, 3 at 8 to 15, 1 at 16 to 23, 0 from 24. Re-derived on 2026-10-26 from the rules above. THE DECLARED QUANTITIES STILL REACH 8, so the class stays BURST: nine in one Conquer, against an empty battlefield or a garrison of 1 to 3 summed Might.
• N × (1 + K) = 8 without the Conquer's own point, and that matters here more than in the Hold version. 471.1.b.1 turns the Conquer point into a card draw when you are already within one of the Victory Score — but 383.4.c.2.c says outright that 'If the act of gaining one point from Conquering is negated or replaced in any way, the Conquer Effect will still trigger', so Nasus's eight Gains arrive regardless, and 471.1.a.1 exempts them anyway.
• 383.4.c.2.a is the mechanism: 'The Conquer Abilities of Units are put on the Chain as Pending Items after the Unit(s) these effects correspond to are present at a Battlefield when a player gains control of it and gains 1 Victory Point from Conquering.' All five bodies must be present at the battlefield being conquered.
• Against skyfall-ahri-conquer, which is already catalogued: that one needs SFD-030 Skyfall of Areion to convert Ahri's hold effect into a conquer effect, so it is three distinct cards in 3+3+2 copies. Nasus's trigger is already 'When I conquer', so this is two distinct cards in 2+3 copies. planDeck ranks by copies to add, so the difference shows in the panel.
• What this pays and the Hold version does not: you have to CONQUER, that is establish Control of a battlefield you do not control (466.5) with all five bodies present and surviving. Cost 44 Energy + 5 Power — two Nasus (16E+2P), two Empowers (16E), three Brambleback (12E+3P) — spread over about six turns against a 12-card Rune Deck (103.3.a), because 441.2 keeps the Empowered state. CORRECTED 2026-10-26 (#472, the follow-up PR #471 listed for #464): the bodies do not have to survive to conquer, since 466.5 gives Control to 'the player with Units remaining here'; each one that dies costs points (the formula notable). Nine needs an empty battlefield or a garrison of 1 to 3 summed Might.
• No battlefield of yours is required, which is the one consistency advantage over nasus-ascended-sentinel-arena-hold: 485.5 does not get a vote here.
• A BLOODLESS CONQUER IS NOT A FAIT ACCOMPLI, AND 46 OF THE 47 ENTRIES CITING 344.2 DID NOT SAY SO (added 2026-09-12, #187 batch 25). **316.8.b.1.a**: during a Non-Combat Showdown *"units controlled by a different player may become present at the Battlefield where the Showdown is"*, which converts it to a COMBAT Showdown in the following cleanup - so the opponent can turn your uncontested walk-in into a fight. 316.8.c is the permission (a Showdown is a Window of Opportunity for [Action] and [Reaction] cards). **The answer set is THREE CARDS, swept on the ACTOR rather than on the destination**: `OGN-173 Ride the Wind` (Chaos, E2+1), `OGN-262 Zenith Blade` (Calm/Order, E3+2) and `SFD-184 Relentless Pursuit` (Fury/Body, E2+1) - twelve printings move a friendly unit, and nine of them send it to base or need a body already there. They span three identities, so **no identity is safe**; and `OGN-262 Zenith Blade` is the worst to walk into, because it STUNS your body on the way in, and 423.1.b removes a stunned unit`s contribution to the damage step while 423.1.c keeps its full Might as the price to kill it - one 3-Energy card takes the unit and the battlefield. **[Ambush] is not a fourth answer**: 822.1.b needs a battlefield where the player already has units, and the defining feature of that board is that they have none there. **THE REMEDY IS A COUNTERSPELL, AND A FIRST VERSION OF THIS NOTABLE SAID SOMETHING FALSE THAT IS WITHDRAWN HERE (corrected within the hour, 2026-09-12).** It said that because all three answers are [Action] and 358.4 admits an Action card only as the card that CLOSES the state, the attacker - who holds Focus by 345 and priority by 335.1 - could shut them out by playing any cheap Action card first. Every step is true and the conclusion is false, because **a Showdown is a LOOP, not a single window**: 346 - *"When the last item on the chain resolves and the turn returns to an Open State during a Showdown, Focus passes, and the next Player gains both Focus and Priority"* - with 347.1.b and 347.2.a. Closing the state buys a lock-out lasting exactly that CHAIN; when it resolves the Showdown reopens, Focus passes TO THE DEFENDER, and they play their answer into an open Showdown after all. **The real sequence**: walk in, take Focus, **PASS** (acting first gains nothing); they play the answer, which closes the state as it is played; **you COUNTER it**, since 358.4`s other half now admits only [Reaction] and all eleven of the pool`s counters are Reaction, and 425.1.c refunds them nothing; all players then pass in sequence, 347.2.a ends the Showdown, and 348.2.a with 348.2.a.1 give you Control and the Conquer. The cheap counter is `OGN-045 Defy` (Calm, E1 + 1 Power, *"counter a spell that costs no more than 4 Energy and no more than one rainbow"*), which covers all three answers; `OGN-064 Wind Wall` is the unconditional one. **So the protection narrows to pairs containing CALM** - it is not the one-Energy insurance any deck can buy.

Steps

1. Assemble two Nasus and three Red Brambleback and pay each Nasus's [Empower] for 8 Energy (827.1.c.1). 441.2 keeps them Empowered.
2. Move the five onto a battlefield you do not control and take it (466.5): establishing Control results in a Conquer (466.5.d) and gains a point. CORRECTED 2026-10-26 (#472, the follow-up PR #471 listed for #464): against an empty battlefield nobody fights (316.8.b.1) and the count is nine. Taking it from a garrison scores nine only at 1 to 3 summed Might: 7 from 4 to 7, 5 from 8 to 11, 3 from 12 to 15, 1 from 16 to 27, 0 from 28 (the formula notable).
3. 383.4.c.2.a puts each present unit's conquer ability on the chain; Red Brambleback ×3 makes each conquer effect run four times (R1 = A).
4. Each of the two Nasus gains a point per run: eight ability Gains (194.1.c, R2 = A), which 470 does not cap. Nine points from the one Conquer. CORRECTED 2026-10-26 (#472, the follow-up PR #471 listed for #464): nine only if all five are present at the Conquer: an empty battlefield, or a garrison of 1 to 3 summed Might (the formula notable).

How it ends

burst of nine points in one Conquer, eight of them ability Gains outside 470's cap

Sources

Published elsewhere

• Hunt lens [Empower]/[Flow]/[Level N] — issue #34 (GitHub) 2026-09-05
• 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 2026-09-05 2026-09-05 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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