Combo · ALT WIN

Noxian Drummer × Eye of the Herald × Svellsongur — eight Recruits on one move

6 cards · order + calm · verified

Pieces

• The Grand Plaza ×1 OGN-293 · payoff

  When you hold here, if you have 7+ units here, you win the game.

• Noxian Drummer ×1 OGN-222 · engine · order

  When I move to a battlefield, play a 1 Might Recruit unit token here. (It is also at the battlefield.)

• Eye of the Herald ×3 SFD-153 · engine · order

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

  When I move, play a 1 Might Recruit unit token here.

• Svellsongur ×1 SFD-059 · engine · calm

  [Equip] 1 Energy + 1 Calm Power (1 Energy + 1 Calm Power: Attach this to a unit you control.) As this is attached to a unit, copy that unit's text to this Equipment's effect text for as long as this is attached to it.

Payoff

Deck

• Legend domains cover Calm and Order — Emperor of the Sands (SFD-247), Radiant Dawn (OGN-261), Green Father (UNL-195) or Eye of Twilight (VEN-147). None carries a ban marker.

Prerequisites

• The Grand Plaza must be the battlefield in play, and a deck may not carry two of it (Core Rules 103.4.c, Tournament Rules 402.1): random 1 of 3 in Duel (485.5) and Skirmish (487.5), chosen in Match (486.5).
• Conquer the Plaza BEFORE the Drummer walks in, in the same Main Phase. A cheap body enters the uncontrolled Plaza and applies Contested (190.3.a.1); 344.2 opens a Showdown at the next Cleanup; 348.2.a leaves only your units and establishes Control; 348.2.a.1 says outright "This results in a Conquer". Only then does the Drummer move in — 190.3.a.1 applies no Contested to a battlefield you already control, so the Recruits are played to a battlefield you control and 355.2.a is satisfied by default. Playing them into a Plaza you do not yet control would need 355.2.b to read the Eye's "here" as a permission, and this entry does not ask that: the REFUTE of grand-plaza-recruit-vanguard recorded the same requirement, and zed-clone-eye-recruits puts Zed at the Plaza after conquering it.
• Bodies from one Standard Move: (1 + T) x (1 + S) Recruits, T = Eyes on the Drummer, S = Svellsongur. T=3, S=1 gives 8, plus the Drummer himself and the body that conquered — 10 units against a bar of 7. It costs 10 Energy and 5 Power, the cheapest Grand Plaza line in this catalogue.
• Why the gear's line becomes the Drummer's line: 434.1.c / 136.2.c / 718.3 append each Eye's Effect Text to his Rules Text and 136.2.d makes "I" mean him; 725.1 keeps Svellsongur's own printed attach-time passive alive against 718.2. Attaching the Eyes first and Svellsongur last fixes the copy at four instances under both readings of Svellsongur (725.1 literal and R6 = A), which is why S is 1 and not 2.
• The Recruits are 1 Might, and OGN-133 Flurry of Blades (Body, 1 Energy, [Reaction], "Deal 1 to all units at battlefields") is lethal to every one of them under 142.4.b for a single Energy. You expose the board for one full opponent turn, so the margin of 3 over the bar is the entry's only cushion.
• The Recruits carry no [Temporary] (187.1), so 816.1.b never touches them; they enter exhausted (143.4), which does not matter for holding; and the Plaza's "if you have 7+ units here" is a Trigger Condition measured at the instant of the Hold (383.2.a.1, 383.2.c), which this board has been meeting since your previous Main Phase.
• Different identity and different mechanism from zed-clone-eye-recruits (Order/Chaos, two bodies per activation, bounded by Chaos runes): this one resolves in a single move.
• THE EQUIPMENT THIS LINE STANDS ON (Eye of the Herald x3, Svellsongur x1) IS A LEGAL TARGET THE WHOLE TIME IT SITS THERE. 718.5.b: "Attached cards still can be chosen or targeted by game effects while Attached." Its printed Rules Text is Inactive while attached (718.2) and its [Equip] is unusable (721.2), but neither of those protects the CARD. OGN-022 Thermo Beam (Fury, E5 + 2 Fury Power, "[Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Kill all gear.") is the only card in the pool that kills EVERY gear at once, so against the 4 copies this line stands on it answers the whole payoff with ONE card. It is symmetric, which makes it cheap for a gearless deck and expensive for anyone else. The unconditional enemy-facing gear kills are OGN-022 Thermo Beam (fury), OGN-224 Salvage (order), SFD-005 Detonate (fury), SFD-032 Disarming Rake (calm), SFD-077 Rocket Barrage (mind), VEN-003 Brittle Steel (fury) - four domains, so there is no identity this line can hide in. (The full swept set is 16 base codes across all six domains; the predicate is /\bkills?\b[^.]{0,80}\bgear\b/i over text+effect of every deckable base in data/cards.json, and the rest either reach only a friendly gear or are gated below this line's costs. Run npm run adversarial to re-derive it.)
• NO GEAR KILL IN THE POOL CARRIES [Reaction] - BUT A KILL IS NOT THE ONLY ANSWER, AND THE PREDICATE THAT MEASURED THAT SET COULD NOT SEE THE OTHER FAMILY. Swept over all 16 kills: Thermo Beam and Salvage are [Action], which 806.1.c.1 makes short for "This can be played during showdowns on any player's turn", and Detonate and Brittle Steel are plain spells, which 155 confines to "an Open State outside of Showdowns on its controller's turn". WHICH OF THOSE PROTECTS THIS LINE DEPENDS ON WHERE IT PAYS, so check before relying on it. If it pays on a HOLD, the Score happens at 315.2.b.2 inside your own Beginning Phase, where 312.2.a gives the opponent no priority in a Neutral Open State and 813.1.c.1 admits only a [Reaction] in the Closed State the trigger opens - no kill in the pool reaches that window at all, so each must be cast on THEIR own turn, a full turn early and fully telegraphed, and that spell on the Chain is itself a Closed State where 312.2.c hands out priority and 813.1.c.1 admits a [Reaction] in response. If it instead pays in your MAIN PHASE, that protection does not exist: 806.1.c.1 puts Thermo Beam and Salvage inside any showdown on any player's turn, so they reach the scoring window itself. THE SECOND FAMILY IS DETACHMENT, AND IT DOES CARRY [Reaction]. 719.1 appends an attached card's Effect Text to its carrier "for as long as they remain Attached" and 137.3.a stops the Might Bonus "as soon as the card with the Might Bonus is no longer Attached", so taking the Equipment OFF switches the payoff off without killing anything. Swept with /\bdetach/i over text+effect of every deckable base: 5 base codes (4 names - Grandmaster at Arms is printed twice), of which only 1 is ENEMY-FACING, because Strike Down says "an equipped friendly unit", Veiled Temple "a friendly gear" and Grandmaster at Arms "you control". That one is SFD-011 Angle Shot - Fury, 2 Energy, NO Power, and it cantrips: "[Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Choose a unit and an Equipment with the same controller. Attach that Equipment to that unit or detach that Equipment from that unit. Draw 1." The words that make it an answer are "the same controller", which need not be you. WHAT IT PROVABLY DOES is strip the text and the Might Bonus BEFORE the trigger condition is ever met. WHAT IS NOT WALKED, and a reader should not reach for it here until somebody does, is whether a detach inside the scoring window itself accomplishes anything. The reason to DOUBT it - not a paragraph that settles it - is that a Trigger Condition is measured when the trigger is PLACED (383.2.a.1 makes a clause immediately after the trigger "part of the Trigger Condition and not the Effect"), so stripping the Equipment once its trigger is already on the Chain may well change nothing. Nobody has walked what becomes of a chain item whose source text has gone. Until somebody does, treat Angle Shot as a cheap answer cast EARLY, and do not claim it answers the trigger.
• 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.
• THE PARAGRAPH THAT AUTHORISES THE NAMED DESTINATION, ADDED BESIDE 355.2.a RATHER THAN INSTEAD OF IT (#204, from #187 batch 18). 355.2.a is the DEFAULT for playing a card - 'By default, Valid locations include the controller's Base or a Battlefield the controller controls' - and it is what this entry already cites. It is not a permission for a token-creating effect to NARROW that, and the paragraph that is has been cited by nothing in 766 entries: 184.2, 'The effect may restrict the location to which the token may be played.' That is what makes a printed 'here' a legal instruction rather than a contradiction of the default. The system is three paragraphs - 184.2 narrows, 355.2.a defaults, 355.2.b widens - and this catalogue was citing two of the three. Both are true here and the pair is the finding.
• A DOMAIN-LEGAL +1 EXISTS, IT COSTS NO EXTRA SLOT, AND IT BUYS EXACTLY ONE CARD. `OGS-013 Garen, Commander` and `OGN-243 Darius, Executioner` are both mono-Order and print the identical sentence — *"Other friendly units have +1 :rb_might: here"* — so either is legal in this identity, stands at the Plaza as one of the seven, and takes the Recruits to Might 2. Measured over the twenty cards in the pool that remove more than one body in one action (the table is in `docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-13-might-1-survivability.md`), Might 2 escapes exactly THREE: `OGN-133 Flurry of Blades`, `OGN-200 Twisted Fate, Gambler`’s one-damage mode and `OGN-041 Volibear, Furious`’s split. It does NOT escape `UNL-132 Angler Beast` — *"return all units with 2 :rb_might: or less to their owners' hands"* — which is a BOUNCE, so a Might-2 body is still caught and the Plaza’s count fails exactly as completely as it would to a kill. It does NOT escape `UNL-107 Stare Down` (Body, E2, the cheapest unconditional answer in the pool — the threshold is the ATTACKER’s chosen unit, so no amount of Might escapes it, and 355.10.d makes it programmatic so no `[Deflect]` tax is paid for any number of bodies), `OGN-268 Bullet Time` (E1 plus any amount of rainbow), or the two that take everything and carry no location clause at all — `UNL-180 The Ruination` and `SFD-147 Downwell`. Parking bodies at the base is a defence against Flurry and NOT against the lens. So the +1 answers the one card this entry already names, and moves the cheapest answer from one Energy to two.
• OPPONENT BOARD AND KILL PRICE - ADDED 2026-10-27 (#503). THE BOARD IT WINS ON: nothing of theirs ready in their base on the one turn between the walk-in and the Hold (units at their own battlefield cannot reach the Plaza, 144.4.a, 144.4.b; units they play that turn enter exhausted, 143.4), and no removal spell for the Recruits; 383.2.a.1 counts the ten when the Hold happens. N is ten: the Drummer, the body that conquered, and eight 1-Might Recruits (187.1), none with [Tank] or [Backline], so nothing orders the assignment (465.2.c.6). Killing N - 6 = 4 of them costs 4 damage, the four Recruits (465.2.c.3, 142.4.b): any ready enemy body of Might 4 or more that attacks the Plaza, or bodies whose summed Might is 4, leaves six and the Hold does not win.

Steps

1. Play Noxian Drummer to your base (3 Energy) and equip the three Eyes of the Herald to him, 1 Energy and 1 Order Power each.
2. Equip Svellsongur last: 3 Energy and 1 Power to play, then 1 Energy and 1 Calm Power to attach. The Drummer's Rules Text now carries four instances of "when I move, play a 1 Might Recruit unit token here".
3. In your Main Phase, walk any cheap body into The Grand Plaza while it is uncontrolled: Contested (190.3.a.1) → Showdown at the next Cleanup (344.2) → Control with only your units present (348.2.a) → Conquer (348.2.a.1). The Plaza is now yours, in your own Main Phase.
4. Still in the same Main Phase, Standard-Move the Drummer from base to the Plaza (144.1.a; exhausting him is the cost, 144.2). All four move triggers resolve, 359.3.f.2 reads "here" on execution and on execution he is at the Plaza, so eight Recruits join him there — ten friendly units in total.
5. Survive one opponent turn with 7+ units there. At your next Beginning Phase you Hold the Plaza, its trigger finds ten units, and 195 grants you the game.

How it ends

win the game at the next Hold

Sources

Walked here, in this project

• Equipment lens hunt, issue #41 candidate 2 (rc-huntE) 2026-09-05
• Hand walk 2026-09-05 2026-09-05 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue