Combo · ENGINE

158.2: [Legion] REPLACES the Guillotine's delayed kill rather than adding to it - so played first in the turn it is a Might-blind kill that a +0 Might Bonus gear arms

7 cards · fury + order · verified

Pieces

• Noxian Guillotine ×3 OGN-254 · payoff · fury/order

  [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Choose a unit. Kill it the next time it takes damage this turn. [Legion] — Kill it now instead. (Get the effect if you've played another card this turn.)

• Recurve Bow ×3 SFD-016 · engine · fury

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

  When I attack or defend, deal 2 to an enemy unit here.

• Hand of Noxus ×1 OGN-253 · legend · fury/order

  Exhaust: [Reaction], [Legion] — [Add] 1 Energy. (Abilities that add resources can't be reacted to. Get the effect if you've played a card this turn.)

Payoff

Deck

• OGN-254 is Fury/Order and SFD-016 is mono-Fury, so 103.1.b.4 and 103.1.b.3 put the list at Fury/Order exactly. 103.2.d.2 then forces OGN-253 / OGN-302 Hand of Noxus, the pool's only Darius legend (measured over data/cards.json on 2026-09-09). The pool prints two other Fury/Order legends, Void Burrower and Piltover Enforcer, and neither carries the Darius tag - a domain-correct Fury/Order list under either of them would be ILLEGAL with the Guillotine in it.
• 103.2.d.1 caps a list at 3 Signature cards, and three Guillotines spend the whole budget - so this line cannot share a deck with a second Signature package.
• Legality checked against data/legality.json on 2026-09-09: OGN-254, SFD-016, OGN-253 and OGN-302 are absent from every format's ban and restriction list.
• The Bow has to be attached to a body that will be in a combat - 807.1.d and its own wording both key on attacking or defending, and neither happens on a bloodless conquer.

Run play

• the Bow fires before the giant swings, and one Calm counter undoes the turn

Prerequisites

• THE FINDING IS THAT [Legion] IS A REPLACEMENT, NOT A BONUS, AND RIOT WORKS THIS EXACT CARD. 158.2: 'If a later part of a spell applies a Replacement Effect that alters earlier parts of the spell, apply those replacement effects as appropriate.' Its worked example is the Guillotine's printed text: 'A spell says "Choose a unit. Kill it the next time it takes damage this turn." and "[Legion] - Kill it now instead. (Get the effect if you've played another card this turn.)" If the Legion condition is satisfied, the unit is killed immediately and the instruction to kill it the next time it takes damage is ignored, even if the unit remains on the board somehow.'
• THAT LAST CLAUSE IS THE WHOLE ENTRY. With [Legion] live, a would-die replacement on the target - SFD-051 Guardian Angel, OGN-077 Zhonya's Hourglass, any heal/exhaust/recall shield - eats the immediate kill AND the delayed one is already gone. The spell has done nothing. With [Legion] off, the same shield answers only the first point of damage; the delayed kill was never spent on a death that did not happen, because it is a trigger on the NEXT damage.
• AND [Legion] IS NOT A CHOICE - IT IS PLAY ORDER. 812.1.c: 'As long as a card different than the one with the Legion ability has been Finalized by you on the same turn then the Dependent Ability is Active on the card with Legion', and 812.2 makes one card satisfy every instance you control. Nothing lets you decline it. So the fork is decided before the spell is cast: Guillotine FIRST in the turn keeps the delayed mode, Guillotine second or later takes the immediate one.
• THE DELAYED MODE IS A MIGHT-BLIND KILL, WHICH IS THE REASON TO WANT IT. 'Kill it the next time it takes damage this turn' reads an EVENT, not a threshold, so two points off a 2-Energy gear kill a Might 12 body - the same shape as OGN-159 Warwick, Hunter's 'kill all damaged enemy units here', reached by a different card. 143.2.a's 'nonzero damage marked on it equalling or exceeding its Might' is what the Guillotine is bypassing, and the Bow's 2 is enough for anything in the pool.
• COMBAT DAMAGE ALSO ARMS IT, AND 417.1.a IS WHY. 'Assigning Damage during the Combat Damage Step is not Dealing Damage, but will cause Damage to be Dealt when assignment is complete.' Damage IS dealt in combat, so a Guillotined defender dies to any assignment at all - the Bow is the cheap answer for a turn where you would rather not open a combat.
• WHY THE BOW AND NOT A BIGGER GEAR: 137.2 SAYS A MIGHT BONUS CAN BE +0. Measured over data/cards.json on 2026-09-09, exactly six printings carry mightBonus 0 - SFD-009 Serrated Dirk, SFD-016 Recurve Bow, SFD-059 Svellsongur, SFD-064 Cloth Armor, SFD-153 Eye of the Herald and VEN-137 Shady Spectacles. A +0 gear leaves the carrier's Might exactly where it was, so it never crosses a body over 5 and never spends 709's once-per-body Mighty event, never enlarges what 465.2.c.4 lets an attacker assign, and never lifts the carrier out of a Might-gated hiding place. 137.3.a completes the picture: the bonus 'stops applying as soon as the card with the Might Bonus is no longer Attached', which for +0 means losing the gear is a Might swing of nothing.
• THE BOW FIRES ON DEFENCE TOO, AND THAT IS WHERE THE PAIR GETS ITS SECOND TURN. 'When I attack or defend' - so on the opponent's attack the Bow deals its 2 and finishes whatever the Guillotine chose in your own Main Phase, since the delayed kill is scoped 'this turn' only. A Guillotine cast on your turn is spent by the end of it; the Bow is the repeating half.
• IT IS THE SAME CARD AS noxian-guillotine-legion-bloodless-fork AND A DIFFERENT QUESTION. That entry prices the fork against OGN-034 Tryndamere's excess damage - fast kill versus a bigger conquer - and cites neither 158.2 nor 812.1.c. This one is about what the [Legion] half COSTS you: the delayed instruction, which 158.2 says is ignored even when the immediate kill fails. The two share the forced legend and the Signature budget, so a list can run both readings of the same three copies.
• THE HONEST CEILING. Three Guillotines (103.2.b), one target each, and the Bow is one attach per copy at one Fury rune (818.1 makes [Equip] a separate Activated Ability, and 356.6 has nothing to floor here). Nothing in the line scores; it is removal that ignores Might, and 470 with 485.4 still caps what the resulting board can convert into points.
• AN "ATTACK OR DEFEND" TRIGGER FIRES TWICE PER TURN CYCLE, AND THIS ENTRY PRICED IT AT HALF RATE (citation upgrade 2026-09-12, #187/300-499 lane). 383.4.e defines an Attack Trigger as firing when a Unit or PLAYER gains the Attacker designation for the first time during a combat, and 383.4.f is the identical sentence for the Defender - so a card worded *"when I attack or defend"* satisfies BOTH definitions and is an Attack Trigger AND a Defend Trigger, exactly the shape the rules state outright for the other pair at 823.1.b (*"Hunt is both a Conquer and a Hold effect"*). The honest rate is once on your turn attacking and once on theirs defending. Measured across the catalogue on 2026-09-12, SIX entries use an attack-or-defend card and not one cited both paragraphs. Two limits that keep it from running away: 383.4.e.2.a checks the condition ONCE PER COMBAT despite a unit gaining and losing the designation several times in it (383.4.f.2.a is the mirror), so blinking a carrier out of a combat and back re-fires nothing; and the whole attack side is UNIT-keyed - the pool prints ZERO cards worded *"when you attack"* against FOUR on the defend side, three of them battlefields - which is why a battlefield can carry a defend trigger at all and never an attack one.

Bodies no card supplies

Attach SFD-016 Recurve Bow to a body of yours for one Fury rune (818.1: [Equip] is an Activated Ability separate from the gear's play cost)

Steps

1. Open the turn with OGN-254 Noxian Guillotine as your FIRST card (4 Energy + 1 Power, [Action] so it is also legal in a showdown). Nothing has been Finalized this turn, so 812.1.c leaves the [Legion] ability inactive and the printed delayed mode is what resolves.
2. Choose any unit - the card says 'Choose a unit' with no location clause, so it reaches a base as readily as a battlefield. It is now marked to die the next time it takes damage this turn, whatever its Might.
3. Attach SFD-016 Recurve Bow to a body of yours for one Fury rune (818.1: [Equip] is an Activated Ability separate from the gear's play cost). 137.2 means the carrier's Might does not move.
4. Attack or defend with the carrier. 'When I attack or defend, deal 2 to an enemy unit here' - point it at the Guillotined body.
5. The 2 damage is the delayed kill's trigger, and 143.2.a's Might threshold is never consulted. A Might 12 Baron Nashor dies to 2 damage off a 2-Energy gear.
6. If instead you had played any other card first, 812.2 would have switched [Legion] on for you and the Guillotine would have killed immediately - faster, but 158.2 says the delayed instruction is then ignored 'even if the unit remains on the board somehow', so a would-die shield on the target answers the whole card.
7. Repeat with the second and third Guillotine on later turns; the Bow persists and fires every combat.

How it ends

engine - three Might-blind kills a game (103.2.b), one per Guillotine, plus 2 damage per combat from the Bow; nothing here scores

Sources

Published elsewhere

• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 158.2 2026-07-16
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 158.2 worked example 2026-07-16
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 137.2 2026-07-16
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 137.3.a 2026-07-16
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 812.1.c 2026-07-16
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 812.2 2026-07-16
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 143.2.a 2026-07-16
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 417.1.a 2026-07-16
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 807.1.d 2026-07-16

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-09 2026-09-09 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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