Combo · ENGINE

A buff crosses the Mighty line once per PLACEMENT, not once per game - Overt Operation spends it and puts it back in one resolution, and 476.3's own worked example is Fiora, Victorious

5 cards · body + order · verified

Pieces

• Grand Duelist ×1 SFD-205 · legend · body/order

  When one of your units becomes [Mighty], you may exhaust me to channel 1 rune exhausted. (A unit is Mighty while it has 5+ Might.)

• Fiora, Victorious ×1 OGN-232 · payoff · order

  While I'm [Mighty], I have [Deflect], [Ganking], and [Shield]. (I'm Mighty while I have 5+ Might.)

• Overt Operation ×3 OGN-153 · engine · body

  [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) For each friendly unit, you may spend its buff to ready it. Then buff all friendly units. (Each one that doesn't have a buff gets a +1 Might buff.)

Payoff

Deck

• Fiora, Victorious is mono-Order and Overt Operation is mono-Body, so the identity is Body/Order and the legend must cover both (103.1.b.2). SFD-205 Grand Duelist is named in uses[] and is Body/Order; his alt printing is SFD-251. The other Body/Order legends measured over data/cards.json are OGN-269 / OGN-310 The Boss, OGS-023 Might of Demacia - Starter, UNL-203 / UNL-237 Keeper of the Hammer and VEN-153 / VEN-196 Matriarch of War, but only the Grand Duelist pays for the crossing.
• None of the three is a Signature card (checked against data/cards.json), so 103.2.d.2 imposes nothing beyond the legend already being named, and none is banned or restricted in either format.
• No separate buff source is needed: Overt Operation's own second sentence places the first buff, so one copy arms the line and the next re-crosses it.

Prerequisites

• THE REFINEMENT, AND IT CORRECTS A SHIPPED ENTRY OF THIS CATALOGUE. grand-duelist-fiora-victorious-off-turn-crossing states that 'a buffed Might-4 body crosses ONCE, ever'. That is true of a buff that STAYS. 702.2.b - 'Spending a Buff removes a single Buff counter from a Unit' - with 702.3.a, which only blocks a buff on a unit that ALREADY has one, gives the honest statement: a buff crosses the Mighty line once per PLACEMENT. A card that spends the counter and then places it again is a fresh crossing, and Overt Operation does both in one resolution, in that order.
• 476.3 IS WHY THE KEYWORDS COME OFF IN BETWEEN, AND IT NAMES THIS CARD. Riot's second worked example at 476.3: 'A buffed Fiora, Victorious is in combat as a defender when her buff is removed. Reevaluating the layers in sequence, she no longer gains Deflect, Ganking, and Shield during the Ability-Altering Effect layer, so when the Arithmetic layer is evaluated, neither the buff (which is gone) nor Shield (which she no longer has) apply. She goes directly from 6 Might with three keywords to 4 Might with no keywords.' Removing one buff costs her TWO Might while defending and all three keywords - so the spend genuinely drops her under the line and 709's crossing event can happen again.
• AND 476.2 IS WHY THEY COME BACK AT ALL. The buff is arithmetic (477.3) and the keywords are ability-altering (477.2), so a single pass through the layers would place the buff AFTER the layer that reads it and Fiora would never gain anything. 476.2 - 'When a sequence of applications completes, recur the process, and evaluate each layer again applying any effects that may now be applicable' - is what makes the static self-fulfilling, and Riot's FIRST example at 476.3 spells the recursion out on this exact card. Neither paragraph is cited by any other entry or synergy rule in this project.
• THE READY IS A MAIN-PHASE READY, WHICH IS THE KIND THAT PAYS. This project's standing rule is that a Hold-triggered ready is a no-op, because 315.1.b has readied everything before 315.2 fires. Overt Operation is an [Action] spell (806.1.b), so its ready lands in the Main Phase (316), where 415.1 marks an already-exhausted body ready and there is somewhere to spend it. It readies EVERY buffed friendly unit, not only Fiora.
• THE READY AND THE [GANKING] ARRIVE TOGETHER, WHICH IS THE WHOLE REASON THIS BEATS A PLAIN PUMP. 810.1.c.3 makes [Ganking] a widening of the Standard Move and not an extra one, so a body that is already exhausted when it gains Ganking gets nothing from it. Here Fiora is readied by the spend and re-crosses inside the same resolution, so she ends the spell ready AND holding Ganking, and can move battlefield to battlefield that same Main Phase (144.4.c.1).
• ARITHMETIC WITH THE QUANTITIES DECLARED. Fiora at 4 plus one buff is 5 and Mighty. Overt Operation: spend her buff (she is 4, keywords off, and she readies), then buff all friendly units (she is 5 and BECOMES Mighty, 709). The Grand Duelist exhausts and channels 1 rune exhausted. Three copies (103.2.b) are three crossings on the same body, one per turn, since the Duelist's cost is his own exhaust.
• THE RUNE ARRIVES EXHAUSTED. 164.2.b carries no exhaust, so it pays one Power of its domain the turn it lands; 164.2.a taps it for Energy only after 415.3.a readies it. 430.3 - 'If there aren't sufficient runes in the Rune Deck, channel as many as possible' - is the real ceiling, not the number of crossings.

Steps

1. Run SFD-205 Grand Duelist as your legend and play OGN-232 Fiora, Victorious (4 Energy) to a battlefield. She is Might 4 with none of her three keywords on.
2. Play OGN-153 Overt Operation (5 Energy + 2 Power). With no buff on the board its first clause does nothing and its second buffs all friendly units: Fiora goes to 5 and BECOMES [Mighty] (709). 476.2 re-evaluates the layers and 477.2 grants [Deflect], [Ganking] and [Shield]. The Duelist exhausts and channels 1 rune exhausted.
3. On a later turn, play a second Overt Operation. Its first clause spends Fiora's buff: 476.3's second example applies and she drops to Might 4 with no keywords - and she READIES.
4. Its second clause then buffs all friendly units again. Fiora returns to 5 and BECOMES Mighty a second time; 709 is an event and she was under the line an instant earlier.
5. The Grand Duelist exhausts and channels a second rune. Fiora ends the resolution ready and holding [Ganking], so she can move battlefield to battlefield in the same Main Phase.
6. Repeat with the third copy. Every other buffed friendly unit is readied and re-buffed alongside her.

Per iteration

one channelled rune and one mass ready per Overt Operation, on a body that ordinary play lets cross the Mighty line only once

How it ends

engine only - one channel per player turn (the Duelist's own exhaust), three Overt Operation (103.2.b), and 430.3 empties the Rune Deck in the end; nothing here scores

Sources

Published elsewhere

• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 476.3 second worked example 2026-07-16
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 476.2 2026-07-16
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 702.2.b 2026-07-16

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-07 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue