Combo · ENGINE
Stand United is a buff AMPLIFIER hidden for one rainbow — every buffed body is +2 instead of +1, at Reaction speed for zero Energy
Pieces
- Peak Guardian ×1
OGN-223 · engine · order
When you play me, buff me. Then, if I am at a battlefield, buff all other friendly units there. (To buff a unit, give it a +1 Might buff if it doesn't already have one.)
- Stand United ×3
OGN-053 · payoff · calm
[Hidden] (Hide now for 1 Power of any domain to react with later for 0 Energy.) [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Buff a friendly unit. Buffs give an additional +1 Might to friendly units this turn. (To buff a unit, give it a +1 Might buff if it doesn't already have one.)
Payoff
Deck
- Peak Guardian is mono-Order and Stand United mono-Calm, so 103.1.b.1 needs a Calm/Order legend, and the census gives four names: OGN-261 / OGN-306 Radiant Dawn, SFD-197 / SFD-247 Emperor of the Sands, UNL-195 / UNL-233 Green Father, VEN-147 / VEN-193 Eye of Twilight. Neither card is Signature, so 103.2.d.2 imposes nothing.
Prerequisites
- THE ARITHMETIC, WITH 702.3 DOING THE WORK. 703: 'Each Buff individually contributes +1 Might to a Unit.' 702.3 allows a unit only one Buff at a time, so on any ordinary board 'buffs give an additional +1 might to friendly units' resolves to exactly +1 per BUFFED BODY. Peak Guardian landing on a garrison of six unbuffed bodies therefore turns Stand United into +6 Might spread across six bodies for the turn.
- THE COST IS PAID A TURN EARLY AND THEN IT IS FREE. 811.1.b: 'you may pay [A] to hide this facedown at a battlefield you control that doesn't already have a facedown card hidden there ... Beginning on the next turn, this gains [Reaction] and you may play this, ignoring its base cost.' So one rainbow Power on an earlier turn buys a 0-Energy [Reaction] spell, and 813.1.c.1 lets it be played 'during Closed States on any player's turn' — inside the opponent's attack, after 464.2.c.3 has designated the attackers and their summed Might is countable.
- ONLY THE FIRST SENTENCE IS CONFINED. 811.1.d.2 restricts the targets of 'a hidden spell or a play effect of a hidden permanent' to the battlefield it was hidden at, so 'Buff a friendly unit' has to pick there. The amplifier sentence chooses nothing and names no location — it reads 'friendly units', full stop — so it is unconfined, and this is where the whole value sits.
- THE HARD CAP IS THE BOARD, NOT THE DECK. 811.1.b allows one facedown per battlefield and 485.4 puts two battlefields on a Duel table, so however many copies of Stand United the deck runs (103.2.b allows three), at most two can be hidden at once and only one at each battlefield you control. `OGN-278 Bandle Tree` ('You may hide an additional card here') is the pool's only lift on that limit.
- IT IS A MODIFIER AND NOT A BUFF. The +1 it grants is a continuous modifier applied at 477.3.e.1 that 317.2.c expires at the end-of-turn Cleanup; 702.3's one-per-unit cap never touches it, and it stacks with the Buff counter it is reading rather than replacing it.
- AND IT DIES WITH THE COUNTER. 702.2.b removes a Buff counter when something SPENDS it, so a deck that also runs Wallop, Call to Glory or Monastery of Hirana is subtracting from Stand United's count every time it cashes one in. Pick a side.
- IT DOES NOT SCORE. Nothing in Calm or Order converts Might into points; what +6 across a garrison buys is surviving a damage step (465.2.c reads current Might on both sides) or clearing one.
- CITATION UPGRADE (2026-09-09): this entry argued the hidden-card split out of 811.1.d.2 by reasoning; 811.2 states it outright AND names Stand United in its own worked example. Read the Example line before the rule text - Riot names the card.
Bodies no card supplies
On a later turn, play Peak Guardian to that battlefield
Steps
- Establish Control of a battlefield. On an earlier turn, in your own Open State, pay one rainbow Power to hide Stand United face down there (811.1.b).
- On a later turn, play Peak Guardian to that battlefield. His trigger buffs him and then every other friendly unit there that does not already carry a buff (702.3.a).
- Wait. The opponent attacks: 190.3.a.1 applies Contested, 323.9 stages the Combat, 464.2.c.3 designates the attackers and 465.2.c will have each side assign damage equal to their summed Might.
- In the Closed State the attack opens, where 312.2.c hands out priority, play Stand United from face down for 0 Energy — 811.1.b's tail has given it [Reaction] and 813.1.c.1 admits it on the opponent's turn.
- Its first sentence buffs one more friendly unit, chosen at that battlefield (811.1.d.2). Its second sentence gives every buffed friendly unit an additional +1 Might for the turn.
- 465.2.c.3 and 465.2.c.4 now read the higher Might: each body needs one more damage to kill and 465.2.c.4 forbids overpaying, so an attacking pack that had exactly lethal on the garrison no longer does.
- 317.2.c expires the modifier at the end-of-turn Cleanup; the Buff counters stay, so a second hidden copy on the other battlefield does the same thing next turn.
How it ends
engine only — +1 Might per buffed friendly body for one turn, for 0 Energy at Reaction speed, at most twice over (one facedown per battlefield, two battlefields in a Duel); nothing here scores
Sources
Published elsewhere
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
- 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 2026-09-07 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-07-rules-second-pass.md), issue #170 2026-09-07 record
How this entry was audited
REFUTE = a refutation pass, with its date and verdict · WOUNDED = the pass found a flaw and the entry was rewritten · BUDGETED = the pass checked the recycle-and-draw ledger · lens = the hunt that proposed it.
HAND-WALKED 2026-09-07, issue #170, from the buff-supply synergy rules; OGN-053 Stand United was in ZERO entries and is the pool's only buff AMPLIFIER. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. The reading is kept deliberately narrow: because 702.3 allows one Buff per unit, 'buffs give an additional +1' and 'each buffed body gets +1' are the same number on every legal board, so no rules reading has to be filed to price the card. Trap check: 811.1.d.2 is quoted and applied to the FIRST sentence only, with the reason the second escapes it; the one-facedown-per-battlefield half of 811.1.b is quoted as the real cap, which is the board and not 103.2.b; the +1 is stated as a continuous modifier (477.3.e.1, expiring at 317.2.c) and explicitly not a 702 counter; 702.2.b is named as the anti-synergy with the deck's own buff spenders.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16