Combo · ENGINE
The pool's cheap gear is its mana base, and one card kills it and gets paid for doing so
Pieces
- Pickpocket ×3
SFD-074 · payoff · mind
When you play me, you may kill a gear with Energy cost no more than 1 Energy. If you do, play a Gold gear token exhausted.
- Seal of Focus ×3
OGN-081 · enabler · calm
Exhaust: [Reaction] — [Add] 1 Calm Power. (Abilities that add resources can't be reacted to.)
Payoff
Deck
- Calm + Mind: Pickpocket is mono-Mind and Seal of Focus mono-Calm (103.1.b.3), so 103.1.b.2 needs a legend covering both - OGN-255/OGN-303 Nine-Tailed Fox, SFD-189/SFD-244 Fire Below the Mountain, UNL-189/UNL-230 Bashful Bloom or VEN-145/VEN-192 Curator of the Sands.
- Neither card is banned or restricted in either format, and neither is a Signature card.
- A gear of Energy cost 1 or less on the board to kill. The kill is optional ('you may'), so the Pickpocket is never a dead card - it is simply a 3 Might body when there is no target.
Prerequisites
- WHAT THE ONE-ENERGY WINDOW ACTUALLY CATCHES, MEASURED RATHER THAN GUESSED. The cheap gear in the pool is overwhelmingly the mana base and the cheap Equipment: OGN-081 / SFD-226 Seal of Focus (E0 + 1 Power), OGN-245 Seal of Unity (E0 + 1 Power) and the rest of the Seal cycle, OGN-090 Orb of Regret (E1), SFD-153 Eye of the Herald (E1), OGN-227 Symbol of the Solari (E1). Every one of those is a permanent that quietly pays every turn, which is exactly the kind of card most decks have no answer to - and the Pickpocket is a 3-Energy body that answers it and is PAID a gear for doing so.
- THE SEAL IS THE CARD YOU WANT ON BOTH SIDES OF THIS, WHICH IS WHY IT IS IN uses[]. Its ability costs the Seal's own exhaust and adds a domain Power at [Reaction] speed, and 415.3.a readies it every Awakening - so it is one free Power a turn for a card that costs no Energy at all. It is the reason a Calm/Mind deck can hold Power open on the opponent's turn for the counter suite, and it is the reason the opponent's copy is worth 3 Energy to remove.
- AND THE REPLACEMENT GEAR IS A COUNT, NOT MANA THIS TURN. 187.5: 'A Gold gear token is a domainless gear token with "[Reaction][>] Kill this, [E]: [Add] [A]"', and the Pickpocket plays it EXHAUSTED - its ability costs its own exhaust, so 415.3.a is when it becomes payable. What it is worth immediately is a gear on the board for every 'control N or more gear' threshold (185.2.d), which is the same point plundering-poro-patched-porobot-gold-gear-count is built on.
- THE KILL IS A KILL AND NOT A BANISH, WHICH MATTERS AGAINST TWO FAMILIES. The gear reaches the Trash, so 808.1.a ('It is present on Permanents') lets any Deathknell on it fire, and 719.5 detaches it from a carrier first if it was attached, with 719.5.a letting that card's controller order the detaches.
- IT REACHES AN ATTACHED EQUIPMENT. 718.5.b: 'Attached cards still can be chosen or targeted by game effects while Attached', so an Eye of the Herald or a Symbol of the Solari sitting on a unit is a legal choice at E1.
- AND THE OPTIONALITY IS WORTH SAYING. 'You may kill' means the trigger never fails for want of a target and the body always lands; compare a play trigger with a hard requirement, which 055's 'do as much as you can' would leave doing nothing while the card is still spent.
- WHAT IT IS NOT. Nothing here scores; 469 defines Scoring as Conquer or Hold.
Steps
- Play Seal of Focus (0 Energy + 1 Power) early on your own side: 415.3.a readies it every Awakening, so it is one Calm Power a turn at [Reaction] speed for no Energy.
- When the opponent lands a gear of Energy cost 1 or less - a Seal, an Orb of Regret, an Eye of the Herald - play Pickpocket (3 Energy) and kill it.
- 718.5.b means an attached Equipment is a legal choice; 719.5 detaches it from its carrier as it leaves the board.
- You get a Gold gear token exhausted: a gear for every threshold now (187.5, 185.2.d), and 1 Power of any domain from your next Awakening.
- With no legal target, decline the kill and keep the 3 Might body.
Per iteration
one cheap enemy gear removed and one Gold token gained per Pickpocket, on a body that lands either way
How it ends
engine only - three Pickpockets by 103.2.b, each answering one gear of Energy cost 1 or less; 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
- Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt (built from Riot's gallery content API) 2026-09-07
Walked here, in this project
- Hand walk 2026-09-07 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-07-uncatalogued-calm-mind-order.md, batch 5) 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 #188). The first entry to use SFD-074 Pickpocket or OGN-081 Seal of Focus. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. Citations opened and quoted: 055, 103.1.b.2, 103.1.b.3, 103.2.b, 185.2.d, 187.5, 415.3.a, 469, 718.5.b, 719.5, 719.5.a, 808.1.a. The window was measured against the pool's actual cheap gear rather than asserted: the Seals are Energy cost ZERO, so they sit inside a 'no more than 1 Energy' clause with room, and they are the quiet permanents most decks cannot answer. OGN-081 has a second printing, SFD-226; CardIndex.equivalents folds them. Ban check: neither card is banned or restricted; neither is a Signature card. No unruled reading.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16