Combo · ENGINE

The Power Nexus needs no Mind card: four runes recycled at finalization pay its rainbow

1 card · any legend · verified

Pieces

• Power Nexus ×1 SFD-214 · battlefield

  When you hold here, you may pay 4 Power of any domain to score 1 point.

Payoff

Deck

• ANY legend. Power Nexus is colourless and the runes that pay for it are whatever your Rune Deck holds, so this entry has no Domain Identity at all (103.1.b has nothing to constrain).
• SFD-214 is not banned or restricted in either format - checked against data/legality.json, which has no row touching it.
• It is a battlefield you PROVIDE, so it is a 1-in-3: 485.4.a has each player provide three of which one is used, 485.5 makes the selection random, and 103.4.c with Tournament Rules 402.1 forbid running three copies of one name to fix that.

Prerequisites

• THIS ENTRY EXISTS TO REFUTE A RECORDED REFUSAL. A synthesis batch of 2026-09-12 refused Power Nexus in Fury/Chaos on the ground that 383.3.b makes the four rainbow a BASE COST paid at finalization (383.3.b.1), that 312.2.c withholds priority until every pending chain item finishes finalizing, and that 167 empties the Rune Pool at the end of every turn - so the Power had to be banked in advance, the only funder that Adds on the Hold itself is UNL-087 Blue Sentinel, and the Sentinel is Mind. Every step of that is true EXCEPT the inference, and the paragraph that breaks it is 444.2.c: 'Players may activate abilities that Add resources with the Reaction keyword at any time that they are instructed to Pay resources. Those abilities finalize and resolve immediately, ignoring normal restrictions.' PRIORITY IS NOT PAYMENT. You are instructed to pay at finalization, and that instruction is itself the window.
• THE THREE PARAGRAPHS THAT MAKE THE RUNES SUFFICIENT, AND THE THIRD IS THE ONE PEOPLE MISS. 164.2 gives every Basic Rune exactly two abilities and BOTH carry Reaction - 164.2.a ':rb_exhaust:: [Reaction] - Add :rb_energy_1:.' and 164.2.b 'Recycle this: [Reaction] - Add :rb_rune_colorless:.' - so 444.2.c reaches them. 164.2.b's cost is the RECYCLE and not an exhaust, so a rune already tapped for Energy this turn still pays. And 164.2.b.1 says 'The Power added this way corresponds to the Domain of the Rune that is being Recycled', which looks like a mismatch against a rainbow cost until you read 135.2.e.5.a: 'When required as a cost, [A] can be paid by Power of any Domain.' Four runes of any domains, recycled at the moment of payment, pay the four rainbow.
• THE PRICE IS RUNES, NOT CARDS, AND THE RATE IS EXACTLY ONE POINT PER TWO TURNS FOR FREE. 161.2.b returns a recycled rune 'to the Rune Deck, not the Main Deck', 161.2.a caps that deck at 'Exactly 12 Rune cards', and 315.3.b channels 2 a turn. So four runes per point against two returned per turn is one extra point every two turns at zero card cost - or up to three points in consecutive turns by drawing a full twelve-rune board down to nothing, which costs you the Energy those runes would have paid. That is the honest ledger and it is why this is an ENGINE and not a finisher: one Power Nexus point per turn is the ceiling, since 315.2.b.2 Holds each battlefield once and 103.4.c forbids a second copy of the name. CORRECTED 2026-10-24 (#456): not at the next Channel Phase. 416.1 puts a recycled rune on the bottom of the Rune Deck (416.1.b) and 430.1 channels from the top, so 315.3.b's two a turn are the runes above it, which the board gets whether or not anything was recycled. With only those two a turn (161.2.a, 315.3.b, 485.7), a rune recycled on any of T1 to T6 is back on T7 going first; going second the first one recycled by T5 is back on T6 and the second on T7; each two more recycled push it a turn later, and a card that channels more (430.2) brings it back sooner. Only once the Rune Deck is empty (all twelve out, T6 at the earliest from either seat) does the next Channel Phase give a recycled rune back; before that a recycle is a rune short on every turn until the deck runs dry, and two recycled every turn hold the board flat at two going first. So 'four runes per point against two returned per turn' holds once the Rune Deck is empty; before that the two a turn are the runes above the recycled four, and a point every two turns holds the board flat where it is rather than costing nothing: each point is four runes of the curve short until the deck runs dry. Still zero card cost and still an ENGINE; status unchanged.
• A HOLD AT THE NEXUS IS TWO POINTS, NOT ONE. 471.1 Gains the Hold's own point first and 470 caps that at one Score per battlefield per turn; the Nexus point is a card-text Gain, which R2 = A puts under 194.1.c rather than under 469, so 470 never sees it and 471.1.a.1 - 'points Gained from sources that are not Conquer are not beholden to these restrictions' - keeps it clear of the Final Point clause as well.
• WHAT THIS CHANGES FOR THE CATALOGUE, STATED AS OF 2026-09-12. Every one of the five existing Power Nexus entries (power-nexus-sentinel, power-nexus-atlas-sentinel-gold, power-nexus-atlas-sentinel-time-warp, power-nexus-benefactor-sentinel-time-warp, power-nexus-sentinel-renata-mastermind) pairs it with a Mind card, and NONE of them cites 444.2.c; across the whole catalogue that paragraph is cited by exactly one entry, shakedown-immortal-phoenix-reaction-add-at-finalization, which found the rule and never applied it here. Those five are not wrong - a Gold or a Sentinel Add is cheaper than four runes and leaves the board intact - but they are optimisations of a line that runs without them, which is the opposite of what the refusal concluded.
• THE GENERAL FORM IS WORTH MORE THAN THIS BATTLEFIELD. Any 'you may pay X to Y' Triggered Ability in the pool is payable out of runes at the instant of finalization, in any identity, with no Add-on-trigger card and no priority window - because 383.3.b makes X the base cost and 444.2.c hands you the rune abilities anyway. Before refusing a line on the ground that its Power cannot be banked across 167, check whether the runes are simply still on the board.
• 204.3.a IS THE FIRST AND CLEANER SOURCE FOR THIS, AND IT CARRIES THE WORKED EXAMPLE: "When Costs within Instructions appear as the first part of the effect in triggered abilities, the cost is taken to be the base cost of the triggered ability. It must be paid to finalize the triggered ability", with Riot's example being Overzealous Fan - "When I defend, you may kill me to move an attacking unit to its base" - and the note that "in order to finalize the ability to the chain, its controller must kill Overzealous Fan". 383.3.b says the same thing later in the book. The companion is 204.3.b: a cost appearing in a SPELL, in an ACTIVATED ability, or in a LATER part of a trigger's effect is paid on resolution instead, which is the 205 "pay X. If you do, Y" family and the reason the two look alike on the card and behave differently on the chain.

Bodies no card supplies

Control the Power Nexus at your Beginning Phase, with four runes on the board

Steps

1. Control the Power Nexus at your Beginning Phase, with four runes on the board. They do not need to be ready: 164.2.b's cost is the recycle, not an exhaust.
2. 315.2.b.2 Holds every battlefield you control. The Hold Gains its own point (471.1), which 470 caps at one Score per battlefield per turn.
3. The Nexus's Triggered Ability goes on the chain. 383.3.b makes the four rainbow written immediately after its 'you may' the ability's BASE COST, and 383.3.b.1 pays it to FINALIZE the trigger rather than on resolution.
4. At that instruction to pay, recycle four runes. 444.2.c: 'Players may activate abilities that Add resources with the Reaction keyword at any time that they are instructed to Pay resources. Those abilities finalize and resolve immediately, ignoring normal restrictions.' 164.2.b is such an ability on every Basic Rune, and 135.2.e.5.a lets the domain Power it Adds pay a rainbow cost.
5. The trigger finalizes and resolves: a second point, this one a 194.1.c Gain by ability under R2 = A. The four runes are in the Rune Deck (161.2.b) and come back at two a turn (315.3.b). CORRECTED 2026-10-24 (#456): not at the next Channel Phase. A recycled rune goes to the bottom of the Rune Deck (416.1, 416.1.b) and 430.1 channels from the top, so it is back on T7 at the earliest going first and T6 at the earliest going second with only the Channel Phase's two a turn (161.2.a, 315.3.b, 485.7); each two more recycled push it a turn later, a card that channels more (430.2) brings it back sooner, and the next Channel Phase gives it back only once the Rune Deck is empty. The point is unaffected.

Per iteration

+2 points per turn at a battlefield you hold - one Score for the Hold and one ability Gain from the Nexus - for four runes and no card

How it ends

engine - one Nexus point per turn at most, since 315.2.b.2 Holds each battlefield once and 103.4.c forbids a second copy of the name; the four runes per point are returned to the Rune Deck and re-channelled at two a turn CORRECTED 2026-10-24 (#456): not at the next Channel Phase. A recycled rune goes to the bottom of the Rune Deck (416.1, 416.1.b) and 430.1 channels from the top, so it is back on T7 at the earliest going first and T6 at the earliest going second with only the Channel Phase's two a turn (161.2.a, 315.3.b, 485.7); each two more recycled push it a turn later, a card that channels more (430.2) brings it back sooner, and the next Channel Phase gives it back only once the Rune Deck is empty.

Sources

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-12, issue #200 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-12-synthesised-lines.md) - synthesis lane, batch 4: opened while checking whether Chaos/Fury has any Hold-based point source at all, and refutes that batch's own earlier refusal 2026-09-12 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue