Combo · CHAIN · 8 points

Renata, Mastermind with two Time Warps — Ekko readies the runes, and a second body keeps his battlefield

7 cards · mind + order · verified

Pieces

Time Warp ×2 OGN-122 · payoff · mind
Take a turn after this one. Banish this.
Renata Glasc, Mastermind ×1 SFD-088 · payoff · mind
1 Energy + 1 Mind Power: Draw 1. 4 Energy + 4 Mind Power, Exhaust: Score 1 point. Use my abilities only while I'm at a battlefield.
Ekko, Recurrent ×1 OGN-110 · engine · mind
[Accelerate] (You may pay 1 Energy + 1 Mind Power as an additional cost to have me enter ready.) [Deathknell] — Recycle me to ready your runes. (When I die, get the effect.)
Trusty Ramhound ×1 SFD-159 · enabler · order
While you have another unit here, I have +1 Might.
Hidden Blade ×1 OGN-213 · enabler · order
[Hidden] (Hide now for 1 Power of any domain to react with later for 0 Energy.) [Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Kill a unit at a battlefield. Its controller draws 2.
Chem-Baroness ×1 SFD-201 · legend · mind/order
When you or an ally hold, you may exhaust me to play a Gold gear token exhausted. While your score is within 3 points of the Victory Score, your Gold [Add] an additional 1 Energy.

Payoff

Burst of points in one scoring event

Deck

Legend is Chem-Baroness (SFD-201, Mind/Order) — the Gold doubling from 5 points up is what closes the resource count.

Prerequisites

REQUIREMENT, NOT AN ASSUMPTION: BOTH DUEL BATTLEFIELDS MUST BE HELD THROUGH ALL THREE BEGINNING PHASES. 485.4 is 'Battlefield Count: 2', 315.2.b.2 'The Turn Player Holds all Battlefields they Control' and 470 caps Scoring at once per Battlefield per turn — so two Hold points a turn is the ceiling and it is also the floor this line needs. On ONE battlefield the three turns total 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = FIVE, which is the count the 2026-09-04 audit measured and the reason the entry was reclassed BURST -> ENGINE that day.
AND THE BATTLEFIELD THIS LINE MOST NEARLY LOSES IS ONE IT KILLS ITSELF. This is the correction that added SFD-159 Trusty Ramhound to uses. Ekko has to die on the casting turn for his Deathknell, and if he is the sole garrison of his battlefield the next Cleanup takes it: 323.6 '4. Players lose control of any controlled Battlefields without their Units occupying them if the turn is in an Open State and there is no Showdown or Combat ongoing there'; 190.4.c 'If a player has no Units at a Battlefield and the turn is in an Open state, they lose Control of that Battlefield in the following cleanup unless there is a Combat or Showdown ongoing there.' Hidden Blade resolves in a Main Phase Open State with no combat anywhere, so the Cleanup fires. Without a second body the first Additional Turn Holds ONE battlefield instead of two, the running total is 4 rather than 5 going into its Main Phase, the Chem-Baroness bonus never switches on, and the chain dies at 5 or 6. 190.4.a is the rule the fix stands on: 'If a player controls Units at a Battlefield, outside of Combat, they maintain Control of that Battlefield for as long as they have Units at that Battlefield.' A 2-Energy body is the whole price.
THE GARRISONS, NAMED. Battlefield A: Renata Glasc, Mastermind, who has to stand at one anyway ('Use my abilities only while I'm at a battlefield'). Battlefield B: Ekko plus the Ramhound, and after the kill the Ramhound alone. Nothing has to survive a combat between the three turns, because 735 and 737 mean the opponent never acts once the first Time Warp resolves — the garrisons only have to survive the opponent's turn BEFORE the casting turn.
THE LEDGER, TURN BY TURN. CASTING TURN — Beginning Phase: Hold both, +2 (running total 2). Main Phase: exhaust all twelve runes for 12 Energy (164.2.a) and recycle four Mind runes for 4 Mind Power (164.2.b, no exhaust in that cost, so a rune already exhausted for Energy still pays Power; 161.2.b sends them to the Rune Deck, leaving eight on the board). Cast TIME WARP #1 (10 Energy + 4 Mind Power). Play Hidden Blade from hidden for 0 and kill Ekko: his Deathknell readies the eight surviving runes, and the Ramhound keeps the battlefield. Exhaust the eight for 8 more Energy (20 generated) and recycle four more Mind for 4 more Mind Power (8 generated), leaving FOUR runes on the board. RENATA: 4 Energy + 4 Mind Power, exhaust — +1 (running total 3). 14 Energy and 8 Power spent against 20 and 8 made, plus 2 Energy for the Ramhound if it was not already down.
SECOND TURN (the first Additional Turn). Awaken readies the four runes, Renata, the Ramhound, the legend and the four banked Gold (315.1.b). Beginning Phase: Hold both, +2 — RUNNING TOTAL 5, and that is exactly where Chem-Baroness's 'While your score is within 3 points of the Victory Score' switches on (8 - 3 = 5). Channel Phase adds 2 runes (315.3.b) from the eight the recycles put back, for six on the board. Main Phase: six runes are 6 Energy; the four Gold are now 4 Energy AND 4 rainbow instead of 4 rainbow alone, so 6 + 4 = 10 Energy and 4 rainbow, which 135.2.e.5.b lets pay a Mind Power cost. Cast TIME WARP #2. No Renata point this turn — every resource is spent, which is the trade the 2026-09-03 refutation identified and it still holds.
THIRD TURN (the second Additional Turn). Awaken readies six runes and Renata. Beginning Phase: Hold both, +2 — running total 7. Channel adds 2 for eight runes. Main Phase: exhaust four for 4 Energy and recycle four Mind for 4 Mind Power. RENATA: +1. EIGHT. 471.1.a.1 is what lets it land — 'points Gained from sources that are not Conquer are not beholden to these restrictions' — so 471.1.b's Final Point clause never touches Renata's ability Gain, and it never touches a Hold either, since 471.1.b is written for Conquer.
THE CHEM-BARONESS THRESHOLD HAS NO SLACK AND THAT IS WORTH KNOWING BEFORE YOU CAST. The bonus Energy is live at exactly 5 points, reached in the second turn's Beginning Phase. Score 4 going into that Beginning Phase — one battlefield lost, whether to the opponent or to Ekko's own death — and the second Time Warp is 4 Energy short with no way to make it up. Ekko is in the Main Deck by then, so there is no second rune-ready to fall back on, and the line stops at 5 or 6.
Requirements for the casting turn: 12 runes on the board of which at least 8 produce Mind Power, Ekko, Recurrent at a battlefield with the Ramhound beside him, Renata Glasc, Mastermind ready at the other battlefield, either a Hidden Blade hidden at Ekko's battlefield for 1 rainbow or a Deathgrip in hand, and FOUR Gold banked. No Gold is needed for the casting turn itself: exhausting every rune, readying them all through Ekko and recycling eight Mind runes makes 20 Energy and 8 Mind Power against 14 Energy and 8 Power spent. Gold matters on the turn after: each is Kill this, exhaust: Add 1 rainbow, plus 1 Energy while your score is 5 or higher, it enters exhausted so it is usable only from the following turn, and Chem-Baroness makes at most one per turn — which is why four of them is four earlier turns of Holding, not something the combo turn can manufacture. The deck-tech's own requirement line (12 runes, at least 1 Gold, Ekko, Hidden Blade or Deathgrip) is quoted for the record; four is what the three-turn line needs.
RULES the count stands on: Power paid by recycling runes returns those runes to the Rune Deck (161.2.b), so Ekko readies only the runes still on the board — pay Time Warp's Power from Gold instead of rune recycles and the board stays at 12 through his Deathknell, ending the casting turn with 8 runes rather than 4. 161.2.a fixes the Rune Deck at exactly 12, so 12 is also the board ceiling and 315.3.b's two per turn is the only refill; 430.3 channels 'as many as possible' when the Rune Deck is short. On each extra turn Awaken readies everything (315.1.b), the Beginning Phase holds every battlefield you control (470, 485.4), the Channel Phase adds 2 runes and the Draw Phase 1.
BURN OUT IS A COST, NOT A LOSS, AND IT IS FIVE DRAWS NOW RATHER THAN THREE. 315.4.b draws on each of the three turns and Hidden Blade's own 'its controller draws 2' resolves on the casting turn into a near-empty deck — five cards in all. 431.2 is the sequence: 431.2.b recycles your whole trash into your Main Deck and 431.2.c has an opponent gain 1 point. That does not stop the eighth point landing, since 196 ends the game when a player wins, but it can hand the opponent the tempo if the line stalls.
323.7 — THE HIDDEN BLADE DIES WITH THE BATTLEFIELD. Hidden Blade (OGN-213) is hidden a turn early so the kill on Ekko costs 1 rainbow instead of 2 Energy, and 811.1.d.2 means it must be hidden at Ekko's own battlefield. If that battlefield changes hands first, 323.7 ('place them in their owner's Trash') and 466.5.c remove it outright, and the line falls back on the Deathgrip.
THE 'OR AN ALLY' HALF OF SFD-201 IS 2V2 ONLY (issue #118, walked 2026-09-06). Chem-Baroness reads 'When you or an ally hold, you may exhaust me to play a Gold gear token exhausted', and this entry uses only the 'you hold' half. An ally exists only in 489, 2v2 (Magma Chamber): 489.1 four players, 489.5.c.1 alternating teams, 489.3 'Victory Score: 11' against 194.3's default 8, 489.8.d 'Points are shared by a team'. 489.8.c says outright 'Control is not shared', and 469.2 defines Hold as maintaining Control of a battlefield 'during their Beginning Phase', so the ally's Hold is theirs, fired on their turn by 315.2.b.2. IT DOES NOT DOUBLE THE TRIGGER, WHICH IS THE CORRECTION TO ISSUE #118's FINDING E. The cost is 'you may EXHAUST me', and 315.1.b readies your legend only in YOUR Awakening — nothing readies it in between — so across a full team round-trip you get exactly ONE activation whether it comes from your own Hold or your ally's. What the clause actually buys is a CHOICE of window (decline your own Hold in your Beginning Phase and take the ally's later in the round) and an insurance policy for the turn you control no battlefield at all and therefore never Hold. 2v2 also brings 489.8.b and 469.1.a, which disqualify from your team's scoring any battlefield your teammate controlled during your Beginning Phase, and 489.3's Victory Score of 11 puts this line three points short there. In the Duel (485) this entry is written for, the clause is dead text.
IT IS CHAIN, NOT BURST. Eight points arrive as eight separate Gains across three Beginning Phases and two Main Phases, never in one scoring event — which is exactly the distinction the 2026-09-04 audit applied when it took the entry off BURST. CHAIN is the class for 'reaches 8 across several scoring events with no opponent turn in between', and 735 and 737 are what guarantee the second half of that: 'the owner of the Additional Turn just has the next queued turn'.
A SPELL PAYOFF IS ANSWERED IN A WINDOW THE RULES CREATE FOR IT, AFTER EVERY COST IS ALREADY SPENT (added 2026-09-13, #200). **359.3.c**: *"Other players have an opportunity to play Reactions before the resolution of spells."* A UNIT or GEAR payoff never gets that window — 337.2 sends it straight to Step 4 Resolve — and a BATTLEFIELD payoff is not removable at all (170.3, 170.4). A SPELL is the one payoff class the process stops for, and **425.1.c** with **425.1.c.1** refunds nothing: *"Countering does not refund any costs paid to play a card… This includes additional costs."* `OGN-122 Time Warp` at **E10 + 4 Power is the largest single cost in any finishing turn this catalogue prices**, and all of it is spent before the counter resolves. Swept on the bare word *counter*: 14 printings, three of which are not counters (`SFD-194 Counter Strike` is a PREVENT carrying the word in its name; `VEN-015` and `VEN-069` GRANT can’t-be-countered), leaving **ELEVEN — and CALM prints five of them**. Seven reach Time Warp and FOUR cannot, each for a printed reason: `OGN-045 Defy` and `VEN-152 Rebuttal` are priced out by its own cost, and `SFD-045 Not So Fast` and `UNL-106 Repulse` both need the spell to CHOOSE a friendly unit or gear, which Time Warp does not — **so the pool’s only two ABILITY-counters are exactly the two that cannot answer this spell.** Cheapest that reaches: `VEN-039 Crumbling Sands`, Calm, E1 + 1 Power, conditional on you having cast anything else that turn. Most punishing: `UNL-190 Lilting Lullaby`, Calm/Mind, E2 + 2 Power — *"Counter a spell. Its controller can't play spells this turn"* — which ends the finishing TURN rather than taking one card. And `VEN-152 Rebuttal` is not a counter at all against a cheap spell payoff: it *"gain[s] control of it and you may make new choices for it"*, so at 4 Energy or less it does not deny the line, **it takes it.**

Steps

Earlier turns: bank four Gold through Chem-Baroness's Hold trigger (one a turn, entering exhausted), hide a Hidden Blade for 1 rainbow at Ekko's battlefield, and take Control of BOTH Duel battlefields — Renata Glasc, Mastermind at one, Ekko, Recurrent AND Trusty Ramhound at the other.
Casting turn, Beginning Phase: Hold both battlefields — 2 points.
Main Phase with 12 runes: exhaust all twelve for 12 Energy and recycle four Mind runes for 4 Mind Power. Cast Time Warp #1 (10 Energy + 4 Mind Power).
Play Hidden Blade from hidden for 0 (or Deathgrip for 2 Energy) to kill Ekko: his Deathknell recycles him and readies the eight runes still on the board. The Ramhound is still standing there, so 190.4.a keeps the battlefield and 323.6's Cleanup takes nothing.
Exhaust the eight readied runes for 8 more Energy and recycle four more Mind runes for 4 more Mind Power.
Renata, Mastermind: 4 Energy + 4 Mind Power, exhaust — score 1. Three points, four runes left on the board.
First Additional Turn: Awaken readies everything; Hold BOTH battlefields for 2 — the running total is now 5, which is exactly where Chem-Baroness's Gold bonus switches on. The Channel Phase brings the board to six runes.
Main Phase: six runes are 6 Energy, and the four banked Gold are 4 Energy + 4 rainbow. Cast Time Warp #2 (10 Energy + 4 rainbow, which 135.2.e.5.b lets pay the Mind Power). No Renata point this turn.
Second Additional Turn: Awaken readies six runes and Renata; Hold both battlefields for 2 — seven. The Channel Phase brings the board to eight runes.
Main Phase: exhaust four runes for 4 Energy, recycle four Mind runes for 4 Mind Power, exhaust Renata — the eighth point. The opponent has not taken a turn since before Time Warp #1.

How it ends

8 points across three consecutive Beginning Phases and two Main Phases, bought by two Time Warps with no opponent turn in between — provided both Duel battlefields are held throughout, which is why Ekko needs a second body beside him, and provided the score reaches 5 by the second Beginning Phase, which is where Chem-Baroness's Gold bonus has to be live to pay for the second Time Warp

Sources

Published elsewhere

Cards Realm, "Riftbound: Deck Tech - Renata Combo", Gabriel 'total' da Rosa, 2026-03-12 2026-03-12

Walked here, in this project

REFUTE pass 2, 2026-09-03 2026-09-03 record
Hand walk 2026-09-04 2026-09-04 record
Hand walk 2026-09-06 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-engine-payoff-walk.md) — the third turn priced, the two-battlefield requirement, and the 323.6 Cleanup that Ekko's own death used to trigger 2026-09-06 record
Issue #155 — Engine × payoff, candidate 3: the unexplored branch that spends the second Time Warp instead of a second Renata activation 2026-09-06

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.

Community-documented deck, not a loop: it needs no infinite engine, which separates it from time-warp-hold-burst and bottled-constellation-time-warp (both ride the Lux loop). The article states the requirements but not the action-by-action sequence; the steps above are the reconstruction from card text. Card text verified against the corpus. REFUTE 2 (2026-09-03): WOUNDED — the Time Warp turn is payable with zero Gold if eight of the twelve runes make Mind, the Gold's job is the turn after and it arrives exhausted, the extra turn buys a Renata point or a second Time Warp but not both, and the 'one Time Warp per turn' clause the first write-up assumed does not exist. AUDIT 2026-09-04: reclassed BURST -> ENGINE, because the entry's own count was 'about 5' across TWO turns while its terminatesIn claimed a burst. HAND-WALKED 2026-09-04 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-04-loop-budget-ledger.md, appendix). RECLASSED ENGINE -> CHAIN 2026-09-06 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-engine-payoff-walk.md sections 3 and 15), and the reversal is honest rather than a change of mind: the 2026-09-04 count stopped at two turns by design, and the entry's own uses already declared TWO copies of Time Warp without anyone pricing what the second one buys. The third turn is 2 Hold points plus a second Renata activation, which takes 5 to 8. THREE things had to be added to make that true rather than optimistic, and all three are stated as requirements rather than assumptions. (1) BOTH Duel battlefields held through all three Beginning Phases; on one battlefield the line totals 5, which is precisely the number the 2026-09-04 audit measured. (2) SFD-159 Trusty Ramhound, a 2-Energy Order body standing beside Ekko — WITHOUT IT THE LINE BREAKS ITSELF, because killing Ekko empties his battlefield and 323.6 with 190.4.c takes it back in the very next Cleanup (Hidden Blade resolves in an Open State with no combat anywhere), leaving 4 rather than 5 going into the second Beginning Phase. This was caught in review of the first draft of the reclass; the earlier walks all considered losing a battlefield to the OPPONENT and none considered losing one to the entry's own Deathknell. THE SAME HOLE IS IN THE PRE-RECLASS ENTRY: its two-turn 'about 5' assumed the extra turn Holds 'up to two in a Duel' while Ekko was one of only two garrisons, so the honest ENGINE figure was 4, not 5 — the Ramhound repairs both counts. (3) Four Gold banked from earlier turns so the second Time Warp is payable at the moment Chem-Baroness's 'within 3 points of the Victory Score' clause goes live, which happens at exactly 5 with no slack. The rune arithmetic checks out: a rune already exhausted for Energy can still be recycled for Power, because 164.2.b prices the Power ability as 'Recycle this' with no exhaust, so 12 runes are 12 Energy and then 4 Mind Power, which pays Time Warp with 2 Energy to spare; Ekko readies the surviving 8; and 4 more exhaust-then-recycle runes pay Renata. 735 and 738 confirm two copies buy two Additional Turns and that casting the second one DURING the first inserts it after the current turn, so 737's 'the owner of the Additional Turn just has the next queued turn' holds for both. Hidden Blade kills a unit AT A BATTLEFIELD and 811.1.d.2 confines it to the battlefield it was hidden at, so Ekko cannot sit at base while it is the killer; SFD-163 Deathgrip prints no location clause and is the alternative that reaches the base, at the price of 2 Energy on the casting turn and a second new body for the battlefield Ekko would then not be garrisoning. With three Draw Phases and Hidden Blade's two, 431.2's Burn Out sequence (431.2.b recycles the trash into the Main Deck, 431.2.c hands an opponent a point) is a real cost, though 196 ends the game before it matters on the winning turn. REFINED 2026-09-06 (issue #118, docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-2v2-showdown-action-lens.md): the notable for the uncatalogued 'or an ally hold' half of the legend, with 489.1, 489.3, 489.5.c.1, 489.8.b, 489.8.c, 489.8.d, 469.1.a, 469.2, 315.1.b and 315.2.b.2 opened; the exhaust cost plus 315.1.b cap it at one activation per team round-trip, and 489.3's Victory Score of 11 puts this line three short in 2v2. Depends on R2 = A and on no open reading.

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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