Combo · ENGINE

Renekton buys the threshold at 1 Energy a point — the cheapest removal in the pool that reaches the base

4 cards · body + order · verified

Pieces

• Renekton, Brute ×1 VEN-092 · engine · body

  1 Energy: Give me +1 Might this turn. When my Might becomes 10 or more, empower me. (I become Empowered if I'm not already.) [Empowered][>] I have [Deflect] and [Ganking]. (Opponents must pay 1 Power of any domain to choose me with a spell or ability. I can move from battlefield to battlefield.)

• Public Execution ×3 VEN-154 · payoff · body/order

  Choose a friendly unit. Kill an enemy unit with less Might than it. [Flow] 5 Energy + 2 Power of any domain (You may play this from your trash for its Flow cost. Then banish it.)

Payoff

Deck

• VEN-154 Public Execution is a SIGNATURE card tagged Ambessa, so 103.2.d.2 forces a Ambessa legend that also covers body + order: VEN-153 Matriarch of War — the only one. Domain-legal legends without the Ambessa tag cannot run the list. (Rebuilt from the census by test/legend-lines.test.ts, 2026-09-07; an earlier line named legends that cannot hold a Ambessa Signature card.)
• Renekton on the board. 143.4 makes him enter exhausted and 315.1.b readies him next Awakening, but that never matters here: his ability carries no exhaust, so an exhausted Renekton pumps and is chosen exactly like a ready one.

Prerequisites

• IT IS NOT THE ONLY REMOVAL THAT REACHES THE BASE, AND THAT IS THIS ENTRY'S CORRECTION TO ISSUE #97. A grep of every unit-kill in the corpus finds three more with no location clause: OGN-229 Vengeance (Order, E4 P2, no gate at all), OGN-234 Harnessed Dragon (Order, E8 P2, an M6 body) and SFD-158 Sandshifter (Order, E5 P2, an M6 body, gated at 3 Might or less). What survives is sharper anyway: VEN-154 is the CHEAPEST removal in the pool that reaches the base — 2 Energy and 1 Power against Vengeance's 4 and 2 — and the ONLY one whose threshold scales with your own board instead of being a printed number. For contrast, the removal that is confined to a battlefield: OGN-213 Hidden Blade, OGS-012 Blast of Power, SFD-162 Blood Money, SFD-164 Drag Under, UNL-159 Soul Harvest, UNL-186 Death from Below, and VEN-136 Ambessa, Respected and Feared, whose text reads 'kill an enemy unit here with less Might than me'.
• THE MIGHT IS READ TWICE, AND THE ISSUE ONLY HAD THE FIRST READ. Both bodies are Choices and therefore targets (355.7 'When a card Chooses one or more specific Game Objects to affect, it is Targeted'), and 'with less Might than it' is a targeting restriction of the shape 355.9.b spells out ('a spell that refers to ... "unit with Might 4 or greater"'). So 355.8 ('In order to put a spell or ability on the chain, valid choices must be made for all targets') forces the pump to be paid BEFORE the spell goes on the chain. The second read is 359.3.e.7: 'If all of an instruction's Targets become Invalid or Unavailable by the time the spell begins resolving, that instruction will not execute' — 359.3.e.9 calls it mistargeting. A -Might played in response still breaks it, and 477.3.e.2.a ('Negative values, or decreases, to Might are applied last') means the reduction wins that race whatever the order of play.
• THE EMPOWERED STATE IS PERMANENT AND THE ISSUE TREATS IT AS A TURN EFFECT. 'When my Might becomes 10 or more, empower me' prints no duration, and 441.2 says 'Empowered is a state for Game Objects on the board that other game effects and abilities can reference'; only 442.1 removes it. So the six Energy that first walks him from 4 to 10 is a one-time purchase of [Deflect] and [Ganking] for the rest of his time on the board, while the +1 Might is 'this turn' and has to be re-bought every turn. The [Deflect] then feeds back into the entry's own refutation: an opposing Eclipse costs 1 rainbow more (809.1.c 'Spells and abilities an opponent controls that target [me/this] cost an amount of Power equal to [Deflect Value] more', and 809.1.c.1 lets that Power be any Domain).
• THE ARITHMETIC WITH THE QUANTITIES DECLARED. Renekton enters at M4, so killing an enemy of Might M needs M+1, that is M-3 activations at 1 Energy each. M5: 2 + (E2 P1) = 4 Energy + 1 Power. M6: 5 Energy + 1 Power. M10 — VEN-091 Corrupted Dragon, OGN-142 Mountain Drake, OGN-158 Volibear Imposing, UNL-118 Elder Dragon — 7 + 2 = 9 Energy + 1 Power, and that pump crosses the Empower threshold on the way, so the permanent [Deflect] and [Ganking] come free. M12, the two largest printed bodies in the pool (UNL-059 Master Yi Unstoppable, UNL-147 Baron Nashor): 11 Energy + 1 Power.
• [Flow] IS REPETITION BETWEEN TURNS, NOT INSIDE ONE. 829.1.b: 'You may play this from your trash for its flow cost. Then banish it.' E5 + 2 rainbow. 829.1.b.2 is the fine print: 'Playing a spell for its Flow cost does not change the timing at which it can be played, nor any permissions' — Public Execution carries neither [Action] nor [Reaction], so from the trash it is still bound by 155 to the Main Phase.
• THE ENEMY UNIT IS CHOSEN, SO [Deflect] TAXES THIS LINE. 809.1.d: Deflect 'imposes a Mandatory Additional Cost on Spells and Abilities that choose the Game Object that has this ability.' That is the whole difference between this entry and renekton-stare-down-evacuate, whose victims are not chosen at all (355.10.d) and are therefore moved for free.
• TIMING. Renekton's ability carries neither [Action] nor [Reaction], so 806.1.c.2 and 813.1.c.2 never grant it the extra windows: it is a Main Phase Neutral Open State ability (312.2.a). 378 ('The controlling player chooses when and whether to activate an Activated Ability') is why it can be used as many times as the Energy lasts — no paragraph of 377 to 380 caps activations and the card prints no 'use only once'.

Steps

1. With Renekton on the board, in your Main Phase Neutral Open State (312.2.a), pay 1 Energy per point of Might until his Might exceeds the enemy body you want dead. Exhausted is fine — the ability has no exhaust in its cost.
2. If the target is 7 Might or more, the pump crosses 10 on the way and 'When my Might becomes 10 or more, empower me' fires: [Deflect] and [Ganking] from now on (441.2).
3. Play Public Execution for 2 Energy + 1 Power. 355.8 checks both choices as it goes on the chain, so the pump had to be already paid; if the target has [Deflect], add its Power (809.1.c, any Domain by 809.1.c.1).
4. The opponent's window: a -Might on Renekton makes the target invalid at resolution and the instruction does not execute (359.3.e.7). 477.3.e.2.a applies their decrease last, so it wins the race.
5. It resolves: the enemy unit dies wherever it stands, including at their base, since the card prints no 'at a battlefield' clause.
6. Next turn, replay it from the trash for its Flow cost, E5 + 2 rainbow, then it is banished (829.1.b). The +1 Might has to be re-bought — it was 'this turn' — but the Empowered state is not.

Per iteration

one enemy body dead per casting, anywhere on the board, for 2 Energy + 1 Power plus 1 Energy per point of Might the threshold needs

How it ends

engine only — three copies (103.2.b), each replayable once from the trash by [Flow] and then banished; 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
• Lente de buff y Might — issue #97 (GitHub) 2026-09-06

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-06 2026-09-06 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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