Combo · ENGINE
359.3.e.9.a: moving your other bodies away does NOT shrink a trigger's target count, but killing them does - which is the difference between Repulse fizzling and countering
Pieces
- Repulse ×3
UNL-106 · payoff · body
[Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Choose a friendly unit at a battlefield. Counter an enemy spell or ability that chooses it and no other friendly unit.
- Heedless Resurrection ×3
UNL-142 · engine · chaos
[Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) As an additional cost to play this, kill a friendly unit. Play a unit from your trash that costs no more Energy and no more Power than the killed unit, ignoring its cost.
Payoff
Deck
- Repulse is mono-Body and Heedless Resurrection is mono-Chaos, so the identity is Body/Chaos and 103.1.b.2 needs a legend covering both. Measured over data/cards.json those are OGN-267 / OGN-309 Bounty Hunter, SFD-203 / SFD-250 Battle Mistress and UNL-201 / UNL-236 Voidreaver.
- Neither is a Signature card (checked against data/cards.json), so 103.2.d.2 imposes no legend, and neither is banned or restricted in either format.
- Heedless Resurrection's additional cost needs a friendly unit to kill and its effect needs a unit in your trash costing no more than the one killed - 206 reads the PRINTED cost of both, so a token killed as the cost has cost 0 (185.3.a.1) and returns nothing.
Run play
Prerequisites
- THE RULE, AND IT SPLITS TWO ANSWERS THAT LOOK IDENTICAL. 359.3.e.9.a: 'If another spell or ability attempts to reference the number of game objects, players, or zones that a Finalized Chain Item targets, it will include any mistargeted choices, but not any targets that have changed to a non-board zone.' So a body of yours that was chosen and then MOVED is still counted - it merely mistargets (359.3.e.9) - while a body of yours that was chosen and then KILLED is not counted at all. 359.3.e.6 through .e.9.a are cited by no entry and no synergy rule in this project.
- RIOT WORKS IT WITH FOUR POOL CARDS. 'When a player moves their Volibear, Furious to an occupied enemy battlefield and combat initiates, Volibear's attack trigger goes on the chain targeting three of the units at that battlefield. In reaction, the defending player plays Flash moving two of the three units back. That player cannot then target the attack trigger with Repulse ... If the defending player instead played Heedless Resurrection twice, killing the two units,' the count falls to one and Repulse becomes legal. OGN-041 Volibear, Furious, OGS-011 Flash, UNL-106 Repulse and UNL-142 Heedless Resurrection, all four in the pool.
- SO THE CHEAP ANSWER IS THE WRONG ONE. Flash (Chaos, E2, [Reaction], 'Move up to 2 friendly units to base') looks like the way to strip a multi-target trigger down to one body, and it is not: the moved units keep being counted. Heedless Resurrection costs a body but removes it from the count AND replaces it from your trash, so the same 2 Energy buys the counter and a body back.
- THE ARITHMETIC, WITH THE QUANTITIES DECLARED. An enemy trigger chooses three of your units. Repulse alone does nothing - it needs 'it and no other friendly unit'. Two Heedless Resurrections kill two of the three as their additional costs and return two bodies from your trash; the finalized item now counts one friendly target; Repulse (1 Energy + 1 Power) counters it. Total 5 Energy and 3 Power to counter a trigger and reanimate two units, at [Reaction] speed.
- AND THE ORDER IS FORCED. All three cards are [Reaction] (813.1.c.1: any Closed State on any player's turn), and every kill must resolve BEFORE Repulse is finalized, because 359.3.e.9.a reads the count at the moment the referencing item looks. Play the Heedless Resurrections first and let them resolve; Repulse last.
- 359.3.e.7 AND 359.3.e.8 ARE THE COMPANION PAIR AND THEY DECIDE WHETHER THIS IS EVEN WORTH IT. 359.3.e.7: if ALL of an instruction's targets go invalid, the instruction does not execute. 359.3.e.8: 'If an instruction has more than one Target and fewer than all of the Targets become Invalid or Unavailable ... the instruction will execute, with only the Targets available and valid being operated on', with OGN-105 Singularity as the example. So killing two of three targets does NOT blank the trigger by itself - it still resolves on the survivor. The counter is what blanks it, and that is why Repulse is the payoff and the kills are the engine.
- THE COST OF THE ENGINE IS REAL AND IT IS PRICED ON 206. Heedless Resurrection returns 'a unit from your trash that costs no more Energy and no more Power than the killed unit' - and 206 makes both readings the PRINTED cost, so killing a token buys nothing (185.3.a.1 puts a token's cost at 0 for all purposes) and killing a cheap body buys a cheap body. Kill the expensive one of the two if you want the return to matter.
Bodies no card supplies
The opponent finalizes a trigger or spell that chooses three of your units - Volibear, Furious's attack trigger is Riot's case
Steps
- Hold UNL-106 Repulse and two UNL-142 Heedless Resurrection, all [Reaction], with 5 Energy and 3 Power banked on the opponent's turn (415.3.a readies runes only at your own Awakening).
- The opponent finalizes a trigger or spell that chooses three of your units - Volibear, Furious's attack trigger is Riot's case.
- Play the first Heedless Resurrection: its additional cost kills one of the three chosen units, sending it to the trash - a NON-BOARD zone. Its effect returns a unit from your trash costing no more than the killed one (206 reads printed costs).
- Play the second Heedless Resurrection the same way on a second chosen unit. Let both resolve.
- 359.3.e.9.a now counts the finalized item's friendly targets: the two killed bodies are in a non-board zone and are NOT counted; only the survivor is.
- Play UNL-106 Repulse (1 Energy + 1 Power) choosing the survivor. The enemy item now 'chooses it and no other friendly unit', so Repulse counters it.
- Never use a MOVE for this: 359.3.e.9.a keeps a moved body in the count, so Flash leaves Repulse illegal - and 359.3.e.8 means killing two of three does not blank the trigger on its own.
Per iteration
one multi-target enemy trigger countered and two units reanimated, for 5 Energy and 3 Power at Reaction speed
How it ends
engine only - nothing here scores. Three copies of each (103.2.b), and each Heedless Resurrection costs a body on the board to remove one from the count
Sources
Published elsewhere
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 359.3.e.9.a 2026-07-16
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 359.3.e.9.a worked example 2026-07-16
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 359.3.e.8 2026-07-16
Walked here, in this project
- Hand walk 2026-09-07 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 #187, sub-rule lane 100-499; from the filtered probe). 359.3.e.6, .e.7, .e.8, .e.9 and .e.9.a are cited by no entry and no synergy rule in this project, and 359.3.e.9.a's worked example names four pool cards together - OGN-041 Volibear, Furious, OGS-011 Flash, UNL-106 Repulse and UNL-142 Heedless Resurrection. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. Citations opened: 103.1.b.2, 103.2.b, 103.2.d.2, 185.3.a.1, 206, 359.3.e.7, 359.3.e.8, 359.3.e.9, 359.3.e.9.a, 415.3.a, 813.1.c.1. Distinct from jae-medarda-repulse-counter-that-pays-for-itself and from the three existing Heedless Resurrection entries, none of which cites 359.3.e.9.a. Trap check: 359.3.e.8 means killing some targets does not blank the instruction, so the counter is still required; the kills must resolve before Repulse is finalized; 206 prices the reanimation on printed costs and a token is worth 0 (185.3.a.1); no unruled reading.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16