Combo · ENGINE

827.1.b.1: a card's OWN [Empower] chooses nothing, so none of the pool's 53 self-empowering base codes ever fires a 'when you choose a friendly unit' payoff - and Sanction is the only card that makes an Empower a choice at Reaction speed

7 cards · calm + chaos · verified

Pieces

• Sanction ×3 VEN-035 · engine · calm

  [Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Choose one — • Empower a unit. Disempower it at end of turn. • Disempower a unit that's [Empowered]. Empower it at end of turn.

• Spirit Wheel ×3 SFD-144 · payoff · chaos

  When you choose a friendly unit, you may pay 1 Energy and exhaust this to draw 1.

• Blade Dancer ×1 SFD-195 · legend · calm/chaos

  When you choose a friendly unit, you may exhaust me and pay 1 Power of any domain to ready it. When you conquer, you may pay 1 Energy to ready me.

Payoff

Deck

• Sanction is mono-Calm and Spirit Wheel is mono-Chaos, so 103.1.b.2 needs a legend covering both - and the census run against data/cards.json gives exactly THREE Calm/Chaos legend names: Unforgiven (OGN-259/OGN-305), Blade Dancer (SFD-195/SFD-246) and Gloomist (UNL-193/UNL-232). This line still has no legend choice, but NOT because the pair is one name wide - it is because Blade Dancer is in uses[] as the second payoff, and she is the only one of the three whose text watches choosing (Unforgiven moves a friendly unit for 2 Energy and an exhaust, Gloomist draws on a Hold). Corrected by the #203 cross-audit, which found this sentence contradicting blast-cone-iascylla-responsible-move-stun, an entry of the same batch that names all three.
• None of the three is a Signature card (checked against data/cards.json) and none appears in data/legality.json in any format - checked 2026-09-12.
• Spirit Wheel and Blade Dancer each cost their own exhaust, so each pays once per turn (415.3.a readies them at your own Awakening). Three Spirit Wheels are three draws off one Sanction; there is only ever one legend.
• Sanction's first mode needs a unit that is NOT already Empowered - 441.1.b, 'An Empowered Game Object can not be Empowered' - and its second mode needs one that is. Either mode chooses a unit, so either fires both payoffs.

Prerequisites

• THE RULE, AND IT DIVIDES THE WHOLE EMPOWER FAMILY IN TWO. 827.1.b.1: 'The source game object is not a target of the Empower ability.' So a card paying its own printed [Empower] cost chooses nothing and targets nothing - and therefore fires no 'when you choose' payoff, pays no [Deflect] tax - 809.1.c prices it 'for each time they choose [me/this]', and a self-Empower chooses nothing, and is invisible to every trigger in that family. 827.1.b and 827.1.b.1 are cited by no entry and no synergy rule in this project (measured 2026-09-12), while 441.1.b is cited 109 times and 441.2 is cited 154 - the catalogue has the Empower STATE everywhere and has never had the paragraph saying the act picks nothing.
• THE CENSUS, MEASURED OVER data/cards.json ON 2026-09-12 AND NAMED. FIFTY-THREE base codes across 39 names carry their own [Empower] keyword (re-measured by the #203 cross-audit, which found 45 here and could reproduce it under no predicate; the two sets are disjoint, so 45 is not the 53 minus the 8 below either); not one of them can fire Spirit Wheel or Blade Dancer by empowering itself. EIGHT rows empower something else, and they are VEN-035 Sanction, VEN-062 Hextech Formula, VEN-082 Profiteer, VEN-099 Tornado Warrior, and the two legends VEN-151 Soul's Reflection and VEN-153 Matriarch of War with their reprints. Two of those eight are not empowerers at all on inspection - Soul's Reflection and Matriarch of War read 'When you empower something else, empower me', so they WATCH the event and then empower themselves, which chooses nothing by the same rule. Hextech Formula empowers 'another gear', which no 'friendly unit' clause can see. So exactly THREE cards in the pool make an Empower a choice on a unit: Sanction, Profiteer and Tornado Warrior - and Sanction is the only one of the three that is a spell and the only one at [Reaction] speed WITH NO SETUP. The unqualified claim was wrong and the #203 cross-audit corrected it: 811.1.b's tail reads 'Beginning on the next turn, this gains [Reaction] and you may play this, ignoring its base cost', so VEN-099 Tornado Warrior also empowers at Reaction speed - but only from face down, which costs a rainbow up front, a full turn of delay, and a battlefield you control that has no other facedown card. VEN-082 Profiteer is a plain Main-Phase unit play and must disempower something of yours first. Sanction is the one that answers on the opponent's turn off nothing but mana.
• THE ARITHMETIC, WITH THE QUANTITIES DECLARED. One Sanction is 3 Energy and 1 Calm Power. It chooses a friendly unit, which fires both payoffs: Spirit Wheel draws 1 for 1 Energy and its own exhaust, and Blade Dancer readies that same unit for one rainbow Power and her exhaust. The Empower itself is the third effect and is free - it switches on any [Empowered][>] ability the chosen body has for the turn, and Sanction's own clause disempowers it at end of turn. Three effects on one card, and the only one anybody would have counted is the third.
• PLAY IT ON YOUR OWN TURN, WHICH THE KEYWORD ALLOWS AND THE READY REQUIRES. 813.2, which is cited by nothing: 'The corresponding card or effect with this keyword is not restricted to Closed States or Showdowns. This permission is inclusive of all other timings and options available to the ability as written, Action's permissions, or by default.' So a [Reaction] spell never has to be a response. That matters here because Blade Dancer's ready is worth a second Standard Move only in YOUR Main Phase - 144.1.b forbids the Standard Move in a Closed State, and neither 464.2.c.3 nor 465.2.b reads exhaustion in combat, so a ready bought on the opponent's turn buys nothing unless the body has an exhaust-cost ability at Action or Reaction speed.
• AND THE TEMPORARY EMPOWER IS THE POINT OF THE THIRD EFFECT, NOT A DRAWBACK. 441.2 makes Empowered a permanent board state and 441.1.b forbids empowering an already-Empowered object, so an ordinary Empower is a once-per-body event. Sanction deliberately gives it back at end of turn - which means the SAME body can be Sanctioned again next turn, and the payoffs fire again. A card that permanently empowered would fire the payoffs once per body ever; this one is renewable on one body forever.
• WHAT TO AIM IT AT. VEN-043 Steel Paws is the extreme: E1 at Might 0 with '[Empowered][>] I have +7 :rb_might:', whose own [Empower] costs 7 Energy and would fire neither payoff.
• ONE CARD IN THE CHOOSE FAMILY DOES NOT BELONG HERE AND IT IS EASY TO ADD BY MISTAKE. SFD-142 Jae Medarda reads 'When you choose me with a spell, draw 1' - Sanction is a spell, so he does fire, but only when HE is the chosen body, where Spirit Wheel and Blade Dancer fire on any friendly unit. He is a narrower third payoff, not a fourth copy of the same one, and he is Chaos so the identity holds.

Bodies no card supplies

Choose the first mode and choose a friendly unit that is not already Empowered (441.1.b)

Steps

1. Have SFD-144 Spirit Wheel on the board (E2, a gear, so 143.4 never exhausts it) and SFD-195 Blade Dancer as your legend.
2. In your own Main Phase - 813.2 lets a [Reaction] card be played there - play VEN-035 Sanction for 3 Energy and 1 Calm Power.
3. Choose the first mode and choose a friendly unit that is not already Empowered (441.1.b). Pick a body with an [Empowered][>] ability if you have one; the Empower is free and switches that text on for the turn.
4. Choosing a friendly unit meets both payoffs' Trigger Conditions at once. 383.3.d gives you the order.
5. Spirit Wheel: pay 1 Energy and exhaust it, draw 1. Three copies are three draws off this one choose.
6. Blade Dancer: exhaust her and pay one rainbow Power, ready the chosen unit. In your Main Phase that is a second Standard Move for it.
7. At end of turn Sanction disempowers the body, which is what makes the same target legal again next turn (441.1.b would otherwise refuse it forever).
8. Do NOT expect any of this from a card paying its own [Empower]. 827.1.b.1 makes the source not a target, so all 45 self-empowering base codes in the pool fire neither payoff and pay no [Deflect].
9. Three Sanction and three Spirit Wheel (103.2.b); one legend. Each payoff costs its own exhaust, so each pays once per turn (415.3.a). Nothing here loops and nothing here scores.

Per iteration

one card drawn, one friendly unit readied, and one [Empowered][>] ability switched on for the turn, for 3 Energy + 1 Calm Power + 1 Energy + 1 rainbow Power - none of which a self-paid [Empower] would have produced

How it ends

engine only - nothing here scores. Once per turn per payoff, because Spirit Wheel and Blade Dancer each cost their own exhaust and 415.3.a returns it only at your own Awakening; three Sanction by 103.2.b

Sources

Published elsewhere

• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 827.1.b.1 2026-07-16
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 441.1.b and 441.2 2026-07-16
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 813.2 2026-07-16
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 809.1.c 2026-07-16
• Card text, data/corpus_flat.txt (built from Riot's gallery content API by scripts/build-cards.mjs) 2026-09-12
• Card text, data/corpus_flat.txt (built from Riot's gallery content API by scripts/build-cards.mjs) 2026-09-12

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-12 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-07-uncited-subrules-500-899.md), batch 21 2026-09-12 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue