Combo · BURST · 8 points

Shen, Leader of the Kinkou Order × three Svellsongur — nine points behind a Shield 8

5 cards · order + calm · verified

Pieces

• Shen, Leader of the Kinkou Order ×1 VEN-138 · payoff · order

  [Shield] (+1 Might while I'm a defender.) When I hold, if there is exactly one other unit you control here, you score 1 point.

• Svellsongur ×3 SFD-059 · engine · calm

  [Equip] 1 Energy + 1 Calm Power (1 Energy + 1 Calm Power: Attach this to a unit you control.) As this is attached to a unit, copy that unit's text to this Equipment's effect text for as long as this is attached to it.

• Trusty Ramhound ×1 SFD-159 · enabler · order

  While you have another unit here, I have +1 Might.

Payoff

Deck

• Legend domains must cover Calm and Order — OGN-261 Radiant Dawn, SFD-247 Emperor of the Sands, UNL-195 / UNL-233 Green Father (two base codes, one name), VEN-147 Eye of Twilight.

Prerequisites

• SVELLSONGUR IS THE ONE MULTIPLIER SHEN'S CONDITION CANNOT SEE, and that is the whole point of the entry. 'If there is exactly one other unit you control here' counts UNITS; a Svellsongur is an Equipment (137 / 434), so three of them stack on Shen without ever entering the count. Every other way of multiplying a Hold effect puts a body on the battlefield — which is exactly why shen-kinkou-sentinel-hold is pinned at K = 1 and stops at 3 points.
• Eight instances, not four: 477.2.c puts 'Abilities of Effect Text of Attached cards are appended' in Layer 2, 476.1 applies each effect only a single time across all sequences (so there is no recursion), 479.1 finds no dependency because each copy alters the other, and 480.3 therefore orders them by Timestamp — attach order. Svellsongur A copies 1 instance, B copies the resulting 2, C copies 4. 2^3 = 8. R6 = A (ruled 2026-09-04) is what makes each copy read Shen's CURRENT text rather than a snapshot.
• Points at the Hold: 1 from the Score itself (469.2 → 471.1, capped by 470 at one per battlefield per turn) plus 8 ability Gains, which R2 = A keeps outside 470 as 194.1.c Gains and 471.1.a.1 exempts from the Final Point restriction. Nine, in one scoring event.
• AND HE DEFENDS AT 15. This is the fact the catalogue had not used: 814.2 — 'If a Unit has Shield, or has been granted Shield, and is granted Shield by an additional source, the Shield Value of all granted Shield keywords is summed' — and 814.1.b.3 makes a bare [Shield] worth 1. The eight instances of Shen's text carry eight [Shield], so he is Shield 8 and stands at 7 + 8 = 15 Might while defending. 465.2.c makes an attacker assign summed Might and 465.2.c.3 forces lethal onto one unit first, so clearing him costs 15 damage in one combat.
• It is 9 points for the same 8 that Ahri, Alluring (OGN-066) reaches on the same three gears, and the trade is stated rather than hidden: Ahri is Calm — so she fits five legend pairs against Shen's one — costs 1 Energy and 1 Power less, and needs no companion. What Shen buys is survival. Ahri wearing three Svellsongur is a 4-Might body that any 4-damage attack removes before your Beginning Phase; Shen is a 15-Might defender. A BURST that has to live through the opponent's turn is priced on that number, not on the point count.
• EXACTLY ONE COMPANION UNIT, and it is not optional in either direction. 383.2.a.1 makes 'if there is exactly one other unit you control here' part of the Trigger Condition — checked when the trigger is placed, at the Hold — so a lone Shen scores nothing and a third body scores nothing. Nothing may be played to that battlefield either: 355.2.a makes a battlefield you control a default play location, so a token or a unit landing there silently switches the whole line off.
• Cost, counted whole: Shen 6 Energy + 2 Order Power; each Svellsongur is 3 Energy + 1 Calm Power to play PLUS its [Equip] of 1 Energy + 1 Calm Power. 18 Energy and 8 Power, plus whatever the companion body costs. The [Equip] payments are counted here because CLAUDE.md records two published figures that left them out.
• NOTHING IN THIS LINE IS PROTECTED FROM A GEAR KILL, AND THE POOL PRINTS SIXTEEN OF THEM. 718.5.b: 'Attached cards still can be chosen or targeted by game effects while Attached' - the Equipment's own printed Rules Text is Inactive while attached (718.2) and its [Equip] is unusable (721.2), but the CARD is a legal target for every turn it sits there. Swept with /\bkills?\b[^.]{0,80}\bgear\b/i over text+effect of every deckable base in data/cards.json, the pool has 16 base codes (15 names; Jayce, Man of Progress is printed twice) and EVERY ONE OF THE SIX DOMAINS prints at least one, so there is no identity this line can hide in. The unconditional enemy-facing ones are OGN-022 Thermo Beam, SFD-005 Detonate and VEN-003 Brittle Steel (Fury), OGN-224 Salvage (Order), SFD-032 Disarming Rake (Calm) and SFD-077 Rocket Barrage (Mind). OGN-022 Thermo Beam - Fury, E5 + 2 Fury Power, '[Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Kill all gear.' - is the only card in the pool that kills EVERY gear at once, so it answers the whole payoff with one card; it is symmetric, which makes it cheap for a gearless deck and expensive for anyone else (the shape acceptable-losses-ravenbloom-prefect-gearless-gear-hate already records for OGN-179).
• THE TIMING CUTS BOTH WAYS, AND NO [Reaction] GEAR KILL EXISTS. Swept over all sixteen gear kills: none carries [Reaction]. Thermo Beam and Salvage are [Action], which 806.1.c.1 makes short for 'This can be played during showdowns on any player's turn'; Detonate and Brittle Steel are plain spells, and 155 confines a spell to 'an Open State outside of Showdowns on its controller's turn'. The Score this line pays on happens at 315.2.b.2 inside your own Beginning Phase, where the opponent holds no priority in a Neutral Open State (312.2.a) and the Closed State the trigger opens admits only a [Reaction] (813.1.c.1). So the opponent can NEVER strip the gear in the window that pays - every answer has to be cast on their own turn, one full turn before. That is what keeps the line alive, and it is also the window in which to defend it: the removal spell on the Chain is a Closed State, 312.2.c hands out priority there and 813.1.c.1 admits a [Reaction] in response.
• 6 ENERGY ANSWERS THE GARRISON THIS LINE NEEDS. OGS-002 Firestorm is fury, 6 Energy + 1 Power: "Deal 3 to all enemy units at a battlefield.". 143.2.a kills on marked damage at or above Might, so it kills every body at or below Might 3 SIMULTANEOUSLY however many there are: the binding constraint is MIGHT PER BODY, not the number of bodies, so going wider answers nothing. A CHEAPER ANSWER EXISTS AND IT IS NOT AVAILABLE TO EVERY OPPONENT: OGN-268 Bullet Time costs 1 Energy + 2 Power here (it pays per point of damage, so it scales to any garrison) and is [Action], so 806.1.c.1 puts it inside any showdown on any player's turn - but it is a SIGNATURE card tagged Miss Fortune, and 103.2.d.2 requires every Signature card to carry the Chosen Champion Legend's tag, so only a Miss Fortune legend can run it. Count it as a matchup, not as the field. THE IDENTITY DOES HOLD AN ANSWER: OGN-294 Trifarian War Camp +1 (that battlefield only), OGS-013 Garen, Commander +1, UNL-T03 Brush +1 (that battlefield only) - a permanent, garrison-wide +Might is the only thing that lifts every body at once, since a single-target pump is useless against a sweep that hits all of them. (A battlefield protection is a 1-in-3: 485.5 has each player "randomly select one (1) of their three (3) Battlefields", so it is not a card you can count on drawing.) WHEN THE ANSWER LANDS, AND IT IS NOT INSIDE THE HOLD. A Hold resolves at 315.2.b.2, which Holds "all Battlefields they Control", inside YOUR Beginning Phase - and 312.2.a gives a player priority only "When the turn is in a Neutral Open State during their Main Phase", i.e. their own. So the opponent cannot answer in the Hold window itself; they answer on THEIR turn, which is the turn immediately before it. The cost of that is yours, not theirs: your own Main Phase comes AFTER your Beginning Phase (315 then 316), so there is no window in which to rebuild the garrison. Holding up a [Reaction] on their turn is the only response this line has.

Steps

1. Play Shen, Leader of the Kinkou Order (6 Energy + 2 Order Power) and exactly one other unit to a battlefield, and establish Control of it.
2. Attach Svellsongur A to Shen (3 Energy + 1 Calm Power to play, 1 Energy + 1 Calm Power to [Equip]). 136.2.c appends the copied text to his Rules Text and 136.2.d makes the copied 'I' mean Shen. He now carries 2 instances of his line.
3. Attach Svellsongur B to the same Shen: 434.1.c gives the Top-Most Card ALL the Effect Text of ALL attached cards, so B copies the current 2. Four instances.
4. Attach Svellsongur C: it copies the current 4. Eight instances — of the hold trigger AND of [Shield], which 814.2 sums to Shield 8.
5. Survive the opponent's turn. Shen defends at 15; the companion is the only other body they can pick off, and removing it is what actually beats this line.
6. Your Beginning Phase, Scoring Step (315.2.b.2): you Hold. 1 point from the Score, then eight ability Gains whose condition found exactly one other friendly unit here. Nine points in one Hold.

How it ends

burst of 9 points in a single Hold, for 20 Energy and 8 Power (18 + 8 for Shen and the three Svellsongur with their Equips, plus E2 for the companion body the condition requires)

Sources

Walked here, in this project

• Walk of the unwalked partners of the 66 proven synergy rules, rule svellsongur-copy 2026-09-06 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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