Combo · ENGINE

811.1.b grants [Reaction] to every hidden card, so Kennen stuns the attacker for free on the opponent's turn — and the Shrine draws there

2 cards · calm + order · verified

Pieces

• Solari Shrine ×1 OGN-072 · payoff · calm

  When you kill a stunned enemy unit, you may exhaust this to draw 1.

• Kennen, Keeper of Balance ×1 VEN-135 · engine · order

  [Hidden] (Hide now for 1 Power of any domain to react with later for 0 Energy.) When you play me or I attack, you may pay 2 Energy to [Stun] a unit. (It doesn't deal combat damage this turn.) While there's a stunned enemy unit here, I have +2 Might.

Payoff

Deck

• Calm + Order, so four legend names (103.1.b.2): Radiant Dawn (OGN-261), Emperor of the Sands (SFD-197), Green Father (UNL-195), Eye of Twilight (VEN-147).
• A battlefield you control to hide him at (811.1.b), one turn before you want him.
• 2 Energy off runes held ready, for the trigger's base cost on the opponent's turn.

Prerequisites

• THE TAIL OF 811.1.b IS THE WHOLE ENTRY. The keyword is functionally short for '...you may pay [A] to hide this facedown at a battlefield you control that doesn't already have a facedown card hidden there for as long as you control that battlefield. **Beginning on the next turn, this gains [Reaction]** and you may play this, ignoring its base cost.' So a hidden card — unit, gear or spell alike — is a [Reaction] card once it is face down, and 813.1.c.1 makes that 'This can be played during Closed States on any player's turn.' A 3-Energy body therefore enters the board mid-combat on the opponent's turn for zero Energy.
• AND THE TARGETING RESTRICTION IS THE FEATURE, NOT THE COST. 811.1.d.2 confines a hidden card's choices to the battlefield it was hidden at, and 811.1.b says you hide 'at a battlefield you control' — so Kennen's play trigger can only stun a unit standing at YOUR battlefield. On the opponent's turn that is exactly their attacker. This is the mirror of the walk's refuse-bucket C, which kills a hidden removal on the ATTACKING side for the same reason: the battlefield you attack is by definition not one you control.
• THE 2 ENERGY IS A BASE COST PAID BEFORE THE TRIGGER IS ON THE CHAIN. 383.3.b makes a cost written right after a Triggered Ability's opening 'you may' the ability's base cost and 383.3.b.1 requires it 'in order to finalize the Triggered Ability to the Chain'. With 167 emptying the pool at the start of each player's Main Phase and 415.3.a readying your runes only in your own Awakening, that is two runes deliberately held ready and tapped at 164.2.a's Reaction speed.
• HE PAYS HIS OWN WAY IN THE COMBAT. 'While there's a stunned enemy unit here, I have +2 [M]' — his own stun makes him a 4-Might defender, which 465.2.b sums into the defending assignment, while 423.1.b keeps the stunned attacker's Might out of theirs. Kill it, and the Shrine's trigger fires; 383.3.c lets a Triggered Ability go on the Chain 'during Closed States or Open States on any [player's] turn', so you draw on the opponent's turn — something 381 would forbid if the same words sat in an Activated ability.
• On your own turn the same card is a repeatable stun rather than an ambush: 'when you play me or I attack' fires again on every attack he makes, and being played normally puts no 811.1.d.2 restriction on the target at all. Two different uses of one card, and the entry prices the defensive one.
• Priced whole: 1 rainbow to hide, one turn earlier; 0 Energy to play from face down; 2 Energy for the stun; 3 Energy once for the Shrine. Three copies of Kennen (103.2.b), but 811.1.b allows only one facedown card per battlefield, so at most two are hidden at a time in a Duel (485.4).
• 204.3.a IS THE FIRST AND CLEANER SOURCE FOR THIS, AND IT CARRIES THE WORKED EXAMPLE: "When Costs within Instructions appear as the first part of the effect in triggered abilities, the cost is taken to be the base cost of the triggered ability. It must be paid to finalize the triggered ability", with Riot's example being Overzealous Fan - "When I defend, you may kill me to move an attacking unit to its base" - and the note that "in order to finalize the ability to the chain, its controller must kill Overzealous Fan". 383.3.b says the same thing later in the book. The companion is 204.3.b: a cost appearing in a SPELL, in an ACTIVATED ability, or in a LATER part of a trigger's effect is paid on resolution instead, which is the 205 "pay X. If you do, Y" family and the reason the two look alike on the card and behave differently on the chain.

Steps

1. Play Solari Shrine (3 Energy). On an earlier turn, pay 1 rainbow to hide Kennen face down at a battlefield you control (811.1.b).
2. On the opponent's turn they attack that battlefield; the Combat Showdown opens and their units are designated Attackers (464.2.c.3).
3. Play Kennen from face down for 0 Energy — 811.1.b has granted him [Reaction] and 813.1.c.1 admits him to the Closed State.
4. His play trigger fires; tap two ready runes and pay the 2 Energy to finalize it (383.3.b.1). 811.1.d.2 confines the target to that battlefield, which is where their attacker is standing: stun it.
5. Kennen is now a 4-Might defender by his own static; 423.1.b silences the stunned attacker and 465.2.b sums your defence against it.
6. The stunned attacker dies in the damage step; the Shrine's trigger fires there (383.3.c) — exhaust it and draw 1, on the opponent's turn.

Per iteration

+1 card, +1 body at 4 effective Might, one attacker silenced and killed, for 2 Energy and one hide

How it ends

engine — a free 2-Might body, a stun on the attacker and a card drawn, all inside the opponent's combat, for 1 rainbow banked a turn earlier and 2 Energy; 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

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-07, issue #169 — matrix families rows 6-18, second pass 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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