Combo · ENGINE

A token factory the opponent has to overpay to answer - and the pronoun rule that says whose move makes the token

6 cards · order · verified

Pieces

• Solari Sunhawk ×3 VEN-122 · engine · order

  [Empower] 2 Energy (2 Energy: Empower me. Use only if not Empowered.) [Empowered][>] I have +1 Might and [Deflect 2]. (Opponents must pay 2 Power of any domain to choose me with a spell or ability.)

• Eye of the Herald ×3 SFD-153 · payoff · order

  [Equip] 1 Order Power (1 Order Power: Attach this to a unit you control.)

  When I move, play a 1 Might Recruit unit token here.

Payoff

Deck

• Both cards are mono-Order, so 103.1.b.3 admits any legend with Order in its pair: SFD-201/SFD-249 Chem-Baroness, UNL-199/UNL-235 Deceiver, SFD-197/SFD-247 Emperor of the Sands, VEN-147/VEN-193 Eye of Twilight, SFD-205/SFD-251 Grand Duelist, UNL-195/UNL-233 Green Father, OGN-253/OGN-302 Hand of Noxus, VEN-155/VEN-197 Heart of the Tempest, OGN-265/OGN-308 Herald of the Arcane, UNL-203/UNL-237 Keeper of the Hammer, OGS-021 Lady of Luminosity - Starter, VEN-153/VEN-196 Matriarch of War, OGS-023 Might of Demacia - Starter, UNL-187/UNL-229 Piltover Enforcer, OGN-261/OGN-306 Radiant Dawn, OGN-269/OGN-310 The Boss, SFD-187/SFD-243 Void Burrower.
• Neither card is banned or restricted in either format, and neither is a Signature card.
• 2 Energy for the Empower and 1 Order Power for the [Equip], both once per carrier.

Prerequisites

• THE PRONOUN RULE, WHICH DECIDES WHOSE MOVE THIS IS. 136.2.b: 'Effect Text is inactive unless the card with the Effect Text is Attached to another card.' 136.2.c and 434.1.c append it to the carrier's Rules Text, and 434.1.e makes the gear's own printed Rules Text Inactive while attached. Then 053.1 ('Units and legends say "I," "me," etc.') and 053.2 ('Gear and spells say "this"') split the two, and 136.2.d makes the split explicit with Riot's own two worked examples: Guardian Angel's effect text 'If I would die, kill Guardian Angel instead. Heal me, exhaust me, and recall me' - where 'I'/'me' is the CARRIER and the NAME is the attached gear - and Brutalizer's 'If this was attached to me this turn, I have an additional +2 [M]'. So 'When I move' on the Eye of the Herald is the Sunhawk moving, and the same reading is why SFD-102 Hexdrinker's '[Deflect] ... to choose me' protects the carrier and not the gear. 053.2 is cited here for the first time in this catalogue.
• WHAT DEFLECT 2 IS ACTUALLY WORTH, MEASURED AGAINST THE FREE POWER FLOOR. 809.1.c: Deflect is 'functionally short for "Spells and abilities an opponent controls that target [me/this] cost an amount of Power equal to [Deflect Value] more to play as an additional cost for each time they choose [me/this]"', and 809.1.c.1 lets that Power be any Domain. This project measured the free floor at 2 Power a turn (164.2.b recycles an already-exhausted rune with no exhaust in the cost, and 315.3.b channels two back every Channel Phase), so Deflect 2 consumes an opponent's entire free Power for ONE choose - and a spell that chooses the carrier twice pays 4. CORRECTED 2026-10-24 (#456): not at the next Channel Phase. 416.1 puts a recycled rune on the bottom of the Rune Deck (416.1.b) and 430.1 channels from the top, so 315.3.b's two a turn are the runes above it, which the board gets whether or not anything was recycled. With only those two a turn (161.2.a, 315.3.b, 485.7), a rune recycled on any of T1 to T6 is back on T7 going first; going second the first one recycled by T5 is back on T6 and the second on T7; each two more recycled push it a turn later, and a card that channels more (430.2) brings it back sooner. Only once the Rune Deck is empty (all twelve out, T6 at the earliest from either seat) does the next Channel Phase give a recycled rune back; before that a recycle is a rune short on every turn until the deck runs dry, and two recycled every turn hold the board flat at two going first. So before their Rune Deck is empty Deflect 2 costs an opponent more than one turn's free Power: two runes short on every turn until their deck runs dry. The carrier is harder to answer than this caveat said, not easier; status unchanged.
• AND WHAT IT IS NOT WORTH: 355.10.d. 'It is programmatically selected based on its characteristics rather than chosen by the spell or ability' - such an object is not a target, and 809.1.d only imposes the cost on effects that CHOOSE. So every sweeper in the pool goes straight through Deflect, and exactly two cards ignore it outright: VEN-061 Decree of Insight ('Ignore [Deflect] while paying this spell's cost') and VEN-158 Heisho, Shell of the World. Deflect buys you protection from targeted removal and nothing else; do not price it as evasion.
• 809.2 SUMS, WHICH MAKES IT THE THIRD MEMBER OF A FAMILY. 'If a Game Object has Deflect, or has been granted Deflect, and is granted Deflect by an additional source, the Deflect Value of all granted Deflect keywords is summed' - the same shape as 814.2 for [Shield] (Riot's example: Stalwart Poro + Block = Shield 4) and 807.2 for [Assault] (Petty Officer + Cleave = Assault 4). So SFD-102 Hexdrinker's granted [Deflect] on an Empowered Sunhawk is Deflect 3, at the price of a Body rune and a Body/Order legend.
• THE TOKEN IS BORN 'HERE', WHICH IS THE WHOLE POINT. 359.3.f.2 reads 'here' at execution, so the Recruit appears at whatever battlefield the Sunhawk moved to - never at the base. That is the answer to the walk-to-the-battlefield bottleneck this project measured on token engines, and it is exactly what empowered-deathknell-blade-ruined-king does NOT have, since the Noxian Emissary's Recruits are printed 'to your base'.
• THE RATE, HONESTLY. 144.2 makes exhausting the unit the Cost of a Standard Move and 144.4 confines it to base-to-battlefield without [Ganking], so one move - one Recruit - per carrier per turn, with 415.3.a readying it at your own Awakening. Three Eyes on three Sunhawks is three Recruits a turn, and 103.2.b caps both at three copies.
• DISTINCT FROM hungry-wolf-eye-of-herald-double-move, which pairs the same Equipment with VEN-125 Hungry Wolf to buy a SECOND move per turn. That entry raises the rate; this one raises the carrier's survivability, and the two stack - a Hungry Wolf carrying the Eye is not Empowered and dies to any targeted removal, which is the failure mode this line is written against.

Steps

1. Play Solari Sunhawk (3 Energy) and Empower it for 2 Energy. 441.1.b makes that a one-time purchase and 441.2 makes the [Deflect 2] permanent.
2. Play the Eye of the Herald (1 Energy) and [Equip] it to the Sunhawk for 1 Order Power. 818.1.b.2 makes the Sunhawk the Top-Most Card, and 136.2.c appends 'When I move, play a 1 Might Recruit unit token here' to its Rules Text.
3. Standard-move the Sunhawk from base to a battlefield, paying 144.2's exhaust. The trigger fires and a 1 Might Recruit is played at that battlefield - 'here' read at execution (359.3.f.2), so no walk is needed.
4. The opponent who wants the factory gone must pay 2 Power of any domain on top of their removal spell's own cost (809.1.c, 809.1.c.1), which is their whole free Power floor for the turn.
5. 415.3.a readies the Sunhawk at your next Awakening; move it home or out again for another Recruit. Repeat every turn, one token per carrier.

Per iteration

one 1 Might Recruit token per carrier per turn, born at the battlefield rather than the base

How it ends

engine only - one Recruit per Standard Move, so one per carrier per turn without [Ganking] (144.4), capped at three Sunhawks and three Eyes by 103.2.b; nothing here scores, and Deflect stops targeted removal only, never a sweeper (355.10.d)

Sources

Published elsewhere

• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
• Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt (built from Riot's gallery content API) 2026-09-07

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-07 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-07-uncatalogued-order.md, batch 5) 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue