Combo · ENGINE
Soraka, Wanderer in base — the Fiora loops stop dying to one removal spell
Pieces
- Soraka, Wanderer ×1
SFD-173 · enabler · order
I must be assigned combat damage last. If another unit you control here would die, if it has less Might than me, instead heal it, exhaust it, and recall it. (Send it to base. This isn't a move.)
- Fiora, Worthy ×1
SFD-180 · ready · order
When a unit you control becomes [Mighty], you may pay 1 Order Power to ready it. (A unit is Mighty while it has 5+ Might.)
Payoff
Deck
- Legend domains cover Order, which every Fiora entry already does: renata-mastermind-points and garen-fiora-malzahar-facebreaker-recruits are Mind/Order, jhin-fiora-facebreaker-recall and fiora-vault-breaker-jhin are Fury/Order.
- Soraka and Fiora in the same place. In the Jhin line that is base, which is where both already sit.
Prerequisites
- "Here" includes the base, and the Core Rules settle it with a worked example written on this very card. 373.2: "Soraka dies simultaneously with two 1 [M] Recruit tokens at the same battlefield and two 1 [M] Recruit tokens in base. ... If the Replacement Effect appended by Guardian Angel is applied first, it saves Soraka and recalls her - then when Soraka's Replacement Effect is applied, it can only save the Recruits in base." So a Soraka standing in base covers a Fiora standing in base. No reading had to be filed.
- The three riders of the replacement are all free on Fiora, and "exhaust it" is the one worth checking: 414.4 says the Exhaust action only has to be completable when it is listed AS a cost, and 414.1.c says exhausting an already-exhausted object does nothing. Fiora's trigger costs 1 Order Power and prints no exhaust symbol, unlike the Score ability of Renata Glasc, Mastermind beside it. An exhausted Fiora readies units exactly as well. The recall is not a move (456, 456.1) and changes no state (458.1), and it sends her to a base she is already in.
- The Might gate is exactly satisfied and only just: Fiora is 3 Might against Soraka's 4, and Rally the Troops (SFD-166) only buffs units played AFTER it resolves, so a Fiora who was already on the board stays at 3. Jhin is NOT covered - he is 4 Might in base, which is not LESS than 4.
- The shield BLANKS the Deathknell of whatever it saves. 808.1.d.1: "If the Permanent with the effect is not sent to the Trash, for example because its 'killed' event was replaced with a recall, the triggered ability will be removed from the chain." Soraka's replacement carries no "may", so it fires whether you want it or not, and any Deathknell body under 4 Might dying beside her loses its trigger - UNL-153 Carrion Dredger is exactly that shape.
- UNL-175 Tactical Retreat (Order, 2 Energy, no Power, [Reaction]) is the alternative and this entry replaced it, because a loop opens a Showdown on EVERY pass: three one-shot saves that expire at end of turn do not bound an unbounded number of passes, and Soraka's replacement has no per-use cost and no per-turn limit. Keep Tactical Retreat for the two things it still does better - it costs zero Power, and it has no Might gate, so it is the only one of the two that can save Jhin. OGN-023 Unlicensed Armory (Fury, 2 Energy gear) is a third route for the Fury/Order pairs only: discard 1, exhaust, and 1 Fury Power per save, so once per turn (415.3.a), not once per pass.
- It answers death and nothing else. "Would die" does not cover banish, bounce or a change of control: UNL-128 Star-Crossed (Chaos, 3 Energy + 1 Power, [Reaction], returns a friendly and an enemy unit to hand) walks straight through it. OGN-169 Gust cannot, because it only reaches a unit AT a battlefield and Fiora is in base. And Soraka herself has no Deflect, so removing her puts the loop back on its original point of failure - one card deeper.
Steps
- Play Soraka, Wanderer to your base for 4 Energy + 1 Order Power, in the same place as Fiora. She enters exhausted (143.4), which does not matter: her ability is a static replacement effect, not an activation.
- Run the loop. Every pass opens a Showdown in which the opponent holds priority.
- The opponent kills Fiora. Soraka's replacement applies instead: Fiora is healed, exhausted and recalled to the base she is already standing in.
- Fiora keeps readying, because her trigger costs Order Power and no exhaust (414.4). The loop continues, and the replacement is available again on the next non-simultaneous death (373.2.a: a separate set of simultaneous events is a separate sequence).
How it ends
the four Fiora lines survive an unbounded number of kill effects aimed at Fiora, for one card and no per-use cost
Sources
Walked here, in this project
- Reaction/Deflect lens hunt, issue #44 candidate 1 (rc-huntF) 2026-09-05
- Hand walk 2026-09-06 2026-09-06 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 2026-09-06 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-reaction-deflect-candidates.md), issue #44 candidate 1, REWRITTEN. The candidate was tactical-retreat-fiora-shield and its mechanics were sound, but its closing claim - "no in-domain alternative, Tactical Retreat is the only legal answer" - is false: grep -i "would die" over the 935-card corpus returns nine cards, and SFD-173 Soraka, Wanderer is Order (all four Fiora pairs) while OGN-023 Unlicensed Armory is Fury (the two Fury/Order pairs). Soraka wins on the one axis a loop cares about, unbounded uses, so the entry is re-anchored on her. Two further corrections carried out of the walk: the candidate cited 415.3 for "exhausted does not switch off an ability whose cost carries no exhaust", and 415.3 reads "This is a Limited Action." - the rule that says it is 414.4 plus 414.1.c; and nobody had written down 808.1.d.1, which makes every shield in this family delete the Deathknell of what it saves.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16