Combo · ENGINE

370.4: a Replacement Effect still applies to everything that dies SIMULTANEOUSLY with its source leaving the board - so Soraka saves the swarm out of the wipe that kills her

4 cards · order · verified

Pieces

• Soraka, Wanderer ×3 SFD-173 · payoff · 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.)

• Vanguard Armory ×1 SFD-168 · engine · order

  Exhaust: Play three 1 Might Recruit unit tokens. (You may play them to different locations.)

Payoff

Deck

• Both cards are mono-Order, so 103.1.b.3 admits them under any legend with Order among its two domains - measured over data/cards.json those include OGN-253 / OGN-302 Hand of Noxus (fury/order), OGN-261 / OGN-306 Radiant Dawn (calm/order), OGN-265 / OGN-308 Herald of the Arcane (mind/order), OGN-269 / OGN-310 The Boss (body/order), SFD-197 / SFD-247 Emperor of the Sands (calm/order), SFD-201 / SFD-249 Chem-Baroness (mind/order), SFD-205 / SFD-251 Grand Duelist (body/order), UNL-203 / UNL-237 Keeper of the Hammer (body/order) and VEN-153 / VEN-196 Matriarch of War (body/order).
• Neither is a Signature card (checked against data/cards.json), so 103.2.d.2 imposes no legend, and neither is banned or restricted in either format.
• Soraka and the bodies she covers must be at the SAME battlefield - her clause says 'here' - and each must have strictly less Might than her 4.

Prerequisites

• THE RULE, AND SORAKA IS ITS WORKED EXAMPLE BY NAME. 370.4: 'A Game Object can apply its Replacement Effects to any qualifying events that occur simultaneously with it leaving the zone that its Replacement Effect is active in.' Riot's example: 'Soraka, Wanderer has a Replacement Effect that reads, "If another unit you control here would die, if it has less Might than me, instead heal it, exhaust it, and recall it." Soraka's replacement can be applied to any qualifying event that occurs simultaneously with her leaving the board, including to units that die simultaneously with her.' 368 through 375 are cited by no entry and no synergy rule in this project.
• SO A BOARD WIPE DOES NOT BEAT HER, IT ONLY COSTS HER. UNL-180 The Ruination and every other 'kill all units' effect kills Soraka and the garrison in the same event - and 370.4 says her replacement still applies to all of them. She dies; every friendly unit at her battlefield under Might 4 is healed, exhausted and recalled to your base instead. Against a swarm that is the entire board saved for one card.
• AND 370.3 IS THE NEGATIVE MIRROR, WHICH IS WHY THE TRASH VERSION DOES NOT WORK. 'If a Game Object has a Replacement Effect that is active in a specific zone, it is evaluated and subsequently applied if it enters that zone before an event occurs that it could replace', with the example of a unit whose save works 'from your trash': 'The first unit dies simultaneously with a 1 [M] Recruit token. It does not enter the trash before the Recruit dies, so it will not be able to replace its death.' A board-based replacement covers simultaneous deaths; a trash-based one does not, because it has not arrived yet. Same wipe, opposite outcome, and the difference is which zone the effect lives in.
• AND 373.2 CAPS IT AT ONE APPLICATION PER SEQUENCE, WHICH IS THE LIMIT 370.4 ON ITS OWN DOES NOT STATE: 'When applying Replacement Effects to events that occur simultaneously, each Replacement Effect may only be applied in one sequence, to any number of events that are qualified to be replaced.' So Soraka saves EVERY qualifying body in one application - the Armory's whole swarm at her battlefield - but she gets that application once, and Riot's worked example shows the ordering cost: with a Guardian Angel attached to her, saving her FIRST means her own effect can then only reach the bodies at your BASE, and saving the battlefield bodies first means Guardian Angel's save of her comes after her effect is spent. 373.1.a is the companion: 'the Game Actions that comprise their instructions are performed before any simultaneous unmodified events', so the saved bodies are healed and recalled before the rest of the board finishes dying.
• THE ARMORY IS THE RIGHT PARTNER BECAUSE EVERY TOKEN IS UNDER THE THRESHOLD. Three 1-Might Recruits a turn, all below Soraka's 4, and 185.2.d makes each a unit for every purpose - so the replacement applies to them exactly as to a card. 186.1 would otherwise destroy them the instant they entered a non-board zone; the replacement stops them entering one at all, so the swarm survives intact rather than being rebuilt.
• THE SAVE IS A RECALL, WITH EVERYTHING THAT COSTS. 455 sends them to the BASE without a Move, so any 'While I'm at a battlefield' text switches off and the battlefield itself is emptied - 323.6 then strips your Control at the next Cleanup. They also come back exhausted, so 315.1.b readies them only at your next Awakening and 144.4 walks them back the turn after. You keep the bodies and lose the position; the entry does not pretend otherwise.
• AND SORAKA HERSELF IS NEVER SAVED. Her clause says 'another unit you control here', so she is the one thing her own replacement cannot cover - the same shape as Alpha Wildclaw's 'less Might than me'. Three copies (103.2.b) is how the effect survives its own use.
• HER FIRST SENTENCE IS THE [Backline] EFFECT WITHOUT THE KEYWORD, AND THAT IS A DIFFERENT CLAIM. 'I must be assigned combat damage last' is exactly the reminder text UNL-043, UNL-090, UNL-141 and UNL-145 print as [Backline], written here in prose. 465.2.c.6 orders assignment by 'requirements and restrictions on damage assignment' and its worked example quotes the effect rather than the keyword, so all six bodies are assigned damage last - but only four HAVE the keyword, which is what a card reading keywords would see (722.1). Stated at the precision it was measured: SIX cards in the pool carry the Backline EFFECT (OGN-068 Caitlyn, Patrolling and SFD-173 Soraka, Wanderer in prose; UNL-043, UNL-090, UNL-141 and UNL-145 bracketed), and a bracketed grep finds four of them.

Steps

1. Play SFD-168 Vanguard Armory (7 Energy + 1 Power) and SFD-173 Soraka, Wanderer (4 Energy + 1 Power) to the same battlefield.
2. Exhaust the Armory each turn (381 confines it to your Main Phase; 315.1.b refills it) and put the three 1-Might Recruit tokens at Soraka's battlefield.
3. The opponent plays a sweeper. Every friendly unit there dies simultaneously, Soraka included.
4. 370.4 applies her replacement to every qualifying event simultaneous with her leaving the board: each friendly unit there with less than 4 Might is healed, exhausted and recalled instead of dying.
5. Soraka herself dies - 'another unit you control here' excludes her - so play the next copy (103.2.b allows three).
6. The saved bodies are at your base, exhausted (455, 458.1 leaves other statuses alone). 315.1.b readies them at your next Awakening and 144.4 walks them back; 323.6 will have stripped the battlefield in the meantime.
7. Do not substitute a save that works 'from your trash': 370.3 says it does not enter the trash before the simultaneous deaths and so cannot replace them.

Per iteration

an entire garrison under Might 4 survives the wipe that killed Soraka, at the cost of the battlefield and a turn of exhaustion

How it ends

engine only - nothing here scores. Three Soraka (103.2.b), one Armory activation a turn (381), and each save costs the battlefield under 323.6

Sources

Published elsewhere

• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 370.4 2026-07-16
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 370.4 worked example 2026-07-16
• Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt), 370.3 worked example 2026-07-16

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-07 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue