Combo · ENGINE

Soul Shepherd over the Sprite Queen — a wall that is priced in damage and rebuilds itself

2 cards · mind · verified

Pieces

• Soul Shepherd ×1 UNL-077 · engine · mind

  Your token units have +1 Might.

• Sprite Queen ×1 UNL-084 · payoff · mind

  When you play me or at the start of your Beginning Phase, play a ready 3 Might Sprite unit token with [Temporary] to your base. (Kill them at the start of their controller's next Beginning Phase, before scoring.)

Payoff

Deck

• Both mono-Mind (103.1.b.3), so any legend carrying Mind runs the pair.
• Nothing has to be held and no battlefield of yours is needed.

Prerequisites

• A wall is priced in DAMAGE, not in bodies (#150). 143.2.a — 'If a Unit ever has nonzero damage marked on it equalling or exceeding its Might, it is Killed' — and 465.2.c.3, 'Units must have lethal damage assigned to them in full before damage is assigned to a different Unit', make the attacker's bill the SUM of each defender's minimum. The Shepherd's +1 raises every Sprite's minimum from 3 to 4, so a garrison of three Sprites costs 12 to clear instead of 9. That is the whole point of the pairing and it is arithmetic, not a keyword.
• The Sprites are born READY, so they are not just a wall: 144.2's exhaust is payable the turn they appear and they can walk to a battlefield in the same Main Phase.
• They also die on schedule and the entry does not pretend otherwise. 816.1.b kills every [Temporary] at the start of your Beginning Phase, before scoring, and the Queen's second trigger mints the replacement in the same step — so the wall is renewed but never accumulates past what one Beginning Phase makes.
• 185 and 186.1: the Sprites are tokens and never reach the trash, so nothing here can recycle or reanimate them, and no 'recycle another friendly unit' cost can be paid with one.
• The Shepherd is +1 to EVERY token you control, not only Sprites — Recruits, Sand Soldiers, Golds' bodies where they exist, and the [Deflect] Bird of UNL-217 Trapping Grounds. That is why it is written as its own entry rather than folded into a Sprite line: it is the token layer's only static.
• WHERE THE TOKEN'S [Temporary] COMES FROM, ADDED BESIDE 816.1 RATHER THAN INSTEAD OF IT (#204, from #187 batch 18). This entry sources the keyword to the 816.1 block, which is correct and says what [Temporary] DOES. What it does not say is that the effect which created the token may attach it; that is 184.2's sibling, 184.3 - 'The effect may grant temporary abilities or modifications to the token' - cited by nothing in 766 entries. It matters here because the grant is the PAYOFF rather than a drawback, so the paragraph licensing it is load-bearing. 816.1 stays exactly where it is.

Steps

1. Play Soul Shepherd (E5). Every token unit you control is at +1 Might from that moment (703 is not involved — this is a continuous modifier, not a 702 buff counter, so 702.3's one-per-unit cap never applies).
2. Play Sprite Queen (E7 + 1 Power). Her play trigger mints a ready 3 Might [Temporary] Sprite at your base, which the Shepherd makes 4.
3. Walk the Sprite to a battlefield the same turn if you want the body there: it entered ready, so 144.2's exhaust is payable.
4. At the start of your next Beginning Phase, 816.1.b kills the Sprite before scoring, and the Queen's second trigger mints the next one in the same step.
5. Repeat every turn. An attacker facing three 4 Might Sprites has to assign 12, in full and one body at a time (465.2.c.3), before anything else at that battlefield takes a point of damage.

How it ends

engine only — one 4 Might ready [Temporary] body a turn and a defensive bill of 4 per Sprite instead of 3. 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
• Issue #153 (GitHub) 2026-09-06

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-06, issue #153 — the 55 synergy rules no catalogued entry stands on 2026-09-06 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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