Combo · ENGINE
Soul's Reflection rides every Empower — the Tome disempowers itself, so the legend can be refilled
Pieces
- Soul's Reflection ×1
VEN-151 · payoff · mind/chaos
When you empower something else, empower me. (I become Empowered if I'm not already.) Disempower me, Exhaust: Give a unit at a battlefield -2 Might this turn.
- Questionable Tome ×1
VEN-054 · engine · mind
[Empower] — Exhaust (Pay the cost: Empower me. Use only if not Empowered.) Disempower this, 1 Energy, Exhaust: Draw 1.
Payoff
Deck
- The legend IS Soul's Reflection (Mind/Chaos), and Questionable Tome is mono-Mind (103.1.b.1).
Prerequisites
- 441 IS WHY THIS FAMILY NEEDS A SELF-DISEMPOWERING PARTNER AT ALL, AND IT IS THE POINT OF THE ENTRY. 441.1.a: 'Empowered is a binary state. A Game Object is Empowered or it isn't.' 441.1.b: 'An Empowered Game Object can not be Empowered.' 441.1.c: 'If a Game Object is instructed to be Empowered when it is already Empowered, nothing additional happens.' And 441.2 makes the state permanent. So 'when you empower something else' is a ONCE-PER-OBJECT event: a board full of Empowered permanents feeds the legend exactly nothing. The partner has to hand its own state back.
- THE TOME IS THE ONLY MIND CARD THAT DOES. Its [Empower] cost is a bare exhaust and its payoff cost begins 'Disempower this' — so it applies the state to itself for free and then spends it for a card. Every time it comes back un-Empowered it is a fresh 'empower something else' for the legend. VEN-087 Hextech Disc is the Body twin and is already the partner of matriarch-of-war-empower-ready, which is this entry's Body/Order mirror; the two can never share a list (103.1.b.4).
- THE HONEST RATE IS EVERY OTHER TURN ON TWO CARDS. CLAUDE.md already records that the Tome 'unaided Empowers or draws in a turn, never both', because its [Empower] cost IS the exhaust its draw needs. So: turn N, exhaust the Tome to Empower it — the legend Empowers, then disempowers and exhausts for -2 Might. Turn N+1, the Tome disempowers itself and exhausts to draw 1, and the legend gets nothing. Turn N+2 repeats. One -2 Might and one card per two turns, for 1 Energy.
- VEN-062 HEXTECH FORMULA MAKES IT EVERY TURN, AND IT IS DELIBERATELY NOT IN uses. 'This enters exhausted. [exhaust]: Empower another gear.' On the draw turn, after the Tome has disempowered itself, the Formula re-Empowers it — a second 'empower something else' — so the legend fires on that turn too. Both cards are already together in hextech-formula-rage-amplifier-free-empower, whose value is a PRICE comparison on Rage Amplifier's E6 + 1 Fury Power; this entry's value is the legend riding the same cycle, which that entry does not have. Adding the Formula here would be a third card and would duplicate that entry's engine.
- WHAT THE -2 MIGHT IS WORTH. It is 'this turn', it is a plain continuous modifier rather than a 702 Buff, and 143.2.b lets Might go negative while reading as 0 for spells, abilities and combat damage. Its real use is the 22 MIGHT GATES the #97 walk inventoried — the kill/banish/bounce/steal clauses priced at a Might threshold — where two Might is the difference between a body being a legal target and not. Note it has no 'to a minimum of' clause, which 477.3.b makes the difference between a floored and an unfloored reduction.
- THE LEGEND MUST BE READY TO SPEND ITS STATE. 'Disempower me, [exhaust]' is a cost, so 315.1.b's Awakening is the only thing that gives it back — one activation per turn, whatever else happens, exactly as matriarch-of-war-empower-ready is 'hard-capped at one ready by the Matriarch's own exhaust'.
- NOTHING HERE SCORES. It is a card and a Might reduction on a two-turn cycle for two cards and 5 Energy of setup.
Steps
- Play Questionable Tome (3 Energy). Gear enters ready (143.4 exhausts only units).
- Exhaust the Tome to pay its own [Empower] cost. It becomes Empowered — which is 'you empower something else' for the legend, so Soul's Reflection becomes Empowered too (441.1).
- Disempower the legend and exhaust it: give a unit at a battlefield -2 Might this turn.
- Next turn, Awaken readies both (315.1.b). Pay 1 Energy, disempower the Tome and exhaust it: draw 1. The Tome is now un-Empowered again.
- The turn after, exhaust the Tome to Empower it once more and repeat. One -2 Might and one card every two turns.
Per iteration
+1 card and one -2 Might per two-turn cycle, for 1 Energy
How it ends
engine — one -2 Might and one card per two turns off a legend and one gear; every turn if VEN-062 Hextech Formula is added. Nothing here scores
Sources
Walked here, in this project
- Hand walk 2026-09-06 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-engine-payoff-walk.md, section 29) 2026-09-06 record
- Cause/trigger matrix over the pool, group 33 (empower-other, 8 partners) 2026-09-06
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-engine-payoff-walk.md, section 29). VEN-151 Soul's Reflection was in ZERO entries and is the tightest of the six empower-other anchors in groups 31-39 (8 partners against 35-38 for the rest), which is what made it walkable: the 8 are the cards that can actually hand their Empowered state back. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt; 103.1.b.1, 103.1.b.4, 143.2.b, 143.4, 315.1.b, 441.1/441.1.a/441.1.b/441.1.c, 441.2, 477.3.b and 702.3 opened and read. Ban check against data/legality.json reading bases as an array: neither VEN-151 nor VEN-054 is listed in either format, and neither is a Signature card. Trap check: no attack; no [Temporary]; no [Repeat]; no token; no recall; the -2 Might is a continuous modifier and not a 702 Buff, so 702.3 never touches it. Depends on no unruled reading.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16