Combo · ENGINE
Sprite Fountain pays twice and the Aspiring Engineer buys it back out of the trash
Pieces
- Sprite Fountain ×1
UNL-078 · engine · mind
[Temporary] (Kill this at the start of its controller's Beginning Phase, before scoring.) When you play this, play a ready 3 Might Sprite unit token with [Temporary] to your base. [Deathknell][>] Repeat this gear's play effect. (When this dies, get the effect.)
- Aspiring Engineer ×1
SFD-061 · engine · mind
When you play me, return a gear from your trash to your hand.
Payoff
Deck
- Legend domains are Calm and Mind: SFD-189 Fire Below the Mountain (Ornn), whose 'exhaust: [Reaction] — [Add] 1 rainbow. Use only to play gear or use gear abilities' pays the Fountain's Power cost every turn - the source names exactly that.
Prerequisites
- THE SPRITES ARE ATTACKERS, NEVER HOLDERS. 816.1.b makes [Temporary] 'At the start of this permanent's controller's Beginning Phase, before scoring, kill this' - so a Sprite made on your turn dies before the next Scoring Step and can never Hold. The source says the same thing in its own words: 'attack in, it becomes temporary'.
- THE FOUNTAIN KILLS ITSELF, AND THAT IS THE SECOND SPRITE. It carries [Temporary] too, so at the start of your Beginning Phase it dies and its [Deathknell] repeats the play effect: another Sprite. The card is two bodies for one payment, and the second one arrives on the turn you get it back.
- THE SPRITES ENTER READY, WHICH IS NOT A READY. The Fountain says 'play a READY 3 Might Sprite unit token', overriding 143.4 - but 415.1 defines Readying as marking something already on the board, so this gives back no exhaust and cannot be substituted for by any of the sixteen cards in the pool that ready something.
- THE ENGINEER IS THE ONLY REASON IT REPEATS, and it costs a card and a body every time: 3 Energy + 1 Power for a 3 Might unit whose whole job is the fetch. One Fountain cycle per Engineer.
- 185 is why the Sprites cannot pay for anything: they are not cards, so no recycle, discard or 'return a card' cost can ever take one.
Steps
- Play Sprite Fountain (2 Energy + 1 Power, the Power off the legend's rainbow): a ready 3 Might Sprite with [Temporary] appears at your base.
- Move the Sprite in and attack with it the same turn - it is ready, and it will not survive to your next Scoring Step.
- At the start of your next Beginning Phase, [Temporary] kills the Fountain (816.1.b) and its [Deathknell] repeats the play effect: a second Sprite. The Fountain is now in your trash.
- Play Aspiring Engineer (3 Energy + 1 Power): return the Fountain from your trash to your hand.
- Replay the Fountain the same turn, paying the Power with the legend again. Repeat.
Per iteration
2 ready 3 Might Sprites per Sprite Fountain; one Fountain returned per Aspiring Engineer, at 3 Energy + 1 Power
How it ends
engine only - a pair of temporary bodies a cycle, none of which ever survives to a Hold
Sources
Published elsewhere
- YouTube — MoreThatMillGuy, "Ornn FINALLY Wins & Kennen Is Everywhere!? | Riftbound | Regional Qualifier Barcelona Discussion" 2026-08-24
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
- Minería por leyenda — issue #62 (GitHub) 2026-09-06
Walked here, in this project
- 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-issue62-table-of-fourteen.md), issue #62 section 2.6. The source is a Regional Qualifier discussion, so this is a line somebody brought to an event rather than theorycraft. The walk's additions are the two limits that decide how the deck uses it: 816.1.b means every Sprite is an attacker and none of them can ever be part of a Hold, and 415.1 means 'enters ready' is not a ready and cannot stand in for one - the distinction the #56 ready lens established. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. Trap check: no attack designation is needed for the tokens to be useful; no [Repeat] on any card here; no recall; no token is ever recycled (185). Depends on no unruled reading. FEATURE CORRECTED 2026-09-06 (issue #64, docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-issue63-payoff-lens.md): produces temporary-body-engine, not token-body-engine. UNL-078 Sprite Fountain plays 'a ready 3 Might Sprite unit token with [Temporary]', and 816.1.b kills a [Temporary] permanent at the start of its controller's Beginning Phase BEFORE scoring. This entry's own terminatesIn already said the bodies cannot hold; the split makes the graph say it too, so a Grand Plaza consumer can never be fed by them.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16