Combo · ENGINE

Sprite Queen under Targon's Peak — a Conquer every turn instead of a Hold, and two ready runes carried into the opponent's turn

2 cards · mind · verified

Pieces

• Sprite Queen ×1 UNL-084 · engine · 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.)

• Targon's Peak ×1 OGN-289 · battlefield

  When you conquer here, ready up to 2 runes at the end of this turn.

Payoff

Deck

• The line is mono-Mind (Sprite Queen; Targon's Peak is Colorless), so 103.1.b.3 admits every legend with Mind in its pair — sixteen names: UNL-189/UNL-230 Bashful Bloom, SFD-201/SFD-249 Chem-Baroness, VEN-145/VEN-192 Curator of the Sands, OGN-247/OGN-299 Daughter of the Void, UNL-199/UNL-235 Deceiver, VEN-149/VEN-194 Defender of Tomorrow, SFD-189/SFD-244 Fire Below the Mountain, OGN-265/OGN-308 Herald of the Arcane, OGS-021 Lady of Luminosity, SFD-181/SFD-240 Mechanized Menace, OGN-255/OGN-303 Nine-Tailed Fox, SFD-199/SFD-248 Prodigal Explorer, UNL-197/UNL-234 Scorn of the Moon, VEN-151/VEN-195 Soul's Reflection, OGN-263/OGN-307 Swift Scout, UNL-181/UNL-226 Virtuoso.

Prerequisites

• A 'WHEN YOU CONQUER HERE' BATTLEFIELD FIRES ONCE PER GAME UNLESS YOU GIVE IT UP ON PURPOSE. This is the fact the whole family turns on and no entry had stated it. 315.2.b.2 is mandatory — 'The Turn Player Holds all Battlefields they Control' — and 470 says 'A player may only Score, from either method, once per Battlefield per turn', so the moment you control your own battlefield at your Beginning Phase you have Held it and can no longer Conquer it that turn. 469.1 defines Conquer as gaining Control of a battlefield 'they did not yet Score this turn', and 348.2.a will not even hand Control to a player who 'does not already Control the Battlefield'. Take a conquer battlefield once and hold it forever and its trigger has paid exactly once. FOURTEEN of the pool's sixty-six battlefields carry a 'when you conquer here' clause (OGN-282, OGN-287, OGN-289, OGN-291, OGN-298, SFD-207, SFD-210, SFD-212, SFD-217, SFD-218, SFD-220, SFD-221, UNL-217, VEN-162 - counted with grep on 2026-09-07, correcting this entry's first draft, which said twelve and said none was catalogued). Four were already in entries when this was written: Hall of Legends, Veiled Temple and Trapping Grounds from 2026-09-06's issue #153, and Zaun Warrens the same night. Ten were not, which is what makes this line the keystone that hands the trigger back to the rest of the family.
• THE CYCLE COSTS NOTHING IN EXPOSURE, WHICH IS WHY IT IS AN ENGINE AND NOT A GAMBLE. The battlefield is uncontrolled only from the death of the old Sprite (315.2.a) to the walk-in of the new one (316), i.e. entirely inside your own Beginning, Channel, Draw and early Main Phases. 144.1.a lets a Standard Move be made 'any time during a player's Main Phase', 144.1.b bars it in a Closed State and 144.1.c bars it during a Showdown or Combat — and 312.2.a gives the non-turn player priority only in Closed States and Showdowns. So the opponent has no window in which they both hold priority and are allowed to move. For the rest of the round the 3-Might Sprite garrisons the battlefield and you control it exactly as if you had held it.
• WHAT THE OPPONENT CAN STILL DO is attack the Sprite on their own turn, and a 3-Might body is a cheap garrison to break (465.2.c). Losing it costs you the battlefield until you retake it; that is the same risk any held battlefield runs, at a lower Might.
• THE POINT IS NOT NEW. 470 caps scoring at one per battlefield per turn, so the Conquer pays the same single point the Hold would have paid. What the cycle buys is the trigger, every turn, for zero cards and zero Energy after Sprite Queen is paid for once.
• TARGON'S PEAK IS NOT GUARANTEED TO BE ON THE TABLE. 485.4.a puts only one of your three battlefields into a Duel and 485.5 picks it at random ('Each player randomly selects one (1) of their three (3) Battlefields'); 486.5 in 1v1 Match play says only 'selects', so there you choose it. 103.4.c forbids bringing more than one battlefield of the same name, so the odds cannot be improved by copies.
• THE SPRITE IS A TOKEN, so 185 keeps it out of every 'cards' count, 186.1 keeps it out of the trash, and 416.1 can never recycle it. It is a body and nothing else — which is all the cycle asks of it.
• A BLOODLESS CONQUER IS NOT A FAIT ACCOMPLI, AND 46 OF THE 47 ENTRIES CITING 344.2 DID NOT SAY SO (added 2026-09-12, #187 batch 25). **316.8.b.1.a**: during a Non-Combat Showdown *"units controlled by a different player may become present at the Battlefield where the Showdown is"*, which converts it to a COMBAT Showdown in the following cleanup - so the opponent can turn your uncontested walk-in into a fight. 316.8.c is the permission (a Showdown is a Window of Opportunity for [Action] and [Reaction] cards). **The answer set is THREE CARDS, swept on the ACTOR rather than on the destination**: `OGN-173 Ride the Wind` (Chaos, E2+1), `OGN-262 Zenith Blade` (Calm/Order, E3+2) and `SFD-184 Relentless Pursuit` (Fury/Body, E2+1) - twelve printings move a friendly unit, and nine of them send it to base or need a body already there. They span three identities, so **no identity is safe**; and `OGN-262 Zenith Blade` is the worst to walk into, because it STUNS your body on the way in, and 423.1.b removes a stunned unit`s contribution to the damage step while 423.1.c keeps its full Might as the price to kill it - one 3-Energy card takes the unit and the battlefield. **[Ambush] is not a fourth answer**: 822.1.b needs a battlefield where the player already has units, and the defining feature of that board is that they have none there. **THE REMEDY IS A COUNTERSPELL, AND A FIRST VERSION OF THIS NOTABLE SAID SOMETHING FALSE THAT IS WITHDRAWN HERE (corrected within the hour, 2026-09-12).** It said that because all three answers are [Action] and 358.4 admits an Action card only as the card that CLOSES the state, the attacker - who holds Focus by 345 and priority by 335.1 - could shut them out by playing any cheap Action card first. Every step is true and the conclusion is false, because **a Showdown is a LOOP, not a single window**: 346 - *"When the last item on the chain resolves and the turn returns to an Open State during a Showdown, Focus passes, and the next Player gains both Focus and Priority"* - with 347.1.b and 347.2.a. Closing the state buys a lock-out lasting exactly that CHAIN; when it resolves the Showdown reopens, Focus passes TO THE DEFENDER, and they play their answer into an open Showdown after all. **The real sequence**: walk in, take Focus, **PASS** (acting first gains nothing); they play the answer, which closes the state as it is played; **you COUNTER it**, since 358.4`s other half now admits only [Reaction] and all eleven of the pool`s counters are Reaction, and 425.1.c refunds them nothing; all players then pass in sequence, 347.2.a ends the Showdown, and 348.2.a with 348.2.a.1 give you Control and the Conquer. The cheap counter is `OGN-045 Defy` (Calm, E1 + 1 Power, *"counter a spell that costs no more than 4 Energy and no more than one rainbow"*), which covers all three answers; `OGN-064 Wind Wall` is the unconditional one. **So the protection narrows to pairs containing CALM** - it is not the one-Energy insurance any deck can buy.

Steps

1. Play Sprite Queen (E7 + 1 Mind Power). Her 'when you play me' half makes a ready Sprite at your base immediately, so the cycle starts the turn she lands.
2. Main Phase: Standard Move the Sprite from your base to Targon's Peak, paying 144.2's exhaust. 144.4.a allows base to battlefield.
3. 190.3.a.1 applies Contested ('Units moving to or being played to a battlefield apply Contested status if that battlefield is not already Contested and that Unit's controller does not already control that battlefield'). With no enemy units there, 344.2 opens a Showdown during the next Cleanup rather than staging a Combat.
4. The Showdown closes: 348.2.a establishes your Control ('If only one player's Units remain at the Battlefield, and if that player does not already Control the Battlefield, that player establishes Control'), and 348.2.a.1 — 'This results in a Conquer if that player has not yet scored that Battlefield this turn.' You have not: you controlled nothing here at 315.2.b. Score 1 point and fire Targon's Peak.
5. Targon's Peak readies up to 2 runes at the end of this turn. 167 empties the Rune Pool at that moment but not the runes themselves, and 415.3.a will not ready anything of yours again until your own Awakening — so those two runes are the only mana either player will have at [Reaction] speed on the opponent's turn.
6. Your next Beginning Phase, 315.2.a: the Sprite's [Temporary] fires — 816.1.b, 'At the start of this permanent's controller's Beginning Phase, before scoring, kill this' — and Sprite Queen's own start-of-Beginning-Phase trigger makes a fresh ready Sprite at your base. 383.3.d lets you order the two; either order works, because the new Sprite is at the base and never touches the battlefield.
7. The old Sprite leaving the board makes a Cleanup Outstanding (319.6). The Cleanup runs in a Neutral Open State (310.1: no Showdown or Combat, no Chain), so 323.6 applies — 'Players lose control of any controlled Battlefields without their Units occupying them' — and Targon's Peak is uncontrolled again before the Scoring Step.
8. 315.2.b.2 Holds all battlefields you Control. Targon's Peak is not one of them, so it is unscored and available to be Conquered again. Return to step 2 with the new Sprite; repeat every turn.

Per iteration

one Conquer at Targon's Peak (1 point, the same point a Hold would have paid) plus 2 runes readied into the opponent's turn, per turn, for zero cards and zero Energy

How it ends

engine only — one Conquer per turn for as long as Sprite Queen lives; 470 caps the point at one per battlefield per turn, so the cycle never scores faster than holding and adds only the trigger. The runes are 2 Energy, or 2 Power through 164.2.b, at [Reaction] speed on the opponent's turn

Sources

Published elsewhere

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

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-07 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-07-uncatalogued-cards.md), issue #171 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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