Combo · ENGINE

Sweep all but the biggest: Stare Down manufactures the 'alone' condition, and the Spider's permission plays the answer straight into the garrison

6 cards · body · verified

Pieces

• Stare Down ×3 UNL-107 · engine · body

  Choose a friendly unit and a battlefield. Move all enemy units at that battlefield with less Might than the chosen unit to their base. Gain 1 XP.

• Arachnoid Horror ×1 UNL-117 · enabler · body

  [Hunt 2] (When I conquer or hold, gain 2 XP.) I can be played to an occupied battlefield if an enemy unit is alone there. Friendly units can be played to an occupied battlefield if an enemy unit is alone there.

• Crowd Favorite ×2 UNL-102 · payoff · body

  [Hunt] (When I conquer or hold, gain 1 XP.) Spend 2 XP: [Buff] me. (Give me a +1 Might buff if I don't have one.)

Payoff

Deck

• All three cards are mono-Body, so ANY legend whose two domains include Body runs the line (103.1.b.1). Nothing here is Signature (103.2.d.2).
• An enemy battlefield with two or more bodies, at least one of which outsizes the rest. Arachnoid Horror must already be on the board, since her permission is a static and not a play trigger.

Prerequisites

• THE PARTIAL SWEEP IS THE POINT, AND IT IS THE INVERSE OF stare-down-yone-blademaster-base-strike. Stare Down moves 'all enemy units at that battlefield with less Might than the chosen unit'. Choose a friendly at M4 against a garrison of M6/M3/M2 and the two small bodies go home while the M6 stays — which is precisely the 'an enemy unit is alone there' condition Arachnoid Horror's two permissions ask for. Yone's line needs the sweep to be total; this one needs it not to be. They are two different lines on one spell, not two versions of one.
• WHAT 'ALONE' MEANS IS SETTLED BY THE POOL'S OWN REMINDER TEXT, NOT BY A READING. SFD-036 Lonely Poro prints '(I'm alone if there are no other friendly units here)' and UNL-210 Forbidding Waste says '(It's alone if there are no other friendly units here)', so 'an enemy unit is alone here' is a measurement on the OPPONENT's side only: your own garrison is unrestricted and can be as wide as you like.
• PLAYING IN IS AN ATTACK WITH NO MOVE AND NO EXHAUST. 355.2.a makes the base or a battlefield you control the default play locations and 355.2.b lets a game effect grant others — the Horror's second sentence is exactly such a grant, and it covers 'friendly units', not only herself. 190.3.a.1 then reads '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', and 464.2.c.1 makes 'the Attacker ... the player whose unit(s) applied the Contested status'. So the bodies you play in are Attackers without ever paying 144.2's exhaust, and 143.4's 'Units enter the Board exhausted' costs nothing — combat does not read exhaustion (464.2.c.3 and 465.2.b do not filter by state).
• THE ARITHMETIC OF THE COMBAT, WITH THE QUANTITIES DECLARED. 465.2.c: 'Starting with the Attacker, each player assigns an amount of damage equal to their summed Might among the other's Units.' Against one M6 defender, two Crowd Favorites (M3 each) played in are a summed 6 — exactly lethal and not one point more, and 465.2.c.3 forces that lethal onto the single body first. The defender assigns 6 back, and 465.2.c.4 forbids assigning more than the minimum needed to kill, so it kills at most both M3 bodies. Bring Arachnoid Horror in as well (she may be played in too) and the sum is 12 against 6: the defender still only has 6 to spend, and 466.1.a.1's 'Insert 3c. Heal all Units' erases the marked damage at the end of the combat anyway.
• WHAT THE CONQUER PAYS. Winning empties the enemy side, so 466.3.a gives you the combat, 466.5 establishes Control and 466.5.d says 'Establishing Control results in a Conquer if that player has not yet scored this Battlefield this turn' — one point by 471.1. 383.4.c.2.a then fires the Hunt of every unit present: Arachnoid Horror 2 plus 1 per Crowd Favorite, and Stare Down's own printed 'Gain 1 XP' on top.
• COST AND CEILING. Stare Down E2, two Crowd Favorites E6, and the Horror's E6 + 1 Body Power already standing. 470 caps it at one Score per battlefield per turn and 485.4 puts two on a Duel table; 103.2.b caps the spell at three copies and Crowd Favorite at three.
• WHAT REFUTES IT. (a) If the surviving body is bigger than your summed Might, you hand the opponent a free kill — this line is priced in Might, and the entry names its own bar: your sum must be at least the survivor's Might. (b) If the garrison is a single body to begin with, Stare Down is not needed at all and the Horror's permission is already on. (c) The Horror's permission is a static on HER, so she must survive on the board; a removal spell in response to the play (813.1.c.1 admits a [Reaction] in the Closed State the play opens) switches the permission off before the unit lands.

Steps

1. An earlier turn: play Arachnoid Horror (E6 + 1 Body Power). She enters exhausted (143.4); it does not matter, because nothing in this line asks her to move.
2. Main Phase, Neutral Open State. Play Stare Down for 2 Energy, choosing a friendly unit whose Might is above the second-largest enemy body and at or below the largest. The small bodies move to their base (355.10.d: they are not targets); you gain 1 XP.
3. Exactly one enemy unit is left at that battlefield, which turns on both of Arachnoid Horror's permissions (355.2.b).
4. Play two Crowd Favorites (E3 each) straight to that battlefield — and Arachnoid Horror too if she is still in hand. 190.3.a.1 applies Contested as they are played; 464.2.c.1 makes you the Attacker with no Standard Move and no exhaust paid.
5. The next Cleanup stages a Combat (323.9: units of opposing players are present) and 323.13 opens it. 465.2.c assigns your summed Might; 465.2.c.3 puts lethal on the lone defender first.
6. 466.3.a gives you the combat, 466.5 establishes Control and 466.5.d makes it a Conquer: 1 point by 471.1, plus every Hunt trigger of every unit present (383.4.c.2.a).

Per iteration

one point and 3-4 XP for 2 Energy plus the bodies you were going to play anyway, with the fight guaranteed to be one-on-many instead of many-on-many

How it ends

engine only — one Score per battlefield per turn (470), two battlefields in a Duel (485.4), three spells a game (103.2.b)

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

• Synergy rules stare-down-empties-the-garrison and dauntless-vanguard-occupied-battlefield-assault (data/synergies.json) 2026-09-06
• Hand walk 2026-09-07 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-07-rules-second-pass.md), issue #170 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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