Combo · ENGINE

The refusal is reversed by the partner: an [Empower] priced in runes you CONTROL never needs the rune to be ready

7 cards · calm + mind · verified

Pieces

• Startipped Peak ×1 OGN-288 · battlefield

  When you hold here, you may channel 1 rune exhausted.

• Frostcoat Mother ×3 VEN-032 · payoff · calm

  [Empower] 12 Energy. This ability costs 1 Energy less for each rune you control. (Pay the cost: Empower me. Use only if not Empowered.) [Empowered][>] I have +3 Might.

• Grumpy Rockbear ×3 VEN-050 · payoff · mind

  [Empower] 12 Energy. This ability costs 1 Energy less for each rune you control. (Pay the cost: Empower me. Use only if not Empowered.) [Empowered][>] I have [Deflect] and [Shield 3]. (Opponents must pay 1 Power of any domain to choose me with a spell or ability.+3 Might while I'm a defender.)

Payoff

Deck

• Calm + Mind, which the census gives four legend names and eight base codes: OGN-255 / OGN-303 Nine-Tailed Fox (Ahri), SFD-189 / SFD-244 Fire Below the Mountain (Ornn), UNL-189 / UNL-230 Bashful Bloom (Lillia), VEN-145 / VEN-192 Curator of the Sands (Nasus). Startipped Peak is Colorless and costs no domain (103.4). Nothing here is Signature.
• Startipped Peak has to be the battlefield in play, and 485.5 selects one of the three at random — the entry's own biggest caveat, stated in prerequisites.notable per the project's battlefield rule.

Prerequisites

• WHY THE TWICE-RECORDED REFUSAL DOES NOT APPLY HERE, AND THIS IS THE ENTRY. #102 and the #153 orphan-rules walk both refused Startipped Peak with the same argument: the Hold fires in the Scoring Step (315.2.b.2), Awaken (315.1) has already finished so 315.1.b cannot ready the channelled rune, and 164.2.b's Power would land in the Beginning Phase only for 167 to empty the pool at the start of the Main Phase. Every word of that is true and none of it bites on these two partners, because their discount clause does not ask the rune to be READY or to be SPENT. It reads *'for each rune you control'*. An exhausted rune on the board is a rune you control. The extra rune is worth 1 Energy off the [Empower] cost the instant it is channelled, on the same turn, with nothing readied and nothing spent.
• THE CEILING AND THE SHAPE OF THE CURVE. 161.2.a fixes the Rune Deck at 'Exactly 12 Rune cards', so 'runes you control' tops out at 12 and the [Empower] cost bottoms out at 0. 315.3.b channels 2 a turn (430.4.a) and 430.3 channels as many as possible when the deck runs short, so an untouched deck reaches 12 runes on turn six and both partners Empower for free from then on. Startipped Peak moves that forward by one rune per Hold — held from turn three, it is a turn earlier; and, far more importantly, it is what keeps the number there.
• THE REAL WORK IS THE REFILL, BECAUSE POWER EATS THE DISCOUNT. 164.2.b lets a rune be recycled for Power and 161.2.b sends it 'to the Rune Deck, not the Main Deck' — so every Power you pay REMOVES a rune from the board and adds 1 Energy back onto the [Empower] cost. A deck that pays 3 Power in a turn has undone 3 Energy of its own discount. The Peak's Hold is the only repeating refill in the pool that costs nothing at all, and that tension — Power spent against runes controlled — is what makes it a line rather than a rounding error.
• 441.2 IS WHY THE PAYMENT IS WORTH MAKING ONCE. 'Empowered is a state for Game Objects on the board that other game effects and abilities can reference', and 441.1.a makes it binary. So the Empower is permanent: pay it at the moment the rune count is highest and the +3 Might, or the [Deflect] and [Shield 3], stay for the rest of the game. 441.1.b ('An Empowered Game Object can not be Empowered') is also why three copies of each is three separate payments, not one cheaper one.
• THE ARITHMETIC, WITH THE QUANTITIES DECLARED. On the turn you control 8 runes, either [Empower] costs 12 - 8 = 4 Energy. Frostcoat Mother then stands at M6 for a total of E3 + 4; Grumpy Rockbear at M4 with [Deflect] and [Shield 3] — 814.1's granted Shield making him a M7 defender — for E4 + 4. With the Peak held from turn three you are at 8 runes a full turn earlier than a deck without it, and at 12 while a Power-hungry deck is sliding back to 9.
• THE RUNE ARRIVES EXHAUSTED AND THAT IS FINE, BUT SAY WHAT IT COSTS. 430.2.a's default is that runes are channelled ready unless the effect says otherwise, and the Peak says 'exhausted'. So the extra rune pays no Energy this turn and no Power this turn; it is a COUNTER for the discount now and a resource from your next Awakening (315.1.b). An entry that priced it as mana would be the refusal the walks already made.
• WHAT REFUTES IT. (a) 485.5 selects the battlefield at random from the three each player provides, and 103.4.c forbids more than one battlefield of a name, so the Peak is not guaranteed to be on the table. (b) The Peak's trigger is a Hold, so it pays nothing on a turn you control no battlefield. (c) Neither partner scores; this is a resource engine whose product is a permanently Empowered body, and 441.2 is the only reason that product does not expire.

Steps

1. Provide Startipped Peak as one of your three battlefields (103.4.c); 485.5 decides whether it is the one in play.
2. Play Frostcoat Mother (E3) and/or Grumpy Rockbear (E4). 143.4 makes each enter exhausted; nothing in this line asks them to move.
3. Every turn, 315.3.b channels 2 runes in your Channel Phase (430.4.a).
4. Every Beginning Phase you control the Peak, 315.2.b.2 Holds it and its trigger offers 'channel 1 rune exhausted'. Take it: the rune is a rune you CONTROL from that instant, exhausted or not.
5. In the Main Phase, count the runes on the board and pay the [Empower]: 12 Energy minus that count (356.6 floors it at 0). At 8 runes it is 4 Energy; at 12 it is free.
6. 441.1.a and 441.2 make Empowered a permanent board state: the +3 Might, or the [Deflect] and [Shield 3], never expire and never have to be paid again.

Per iteration

one extra rune on the board per Hold, which is 1 Energy off every rune-priced [Empower] in the deck, permanently and with nothing readied or spent

How it ends

engine only — 161.2.a caps the board at 12 runes and 356.6 floors the cost at 0; 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

Walked here, in this project

• Synergy rule startipped-peak-rune-ramp (data/synergies.json) 2026-09-06
• Hand walk 2026-09-06, orphan synergy rules (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-orphan-synergy-rules.md) — the refusal this entry reverses 2026-09-06 record
• 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

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue