Combo · ENGINE

Sunken Temple is a Monastery of Hirana gated on 5+ Might — and that gate is exactly what the catalogue's cheapest conquer engine cannot supply

4 cards · body · verified

Pieces

• Sunken Temple ×1 SFD-218 · battlefield

  When you conquer here with one or more [Mighty] units, you may pay 1 Energy to draw 1. (A unit is Mighty while it has 5+ Might.)

• Mountain Drake ×3 OGN-142 · enabler · body

Payoff

Deck

• Mountain Drake is mono-Body and Sunken Temple is Colorless, so 103.1.b.3 admits any legend with Body in its pair: SFD-203/SFD-250 Battle Mistress, OGN-257/OGN-304 Blind Monk, OGN-267/OGN-309 Bounty Hunter, VEN-141/VEN-190 Butcher of the Sands, VEN-149/VEN-194 Defender of Tomorrow, SFD-205/SFD-251 Grand Duelist, SFD-193/SFD-245 Grandmaster at Arms, UNL-203/UNL-237 Keeper of the Hammer, VEN-153/VEN-196 Matriarch of War, OGS-023 Might of Demacia - Starter, UNL-183/UNL-227 Pridestalker, SFD-183/SFD-241 Purifier, OGN-249/OGN-300 Relentless Storm, OGN-269/OGN-310 The Boss, UNL-201/UNL-236 Voidreaver, UNL-191/UNL-231 Wuju Master, OGS-019 Wuju Bladesman - Starter (restricted in 2v2).

Prerequisites

• THE GATE IS THE REASON THIS IS A SEPARATE ENTRY AND NOT A COPY OF THE MONASTERY, AND IT EXPOSES A LIMIT OF `needs`. `needs: [conquer-engine]` composes this with every entry that produces that feature — but the feature cannot express 'and the conquering body must be 5+ Might'. The catalogue's cheapest repeatable conquer engine, sprite-queen-targon-peak-conquer-cycle, conquers with a 3-MIGHT Sprite and therefore does NOT satisfy Sunken Temple. Read the condition, not the feature tag.
• WHAT DOES SATISFY IT: any conquer engine whose body is 5+ Might — might-of-demacia-four-body-conquer-draw's garrison if one of the four is large, an evacuation line that walks a real unit in, or simply retaking the battlefield each turn with a Mountain Drake under an effect mover. The vacate-and-retake cycle of sprite-queen-targon-peak-conquer-cycle works if the walker is a Mighty body rather than the Sprite.
• THE DRAW IS OPTIONAL AND ITS COST IS PAID ON RESOLUTION, NOT AT FINALIZATION. 'You may pay :rb_energy_1: to draw 1' has the cost inside the effect after the condition rather than immediately following a leading 'you may' that opens the effect, so 383.3.b's base-cost rule does not apply and 205's game-action-at-resolution shape does — unlike OGN-282 Monastery of Hirana, whose 'you may spend a buff to draw 1' IS a base cost and forces its engine one event out of step.
• ONE CARD PER CONQUER, AND 470 CAPS THE CONQUER AT ONE PER BATTLEFIELD PER TURN with 485.4 putting two battlefields on a Duel table. Burn Out (431.1.a) is the ceiling on running it hard.
• SUNKEN TEMPLE IS NOT GUARANTEED TO BE ON THE TABLE: 485.4.a, 485.5, 486.5 and 103.4.c as for every battlefield entry.
• 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.
• 204.3.a IS THE FIRST AND CLEANER SOURCE FOR THIS, AND IT CARRIES THE WORKED EXAMPLE: "When Costs within Instructions appear as the first part of the effect in triggered abilities, the cost is taken to be the base cost of the triggered ability. It must be paid to finalize the triggered ability", with Riot's example being Overzealous Fan - "When I defend, you may kill me to move an attacking unit to its base" - and the note that "in order to finalize the ability to the chain, its controller must kill Overzealous Fan". 383.3.b says the same thing later in the book. The companion is 204.3.b: a cost appearing in a SPELL, in an ACTIVATED ability, or in a LATER part of a trigger's effect is paid on resolution instead, which is the 205 "pay X. If you do, Y" family and the reason the two look alike on the card and behave differently on the chain.

Steps

1. Bring Sunken Temple as one of your three battlefields, in a deck whose conquering body is 5 Might or more.
2. Conquer it with that body — either the bloodless 344.2 route against an empty battlefield, or a real Combat that 323.9 stages against a garrison.
3. 348.2.a establishes Control and 348.2.a.1 makes it a Conquer. The Temple's trigger checks its condition: at least one [Mighty] unit among those that conquered here.
4. Pay 1 Energy on resolution and draw 1.
5. Give the battlefield up and retake it to repeat — 315.2.b.2's mandatory Hold plus 470 mean a battlefield taken and kept fires its conquer clause exactly once.

Per iteration

one card for 1 Energy, per Conquer at Sunken Temple made with a 5+ Might body

How it ends

engine only — one card per Conquer, at whatever rate the conquer engine supplies and only while the conquering body is 5+ Might; 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

• 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

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue