Combo · CHAIN · 8 points

Bard relocates the whole pack — the same Swain trigger paid twice, at two battlefields, in one Main Phase

5 cards · mind + fury · verified

Pieces

• Swain, Visionary ×3 VEN-065 · payoff · mind

  [Vision] (When you play me, look at the top card of your Main Deck. You may recycle it.) When I conquer, if you've played a non-token unit, a non-token gear, and a spell this turn, you score 1 point.

• Red Brambleback ×1 UNL-029 · engine · fury

  [Accelerate] (You may pay 1 Energy + 1 Fury Power as an additional cost to have me enter ready.) Your conquer effects for conquering here trigger an additional time. When I conquer, [Buff] a friendly unit. (Give it a +1 Might buff if it doesn't have one.)

• Bard, Mercurial ×1 SFD-079 · enabler · mind

  You may exhaust your legend as an additional cost to play me. When you play me, if you paid the additional cost, move any number of your units to an open battlefield.

Payoff

Deck

• Legend domains cover Fury and Mind. Measured over data/cards.json 2026-09-09, the pool prints THREE Fury/Mind legend names across six base codes: Daughter of the Void (OGN-247 / OGN-299), Mechanized Menace (SFD-181 / SFD-240), Virtuoso (UNL-181 / UNL-226).
• None of the three cards is Signature (checked on the signature field in data/cards.json), and no legend in the pool carries the Swain tag or the Bard tag, so 103.2.d.2 forces no legend and all three names are open.

Prerequisites

• THE SECOND CONQUER IS WORTH SEVEN, NOT ONE, AND THAT IS THE ENTRY'S REAL CONTENT. Every other double-Conquer line in the catalogue takes the second battlefield with a spare body, which pays the 1-point Score and nothing else, because a conquer payoff has to be PRESENT (383.4.c.2: 'This category of Triggered Abilities encompasses only those that are triggered from Units that were present during the Conquer action, or Abilities that reference the player that performed the Conquer action.'). SFD-079 Bard, Mercurial moves the payoffs THEMSELVES — 'move any number of your units to an open battlefield' — so the same three Swains and the same Brambleback are present at the second Conquer as at the first, and the turn pays 7 + 7 = FOURTEEN across two scoring events rather than 7 + 1 = 8.
• IT SURVIVES THE STARVATION RULE THAT KILLS THE REST OF THE CONQUER BUCKET, AND HERE IS THE ONE-LINE TEST. A conquer payoff that needs an enemy garrison is worth one turn and is inert from the second, because 323.9 stages a Combat only where units of opposing players are present and 807.1.d ties every attack trigger to the Attacker designation. Ask of every conquer payoff: DOES IT NEED AN ENEMY GARRISON? Swain's does not — his trigger reads 'When I conquer', which 344.2 delivers with no opponent on the board at all: 'If Control of a Battlefield is Contested, there aren't units controlled by different players there, and the turn is in a Neutral Open State, a Showdown is opened during the next Cleanup', then 348.2.a establishes Control and 348.2.a.1 says 'This results in a Conquer if that player has not yet scored that Battlefield this turn.' This line wants an EMPTY board and is strongest exactly where an attack-trigger line is dead.
• THE SEQUENCING RUNS ON 319.8, AND THAT IS WHY BOTH CONQUERS FIT IN ONE MAIN PHASE. 319 lists when a Cleanup becomes an Outstanding Task, and 319.8 is 'After a Move is completed' (319.6, 'After any number of Game Objects enter or leave the Board', is the companion). So the pack's Standard Move gets its own Cleanup, which opens the Showdown at the first battlefield; then Bard's effect move gets a second Cleanup, which opens the Showdown at the second. Nothing waits for a phase change.
• AN EFFECT MOVE IS NOT BOUND BY 144.4, WHICH IS THE ONLY REASON THE PACK CAN LEAVE THE FIRST BATTLEFIELD AT ALL. 420.3 makes the Standard Move a Discretionary Action whose Cost is 'Exhausting one or more Units' (420.3.a), and 144.4 restricts ITS destinations to base and battlefield; 449 is a separate route — 'Spells, Abilities, or other effects may cause a Move to occur.' — with 449.1 leaving the destination rules to the source. So Bard moves bodies that are already exhausted from their own Standard Move, battlefield to battlefield, with no [Ganking] anywhere in the line.
• 'OPEN' IS BOTH CONDITIONS AND IT IS THE REAL PRICE OF THIS ENTRY. 170.11.c: 'Battlefields can be "open." This means they are unoccupied and uncontrolled.' Bard's destination must be open at the moment his trigger resolves, so the second battlefield must have no garrison AND no controller. That is the board after a wipe, or the early board — 190.1, 'Control is established over Battlefields through the course of play.' Against an opponent who controls the second battlefield the line stops at 7 and is not a CHAIN. No sweeper is named in uses[] because the ones that manufacture this board are out of Fury/Mind identity; that is a deckbuilding choice, not a step.
• SWAIN'S CONDITION HAS TO BE PAID BEFORE THE FIRST CONQUER, AND BARD CANNOT PAY IT. 383.2.a.1: 'Any additional conditional statement immediately after the Condition must be true in order for the Condition to be fulfilled. Such a conditional statement is part of the Trigger Condition and not the Effect.' Bard is played AFTER the first Conquer has already resolved, so he is not the non-token unit for it. The finishing turn therefore needs a cheap non-token unit, a gear and a spell played before the pack moves — a Seal is a gear at Energy 0. Playing Bard first instead makes him the first mover and strands the pack at one battlefield: that ordering is worth 8, not 14.
• ONE BARD A TURN, BY THE LEGEND'S EXHAUST. The additional cost is exhausting your legend, and 315.1.b readies it only at your own Awakening, so a second Bard in the same turn cannot pay it and 103.2.b's three copies buy three TURNS, not three relocations. A card that readies your legend would lift that, and would be a sixth card.
• WHY VAYNE IS NOT THE SECOND-CONQUER BODY, CHECKED RATHER THAN ASSUMED. Her Might of 2 turns out to be the wrong worry: on this line's bloodless route 465.1 opens no damage step at all ('If both Attacking and Defending units remain at this battlefield, the following Tasks become Outstanding'), so she is never assigned damage and her size is never tested. What actually refuses her is her own ready clause. She reads 'If an opponent controls a battlefield, I enter ready', and this line needs a board where the opponent controls NEITHER battlefield — so the clause is off, 143.4 applies ('Units enter the Board exhausted'), and 144.2 makes exhausting the unit the cost of the Standard Move, so she cannot move the turn she is played and must be deployed a turn early. She is playable that way; she is simply worth 1 point where Bard is worth 7, because she arrives alone and 383.4.c.2 pays only what is present.
• TWIN OF swain-brambleback-conquer-burst, AND THE TRADE IS BOARD FOR POINTS. That entry is the same payoff and the same multiplier at 3 Swain + 2 Brambleback: 10 points in ONE scoring event, needing only one battlefield to be takeable. This entry drops the second Brambleback for Bard: 14 points across TWO scoring events, but it needs BOTH battlefields open. Neither supersedes the other and each names the other.
• 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. Over earlier turns, deploy three Swain, Visionary (E6 + 1 Mind Power each) and one Red Brambleback (E4 + 1 Fury Power): E22 + 3 Mind + 1 Fury Power.
2. On the finishing turn, with both battlefields open, play a cheap non-token unit, a gear (a Seal is Energy 0) and a cheap spell, satisfying Swain's condition before anything conquers.
3. Standard-move the three Swains and the Brambleback from your base to the first battlefield in ONE action (144.3, shared destination, exhausts paid simultaneously).
4. Cleanup (319.8): 450 applies Contested, 344.2 opens a Showdown, 348.2.a establishes Control, 348.2.a.1 makes it a Conquer. 1 Score plus three Swain triggers doubled by the Brambleback = SEVEN.
5. Still in the Main Phase, play Bard, Mercurial (E4 + 1 Mind Power) and exhaust your legend as the additional cost. His trigger moves the three Swains and the Brambleback to the second battlefield, which must be open.
6. Cleanup: the second battlefield is Contested, its Showdown opens, Control is established, and 348.2.a.1 makes it a Conquer. 1 Score plus six Gains = SEVEN again. Fourteen points, two scoring events, one turn.

How it ends

fourteen points across two Conquers in a single Main Phase — two Scores and twelve ability Gains that 470 does not cap — for E22 + 3 Mind + 1 Fury Power of deployment spread over earlier turns, and on the finishing turn Bard at E4 + 1 Mind Power plus a unit, a gear and a spell as filler

Sources

Walked here, in this project

• Hand walk 2026-09-09, conquer-engine finisher lane, batch 2 2026-09-09 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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