Combo · ENGINE
763.1's closed tag list is EXACTLY the 127 tags the pool prints, so The List never misses - and an unfloored -2 takes a Might-5 body into Mel's banish window
Pieces
- The List ×3
UNL-138 · engine · chaos
As you play this, name a tag. (For example, Miss Fortune, Demacia, and Poro are tags.) Exhaust: Give a unit with the named tag -2 Might this turn.
- Mel, Defiant Soul ×3
VEN-110 · payoff · chaos
[Empower] — Discard a spell (Pay the cost: Empower me. Use only if not Empowered.) When I become [Empowered], banish an enemy unit at a battlefield with 3 Might or less.
Payoff
Repeatable removal
Deck
- Both cards are mono-Chaos, so 103.1.b.1 is satisfied by any legend carrying Chaos - the census gives sixteen names, among them Loose Cannon (OGN-251), Unforgiven (OGN-259), Dark Child - Starter (OGS-017), Blade Dancer (SFD-195), Gloomist (UNL-193) and Master of Shadows (VEN-143).
- Neither card is Signature (checked against the signature flag in data/cards.json), so 103.2.d.2 narrows nothing. Checked against data/legality.json rather than typed: neither UNL-138 nor VEN-110 appears in it, and the file holds exactly one non-banned row in total - a Calm/Body starter legend restricted in 2v2 - which cannot be a Chaos legend and so never reaches this list.
Prerequisites
- 763 AND 763.1 WERE CITED BY NOTHING, AND THE LIST IS EXACTLY THE POOL. 763: 'When instructed to name a tag, a player cannot choose to name a tag that does not exist on cards or tokens in Riftbound.' 763.1 then enumerates them. Measured 2026-09-07 against data/cards.json: 763.1 names 127 tags and the pool prints 127, and the two sets are IDENTICAL in both directions - nothing listed is absent from a card and nothing on a card is absent from the list. So the rule never binds UNL-138; the only thing that constrains it is foresight. One transcription caveat for the next reader: the rules text wraps the line mid-name and the extracted text reads 'Miss, Fortune', which read as two tags produces a false mismatch.
- NAMING A TAG IS NOT NAMING A CARD, AND THAT IS WHY IT REACHES TOKENS. 762.2: 'A player cannot choose the name of a token when instructed to name a card.' 763 asks only that the TAG exist 'on cards or tokens', and the token definitions hand tags out by rule - 187.4: 'A 3 [M] Mech token is a domainless unit token with 3 Might and the Mech tag'; 187.7: 'A 1 [M] Bird token is a domainless unit token with 1 Might, the Bird tag, and the Deflect keyword'; 187.3 the same for Sand Soldier and Shurima. So naming Mech, Bird or Shurima reaches bodies whose NAMES 762.2 would forbid you to name.
- 761.1 AND 761.2 - THE CARD HALF OF THE SAME BLOCK - HAVE NO USER IN THE POOL. They read '1. Stating the exact name of the card.' and '2. Identifying a combination of traits and characteristics that can identify that card uniquely.' Measured 2026-09-07, a grep over data/corpus_flat.txt for 'name a card', 'name a unit', 'guess' and 'name a tag' returns exactly ONE row, UNL-138 - and it names a tag. 762 ('a player must name a card that is legal in the Format being played') and 762.1 are therefore dead letter today, and this is recorded so the next reader does not spend a walk looking for the card.
- THE CHOICE IS LOCKED BEFORE THE BOARD IS. 'As you play this, name a tag' is an as-you-play choice, and 752.2 freezes those against any later remake, so the tag is committed at least a turn before the body you want to shrink has to exist. Three copies (103.2.b) is how the deck buys three guesses rather than one, and the pool's tag distribution is what makes a guess reasonable: a champion tag names one body, a region tag such as Noxus or Demacia names dozens.
- THE REDUCTION IS UNFLOORED AND REPEATABLE, AND ITS TIMING IS YOUR OWN TURN ONLY. The List prints '-2 :rb_might: this turn' with no minimum - the Origins reductions carry a floor and the Spiritforged, Unleashed and Vendetta ones do not - so it is worth its full 2 even against a small body, since 143.2.b makes a negative Might READ as 0 without BEING 0. Its cost is an exhaust inside an Activated Ability (a colon, 377.1), so 381 confines it to an Open State on your own turn and 415.3.a hands the exhaust back every Awakening: one use per turn, forever, for a 1-Energy gear.
- WHAT THE PAIR REACHES, AND WHAT IT DOES NOT. Mel banishes 'an enemy unit at a battlefield with 3 :rb_might: or less', so The List moves that gate from 3 to 5. 477.3.e.2.a applies decreases LAST, so a pump played in response does not outrun the reduction. The banish is permanent - 108.6.c - which is why this is one of the few answers a trash engine cannot recycle around, and it is scoped to a BATTLEFIELD, so a body sitting at their base is out of reach.
- MEL IS BOUNDED AND THE LIST IS NOT - DO NOT READ THE PAIR AS ONE ENGINE. '[Empower] - Discard a spell' is one of the five [Empower] costs in the pool that pay neither Energy nor Power, and 441.1.b ('An Empowered Game Object can not be Empowered') makes each copy a single banish; 103.2.b caps the line at three. The repeatable half is the gear; the payoff half fires three times a game.
Steps
- Play The List for 1 Energy and, as you play it, name a tag (763, 763.1). 752.2 freezes that choice, so pick against the opponent's declared identity rather than their current board.
- Later, on your own turn in an Open State (381), exhaust The List: the chosen enemy unit with that tag takes -2 Might for the turn, with no floor.
- Pay Mel's [Empower] by discarding a spell. 441.1 renders her Empowered and 441.2 makes the state permanent.
- Her trigger - 'When I become [Empowered], banish an enemy unit at a battlefield with 3 :rb_might: or less' - now reads the reduced Might. A body printed at 5 is at 3 and is inside the window.
- 108.6.c keeps the banished card out of the game; nothing in the pool returns it.
- At your next Awakening, 415.3.a readies The List for the next turn's reduction. Mel does not come back - a second banish needs a second copy.
Per iteration
-2 Might on a named-tag enemy unit per turn, converting into one permanent banish per Mel copy
How it ends
engine - one unfloored -2 Might a turn forever from a 1-Energy gear, and up to three permanent banishes that reach a Might-5 body instead of a Might-3 one; 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, issue #191 - uncited Core Rules sub-rules 500-899 2026-09-07 record
How this entry was audited
REFUTE = a refutation pass, with its date and verdict · WOUNDED = the pass found a flaw and the entry was rewritten · BUDGETED = the pass checked the recycle-and-draw ledger · lens = the hunt that proposed it.
763 and 763.1 were uncited by data/combos.json and data/synergies.json before this entry, and 762.2 appeared once. The measured claim - 763.1's closed list is exactly the pool's 127 tags, in both directions - is checkable in one script against data/cards.json. The refusal that came with it is recorded in the notable: 761.1 / 761.2 / 762 / 762.1, the card-naming half of the same block, have NO user in the pool, because the only card that names anything names a tag. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. No unruled reading.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16