Combo · ENGINE
Tianna Crownguard behind two Tanks and Alpha Wildclaw — the opponent scores nothing while she stands
Pieces
- Tianna Crownguard ×1
SFD-060 · payoff · calm
[Deflect] (Opponents must pay 1 Power of any domain to choose me with a spell or ability.) While I'm at a battlefield, opponents can't gain points.
- Alpha Wildclaw ×1
UNL-057 · enabler · calm
[Tank] (I must be assigned combat damage first.) Your units here with less Might than me can't be chosen by enemy spells and abilities.
- Galio, Indefatigable ×2
UNL-171 · enabler · order
[Deflect] (Opponents must pay 1 Power of any domain to choose me with a spell or ability.) [Tank] (I must be assigned combat damage first.) I don't deal combat damage.
Payoff
Deck
- Legend domains cover Calm and Order: OGN-261 Radiant Dawn, SFD-247 Emperor of the Sands, UNL-195 Green Father or VEN-147 Eye of Twilight. Eye of Twilight hands out [Tank] for an exhaust each turn, so under her the second Galio is optional.
- All four bodies at the same battlefield, which is also what Alpha Wildclaw's "here" requires.
Prerequisites
- It stops points, not winning. 194.1 lists the four ways to gain points - hold (a), conquer (b), a spell or ability that says to gain them (c), and Burn Out (d) - and "opponents can't gain points" cuts all four. It does NOT stop rule 195, the "you win the game" effects, because 194.2 makes winning a separate thing from gaining points; every ALT_WIN line in the catalogue goes straight through this wall. NAMED BY CARD RATHER THAN COUNTED BY ENTRY, because an entry count rots on every merge while a card set rots only when Riot prints a set: the pool holds exactly TWO live win conditions and all 26 ALT_WIN entries stand on one of them (23 on "OGN-293 The Grand Plaza", 3 on "UNL-088 Gutter Palace", none on both and none on neither, re-measured 2026-09-13). "OGN-276 Aspirant's Climb" carries the phrase and grants no win - it raises the Victory Score - and is banned in both formats. The sentence this replaces said "the catalogue's five ALT_WIN lines" with no as-of date, and the class was 26 when it was re-read.
- Any battlefield does. Tianna's text asks only that she be AT one, not that you control it, so nothing here depends on which of your three battlefields came up (485.4.a / 485.5 / 486.5 / 487.5) and no battlefield name is an ingredient.
- Combat is the honest way through and it costs 23 Might in one combat. 815.1.b makes every [Tank] take lethal before any non-Tank the same player controls, 465.2.c.3 forces lethal in full before moving on, and 465.2.c.4 forbids over-assigning: 7 (Wildclaw) + 6 + 6 (Galios) + 4 (Tianna) = 23. Combat damage does not choose, so Deflect never applies to it.
- Spells and abilities are shut off entirely, not taxed, while Alpha Wildclaw lives. 355.7 makes any card that Chooses a Game Object a targeting card, and UNL-057 says units here below her 7 Might can't be chosen by enemy spells and abilities - so Star-Crossed, Gust and Smoke Screen cannot touch Tianna or the Galios at all. Alpha Wildclaw herself has no Deflect and is the way in: she is one card of entry fee. Once she is gone the wall falls back to the printed Deflect tax, 1 Power per choice in any domain (809.1.c, 809.1.c.1, 356.2.a.2).
- UNL-041 Allay, Eager Admirer was in the hunt's version of this entry and was cut, because Tianna and both Galios already print [Deflect] and the only thing Allay could add is a summed value - which is exactly what 809.2 leaves unresolved, since it says "the Deflect Value of all granted Deflect keywords is summed" without saying whether the printed value joins them. Cutting the card removes an unresolved reading, saves 3 Energy and loses nothing.
- What breaks it, printed and in the pool. OGN-268 Bullet Time (Body/Chaos, 1 Energy, "Pay any amount of rainbow to deal that much damage to all enemy units at a battlefield") kills all four for 23 Power without paying a single Power of Deflect and without Alpha Wildclaw mattering, because it chooses a battlefield and not units. VEN-004 Dune Surfer (Fury, 3 Energy, 3 Might) reads "You ignore [Tank] while assigning combat damage here" and turns the 23 into 4. VEN-158 Heisho, Shell of the World switches Deflect off at its own battlefield. And Tianna only denies points "While I'm at a battlefield", so a bounce or a move disarms her without killing her - which under Alpha Wildclaw means killing Wildclaw first.
- 143.4 enters all four exhausted, so the wall is a turn behind the cards that build it, and 19 Energy + 6 Power is several turns of paying for it. This is a wall that buys turns, not a lock.
- A LOCK ON POINTS IS NOT A LOCK ON TRIGGERS, AND THIS ENTRY DOES NOT SAY WHICH ONE IT SELLS (upgrade 2026-09-12, #187 batch 33). **383.4.c.2.c**: *"If the act of gaining one point from Conquering is negated or replaced in any way, the Conquer Effect will still trigger"*, with 383.4.d.2.c the identical sentence for Holding. `SFD-060 Tianna Crownguard` negates *the gaining of one point* — which is the exact word those paragraphs are written for — so **the opponent still CONQUERS and every Conquer Effect they control still fires**: they take the battlefield under 348.2.a or 466.5, and they still fire `UNL-187 Piltover Enforcer`s ready, `SFD-187 Void Burrower`s dig, and `UNL-195 Green Father`s Brush replacement. The same holds for a Hold under 383.4.d.2.c. Both paragraphs were cited only inside conquer ARITHMETIC before this, never in the denial lens where they actually bite.
Steps
- Take a battlefield and build on it over several turns: Alpha Wildclaw (6 Energy + 2 Calm Power), the two Galios (3 Energy + 1 Order Power each), and Tianna Crownguard (7 Energy + 2 Calm Power). Each enters exhausted (143.4).
- With Tianna standing at the battlefield, the opponent gains no points from holding, conquering, a point-granting ability or your Burn Out (194.1).
- Their spells cannot reach Tianna or the Galios while Alpha Wildclaw is there (355.7 plus UNL-057), so the removal has to start by killing a 7-Might body that has no Deflect.
- Their combat has to assign lethal to all three Tanks before Tianna (815.1.b, 465.2.c.3, 465.2.c.4): 23 Might at one battlefield in one combat, against a wall where two of the three deal no combat damage back.
How it ends
the opponent's score is frozen for as long as Tianna stands at a battlefield; it buys turns for a payoff, it does not win by itself
Sources
Walked here, in this project
- Reaction/Deflect lens hunt, issue #44 candidate 3 (rc-huntF) 2026-09-05
- Hand walk 2026-09-06 2026-09-06 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.
HAND-WALKED 2026-09-06 (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-reaction-deflect-candidates.md), issue #44 candidate 3, REWRITTEN. The hunt's package was Tianna + 2 Galio + UNL-041 Allay, and Allay does nothing there: all three of the others already print [Deflect], so its grant is either redundant or turns on 809.2's unresolved question about whether a printed Deflect Value sums with granted ones. Allay is out and UNL-057 Alpha Wildclaw is in, which is a different kind of card - a 7-Might [Tank] that makes every unit here below 7 Might unchoosable by enemy spells and abilities, which is what actually answers the three refutations (Star-Crossed, Gust, Smoke Screen) the hunt wrote against its own entry. Two printed answers the hunt missed are now in the refutation: VEN-004 Dune Surfer ignores Tank outright, and OGN-268 Bullet Time never chooses a unit so neither Deflect nor Wildclaw sees it. Verified by hand that "can't gain points" appears on exactly one card in the pool.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16