Combo · ENGINE

A [Temporary] Sprite is a death you can put in the calendar, and it is the only way to make 'I enter ready' fire every single turn

4 cards · calm · verified

Pieces

• Trevor Snoozebottom ×1 UNL-048 · engine · calm

  [Shield] (+1 Might while I'm a defender.) When I hold, play a ready 3 Might Sprite unit token with [Temporary] here. (Kill it at the start of its controller's next Beginning Phase, before scoring.)

• Shadow Watcher ×3 UNL-037 · payoff · calm

  If a friendly unit died during your Beginning Phase this turn, I enter ready.

Payoff

Deck

• Both cards are mono-Calm, so ANY legend whose two domains include Calm runs the line (103.1.b.1). Nothing here is Signature (103.2.d.2).
• One battlefield Trevor holds. The first Sprite arrives on the first Hold, and the schedule starts from the Beginning Phase after that.

Prerequisites

• THE SCHEDULE, PARAGRAPH BY PARAGRAPH. 816.1.b: [Temporary] is 'functionally short for "At the start of this permanent's controller's Beginning Phase, before scoring, kill this"', and 816.1.c makes the Trigger Condition 'the controller of the permanent's Beginning Phase starting'. So last turn's Sprite dies INSIDE your Beginning Phase, before 315.2.b.2's Hold — which is exactly the window Shadow Watcher reads: 'If a friendly unit died during your Beginning Phase this turn.' The Hold then makes a fresh Sprite, and the cycle repeats for as long as Trevor holds.
• WITHOUT THE SPRITE THE CONDITION IS A COINCIDENCE. A friendly unit dying inside YOUR OWN Beginning Phase is not something ordinary play produces: 315.1 Awaken and 315.2 Beginning Phase come before 316's Main Phase, so nothing you cast that turn can cause it, and combat is a Main Phase event. The only repeatable causes in the pool are [Temporary] bodies, whose whole definition is a death at that instant. Trevor is the one that makes a NEW one every turn at no cost.
• WHAT 'I ENTER READY' IS AND IS NOT. 143.4: 'Units enter the Board exhausted.' 143.4.a allows that to be altered, and this is such an alteration. It is NOT a ready — 415.1 defines Readying as marking a Game Object already on the board, and #56's sweep of the pool established that the 48 'enters ready' cards can never give an exhaust back. What it buys is precisely one thing: Shadow Watcher can pay 144.2's exhaust for a Standard Move on the turn he lands, so a M5 body can be played and walked into an open battlefield in the same Main Phase (144.4.a) and Conquer it that turn (323.8, 323.12, 348.2.a, 348.2.a.1).
• THE SPRITE IS A TOKEN, AND IT STILL DIES. 185 — 'Tokens are not cards' — and 186.1 makes it cease to exist the moment it enters a Non-Board Zone, so it never reaches the trash and can never be recycled or reanimated. But the DEATH event happens, which is all Shadow Watcher's clause asks for; the same fact is what makes UNL-199 Deceiver's [Temporary] Reflection a feed for 'when a friendly unit dies' payoffs elsewhere in the catalogue.
• THE SPRITE IS PRINTED READY AND ARRIVES AT TREVOR'S BATTLEFIELD. 'Play a READY 3 Might Sprite unit token with [Temporary] HERE' — so it is a 3-Might body that can move or fight the turn it appears, standing where the Hold happened rather than at your base, which is the walk-to-the-battlefield bottleneck this project has recorded since #48. It also means the garrison is one body wider every turn, at the price of it evaporating each Beginning Phase.
• COST AND RATE, WITH THE QUANTITIES DECLARED. Trevor E3, Shadow Watcher E4 + 1 Calm Power. From the second Hold onward the schedule is unbroken, so each of three Shadow Watchers enters ready on any turn you choose. Three copies is three same-turn Conquers over a game (103.2.b), and 470 with 485.4 caps any one turn at two.
• WHAT REFUTES IT. (a) Break the chain and the payoff is gone: if Trevor stops holding — he dies, or you lose the battlefield — no Sprite is made, so nothing dies next Beginning Phase and Shadow Watcher enters exhausted like anything else. (b) Trevor is M3 with [Shield] (+1 while defending), so he is a soft link. (c) The Sprite cannot be saved: 816.2 makes further instances of [Temporary] redundant and nothing in the pool removes the keyword; UNL-199 Deceiver's 'Your [Temporary] effects at my battlefield don't trigger' (R10 = A) would switch the schedule OFF, not preserve the body.

Steps

1. Play Trevor Snoozebottom (E3) and walk him to a battlefield you control (144.4.a, 144.2).
2. At your next Beginning Phase, 315.2.b.2 Holds it. Trevor's trigger plays a ready 3 Might Sprite unit token with [Temporary] at that battlefield.
3. At the Beginning Phase after that, 816.1.b kills the Sprite 'before scoring' — a friendly unit has died during your Beginning Phase this turn — and then the Hold makes a fresh one.
4. In that turn's Main Phase, play Shadow Watcher (E4 + 1 Calm Power). His condition is met, so he enters READY rather than exhausted (143.4.a).
5. Standard-Move him straight into an open battlefield the same turn (144.4.a; his own exhaust is the cost, 144.2 / 420.3.a). Contested applies (190.3.a.1, 450).
6. The next Cleanup stages a Showdown and no Combat (323.8, 323.9); 323.12 opens it; 348.2.a and 348.2.a.1 Conquer it and 471.1 pays a point — on the turn he was cast.

Per iteration

a 3 Might body at your battlefield every turn, and a scheduled death that lets a 5 Might unit be played and take a battlefield in the same Main Phase

How it ends

engine only — the Sprite evaporates each Beginning Phase and three Shadow Watchers is three same-turn Conquers a game (103.2.b); nothing here scores beyond the Conquer

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 shadow-watcher-temporary-death-window (data/synergies.json) 2026-09-06
• 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