Combo · ENGINE
417.6.b.3 names Challenge — its damage is dealt by the units, so a blanket 'prevent all spell and ability damage' leaves your own removal working
Pieces
- Unyielding Spirit ×1
OGN-145 · engine · body
[Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Prevent all spell and ability damage this turn.
- Challenge ×1
OGN-128 · payoff · body
[Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Choose a friendly unit and an enemy unit. They deal damage equal to their Mights to each other.
Payoff
Deck
- Any legend with Body among its two domains (103.1.b.3) — 17 names: Relentless Storm (OGN-249), Blind Monk (OGN-257), Bounty Hunter (OGN-267), The Boss (OGN-269), Wuju Bladesman - Starter (OGS-019), Might of Demacia - Starter (OGS-023), Purifier (SFD-183), Grandmaster at Arms (SFD-193), Battle Mistress (SFD-203), Grand Duelist (SFD-205), Pridestalker (UNL-183), Wuju Master (UNL-191), Voidreaver (UNL-201), Keeper of the Hammer (UNL-203), Butcher of the Sands (VEN-141), Defender of Tomorrow (VEN-149), Matriarch of War (VEN-153).
- A friendly unit big enough to trade up — Challenge's damage is its Might, so the entry is only as good as the body you point with.
Prerequisites
- RIOT SETTLES THIS BY NAME, AND IT IS THE WHOLE ENTRY. 417.6.b.3: 'When a spell or ability specifies a Unit as the source of the Damage for the Deal action, it is not in addition to the spell or ability that instructed it. Example: Challenge is a spell that reads "Choose a friendly unit and an enemy unit. They deal damage equal to their Mights to each other." The damage that Challenge causes to be dealt is dealt by the chosen units, not by Challenge.' So Challenge's damage is UNIT damage. Unyielding Spirit prevents 'all spell and ability damage this turn' and never touches it.
- WHAT THAT BUYS: A SYMMETRIC FOG THAT IS NOT SYMMETRIC. Every burn spell in the opponent's deck — every 'Deal N to a unit' — is blanked for the turn, and 437.4 makes the blanking total: 'Damage dealt to a Unit that has that all of that damage Prevented is not considered to have been dealt to it at all', so no kill event is generated and nothing that keys on a unit dying fires either. Meanwhile your own removal, built out of the Challenge family, resolves normally. Combat is untouched for the same reason (417.6.b.1: units are a source of damage in their own right).
- 437.5 is the half that keeps it honest in combat: 'Damage can still be assigned to Units in combat that are affected by Prevent. The damage dealt as a result of that assignment will be affected by the Prevent action.' The fog does not stop assignment, and it is not a Prevent on combat damage anyway — the source there is the units.
- [Reaction] IS WHY IT IS A FOG AND NOT A PLAN. 813.1.c.1 puts Unyielding Spirit in 'Closed States on any player's turn', so it is played in response to the removal spell, after the opponent has committed. 1 Energy + 1 Body Power off runes held ready (167, 415.3.a, 164.2.a) is the price — or off `UNL-093 Dragonsoul Sage`, which is the companion entry.
- THE FAMILY IS WIDER THAN THIS ONE SPELL AND IT IS A DECKBUILDING RULE, NOT A COMBO. Every card in the pool whose removal reads 'they deal damage equal to their Mights to each other' is unit damage by 417.6.b.3: `OGN-128 Challenge`, `OGS-008 Gentlemen's Duel`, `VEN-083 Rampage`, `UNL-110 Clash of Giants`, `SFD-114 Marching Orders`, `OGN-149 Carnivorous Snapvine`, and `SFD-107 Strike Down`. Build the removal suite out of those and Unyielding Spirit costs you nothing at all.
- The trade is still a trade: 143.2.a kills at Might and both bodies take the damage, so Challenge on a 3-Might friend into a 3-Might enemy kills both. The fog does not protect the friendly half, because that damage is unit damage too.
- 437.2 IS WHY 437.4 WORKS, AND IT SITS ONE PARAGRAPH AWAY IN THE SAME BLOCK: "When damage is Prevented, it is replaced with an event where it deals that much damage reduced by the Prevent Value tracked on the Unit specifically." Prevent does not undo damage after the fact - it REPLACES the damage event with a smaller one, and at zero there is nothing left to mark, which is the mechanism behind 437.4's "not considered to have been dealt to it at all." 369.2 puts it beyond argument by naming it: "Some Game Actions are themselves Replacement Effects. Example: Burning Out is a replacement effect. Example: Preventing Damage is a replacement effect." So a Prevent and a heal/exhaust/recall would-die shield are BOTH Replacement Effects and differ in WHICH EVENT they replace - the damage event against the death event - which is the precise reason this line generates no kill event.
Bodies no card supplies
On your turn, cast Challenge (2 Energy + 1 Body Power): choose one of your units and an enemy unit; they deal damage equal to their Mights to each other (143.2.a kills at Might)
Steps
- Build the removal suite out of the 417.6.b.3 family — spells whose damage is dealt by the chosen units.
- On your turn, cast Challenge (2 Energy + 1 Body Power): choose one of your units and an enemy unit; they deal damage equal to their Mights to each other (143.2.a kills at Might).
- Keep 1 Energy and 1 Body Power available for the opponent's turn.
- When they aim a burn spell or a damaging ability at anything of yours, play Unyielding Spirit in that Closed State (813.1.c.1).
- All spell and ability damage is prevented for the turn; 437.4 means it was never dealt, so no kill event exists — while your own Challenge-family removal, being unit damage, is untouched.
Per iteration
-1 Energy -1 Body Power, all enemy spell and ability damage that turn erased
How it ends
engine — a one-Energy answer to every damage-based removal spell in the format, on a turn your own removal still works; 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 #173 — the uncatalogued Fury / Body / Chaos cards 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.
AUTHORED 2026-09-07, issue #173. OGN-145 Unyielding Spirit and OGN-128 Challenge were both in ZERO entries. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt; 103.1.b.3, 143.2.a, 164.2.a, 167, 415.3.a, 417.6.b.1, 417.6.b.3, 437.4, 437.5, 813.1.c.1 opened in the Core Rules file. Both cards legal in both formats; neither is Signature. No unruled reading — 417.6.b.3 names the card. #119 recorded that Prevent generates no kill event and that no repeatable Prevent exists; the source-of-damage split is what turns the one blanket Prevent in the pool from a symmetric fog into a one-sided one.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16