Combo · ENGINE
Shadow is Vex's Signature card, so this is a one-legend line — a stun at Showdown speed every turn, and a 6-Might Tank teleports onto it
Pieces
- Vex, Mocking ×1
UNL-055 · payoff · calm
[Shield] (+1 Might while I'm a defender.) [Tank] (I must be assigned combat damage first.) When you [Stun] an enemy unit at a battlefield, you may move me to that battlefield.
- Shadow ×3
UNL-194 · engine · calm/chaos
If you play me to a battlefield, I enter ready. [Action][>] 1 Energy + 1 Power of any domain, Exhaust: [Stun] an enemy unit attacking here. (It doesn't deal combat damage this turn.)
- Gloomist ×1
UNL-193 · legend · calm/chaos
When you or an ally hold, you may exhaust me to draw 1.
Payoff
Deck
- ONE legend, not a domain list: UNL-194 Shadow is a Signature card tagged Vex, and 103.2.d.2 makes every Signature card carry the legend's champion tag, so the only legal legend is Gloomist (UNL-193, and its identically named second printing UNL-232). The Calm/Chaos domains happen to fit, but the domains are not what decides it.
- 1 Energy and 1 rainbow Power available on the opponent's turn, off runes held ready (167, 415.3.a, 164.2.a).
Prerequisites
- THE LEGEND LINE IS FORCED BY A TAG, NOT BY DOMAINS. 103.2.d.2 makes every Signature card carry its legend's champion tag; Shadow is tagged Vex, and a sweep of every legend in data/cards.json for the Vex tag returns exactly one name, Gloomist (UNL-193 / UNL-232). A domain-correct list of the three Calm/Chaos legends would be wrong here — Unforgiven and Blade Dancer cannot run Shadow at all. 103.2.d.1 then caps Signature cards at three, which is why the entry runs three Shadows and nothing else signed.
- SHADOW IS THE 381 EXCEPTION, AND THAT IS WHY THE STUN IS DEFENSIVE. 381 confines Activated Abilities to 'the Controlling Player's Turn and during an Open State'; Shadow's carries [Action], and 806.1.b grants exactly the missing permission: 'played or activated during Showdowns, even when it is not the Controlling player's turn'. So his stun fires inside the Combat Showdown the opponent's attack opens. 'An enemy unit attacking here' pins it to the battlefield he stands on, which is what three copies are for.
- HE ACTS THE TURN HE LANDS. 'If you play me to a battlefield, I enter ready' is 143.4.a's 'or similar game effects' exception to 143.4 ('Units enter the Board exhausted'), so the exhaust his own ability needs is available immediately. After that, 415.3.a readies him in your Awakening, so the stun is once per turn per copy.
- VEX ARRIVES TO PROTECT THE UNIT THAT DID THE STUNNING. Her trigger is an effect move, so 420.3.a's exhaust cost never applies, and she lands at YOUR battlefield as a defender: 814.1.c makes [Shield] live for +1, so she stands at 6, and 815.1.c.2 makes Shadow — and every other body of yours there — an invalid damage assignment until Vex has lethal. 464.2.c.3.a with 319.8 ('After a Move is completed') and 323.2.a give her the Defender designation at the Cleanup that follows the move, so she is in this combat's damage step.
- The stunned attacker contributes nothing (423.1.b) but is not removed: 423.1.c keeps its full Might as the bar for killing it and 423.1.a.2 clears the status at step 3d of the end-of-turn cleanup. The line buys a combat, not a corpse.
- Per turn: 1 Energy + 1 rainbow buys one attacker silenced and a 6-Might [Tank] moved to wherever the attack landed, with no card spent and nothing exhausted on Vex. The relay repeats every turn both bodies survive.
Steps
- Run Gloomist (UNL-193) as the legend — 103.2.d.2 leaves no choice once Shadow is in the list.
- Play a Shadow to each battlefield you hold; each enters ready (143.4.a).
- On the opponent's turn they attack; the Combat Showdown opens and their units are designated Attackers (464.2.c.3).
- Activate Shadow's [Action] ability (806.1.b) for 1 Energy + 1 rainbow off ready runes, exhausting him: stun an enemy unit attacking there.
- Vex's trigger fires: move her to that battlefield for free (420.3.a). She gains the Defender designation at the Cleanup that follows the move (464.2.c.3.a, 319.8, 323.2.a).
- Damage: the stunned attacker assigns nothing (423.1.b), Vex is 6 Might with [Shield] (814.1.c), and 815.1.c.2 forces the opponent's assignment onto her before Shadow or anything else.
Per iteration
-1 Energy -1 rainbow Power, one attacking enemy unit contributes no combat damage, Vex relocated to that battlefield free as a 6-Might [Tank]
How it ends
engine — one attacker silenced and a 6-Might [Tank] delivered to the point of attack, every turn, for 1 Energy and 1 Power; 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 #169 — matrix families rows 6-18, second pass 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 #169, second pass over matrix row 8. UNL-194 Shadow was in ZERO entries. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt; 103.2.d.1, 103.2.d.2, 143.4, 143.4.a, 319.8, 323.2.a, 381, 415.3.a, 420.3.a, 423.1.a.2, 423.1.b, 423.1.c, 464.2.c.3, 464.2.c.3.a, 806.1.b, 814.1.c, 815.1.c.2 opened in the Core Rules file. All three cards legal in both formats. Card set UNL-055 + UNL-194 + UNL-193 is not an existing uses[] set (vex-apathetic-gloomist-play-tax runs UNL-150 + OGN-059 + UNL-055 + UNL-193). The Signature check was run BEFORE the legend line was written, which is what caught it: the matrix ranks by event rarity and says nothing about legality, so a Signature card can reach a walk with a domain-shaped legend list already half written.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16