Combo · ENGINE
One stun, two payoffs — a buff and a free redeploy of a Tank
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.
- Radiant Dawn ×1
OGN-261 · payoff · calm/order
When you stun one or more enemy units, buff a friendly unit. (If it doesn't have a buff, it gets a +1 Might buff.)
- Solari Shieldbearer ×3
OGN-051 · engine · calm
When you play me, stun a unit. (It doesn't deal combat damage this turn.)
Payoff
Deck
- Calm + Order: Radiant Dawn is itself the legend and Vex and the Shieldbearer are mono-Calm (103.1.b.3).
- An enemy unit at a battlefield to stun — 811.1.d.2 is not involved, since nothing here is [Hidden].
Prerequisites
- NEITHER CARD CAUSES THE STUN, AND THAT IS THE SHAPE OF THIS ENTRY. Vex and Radiant Dawn are two TRIGGERS on the same event, so a third card has to supply it. What they buy is that one stun is paid for twice: a +1 Might buff anywhere on your board, and a free relocation of a 5 Might [Tank] to the battlefield where the stun happened.
- The relocation is the real prize and it is a move BY EFFECT. 144.2 makes exhausting the unit the cost of the STANDARD move only, and 144.4.c restricts the STANDARD move to base-to-battlefield without [Ganking]; an effect move is neither. So Vex arrives at the contested battlefield without exhausting and without [Ganking], which no Standard Move in the pool can do — and 815.1.b then makes her, as a [Tank], the compulsory first recipient of combat damage there, at M5 + 1 from [Shield] while defending.
- One stun per enemy body per turn, and that is the hard cap: 423.1.a.1 — 'A Stunned Unit can not be Stunned again' — and 423.1.a.2 clears the status only at end-of-turn cleanup step 3d. So three Solari Shieldbearers in a turn are three DIFFERENT enemy bodies stunned, three buffs and three redeployments, not three of anything on one target.
- The buff is a real 702 counter, so 702.3 caps it at one per unit and a second buff on the same body does nothing — the three buffs want three different friendly units. That is the #106 finding stated on this family.
- What the stun itself does NOT do is make the defender free to kill: 423.1.b only removes its Might from the combat damage step, while 423.1.c with 710 keeps its full CURRENT Might as the damage needed to kill it (the #89 correction to #61). This line is defensive — it moves a Tank to where the trouble is — and the entry claims nothing about killing.
- Sibling: radiant-dawn-stun-buff-free-glory runs the same legend with OGN-207 Call to Glory as the buff SINK. This entry is the other half of the legend's text — what the stun buys besides the buff — and the two compose, since Vex costs the buff nothing.
Steps
- Have Vex, Mocking on the board (E5 + 1 Power) anywhere, and Radiant Dawn as your legend.
- Play a Solari Shieldbearer (E3). Its play trigger stuns an enemy unit at a battlefield.
- Radiant Dawn's trigger fires on the same event: buff a friendly unit (702.2.a; 702.3 refuses a second buff on a body that already has one).
- Vex's trigger fires on the same event: move her to that battlefield. It is an effect move, so she pays no exhaust (144.2 prices only the Standard Move) and needs no [Ganking] (144.4.c).
- She defends there at M5 + 1 ([Shield]) and 815.1.b ([Tank]) forces combat damage onto her first.
- Repeat with the second and third Shieldbearer on DIFFERENT enemy bodies — 423.1.a.1 forbids re-stunning one that is already stunned.
How it ends
engine only — one buff and one free relocation of a 5 Might [Tank] per stun, capped at one stun per enemy body per turn (423.1.a.1). 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
- Issue #161 (GitHub) 2026-09-06
Walked here, in this project
- Hand walk 2026-09-06, issue #161 — the CAUSE/TRIGGER pair matrix (docs/phase0/walks/2026-09-06-finisher-feeders.md §16) 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-finisher-feeders.md §16), issue #161, from the CAUSE/TRIGGER matrix: the stun event, one of the two trigger cards with a single uncovered partner. Card set checked against the current data/combos.json before writing (UNL-055 + OGN-261 + OGN-051: no exact match; UNL-055 appears only in vex-apathetic-gloomist-play-tax and OGN-261 only in radiant-dawn-stun-buff-free-glory, which use neither the other card nor this stun source). Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. Citations opened: 103.1.b.3, 144.2, 144.4.c, 420.1, 423.1.a.1, 423.1.a.2, 423.1.b, 423.1.c, 702.2.a, 702.3, 710, 815.1.b. The entry states in its own notable that NEITHER card causes the stun — they are two triggers on one event and a third card supplies it, which is the honest shape and not a two-card combo. Trap check: no attack of the entry's own and no Attacker designation; no [Repeat]; no [Temporary]; no token; the move is by effect and not a Recall, so 455 does not carve it out; 167 is not touched.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16