Combo · ENGINE
Star-Crossed sends the threat home and Vex stuns it on the way back in — the bounce gets paid twice
Pieces
- Vex, Apathetic ×1
UNL-150 · engine · chaos
[Deflect] (Opponents must pay 1 Power of any domain to choose me with a spell or ability.) When an opponent plays a unit while I'm at a battlefield, [Stun] it. They can't move it this turn. (It doesn't deal combat damage this turn.)
- Star-Crossed ×1
UNL-128 · enabler · chaos
[Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Return a friendly unit and an enemy unit to their owners' hands.
- Kha'Zix, Mutating Horror ×1
UNL-143 · payoff · chaos
[Ambush] (You may play me as a [Reaction] to a battlefield where you have units.) When I attack or defend, if an enemy unit is alone here, give me +2 Might this turn and gain 2 XP.
Payoff
Deck
- Every card here is mono-Chaos, so any Chaos legend runs the line.
- Vex has to be AT A BATTLEFIELD, not at your base, for her trigger to exist at all.
Prerequisites
- THE RE-STUN IS LEGAL BECAUSE THE UNIT LEFT THE BOARD, AND THAT IS WHAT 423.1 SAYS. 'Stunning is the act of selecting one or more Units on the Board and rendering them Stunned', and 423.1.a.1 forbids stunning a unit that is already Stunned. A card returned to its owner's hand is not a Unit on the Board, so the state does not travel with it — the same shape as 705, which strips buffs from a unit that leaves play. When the opponent replays it, Vex stuns the thing that just arrived.
- VEX'S TRIGGER HAS NO LOCATION CLAUSE ON THE PLAYED UNIT, WHICH IS THE POINT. 'When an opponent plays a unit while I'm at a battlefield' — the location condition is on Vex, not on the unit. So a single Vex taxes every unit the opponent plays anywhere, for as long as she stands at a battlefield.
- WHAT THE STUN IS WORTH, EXACTLY. 423.1.b: 'A Stunned Unit does not contribute its might to damage in the combat damage step.' Plus Vex's own rider, 'They can't move it this turn'. So the replayed body cannot fight and cannot walk to a battlefield; combined with 143.4 ('Units enter the Board exhausted') it is inert for a full turn. 423.1.a.2 clears the stun at step 3d of cleanup.
- ARITHMETIC WITH THE QUANTITIES DECLARED, AND THE COST IS THE HONEST PART. Per bounce: 3 Energy + 1 Power for Star-Crossed. In exchange the opponent loses the tempo of replaying the unit, the unit is stunned and immobile for the turn, and one of your own units comes home to be replayed too (that is the 'friendly unit' half — Star-Crossed is not one-sided). Three copies (103.2.b), so three bounces, and there is no recursion in this line.
- KHA'ZIX IS PAID BY THE SHAPE THE BOUNCE LEAVES. 'When I attack or defend, if an enemy unit is ALONE here, give me +2 [M] this turn and gain 2 XP' — bouncing one of two defenders is exactly how a battlefield ends up with one enemy unit on it. His [Ambush] ('You may play me as a [Reaction] to a battlefield where you have units') means he can arrive after the bounce, inside the same window.
- OVERLAP DECLARED, AND THE TRAP IS THE SAME ONE. annie-stubborn-star-crossed-lock already runs Star-Crossed, with OGS-010 Annie: there the friendly half of the bounce is a feature, because replaying Annie fetches the spell back, so the spell is never consumed. Here it IS consumed — three bounces and done. The two want the same three copies and are alternatives in one deck.
Steps
- Have Vex, Apathetic standing at a battlefield (4 Energy). Her trigger only exists while she is there.
- Play Star-Crossed at Reaction speed (3 Energy + 1 Power): return an enemy unit and one of your own to their owners' hands.
- The returned enemy is no longer a Unit on the Board, so 423.1 lets it be stunned afresh when it comes back.
- The opponent replays it. Vex triggers: stun it, and they can't move it this turn. 143.4 already made it enter exhausted.
- The battlefield it left may now hold a single enemy unit; play Kha'Zix there with [Ambush] and his attack or defence trigger gives him +2 Might and 2 XP.
- At step 3d of cleanup the stun clears (423.1.a.2); the next Star-Crossed does it again, up to three times a game.
Per iteration
one enemy unit bounced, then stunned and immobilised for a full turn on its way back in, for 3 Energy and 1 Power per bounce
How it ends
engine only — three Star-Crossed with no recursion in this line, and the stun clears at cleanup every time
Sources
Published elsewhere
- Riftbound Core Rules, Last Updated 2026-07-16 (data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt) 2026-07-16
- Corpus de 8.307 listas de torneo — issue #89 (GitHub) 2026-09-06
Walked here, in this project
- 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-issue89-tournament-corpus.md), issue #89 candidate 10 (84 registered lists). UNL-150 Vex, Apathetic and UNL-143 Kha'Zix, Mutating Horror appeared in NO entry before this; UNL-128 Star-Crossed anchors annie-stubborn-star-crossed-lock and the overlap is declared, including the fact that Annie's version does NOT consume the spell while this one does. THE WALK'S ADDITION over the hunt: the hunt asserted that 423.1.a.1 'does not bother us here because the body re-enters new' without naming the rule that says so; the reason is in 423.1's own first sentence — Stunning selects Units ON THE BOARD, so a card in hand carries no Stunned state, the same way 705 strips buffs from a unit that leaves play. It also reads Vex's trigger to the end: the 'at a battlefield' clause is on VEX, not on the unit played, so one Vex taxes every unit the opponent plays anywhere. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. Citations opened: 103.2.b, 143.4, 423.1, 423.1.a.1, 423.1.a.2, 423.1.b, 705. Ban check: none of the three carries a [BANNED marker. Trap check: Kha'Zix's rider needs an attack or a defence and the entry says so; no [Repeat]; no [Temporary]; no token; the bounce is a return to hand, not a Recall, so 455 and 808.1.d.1 do not arise; no Gold; no battlefield of its own. Depends on no unruled reading.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16