Combo · ENGINE

One death, four bodies — and Karthus doubles the Evangel's Deathknell but never Viktor's, because Viktor's trigger is not a Deathknell

2 cards · order · verified

Pieces

• Machine Evangel ×1 OGN-239 · engine · order

  [Deathknell] — Play three 1 Might Recruit unit tokens into your base. (When I die, get the effect.)

• Viktor, Leader ×1 OGN-246 · payoff · order

  When another non-Recruit unit you control dies, play a 1 Might Recruit unit token into your base.

Payoff

Deck

• Any Order legend: both cards are mono-Order (103.1.b.1) and neither is a Signature card, so 103.2.d.2 forces nothing. This is the mono-domain Viktor line — viktor-leader-bottled-constellation-refund needs Mind as well.
• Neither card is banned or restricted in either format.
• Something has to kill the Evangel. Combat does it for free; any sacrifice outlet in Order does it on demand.

Prerequisites

• THE TRAP THAT DECIDES THE COUNT: VIKTOR'S TRIGGER IS NOT A DEATHKNELL. 808.1.c is explicit — Deathknell 'is functionally short for “When I die, [Effect].”' — and 808.1.d makes its Trigger 'the Permanent being Killed and sent to the Trash', i.e. the permanent's OWN death. Viktor's clause triggers on ANOTHER unit's death, so it is an ordinary Triggered Ability. OGN-236 Karthus, Eternal ('Your [Deathknell] effects trigger an additional time') therefore doubles the Evangel's three Recruits to six and leaves Viktor's one at one: the board is SEVEN bodies, not eight. Getting this wrong by one is exactly the shape of arithmetic error the project keeps finding, so it is stated on the row.
• ARITHMETIC WITH THE QUANTITIES DECLARED. Machine Evangel dies: its Deathknell plays three 1 Might Recruit tokens into your base, and Viktor's trigger plays a fourth. FOUR bodies from one death, for 5 Energy + 1 Order Power (the Evangel) on top of Viktor's 4 Energy + 1 Order Power. With Karthus, Eternal in the deck it is seven. Feeding Viktor a Recruit afterwards pays nothing — his clause reads 'another NON-RECRUIT unit' — so the refund never chains.
• THEY ARE BORN AT THE BASE AND ENTER EXHAUSTED. Both cards print 'into your base', so 355.2.a's default never comes up, and 143.4 makes tokens enter exhausted — they cannot walk until your next turn unless something alters that (143.4.a; SFD-171 Renata Glasc, Industrialist's 'Your tokens enter ready' is mono-Order and legal here). 144.3 then moves the whole batch as one action: 'Players may perform multiple Units' standard move simultaneously. This is treated as one game action performed on multiple Units.'
• WHAT FOUR 1-MIGHT BODIES ARE AND ARE NOT WORTH. 185.2.b and 185.2.d make them real units for combat and for any count of bodies. But OGN-133 Flurry of Blades (Body, E1, [Reaction], 'Deal 1 to all units at battlefields') kills every one of them simultaneously for one Energy, which is the standing verdict on every 1-Might token line: the binding constraint is Might PER BODY, not the number of bodies. CORRECTED 2026-09-13, AND THE CORRECTION REACHES THIS ENTRY'S OWN IDENTITY: this said the only fix is UNL-077 Soul Shepherd's static and that it is Mind, hence out of identity for a mono-Order list. FIVE OF THE SIX DOMAINS PRINT A FIX (re-swept 2026-09-13, every hit read rather than classified from the match): board-wide and ungated are VEN-018 Rage Amplifier (fury, E4 + 1 Power, a GEAR - so no body slot and no location clause - and STRICTLY WIDER than the Shepherd, since "Your units have +1 [M]" reaches every unit and not only tokens), UNL-077 Soul Shepherd (mind), UNL-147 Baron Nashor (chaos, E10 + 3 Power, +2) and UNL-191 Wuju Master (calm/body, a LEGEND at [Level 6], so no card slot at all); location-scoped, which costs a body slot AND fills one of the seven, are OGS-013 Garen, Commander and OGN-243 Darius, Executioner (both order). Excluded and named so nobody re-finds them: OGN-294 Trifarian War Camp, UNL-T03 Brush and VEN-159 Kinkou Temple are BATTLEFIELDS, which 485.4.a with 103.4.c makes mutually exclusive with a battlefield the line already needs; OGN-151 Lee Sin, Centered is buff-gated and location-scoped; SFD-089 Rumble, Scrapper is Mech-scoped; and VEN-130 Aurok General reaches only units that are [Empowered], which a token never is. So ORDER PRINTS TWO OF THEM - OGS-013 Garen, Commander and OGN-243 Darius, Executioner - and they are location-scoped, which is exactly the scope a Grand Plaza line needs, since OGN-133 reads "all units at battlefields" and the Plaza counts its seven HERE: a scope is safe exactly when it matches the threat. Each costs a body slot and fills one of the seven, so the line is not free, but it is not out of identity either.
• AND THEY NEVER COME BACK. 186.1: a token put into any Non-Board Zone besides the Chain ceases to exist immediately. So no reanimation and no recycling (185 with 416.1); each batch is spent when it dies.
• THE EVANGEL'S DEATHKNELL FIRES FROM ANYWHERE ITS BODY DIES. 808.1.a puts Deathknell on Permanents and 808.1.d.1 is the only thing that switches it off — a would-die replacement of the heal / exhaust / recall family, because the permanent never reaches the Trash. Do not run this beside a save effect aimed at the Evangel.

Steps

1. Play Viktor, Leader (4 Energy + 1 Order Power) and let him settle on the board.
2. Play Machine Evangel (5 Energy + 1 Order Power) and put him somewhere he will die — a contested battlefield, or in front of a sacrifice outlet.
3. When he dies, his Deathknell plays three 1 Might Recruit tokens into your base.
4. Viktor's trigger sees the death of a non-Recruit unit and plays a fourth Recruit into your base.
5. The four tokens enter exhausted (143.4); at your next Awaken they ready and 144.3 walks the whole batch to a battlefield as one action.
6. Killing those Recruits later pays nothing — Viktor's clause excludes them — so the refund is one batch, not a loop.

Per iteration

four 1 Might bodies from a single death (seven with Karthus, Eternal), for 5 Energy + 1 Order Power

How it ends

engine only — one batch per Machine Evangel (three copies by 103.2.b), and the refund never chains because Viktor excludes Recruits; nothing here scores, and a single Flurry of Blades clears the whole batch

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 2026-09-07 record

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

Match a deck list against the whole catalogue