Combo · ENGINE
383.1.b's worked example IS Wraith of Echoes — one card a turn however many die, so the right partner kills exactly one and buys a Might 6 body for it
Pieces
- Wraith of Echoes ×1
OGN-118 · payoff · mind
The first time a friendly unit dies each turn, draw 1.
- Cruel Patron ×3
OGN-208 · engine · order
As an additional cost to play me, kill a friendly unit.
Payoff
Deck
- Mind + Order: Wraith of Echoes is mono-Mind and Cruel Patron mono-Order (103.1.b.3), so the legend must hold both and the pool prints exactly four names — OGN-265 Herald of the Arcane, OGS-021 Lady of Luminosity, SFD-201 Chem-Baroness and UNL-199 Deceiver (103.1.b.2).
- Neither card is banned or restricted in either format, and neither is a Signature card.
- You need a friendly unit to kill. 203.3 makes an impossible cost unpayable, so with no other body on the board Cruel Patron cannot be played at all.
Prerequisites
- 383.1.b USES THIS CARD AS ITS OWN WORKED EXAMPLE, WHICH DECIDES THE WHOLE PARTNER SET. 'If an ability triggers "the [Nth] time" something happens and that trigger condition is met multiple times simultaneously, the ability's controller picks one of those instances to serve as the trigger condition. The ability triggers only once… Example: Wraith of Echoes reads "The first time another friendly unit dies each turn, draw 1." … Two other friendly units die simultaneously (say, due to combat damage). The Wraith's controller chooses one of those deaths to trigger Wraith's ability.' So a partner that kills THREE bodies at once is worth exactly the same one card as a partner that kills one. The right partner is therefore the one that gets the most out of a SINGLE death — and that is Cruel Patron, whose single death buys a 6 Might body for 4 Energy and no Power.
- THE PRINTED TEXT HAS NO 'ANOTHER', AND THAT IS NOT A TYPO TO NORMALISE. data/corpus_flat.txt reads 'The first time a friendly unit dies each turn, draw 1'; the Core Rules example quotes it with 'another'. The printed text is what the game runs on (rule 002), so the WRAITH'S OWN DEATH pays for a card. Registered here rather than in data/errata.json, which is reserved for dated Riot errata.
- ARITHMETIC WITH THE QUANTITIES DECLARED. Per Cruel Patron: 4 Energy, no Power, one friendly body killed, one 6 Might body played and one card drawn (the Wraith's first-death-of-the-turn trigger). Three copies (103.2.b) is three such turns. The Wraith himself is 6 Energy + 1 Mind Power of setup and a 5 Might body who also draws you a card on any turn something of yours dies in combat — which is most turns.
- FEED IT SOMETHING THAT WAS ALREADY DYING, AND MIND THE PHASE. A [Temporary] body is not available: 816.1.b kills it 'At the start of this permanent's controller's Beginning Phase, before scoring', and Cruel Patron is played in your Main Phase (316), which is after. The honest fuel is a spent body — one that has already moved and attacked — or a 1-Might token that has done its job. Killing a token is a legal kill, and 186.1 simply makes it cease to exist in the trash.
- THE DEATH IS A COST, NOT AN EFFECT, WHICH MATTERS FOR TWO THINGS. It is paid as the card is played, so nothing can respond between the kill and Cruel Patron arriving; and because it is a cost, 203.3 ('if the action a cost asks for is impossible, the cost cannot be paid') means an empty board makes him uncastable rather than free.
- THE DRAW IS ONE A TURN AND THE CEILING IS BURN OUT. 431.1.a makes a draw past the last card of the Main Deck a Burn Out and a point for the opponent (194.1.d); the Wraith's draw is not a 'you may', so on a thin deck the trigger is a liability.
Bodies no card supplies
Keep a spent body on the board — one that has already moved or attacked, or a token that has done its job
Steps
- Play Wraith of Echoes (6 Energy + 1 Mind Power) on an earlier turn.
- Keep a spent body on the board — one that has already moved or attacked, or a token that has done its job.
- Play Cruel Patron for 4 Energy, paying its additional cost by killing that body (203.3: the cost must be payable).
- That death is the first friendly death of your turn, so Wraith of Echoes draws you 1.
- You now have a 6 Might body for 4 Energy and no Power, and the card. Repeat with the second and third copies on later turns (103.2.b).
Per iteration
a 6 Might body for 4 Energy and a spent body, plus one card
How it ends
engine only — three Cruel Patrons a game, each consumed, and the Wraith draws at most one card a turn by 383.1.b whatever else dies; 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 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.
HAND-WALKED 2026-09-07 (issue #168, matrix group 24, friendly-dies x OGN-118). OGN-208 Cruel Patron was in NO entry before this. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt. Citations opened: 002, 103.1.b.2, 103.1.b.3, 103.2.b, 186.1, 194.1.d, 203.3, 316, 383.1.b, 431.1.a, 816.1.b. Distinct from malzahar-wraith-centaur-sacrifice, which spends the Wraith's draw alongside a Power engine and a Might payoff on Malzahar's exhaust-gated sacrifice: the finding here is that 383.1.b caps the Wraith at ONE card however many bodies die at once — the rules use this very card as the worked example — so the correct partner is the one that extracts the most from a SINGLE death. Also registers that the printed text carries no 'another', unlike the rules' paraphrase, so the Wraith's own death pays. Ban check: neither card is banned or restricted. Trap check: the death is a COST (203.3) so an empty board makes Cruel Patron uncastable; a [Temporary] body is not available because 816.1.b fires in the Beginning Phase and the play is in the Main Phase; the draw is mandatory, so 431.1.a is a liability on a thin deck; no unruled reading.
Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16