Combo · ENGINE

The Zero Drive is the pool's one route out of Banishment — it banishes every carrier that dies and replays them all at once, ignoring their costs

4 cards · mind · verified

Pieces

• The Zero Drive ×1 SFD-090 · engine · mind

  [Equip] 1 Energy + 1 Mind Power (1 Energy + 1 Mind Power: Attach this to a unit you control.) 3 Energy + 1 Mind Power, Banish this: Play all units banished with this, ignoring their costs. (Use only if unattached.)

  [Deathknell] — Banish me. (When I die, get the effect.)

• Riptide Rex ×3 OGN-092 · payoff · mind

  When you play me, deal 6 to an enemy unit at a battlefield.

Payoff

Deck

• Any Mind legend: both cards are mono-Mind (103.1.b.1) and neither is a Signature card, so 103.2.d.2 forces nothing.
• Neither card is banned or restricted in either format.
• The carriers have to actually die. Combat does it for free; so does any sacrifice outlet, and so does your own board wipe.

Prerequisites

• 108.6.c IS WHY THIS IS UNUSUAL. Banishment 'represents cards that have been removed from play in a more difficult-to-recover way', and the project's standing measurement is that nothing in the pool returns a card from it. The Zero Drive is its own exception: it banishes what it kills and then buys all of it back at once, ignoring costs. That is the mechanism, and it is worth more than the Might Bonus printed on the card.
• 719.5 IS WHY THE DRIVE SURVIVES ITS CARRIER, AND 718.2 IS WHY THE CARD SAYS 'IF UNATTACHED'. 719.5: 'When a Top-Most Card changes zones from a board zone to a non-board zone, all Attached cards Detach from it, remaining in their current zones.' So the carrier dying leaves the Drive on the board, unattached and ready to be re-equipped or cashed. And 718.2 — 'While in this state, the card's printed Rules Text is Inactive' — is the actual reason the banish ability cannot be used while attached; the printed '(Use only if unattached.)' is a reminder of a rule, not an extra restriction.
• 323.4 IS WHY THE DEATHKNELL STILL FIRES ALTHOUGH THE DRIVE DETACHES. The granted '[Deathknell] — Banish me' lives in the Drive's Effect Text and is appended to the carrier's Rules Text only while attached (718.3, 719.1). The Cleanup step that handles deaths notes the ability first: 323.4, 'All Units that have Lethal Damage marked on them and that have Deathknell or other abilities that trigger on their own death will trigger such abilities now, making note of their current location, attributes, and other information relevant to add the trigger as a Pending Item', and only then does 323.5 send the body to the trash. The trigger is taken while the Drive is still on, and 719.5.a lets the controller order the detaches.
• ARITHMETIC WITH THE QUANTITIES DECLARED. Riptide Rex is 6 Energy + 2 Mind Power and deals 6 on the way in. Attach the Drive for 1 Energy + 1 Mind Power; when the Rex dies it banishes itself instead of resting in the trash. Re-attach the Drive to the next body (1 Energy + 1 Mind each time) and repeat. Then, with the Drive unattached, pay 3 Energy + 1 Mind Power and banish it: every unit banished with it comes back at once, ignoring its costs, and every play trigger fires again. Two Rexes cashed together is 12 damage and twelve Energy plus four Power of bodies, for 3 Energy + 1 Power.
• THE DRIVE IS SPENT WHEN YOU CASH IT, SO THE CEILING IS THREE CYCLES. 'Banish this' is the cost, so each Drive pays once; 103.2.b allows three copies, and each one can accumulate as many carriers as you are willing to lose before cashing. The honest question is never how many bodies you can bank but how many turns you can afford to wait.
• 808.1.d.1 IS THE ANTI-SYNERGY, AND IT IS THE ONE TO WATCH. 'If the Permanent with the effect is not sent to the Trash, for example because its "killed" event was replaced with a recall, the triggered ability will be removed from the chain.' So any heal / exhaust / recall shield — OGN-077 Zhonya's Hourglass is the rules' own example — SAVES the carrier and thereby cancels the banish, which is the whole point of attaching the Drive. The two cards do not belong in the same deck.
• AND THE DRIVE'S OWN MIGHT BONUS IS REAL WHILE IT WAITS. 718.4: 'While in this state, the card's Might Bonus modulates the Top-Most Card's Might by the value listed' — M+2 on whoever is carrying it, applied in 477.3.d's layer. The Rex attacks at 8 while it is waiting to die.
• CITATION UPGRADE (2026-09-09): 395 and 397 are the paragraphs, and The Zero Drive is the worked example of both - so "play all units banished with this" can never be fed by another banisher, and 395 scopes a Linked set to ONE Game Object, which means three copies do not share a pool.
• 396 IS WHY THESE TWO ABILITIES FORM ONE LINKED SET AT ALL (upgrade 2026-09-12, #187 batch 15). This entry already carries 395 and 397. **396** - Linked Abilities can contain component Abilities of ANY type - is why a granted TRIGGERED Deathknell and a printed ACTIVATED ability belong to one set, and **394.1** is why *"units banished with this"* is a legal cross-reference at all. Neither changes the verdict.
• 411.6.a IS THE PARAGRAPH LICENSING THIS ENTRY`S CENTRAL NOUN PHRASE, AND IT WAS NOT CITED (upgrade 2026-09-12, #187 batch 19). The Zero Drive`s *"Banish this"* Deathknell is EFFECT TEXT, which 718.3 appends to the CARRIER, and 053.1 with 136.2.d make that *"me"* the carrier - so the banish is performed by an ability sitting on a UNIT, not on the gear, and read alone the cash-out has nothing to look at because the carrier banished itself. **411.6.a closes it: *"Abilities granted via the effect text of a Game Object to another Game Object count for both Game Objects for this purpose."*** 411.6 is the general check (an action performed *"with"* an object must be ATTRIBUTED to that object`s ability, controlled by that player, and the player responsible for it), and both were cited by nothing while 411.4 and 411.5 carry 11 and 10.
• 411.5.a DEFINES THE WORD 411.6 TURNS ON, AND RIDES WITH IT (self-audit upgrade 2026-09-12, #187 batch 20). 411.6`s first condition is that the action be ATTRIBUTED to the Game Object`s spell or ability, and **411.5.a is what that means: *"Spells and abilities have attribution for game actions, while players have responsibility."*** Without it a reader cannot tell 411.6`s first condition from its third, which is the responsibility one - and the pair is the whole reason that paragraph has three conditions rather than one.

Steps

1. Play The Zero Drive (3 Energy) and Riptide Rex (6 Energy + 2 Mind Power); the Rex's play trigger deals 6 to an enemy unit at a battlefield.
2. Pay the Drive's [Equip] cost, 1 Energy + 1 Mind Power, and attach it to the Rex. The Rex is now Might 8 (718.4) and carries '[Deathknell] — Banish me'.
3. Let the Rex die. 323.4 takes the Deathknell while the Drive is still attached, 323.5 sends the body to the trash, and the ability banishes it from there.
4. 719.5 leaves the Drive on the board, unattached. Attach it to the next body for 1 Energy + 1 Mind Power and repeat for as many carriers as you want to bank.
5. When you want them back, with the Drive unattached, pay 3 Energy + 1 Mind Power and banish it: every unit banished with it is played at once, ignoring its costs.
6. Each returning Riptide Rex fires its play trigger again — 6 more damage per copy — and the Drive is spent. Three copies (103.2.b) is three cycles.

Per iteration

every carrier that died comes back at once for 3 Energy + 1 Mind Power, with its play trigger re-firing

How it ends

engine only — one cash-out per Zero Drive, three copies by 103.2.b, and each cycle costs a turn of bodies dying first; 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

Walked against Core Rules 2026-07-16

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