one body carries four points a turn, and one Energy takes it back

Issue #200, 2026-09-14. Constructed, Duel (485). Rules version 2026-07-16. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt; rules pasted from data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt. Read the unopposed clock for the baseline this is measured against.

Subject: trinity-tryndamere-both-phases-chain, which I wrote earlier today and which the turn clock reads at T7 against a T5 baseline. Walked turn by turn it wins on T5 — and the reason is not that the clock is wrong about arithmetic. It is that the clock prices a CARD SET and this line wins with half of its cards still in hand.

T5 TIES the unopposed curve and beats the CONTESTED one by four turns, and the second number is the one that matters. The free curve pays 2 a turn only when you hold BOTH battlefields; hold one and it pays 1 a turn and arrives on T9. This line pays 4 a turn at a single battlefield, so it does not care how many you hold — which is the whole argument for it and is not something a clock row says.

The entry says its two halves cover the middle board. They do not. The middle board is where one half suffices, and the halves only genuinely differ on a board the entry never names. That is the finding, and it is a correction to my own entry.

1. Needs

Domain identity computed from data/cards.json rather than from the names: Trinity Force and the Sentry are mono-Body, Tryndamere and the Bramblebacks mono-Fury. Union {body, fury} under 103.1.b. None is Signature and none appears in data/legality.json.

2. The turns, going first — 485.7 gives the extra rune to the player going second

R = runes on the board after that turn's Channel Phase. A rune pays 1 Energy (164.2.a, cost is its exhaust) and can ALSO be recycled for 1 Power of its domain (164.2.b, cost is the recycle) — but the recycled rune leaves for the Rune Deck (161.2.b) and comes back at 2 a turn (315.3.b), capped at 12 (161.2.a). Dead Energy is written down rather than hidden. [2026-10-24, #456: not the recycled rune. The Channel Phase's two come from the top of the Rune Deck (315.3.b, 430.1) and a recycled rune goes to the bottom (416.1, 416.1.b), so it is channelled again only when the deck reaches it: T7 at the earliest going first and T6 at the earliest going second with only the Channel Phase's two a turn (161.2.a, 485.7); each two more recycled push it a turn later, a card that channels more (430.2) brings it back sooner, and the next Channel Phase gives it back only once the Rune Deck is empty. The R column below already counts two a turn less every rune recycled, so no number in this play changes. The wording above is kept as history.]

       R   spend                                        idle   score
T1     2   Determined Sentry (E1)                        E1      0
T2     4   move to battlefield A -> Conquer              E0     +1 = 1
           Trinity #1 (E4) + [Equip] 1 Body  (R -> 3)
T3     5   HOLD A: Score +1, one Trinity +1              E1     +2 = 3
           Trinity #2 (E4) + [Equip] 1 Body  (R -> 4)
T4     6   HOLD A: Score +1, two Trinity +2              E2     +3 = 6
           Trinity #3 (E4) + [Equip] 1 Body  (R -> 5)
T5     7   HOLD A: Score +1, three Trinity +3            E3    +4 = 10   WIN

Turn 5 — a tie with the unopposed curve, and four turns inside the contested one — and Tryndamere never left your hand. He and the two Bramblebacks are E15 and 4 Power against a board that has seven runes on T5; the attack half is not castable before the Hold half has already won.

T1 is a dead turn and T3, T4 and T5 idle Energy. That is not a flaw to hide — it is where §7's constructive half comes from.

3. Why three gear on one body is three points and not one

434.1.c: "The Top-Most card has all Effect Text of all cards Attached to it appended to its Rules Text." Trinity Force's Effect Text is "When I hold, score 1 point", and 053.2 with 136.2.d make that I the carrier. Three attached copies append the sentence three times, so one carrier holding one battlefield fires it three times.

The Hold itself is the fourth point: 315.2.b.2 Holds every battlefield you control, 469.2 and 471.1 gain the Score, and 471.2.b — "Hold abilities trigger at a Battlefield that was Held" — fires the appended text. Three of the four are 194.1.c ability Gains, which 470's once-per-battlefield cap never sees (R2 = A).

Four points a turn, from one body, forever.

4. Why the clock says T7, and both reasons are the clock rather than the line

It prices a card set, not a win. deployTurn asks when every cost in the entry is payable. This line reaches eight with three of its six cards uncast, so T7 is the turn the whole board is affordable and has nothing to do with the turn it wins. An entry has one terminatesIn and cannot say that.

A SECOND CLAIM STOOD HERE AND IT IS REFUTED, AND IT WAS WRONG. An earlier draft said that baselineTurn is one turn too fast for the eight identities that reach one cheap body and not two, because CHEAP_BODY_DOMAINS is {body, calm} and the pool's only two units at Energy 1 or less are UNL-111 Determined Sentry (Body) and VEN-043 Steel Paws (Calm), so only calm/body can field both cards.

That measurement is correct and it answers the wrong question. The curve does not need two CARDS, it needs two BODIES, and 103.2.b — "Your Main Deck can include up to 3 copies of the same named card" — makes those different things. UNL-111 is not [Unique], not Signature and not in data/legality.json, so two copies cost 2 Energy and land on turn 1's two runes; 144.1.a then allows a Standard Move at any time in your Main Phase, so they walk to two different battlefields on T2 as separate actions rather than under 144.3.a's shared-destination rule.

So the domain-MEMBERSHIP test is right, a domain-PAIR test would have been wrong, and body/fury's baseline is 5. The script's own comment says "an identity that reaches one of them plays two bodies on turn 1" — precisely, in its own words — and I read "two bodies" as "two cards" and went looking for a second card. The word was not there. Nothing about the clock needs fixing, and routing my "fix" would have put a real defect into it.

It costs this play its first headline: T5 TIES the unopposed curve rather than beating it. It costs nothing else, and §8 states what survives.

5. The whole Hold half is one body, and that is the play

Four points a turn stand on a single carrier. Kill it and three Trinity Forces fall to the board (719.5 detaches them when the Top-Most Card leaves, 457.1 recalls them to base at the next Cleanup), and 323.6 then strips your Control of the battlefield itself, because "players lose control of any controlled Battlefields without their Units occupying them if the turn is in an Open State and there is no Showdown or Combat ongoing there."

One removal spell takes the Score, the three ability points, and the battlefield.

UNL-111 Determined Sentry is Might 1, so OGN-133 Flurry of Blades — Body, E1, [Reaction], "Deal 1 to all units at battlefields" — does it for one Energy, at Reaction speed, on either player's turn. A Might-2 Body carrier costs one more Energy and a dead turn on T1 and survives that card; nothing in the identity survives a real removal spell.

And the Equipment is removable where it stands: 718.5.b keeps an attached card "chosen or targeted by game effects while Attached", and OGN-022 Thermo Beam (Fury, E5 + 2 Power, [Action], "Kill all gear") takes all three at once. That card is in this line's own identity, so an opponent on a Fury legend is holding it.

6. Three boards, and the entry names the wrong one

The entry's notable says the two halves "cover the middle one". Walked, the middle board is where the Hold half wins on its own — so the halves do not differ there in any way that matters. They differ on the third board, which is the board you are on the moment somebody kills your carrier, and that is the single most likely thing to happen to this deck.

So the attack half is not a second scoring axis for the good board. It is the recovery from the bad one, and the recovery is worth exactly four points and a battlefield: Tryndamere and two Bramblebacks Standard-Move in as one action (144.3), 450 applies Contested, 464.2.c.1 makes you the Attacker, 465.2.a sums 16 Might, and any garrison of summed Might eleven or less leaves the five excess R28 = A defines. 466.5 and 466.5.d Conquer for a Score, and the Brambleback pair takes Tryndamere's clause from one instance to three.

Then the Hold half comes back online at 4 a turn the following Beginning Phase, because you now control a battlefield again and a spare body can carry the recalled gear back in.

7. What the idle Energy should buy

T1 is dead and T3 to T5 idle one, two and three Energy. The line has nothing to spend it on, and the thing it most needs is a second body at the battlefield the carrier is holding, so that killing the carrier does not also hand back the battlefield under 323.6. Any Energy-2 Body or Fury body does it — nineteen of them exist in the identity — and it converts the worst case from "lose four points a turn AND the battlefield" to "lose four points a turn".

That is a deckbuilding note rather than a combo, which is why it belongs in a play and not in uses: the matcher would price a card the line does not need in order to execute.

8. Verdict

The entry is correct and its own reason is the wrong one. Eight points in one turn across both phases is real and is not why you run it, because on that board four points a turn had already won. What the attack half actually buys is a line that still functions after its single point of failure has been hit — and a Hold engine standing on one body will have it hit.

Read as a clock row this line is T7 against T5 and looks two turns slow. Read turn by turn it is T5 against the same T5 — a TIE on the board where nothing was needed, and T5 against T9 on the board where something was. Both numbers come from the same script; the difference is that one of them prices a deck and the other prices a game.

The honest one-line verdict: this does not beat the free curve, it beats the free curve's REQUIREMENT. Two points a turn need both battlefields; four points a turn need one. That is what the package buys, and it is why §6's third row — the board where you hold none — is where the attack half finally earns its cards.

9. Not verified

I did not walk the opponent's best line against the third board — whether a deck that has pushed you off both battlefields can also hold a garrison of summed Might twelve or more, which is the number that switches Tryndamere's clause off. Read §6's bottom row as the recovery being AVAILABLE, not as it being guaranteed.

10. Corrected 2026-10-26 (#464): the attack half is four only into a garrison of 1 to 3

This section is appended; nothing above it was edited. §6 gives the attack half as +4, and the paragraph under its table says any garrison of summed Might eleven or less. Eleven or less is where the excess clears five, and it is not where the half scores four, because the count needs the attackers alive at the Conquer and the defender chooses who dies.

383.4.c.2.a: "The Conquer Abilities of Units are put on the Chain as Pending Items after the Unit(s) these effects correspond to are present at a Battlefield when a player gains control of it and gains 1 Victory Point from Conquering."

365.1: "Passive Abilities of Permanents are typically only active while on the Board."

465.2.c: "Starting with the Attacker, each player assigns an amount of damage equal to their summed Might among the other's Units."

465.2.c.3: "Units must have lethal damage assigned to them in full before damage is assigned to a different Unit. Example: If a player has 5 damage to distribute among four 3 Might units, they may not choose to assign 2 damage to one of the units and 1 damage to each of the remaining 3. They must assign at least 3 damage to one, and the remaining 2 to another."

465.2.c.4: "Units cannot have more damage assigned to them than the minimum required to constitute lethal damage unless no further units remain to have damage assigned to them. Example: If a player has 5 damage to distribute among four 3 Might units and those units each have 1 damage already marked on them, that player may not assign more than 2 damage to any of those units."

466.5: "If no Showdown or Combat is staged at this location, the player with Units remaining here Establishes Control if they didn’t already control this Battlefield."

Tryndamere is Might 8 and each Brambleback 4, 16 in all. Against a garrison of summed Might G, with no damage marked and nothing else changing Might in the combat, the defender choosing the deaths that cost most:

So §6's +4 holds only into a garrison of 1 to 3. On the third board, where this half is the recovery, it is +3 against 4 to 7 and +1 from 8, and §9's open question has its answer: the clause is not switched off at twelve but the payoff is, at eight, because a garrison of 8 kills Tryndamere. The entry carries the same correction, dated, in data/combos.json.