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the Tank goes in first, or the drag hands them your battlefield

Issue #242 (a slice of #200), 2026-10-04. 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: void-assault-voidreaver-both-attacker-directions, the body/chaos ENGINE that uses UNL-202 Void Assault to drag an enemy body onto a battlefield you hold, so the opponent becomes the Attacker on your own turn and fights into UNL-099 Towering Combatant. Nothing in it scores, so neither turn clock reads it. Walked as a game, two copies of the spell cast in one Main Phase take back a battlefield the opponent conquered the turn before, and the line reaches eight on T5 against an opponent who took a battlefield off it on their T2. But the two casts have a forced order, and the spell's own wording is the reason: the friendly half moves first, and if the body it moves was your last one on that battlefield, the enemy half delivers your battlefield to them.

Why this line. scripts/sequence-pick.mjs measures a queue: entries whose steps carry forced-ordering language and whose terminatesIn is a bare quantity with no ordering word. Re-run on 2026-10-04 at 771 entries it reads 262 with the language and 102 in the queue, the same numbers as at slice 3, so nothing moved. --pair body/chaos returns 4, and this entry is the highest-ranked of them (two hits on before, six steps); the other pair taken in this slice is calm/fury, played in the defender is the fuel.

1. Needs

LegendUNL-201 Voidreaver (Body/Chaos). Void Assault is a Signature card tagged Kha'Zix, and 103.2.d.2 makes this the only legend name that can run it
The drag3x UNL-202 Void Assault (Body/Chaos, E2 + 1 Power)
The wall2x UNL-099 Towering Combatant (Body, E4, M3, [Shield 2], [Tank])
The free curve2x UNL-111 Determined Sentry (Body, E1, M1) — not in the entry; §2 is built on it
Board it wantsthe contested one: you hold battlefield A, the opponent holds B with two bodies of Might 4 or less

Domain identity from data/cards.json: Void Assault is Body/Chaos, the Combatant and the Sentry are Body, union {body, chaos} under 103.1.b. Void Assault is the only Signature card; none of the three appears in data/legality.json.

The card text the play turns on:

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

R = runes on the board at the start of your Main Phase. A rune pays 1 Energy by exhausting (164.2.a) and 1 Power by recycling (164.2.b, whose cost is the recycle, so an exhausted rune still pays); the recycled rune goes to the Rune Deck (161.2.b) and two come back each Channel Phase (315.3.b). The opponent here plays no Energy-1 unit, which is every identity without Body or Calm. [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   your Main Phase                                         spent    you    them
T1     2   2x Determined Sentry                                    E2        0      0
T2     4   Sentries walk, one to A, one to B -> two Conquers;      E4        2      0
           Towering Combatant to base
  their T2: their T1 body attacks B, kills the Sentry, Conquers B and a second body is played there
T3     6   Hold A. Void Assault #1, then Void Assault #2 (§3):     E4+2P     4      1
           two combats won at A, B taken back by Conquer
T4     6   Hold A, Hold B. Combatant #2 played straight to B;      E4        6      1
           1 XP: buff the Sentry at B
T5     8   Hold A, Hold B                                          —         8

T4 opens on six rather than eight because T3 recycled two runes for the two Power. The T2 split is the ordinary body opening, not part of the entry: both battlefields start uncontrolled (190.1) and nobody can walk into either before your T2, because units enter exhausted (143.4).

The clock this beats is the contested one. Body/chaos reaches eight on T5 unopposed, because the Sentry is Energy 1 and two copies are two bodies on turn 1; holding one battlefield alone pays one a turn and reaches eight on T9. Against an opponent who took B on their T2, this line still lands on T5. What it buys is not points — Void Assault scores nothing — but the second battlefield back on the very next turn, with two of the opponent's bodies gone.

Their T3 is the turn that makes T4 safe. Both their B bodies died at A, B is yours, and anything they play on their T3 enters exhausted at their base (143.4; they control no battlefield to play to, 355.2.a). They cannot attack until their T4, which is why the second Combatant goes straight to B on your T4 rather than to your base.

3. The order the spell forces

On T3 there are two casts, and each one's friendly half resolves before its enemy half. The two orders are not equivalent.

Void Assault #1: the Combatant from base to A, then their first body from B to A. Your Combatant arrives at a battlefield you already control and contests nothing. Their body arrives at a battlefield its controller does not control, and 190.3.a.1 applies: "Units moving to or being played to a battlefield apply Contested status if that battlefield is not already Contested and that Unit’s controller does not already control that battlefield." So by 464.2.c.1 they are the Attacker, on your turn: "The Attacker is the player whose unit(s) applied the Contested status to the Battlefield." Both halves are effect moves under 449, so 420.3.a's exhaust never applies and the Combatant arrives ready or not — it does not matter on defence.

The fight: the Combatant is Might 5 as a defender and the Sentry 1, so six damage goes into their body; their damage must go into the Tank first, by 815.1.c.2: "Units without Tank are invalid assignments until all units with Tank have lethal damage assigned to them." A body of Might 4 or less dies and leaves the Combatant standing. You are then the only player with units there, which is a win under 466.3.a, and Voidreaver's "When you win a combat, gain 1 XP" fires.

Void Assault #2: the Sentry from A to B, then their second body from B to A. The Sentry is contested at B; their last body leaves B; after the spell resolves B holds only your Sentry, and 344.2 opens a Showdown with no combat: "If Control of a Battlefield is Contested, there aren’t units controlled by different players there, and the turn is in a Neutral Open State, a Showdown is opened during the next Cleanup." You have not scored B this turn (you Held only A), so the Conquer is a point under 469.1. Their second body fights the Combatant alone at A: five damage, a second win, a second XP. 466.1.a.1 healed the Combatant between the two combats.

Cast them the other way round and the second card loses A. If #2 goes first, the Sentry is still A's only body when the friendly half moves it to B. Then the enemy half drags their body to A, which now holds none of your units. After the spell resolves the turn is open again, and 323.6 takes A from you: "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." Their body is the only one at A, so 344.2 opens a Showdown and they Conquer it. And you do not take B either: they had two bodies there and the spell dragged one, so the Sentry lands at B against the other and is the Attacker (190.3.a.1, 464.2.c.1). A Might-1 Sentry dies to any body of Might 1 or more. You lose A, you do not take B, and you lose the Sentry, for two Energy and a Power. The Tank goes in first.

The same rule protects the right order against a response. 323.6 needs an Open State, and while a Void Assault is still on the chain the state is Closed. So OGN-133 Flurry of Blades cast in response to #1 kills the Sentry at A but cannot take A from you before #1 resolves and the Combatant lands there.

The entry's own steps say "Move your own Towering Combatant in alongside if it is not already there". If it IS already there, the friendly half cannot move it to A at all, because 355.4.a requires a destination "other than the Units’ current Location", and 355.8 requires a valid choice for every target before the spell can be played. The friendly half always moves somebody somewhere; the play has to decide who, and that is where the order comes from.

4. Breaks to

OGN-133 Flurry of Blades — Body, E1, [Reaction]: "Deal 1 to all units at battlefields." Cast in response to Void Assault #2, it kills the Sentry before the spell resolves. The friendly half has no legal target and is skipped, and 359.3.e.5 lets the rest happen anyway: "Any instructions related to an illegal target can’t be followed." Their body is still dragged to A and still dies to the Combatant, but nobody of yours reaches B: B goes uncontrolled instead of yours, and the T3 Conquer is gone with the Sentry. One Energy costs you a point and a body.

OGN-169 Gust (Chaos, E1, [Reaction], returns a unit at a battlefield with 3 Might or less to hand) does the same to the Sentry. Against the Combatant, the answer is any removal that reaches a Might-3 body at a battlefield before it defends; at Might 3 it is inside every one of the ten printed Might-3 gates.

The XP the two wins bank is the repair for T4: Voidreaver's "Spend 1 XP, :rb_exhaust:: [Buff] a unit" puts the Sentry at B on Might 2, and Flurry no longer kills it.

5. Verdict

The entry's sentence that one spell chooses which side of the combat you are on is right, and it undersells the line by stopping at one copy. Two casts in one Main Phase are a removal pair that also re-takes a battlefield, and the legend the Signature card forces is paid for every win.

What the line needs is an order the spell's wording imposes. The friendly half resolves first, so the body it moves must not be the last one guarding a battlefield the enemy half is about to fill. Put the Tank on A before the Sentry leaves it.

Priced as a game, it holds the unopposed pace against an opponent who broke it. Eight on T5, the same turn body/chaos reaches with nobody in the way, after losing B on their T2.

6. Not verified

I assumed the opponent's two bodies at B are Might 4 or less, which is what lets the Combatant survive the first fight; a Might-5 body still dies to six damage but kills the Combatant, and then #2 must keep the Sentry home. I assumed perfect draws for the three key cards by T3, as the turn clock does, and that the runes arrive in the domains the costs want (108.5.d keeps the Rune Deck's order secret). I did not walk the opponent's T4 attack into B.

Leads