the Guardian buffs Sett too, so the wall is twelve and it is still one card from nothing

Issue #260 (a slice of #200), 2026-10-05. 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: sett-kingpin-peak-guardian-mass-buff, the mono-Order ENGINE in which OGN-223 Peak Guardian buffs a whole garrison at once and OGN-240 Sett, Kingpin reads every buffed body beside him as Might on a [Tank]. Walked as a game, the order is everything: the bodies and Sett must stand at the battlefield before the Guardian lands, because his buff is a one-shot and arrives once. And the wall the entry prices at Might 11 is Might 12, because the Guardian buffs Sett himself.

Why this line. scripts/sequence-pick.mjs --unplayed, re-run on 2026-10-05 at 0e77706, reads 771 entries, 262 with forced-ordering language, 102 in the queue and 81 of them with no play — the same numbers as when this slice was opened, so the pick did not move. The pick is by global rank, skipping entries that already have a play: this entry is rank 18 (hits on first and before), first in the list. The other entry of this slice is rank 19, played in LeBlanc is the whole army.

1. Needs

Legend	any legend with Order in its pair (103.1.b)
First	a battlefield you control, with unbuffed bodies on it
Then	`OGN-240 Sett, Kingpin` (Order, E4 + 1 Power, M5) at that battlefield
Last	`OGN-223 Peak Guardian` (Order, E6 + 1 Power, M5), played to the same battlefield

The card text the play turns on:

Sett, Kingpin: "[Tank] (I must be assigned combat damage first.) I get +1 :rb_might: for each buffed friendly unit at my battlefield."
Peak Guardian: "When you play me, buff me. Then, if I am at a battlefield, buff all other friendly units there."

2. Why the Guardian goes last

The Guardian's buff is an ETB: it happens once, when he is played, and reaches only what is already standing there. A body that arrives after him is unbuffed for good — nothing in the line buffs it — and 702.3 means a second mass buff could not help the bodies that are already buffed: "There can only be one Buff on a Unit at a time."

The bodies do not have to walk. 355.2.a lets you play a unit straight to a battlefield you hold: "By default, Valid locations include the controller’s Base or a Battlefield the controller controls." So from the turn after you take the battlefield, every 2-drop can land there directly, and 143.4's "Units enter the Board exhausted." costs nothing, because a body that stays put never needs its exhaust.

A body that buffs itself is not wasted. OGN-217 Trifarian Gloryseeker buffs itself under [Legion]; the Guardian's buff then bounces off it — 702.3.a, "If a Buff is added, or instructed to be added, on a Unit that already has a Buff, it is not placed instead." — but Sett counts buffed bodies, not bodies the Guardian buffed, so it counts anyway.

3. The turns, going first

Mono-Order. The opponent spends the early turns on the other battlefield and attacks this one when it can.

turn   runes   your turn                                                 at battlefield A
T1     2       Trusty Ramhound (E2) at base                              —
T2     4       Ramhound walks to A and conquers (144.4.a).               Ramhound
               Daring Poro + Honest Broker at base.
T3     6       Hold A (1 point). Poro and Broker walk to A.              Ramhound, Poro, Broker,
               Sett to A: exhaust 4, recycle one for the Order Power     Sett, Gloryseeker
               (164.2.b). Gloryseeker (E2) to A; [Legion] buffs it.
               5 runes remain.
T4     7       Hold A (1 point). Peak Guardian to A: exhaust 6,          the same five + Guardian,
               recycle one for the Power. 6 runes remain.                all six buffed

On T4 the Guardian buffs himself, then Ramhound, Poro, Broker and Sett; Gloryseeker already carries one. Six buffed friendly units stand at Sett's battlefield, so his ability gives +6. And he carries a buff of his own — 703: "Each Buff individually contributes +1 Might to a Unit." Sett is 5 + 1 + 6 = 12.

4. What the wall does

[Tank] makes Sett the first body anything attacking A has to kill — 815.1.b: "I must be assigned lethal damage before any other unit with the same controller as me that does not have [Tank] during the Combat Damage step." And 465.2.c.3 makes it lethal in full: "Units must have lethal damage assigned to them in full before damage is assigned to a different Unit." An attack whose summed Might is under 12 kills nothing at A. The bodies behind him are 3 Might each once buffed, so OGN-133 Flurry of Blades ("Deal 1 to all units at battlefields.") kills none of them either.

The wall shrinks as it loses bodies — 705: "If a Unit leaves play, remove all Buffs from it." — and the Guardian cannot re-buff. Sett at 12 is the high-water mark of the game.

5. Breaks to

The wall breaks to OGN-213 Hidden Blade (Order, E2 + 1 Power, "[Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Kill a unit at a battlefield. Its controller draws 2."). A kill instruction does not read Might, so Sett at 12 dies exactly as Sett at 5 would. The opponent pays E2 + 1 and a card, you draw two, and the five bodies behind him are an ordinary garrison of 3-Might units again. It has to be cast from hand for its cost: hidden, it could only target at the battlefield it was hidden at, and that is one the opponent controls, never A.

Before T4 it breaks to a contest. Between T2 and T4, A is held by 2-Might bodies and Sett; an opponent who takes A back on their T3 puts the Guardian's battlefield out of reach, because 355.2.a lets you play him only to a battlefield you control. The ordering that makes the wall is also the two turns it is exposed.

Bigger removal is wasted on it. UNL-180 The Ruination (E9 + 3, "Kill all units.") answers it too, but at four times the price of the Blade and from a deck that has to be ten runes deep.

6. Verdict

The line is three turns of ordinary bodies and one card that turns them into a twelve-Might [Tank]. It holds A from T3, a point a turn, which is the contested Hold curve and nothing faster; what the Guardian buys is that A stops being attackable by anything smaller than twelve. It scores nothing of its own, and it breaks to OGN-213 Hidden Blade for E2 + 1 Order.

7. Not verified

I did not walk a two-domain shell, the sibling Karma line, or 2v2.

Leads

The entry's arithmetic counts Sett's ability and forgets his own buff counter. The Guardian buffs him too (its notable says so: "himself, Sett and the four"), and 703 adds +1 for it, so the declared board is Might 12, not 11.
The entry names Sett's weakness (705, the wall shrinks) but no card that answers him; a kill instruction ignores the whole wall, and the cheapest one is OGN-213 Hidden Blade at E2 + 1.
A self-buffing body such as OGN-217 Trifarian Gloryseeker still counts for Sett although 702.3.a refuses the Guardian's buff on it; the entry's sentence "the ceiling is how many UNBUFFED bodies stand there" undercounts any garrison that buffs itself.