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the Lab is paid before anything resolves, and the Sprite it eats is the one Gust can reach

Issue #248 (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: sprite-queen-dusk-rose-lab-shard-undoing, the mind/order ENGINE in which UNL-084 Sprite Queen makes a ready [Temporary] Sprite every Beginning Phase, UNL-174 Shard of Undoing turns its scheduled death into a forced enemy kill, and UNL-209 Dusk Rose Lab charges the same death a card. Nothing in it scores, so neither turn clock reads it. Walked as a game, two things come out that the entry does not say: the ordering it calls the key to the Lab's card is not load-bearing, and the Lab's card is bought by standing the Sprite where a one-Energy spell reaches it.

Why this line. scripts/sequence-pick.mjs re-run on 2026-10-05 at 771 entries reads 262 with forced-ordering language and 102 in the queue, the same numbers as slice 5. From here the pick is by global rank, skipping entries that already have a play. This entry is rank 2 (three hits on first). Rank 1 is played in each Svellsongur is worth the deficit.

1. Needs

Legendany Mind/Order name — the pool prints four: Herald of the Arcane (OGN-265), Lady of Luminosity (OGS-021), Chem-Baroness (SFD-201), Deceiver (UNL-199)
The payoffUNL-174 Shard of Undoing (Order gear, E6)
The engineUNL-084 Sprite Queen (Mind, E7 + 1 Power, M6)
The battlefieldUNL-209 Dusk Rose Lab (colourless), one of your three
A holderUNL-076 Petal Pixie (Mind, E2, M2) — not in the entry; §2 is built on it
Board it wantsthe contested one: the Lab is the battlefield drawn for you, the opponent holds B

Domain identity from data/cards.json: Sprite Queen and Petal Pixie are Mind, the Shard is Order, the Lab is colourless; union {mind, order} under 103.1.b. None is a Signature card and none appears in data/legality.json. 485.5 makes the Lab one in three in a Duel.

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); the recycled rune goes to the Rune Deck (161.2.b) and two come back each Channel Phase (315.3.b). [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    idle   you
T1     2   Petal Pixie                                         E2       E0     0
T2     4   Pixie walks to the empty Lab -> Conquer                      E4     1
  their T2: one body walks into B and Conquers it
T3     6   Hold Lab. Shard of Undoing                          E6       E0     2
T4     8   Hold Lab. Sprite Queen              (R -> 7)        E7+1P    E0     3
           her play trigger: Sprite #1, ready, at base;
           it walks to the Lab (Pixie is Might 3 while it stands there)
T5     9   Beginning Phase: the Lab kills Sprite #1 -> draw 1;
           first friendly death -> Shard: they kill one of their units;
           Sprite #2 is born at base. Hold Lab.                         E9     4
           Sprite #2 walks to the Lab
T6..   ..  the same Beginning Phase every turn                                 +1 a turn

The Shard goes down before the Queen, and that is a turn. Played T3 for 6 Energy with no Power, it is in play when Sprite #1 dies on T5. Queen first (T4) and Shard second (T5) puts the first forced kill on T6, because the Shard arrives in the Main Phase after that Beginning Phase's death. The cost is one opponent turn in which the Shard stands alone as a gear.

On the board it scores what the Pixie scores: one Hold a turn, eight on T9, the contested curve exactly. Mind/order prints no unit at Energy 1 or less, so its unopposed curve is T6. The engine does not move the clock by itself; what it does to the clock is §4.

3. The ordering the entry asks for is free

The entry's fourth notable reads: "Put the Lab first: it eats the Sprite that 816.1.b was going to kill for nothing, and you draw 1." Walked, the Lab draws in either order.

The Lab's kill is not its effect, it is its cost. 383.3.b: "If a Triggered Ability contains a cost within instructions at the beginning of the effect or immediately following the “you may” or “they may” that appears as the first part of the effect, that cost is treated as the base cost of the Triggered Ability." 383.3.b.1: "The cost must be paid in order to finalize the Triggered Ability to the Chain." (204.3.a says the same with Overzealous Fan as its example.)

Now place the three Beginning-Phase triggers in the order the entry warns against — the Sprite's [Temporary] first, the Lab second. 337.1.b: "Chain Items are Finalized in the order they were appended to the Chain." 312.2.c: "When the turn is in a Closed State, all pending chain items finish being finalized, and they control the next item on the Chain." So every trigger finalizes before any resolves. The [Temporary] trigger finalizes first and costs nothing; the Lab finalizes second and pays its kill — on a Sprite that is still standing, because 816.1.b's "kill this" is an effect and has not resolved. You draw 1, the Shard sees the death, and the [Temporary] trigger later resolves on a permanent that is already gone. Same card, same kill, either order.

The order that IS forced is the walk. Sprite Queen plays the Sprite "to your base", and the Lab kills only "a unit you control here". The Sprite born in a Beginning Phase must Standard-Move to the Lab in that same Main Phase (it is printed ready, so 144.2's exhaust is payable at once), because 816.1.c pins its own death to the next Beginning Phase's start. Miss the walk and the next Beginning Phase still fires the Shard — the [Temporary] death at base is a friendly death — but the Lab has nothing to eat but your holder.

4. What the forced kill does to the board

355.10.e makes the opponent choose the casualty, so the Shard takes their worst body. Two cases decide whether it ever scores:

So the honest price is in the entry's own words — "Price it as attrition, not as an answer." — and the attrition pays only against a deck that cannot spare a body.

5. Breaks to

OGN-169 Gust — Chaos, E1, [Reaction]: "Return a unit at a battlefield with 3 :rb_might: or less to its owner's hand." Cast on the opponent's own turn at the Sprite standing at the Lab. A token returned to hand is gone — 186.1: "If a token is put into any Non-Board Zone besides the chain, it ceases to exist immediately after moving to its new zone." At your next Beginning Phase the only unit at the Lab is the Pixie, and you choose between:

One Energy, every turn, and they cannot be stopped in your own Beginning Phase: the Lab's cost is paid at finalization and 312.2.c gives nobody priority until everything has finalized. Their window is their own turn, and it is open as long as the Sprite stands "at a battlefield".

The defence is to leave the Sprite at base. Gust cannot reach a base, the [Temporary] death there still feeds the Shard, and the forced kill survives untouched. What you give up is the Lab's card. So the Lab is not free: its card is bought by moving the Shard's fuel into Gust's range. Against a deck that runs Gust, run the line without the walk.

SFD-005 Detonate (Fury, E1 + 1 Power, "Kill a gear. Its controller draws 2.") on the Shard ends the forced kill for good, and hands you two cards for it. It is the permanent answer and not the cheap one.

6. Verdict

The engine is what the entry says it is, and its ordering note is unnecessary. The Lab's kill is a 383.3.b base cost paid at finalization, before the [Temporary] trigger can resolve, so the Lab draws whichever trigger is placed first. The ordering that matters is the walk to the Lab in the Main Phase the Sprite is born, and the deployment order — Shard on T3, Queen on T4 — which puts the first forced kill on T5 instead of T6.

Priced as a game it is the contested curve, T9, unless the opponent runs out of spare bodies, in which case the ready Sprite re-Conquers their battlefield every turn and the deck reaches eight on T7.

And the Lab's card costs exposure: the Sprite it eats stands where OGN-169 Gust reaches it for one Energy. Kept at base, the Sprite is out of Gust's range and the forced kill still happens.

7. Not verified

I assumed the Lab is the battlefield drawn for you (one in three in a Duel, 485.5), perfect draws, and runes in the domains the costs want (108.5.d). I did not walk removal on Sprite Queen herself (Might 6, no [Deflect]), nor the opponent contesting the Lab with a body of Might 4 or more while only the Pixie and a Sprite stand there.

Leads