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the wall is six damage plus the two biggest attackers, and width walks through it

Issue #254 (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: vex-mocking-thwonk-wall, the mono-Calm ENGINE that answers an attack on the opponent's turn: SFD-040 Thwonk! stuns two attackers inside the Combat Showdown, and UNL-055 Vex, Mocking moves on the stun into the attacked battlefield as a 6-Might [Tank]. The entry's mechanics hold. Walked as a game, the line has one exposed turn, a fixed price that has to be left untapped through your own turn, and a ceiling that is a number: it absorbs the two largest attackers plus six damage, so the opponent's answer is width, not removal.

Why this line. scripts/sequence-pick.mjs re-run on 2026-10-05 at 74259ff reads 771 entries, 262 with forced-ordering language and 102 in the queue, unchanged since slice 8. The pick is by global rank, skipping entries that already have a play: node scripts/sequence-pick.mjs --unplayed lists 87 unplayed, and this entry is first, at rank 11 (two hits, before and first). The other entry of this slice is rank 12, played in play the bodies before the spell.

1. Needs

Legendany legend with Calm in its pair (103.1.b)
The wallUNL-055 Vex, Mocking (Calm, E5 + 1 Power, M5), anywhere on your board
The triggerSFD-040 Thwonk! (Calm, E2, [Repeat] 2 Energy), in hand
Mana it holds4 runes left ready through your own turn
Board it wantsa battlefield you control with a garrison the opponent wants to take

The card text the play turns on:

2. The order inside the combat

Thwonk! can only be cast once there is an attacking unit, so it is cast in the Combat Showdown on the opponent's turn. 806.1.b: "Action grants the corresponding card or effect permission to be played or activated during Showdowns, even when it is not the Controlling player's turn." The two stuns are chosen as it is played, not on resolution — 820.2: "When a spell or ability's effect is performed an additional time with Repeat, choices must be made at the usual time during the Make Relevant Choices step of Playing a Card."

Each stun fires Vex. Her move is an effect move, so it ignores her own exhaustion and the Closed State — 420.2.a: "Players may only move Game Objects when instructed to do so by Game Effects or costs." The move is completed, a Cleanup runs (319.8, "After a Move is completed"), and 323.2.a hands her the Defender designation before damage: "If there are Units present at the Battlefield the Combat is taking place at, but do not have a designation, they gain the same designation as their Controller now". The second stun's trigger finds her already there and is declined; 355.4.a gives it nowhere to go: "A valid Location for a Move Effect is one other than the Units’ current Location where they are allowed to be present."

Then the damage step, in this order:

  1. The two stunned attackers add nothing. 423.1.b: "A Stunned Unit does not contribute its might to damage in the combat damage step."
  2. What is left goes into Vex first. 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." She is 5 + 1 while defending (814.1.c), so the first 6 points stop on her.
  3. Your side swings back at full strength, and the stunned attackers still die at full Might — 423.1.c: "A Stunned Unit must still have damage applied to it equal to, or greater than, its full might value to be killed."

So the wall's ceiling is exact: the two largest attackers, plus six damage. Anything past that reaches the garrison.

3. The turns, going first

Mono-Calm, two 2-Energy 2-Might bodies as the curve, battlefield A taken early. The opponent is on an aggressive three-body curve and attacks A on their turn 4 with bodies of 3, 3 and 4 Might.

turn   runes   your Main Phase                                     ready on THEIR turn
T1     2       a 2-drop                                            0
T2     4       a 2-drop; walk the T1 body to A, Conquer            2 (nothing to cast)
T3     6       Vex: exhaust 5 for E5, recycle one exhausted rune   1   <- the exposed turn
               for the Calm Power (5 runes left); walk T2 body to A
T4     7       spend at most 3; LEAVE 4 READY                      4   <- the wall is live
  their T4: they attack A with 3 + 3 + 4 = 10 Might
               Thwonk! + Repeat (E4): stun the 4 and a 3
               Vex moves base -> A, becomes a Defender
               3 damage left, all of it into Vex (needs 6); both 2-drops untouched
               your side deals 6 + 2 + 2 = 10; the attackers need 3 + 3 + 4 = 10: all three die
T5     9       Hold A

Without the wall, the same attack puts 10 into a garrison of 2 + 2, both die, and the opponent Conquers A. With it, the opponent loses three bodies and you Hold. 466.3.a gives you the combat: "A Player has won a combat if they received either the attacker or defender designation and are the only Player that has units remaining at this battlefield during this step."

The price is paid on your own turn. Runes ready only in your own Awakening — 415.3.a: "A player Readies all non-spell Game Objects they Control during the Awakening Phase on their turn." — so the 4 Energy for Thwonk! has to be left untapped through T4's Main Phase, out of 7. That is what makes T3 the exposed turn: Vex costs the whole board of runes that turn, and one ready rune casts nothing.

Park Vex at your base, not at a battlefield. The move is by effect, so she reaches either of your battlefields from base, and from base no battlefield is left empty when she leaves. If she stands alone at B and they attack A, she still goes — but 323.6 then strips B: "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." After the combat she is at A; on your next turn a Standard Move takes her back (144.4.b, "Units may move from a Battlefield to their Base."), and her exhaustion costs her nothing on defence.

4. Breaks to

Width, for no card at all. The wall stops the two biggest attackers and six more damage. Four attackers of 3 Might each: two stunned, 6 left, exactly lethal on Vex (143.2.a: "If a Unit ever has nonzero damage marked on it equalling or exceeding its Might, it is Killed."). Five of them: Vex dies and the fifth body's 3 reaches the garrison. The opponent's cheapest answer is to attack A with one more body than you can stun, which their curve was going to play anyway.

A counter, if they hold one. OGN-045 Defy — Calm, E1 + 1 Power: "Counter a spell that costs no more than :rb_energy_4: and no more than :rb_rune_rainbow:." Thwonk! is printed at E2, and the Repeat does not lift it out of range (206's own example is Defy against a Repeated Rocket Barrage). Countered, nothing is stunned, Vex never moves, and the Repeat's 2 Energy is gone too — 425.1.c.1: "This includes additional costs." Defy is a mirror-match card. Outside Calm, UNL-106 Repulse (Body, E1 + 1 Power) counters an enemy spell "that chooses it and no other friendly unit", so it answers a Thwonk! cast without its Repeat; a Repeated Thwonk! that stuns two different attackers chooses two of their units and is out of its reach (820.2).

Kill Vex before attacking. OGN-229 Vengeance — Order, E4 + 2 Power, "Kill a unit." No location clause, so it reaches her at your base. The most expensive of the three.

5. Verdict

The entry is right and the line is a real defensive engine. On their turn 4 it turns a lost battlefield into a three-body blowout for E4, and it does so three times a game (one Thwonk! per copy, 103.2.b).

It scores nothing, it costs a turn of exposure (T3) and 4 untapped runes on every turn after, and its ceiling is a number the opponent can count: two stuns and six damage. It breaks to a fifth attacker for free, to OGN-045 Defy for E1 + 1 Power in a mirror, and to OGN-229 Vengeance for E4 + 2 Power before the attack.

6. Not verified

I did not walk an opponent who attacks both of your battlefields in one turn (the wall reaches one), removal cast at Vex inside the same Showdown after she arrives, a second copy of Thwonk! in hand, or 2v2.

Leads