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the refill held for the Burn Out never gets a turn

Issue #309 (a slice of #200), 2026-10-07. 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 and data/Riftbound-Tournament-Rules-2026-07-16.txt. Read the setup nobody prices first: it times how fast VEN-165 Shadow Temple empties a deck, and this play uses that timetable.

Subject: progress-day-shadow-temple-deliberate-burn-out, the Mind ENGINE in which Shadow Temple burns three cards a turn, OGN-114 Progress Day is held until the Main Deck is empty, and its draw then runs into a Burn Out: the trash is recycled into the deck, the opponent gains a point, and the draw is completed from the rebuilt deck. The entry is right about the rule. 431.2 orders the steps, and a Burn Out is a Replacement Effect inside one resolution. Walked as a game, the moment the entry waits for never comes. Going first, the deck is at one card on T10 at the earliest, and the race of Holds is decided by T9. Held for that moment, Progress Day is a draw-four that sits in hand for five turns while runes idle. The Temple survives the opponent's one legal attack on their T8 by a single Might. Cast as a plain draw-four on T6, the same card is four more bodies at the Temple, and the attack is not worth making. Either way the Burn Out lands on T10, after the game. What breaks the designed moment is UNL-131 Abandon, two runes. Countered, Progress Day draws nothing, and the Temple burns you out at the next Hold anyway.

Why this line. scripts/sequence-pick.mjs --unplayed, re-run on 2026-10-07 at 4015c20, reads 771 entries, 262 with forced-ordering language, 102 in the queue and 63 of them with no play, unchanged from the issue. The pick is by global rank, skipping entries that already have a play: this entry is rank 37 (a no window entry), second in the list. The other entry of this slice is rank 36, played in Sona holds the wall up, and the board stops growing.

1. Needs

Legendany legend with Mind among its domains (103.1.b); here VEN-145 Curator of the Sands (Calm/Mind), idle in the walk because nothing in the list costs seven Energy and Progress Day is a spell
BattlefieldShadow Temple as the battlefield 485.5 draws for you, and Control of it
Firsta Main Deck of three cards or fewer, on your Main Phase
ThenOGN-114 Progress Day (Mind, E6 + 1 Power)

The card text the play turns on:

2. The Burn Out the entry is built on

413.4 opens the case: "If a player attempts to draw more cards than are available in their Main Deck, they do the following:" 413.4.a "Draw as many as possible.", 413.4.b "Perform a Burn Out.", 413.4.c "Draw the remaining cards needed to complete the Draw action." The Burn Out is ordered in 431.2: 431.2.b "Recycles their trash into their Main Deck.", 431.2.c "Chooses an opponent to gain 1 point.", 431.2.d "Completes the remainder of the action that caused them to burn out." So Progress Day on a deck of one draws that card, rebuilds the deck from the trash, hands over one point, and draws three from the rebuilt deck. The entry has all of that right.

The Temple causes a Burn Out on its own. 431.1.b: "If a player must put one or more cards from their Main Deck in any other zone, such as the Trash, in excess of the number of cards in their deck they will do so as much as possible, perform this action, and then complete the remaining number required by the instruction." The Temple has no may, so a Hold on a deck of fewer than three cards is a Burn Out too. And 431.4.a: "Players may only burn out when Game Effects direct them to do so." The point is paid either way. Progress Day only decides which effect pays it.

The clock. Tournament Rules 601.1.b: "In competitions, a player’s Main Deck must be exactly 40 cards." The Chosen Champion is set aside, and rule 116 reads "Players each draw 4.", which leaves 35. Going first, you Conquer the Temple on T2 and Hold it from T3, so the deck loses one card a turn to the Draw Phase and three to the Temple: 34, 33, then 29, 25, 21, 17, 13, 9 and 5 at the end of T9. On T10 the Temple burns three and the Draw Phase takes one more, so T10 is the first Main Phase with three cards or fewer in the deck, and it has one. Progress Day then works as the entry says.

And T9 has already decided the game. 469.2: "Hold: A player maintains Control of a Battlefield they did not yet Score this turn during their Beginning Phase." A Conquer on T2 and a Hold on each of T3 to T9 is eight points on T9. The deck that empties itself on this battlefield is the deck that wins on it first.

3. Their order: hold B, move the Temple's garrison home, and attack it from their base

Calm/Chaos with UNL-193 Gloomist, holding B. They draw an extra card on every Hold. Going second they reach eight on their T9, a turn after you, so they have to take the Temple. Their tool for that is Maddened Marauder: every copy they play moves your biggest body at A to your base, where it has to walk back.

The attack has to come from their base. A Standard Move goes from a base to a battlefield or back (144.4.a, 144.4.b), and 144.4.c.1 reads "Units with Ganking may use their Standard Move to Move from Battlefield to Battlefield." None of their units has [Ganking], so nothing at B can reach A in one move. From their T6 they play new units to their base, which 355.2.a allows ("By default, Valid locations include the controller’s Base or a Battlefield the controller controls."). On their T7, after holding B, five of B's units walk home and Mystic Poro stays to keep B. On their T8 everything ready at the base walks to A.

4. The turns, going first

Calm/Mind against Calm/Chaos. Your rune deck is six Calm and six Mind. The column deck is your Main Deck at the end of the turn.

turn    runes   deck  your turn (the entry's line: hold Progress Day)          points
T1      2       34    Watchful Sentry (E2) to base                              0
their T1                Mystic Poro to base, with the 485.7 extra rune.
T2      4       33    Sentry walks to A, Conquer: +1. Stalwart Poro (E2) to A.  1
their T2                Mystic Poro walks to B, Conquer. Sunlit Guardian (E3)
                        to B.
T3      6       29    Hold A: +1, Burn 3. Sunlit Guardian (E3) to A.            2
their T3                Hold B, Gloomist draws. Shipyard Skulker (E3) to B.
T4      8       25    Hold A: +1. Royal Entourage (E3 + 1 Calm), Ol' Poro       3
                      (E2) and a second Sunlit Guardian (E3) to A. Seven runes.
their T4                Hold B, draw. Maddened Marauder (E5) to B: Royal
                        Entourage goes to your base.
T5      9       21    Hold A: +1. Entourage walks back. A second Entourage      4
                      (E3 + 1 Calm) and a second Stalwart Poro (E2) to A.
                      Four idle. Progress Day stays in hand.
their T5                Hold B, draw. Ember Monk (E4) and a Skulker (E3) to B.
T6      10      17    Hold A: +1. A second Ol' Poro (E2) to A. Eight idle.      5
their T6                Hold B, draw. A second Marauder to their base: an Ol'
                        Poro goes home. A second Sunlit Guardian (E3) to their
                        base.
T7      12      13    Hold A: +1. Ol' Poro walks back. A second Sentry (E2) to  6
                      A. Ten idle.
their T7                Hold B, draw. A second Ember Monk (E4) and a third
                        Skulker (E3) to their base. Guardian, Marauder, Ember
                        Monk and two Skulkers walk from B to their base; Mystic
                        Poro keeps B.
T8      12       9    Hold A: +1. A third Sunlit Guardian (E3) to A. Nine idle. 7
their T8                Hold B, draw: 7. A third Marauder to their base: an
                        Ol' Poro goes home. Nine units walk from their base to
                        A, thirty-one against thirty-two. A holds.
T9      12       5    Hold A: +1. Eight against seven: you win at the cleanup.  8

The hand ran out on T5. From T6 you drew one card a turn and played it, with eight, ten and nine runes idle and a draw-four in hand that the entry tells you to keep.

The fight on their T8. The units that walked home on T7 or were played there on T6 and T7 are ready on T8; the third Marauder, played that turn, entered exhausted (143.4) and stays. 465.2.a sums the attackers: two Sunlit Guardians 3, three Skulkers 3, two Ember Monks 4 and two Marauders 4, thirty-one. 465.2.b sums the defenders: two Sentries 1, two Stalwart Poros and three Sunlit Guardians with their [Shield], two Royal Entourages 4, one Ol' Poro 4, thirty-two. 465.2.c: "Starting with the Attacker, each player assigns an amount of damage equal to their summed Might among the other's Units." Your thirty-two kills every attacker. Their thirty-one cannot kill all thirty-two of yours, because 465.2.c.3 reads "Units must have lethal damage assigned to them in full before damage is assigned to a different Unit.", so at least one defender survives. 466.3.a: "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." You win it, A stays yours, and you Hold it for eight on T9.

That is a margin of one Might. Two of the four cards Progress Day would have drawn were still in the deck, and the other two arrived a turn and two turns late.

The same game with Progress Day cast on T6. On T6 there are ten runes and Ol' Poro is the only card in hand. Progress Day costs six tapped, one of them recycled for Mind, and the Ol' Poro two more. It draws the second Sentry and the third Guardian one and two turns early, plus a third Royal Entourage and OGN-119 Ahri, Inquisitive. The second Sentry is played on T6. On T7, with eleven runes, the Guardian, the Entourage and Ahri go to A, and a third Stalwart Poro and a third Ol' Poro on T8. On their T8, after the third Marauder, A defends at forty-six, and Ahri reads "When I attack or defend, give an enemy unit here -2 :rb_might: this turn, to a minimum of 1 :rb_might:." Twenty-nine into forty-six is not an attack worth making. On T9 you Hold A for eight, and they have seven.

The deck: 13 at the end of T6, then 9, 5, and 1 at the end of T9. No Burn Out happened in either game.

5. When the Burn Out happens

Cast on T6, Progress Day leaves one card at the end of T9, and the Temple's T10 Hold burns that card, burns you out, and burns two more. Held for the entry's moment, it is cast on T10's Main Phase with one card left. The Burn Out lands on T10 either way, for the same one point. Progress Day takes four cards out of the deck whenever it is cast, so the turn of the Burn Out depends on how many cards have left the deck, not on when the draw was cast. Holding it changes only when the four cards arrive. It can bring a Burn Out forward and never push one back.

For the entry's moment to arrive before you have won on Temple points, you need T + 3H ≥ 32 by your Main Phase of turn T (35 cards, one drawn a turn, three per Hold, and at most three left for Progress Day), with at most six Holds, because one Conquer and seven Holds are already eight points. Six Holds burn eighteen. So the moment is T14 at the earliest on the Temple and the Draw Phase alone, in a game where you failed to Hold the Temple on at least six of the twelve turns from T3 to T14.

6. Breaks to

The designed moment breaks to UNL-131 Abandon (Chaos, E2: two runes): "[Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Counter a spell. Return it to its owner's hand instead of putting it in their trash. [Predict]. (Look at the top card of your Main Deck. You may recycle it.)" Progress Day is countered with a deck of three cards or fewer: you draw nothing, you do not burn out, and the card goes back to your hand. 425.1.c: "Countering does not refund any costs paid to play a card, activate an ability, or trigger an ability." The six runes are spent, one of them off the board. At your next Beginning Phase the Temple Holds, 431.1.b burns you out, and the opponent gains the point with no four cards drawn. OGN-045 Defy cannot do this, because it counters a spell that "costs no more than :rb_energy_4:" and Progress Day costs six. OGN-064 Wind Wall can, for three runes, two of them recycled. Abandon is in the opponent's identity here, and two of their idle runes on any of T3 to T8 cover it.

An early Progress Day is just as easy to counter, but countering it then only costs you the runes, while the designed moment also gives the opponent the Burn Out point.

7. Verdict

Right about the rule, and the moment it waits for comes after the game is decided. The Burn Out is ordered as the entry says. The refill lands before the rest of the draw, and nobody can answer it between the steps. But going first on the Temple, the deck reaches one card on T10, and eight points from Holding the same battlefield arrive on T9. Held for that moment, Progress Day is a dead card for five turns in a deck whose hand runs out by T5. In this game the Temple survived the one attack that could take it by one Might, where the same card cast on T6 would have made it seventeen. The Burn Out lands on T10 whichever way you play it. A two-rune counter on the designed cast costs you the six runes, the four cards and the point.

8. Not verified

The thirty-one against thirty-two depends on the cards dealt in this walk. A third Sunlit Guardian or Ember Monk in their hand by T7, played to their base, would have made it thirty-four or thirty-five, and the held Progress Day would then have cost the Temple and the game. The arithmetic of §5 does not depend on the cards. I did not walk the T14 game of §5, a list with more draw than the Temple, a game where 485.5 does not pick the Temple, or a game where they take the Temple, which would then burn their deck instead (190.6.d).

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