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The Poro dies where he has to stand, and the Dredgers alone cast Ledros a turn sooner

Issue #354 (a slice of #200), 2026-10-14. 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: ledros-bird-power-discount, the Order ENGINE in which UNL-160 Ultrasoft Poro makes two Bird tokens a turn and UNL-153 Carrion Dredger hands a Bird back when it dies, so that OGN-231 Commander Ledros can kill four friendly bodies as he is played and cost 6 Energy and no Power. Walked as a game, the Poro never made a Bird. He has to stand at a battlefield to use his ability, he enters exhausted, and on the opponent's next turn two bodies they had played on their T2 walked in and killed him. Ledros still landed on T4, for 6 Energy and 2 Order Power, killing the two Birds the Dredgers left behind. The Dredgers alone put the same Ledros down on T3, a turn sooner, for the same 2 Power. The entry's refutation is the wrong card: OGN-133 Flurry of Blades reaches only battlefields, and the line's Birds stand in base.

Why this line. scripts/sequence-pick.mjs --unplayed, re-run on 2026-10-14 at e879748, reads 773 entries, 262 with forced-ordering language, 102 in the queue and 35 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 68 (a hit on first), first in the list. The other entry of this slice is rank 69, UNL-213 Gardens of Becoming as a free XP faucet for UNL-191 Wuju Master, played in The Gardens buy Level 6 a turn early, and a ready attacker on their T2 takes them first.

1. Needs

Legendany legend with Order among its two domains (103.1.b.1); here UNL-203 Keeper of the Hammer (Body/Order)
The payoffOGN-231 Commander Ledros (Order, E6 + 4 Order Power, M8)
The engineUNL-160 Ultrasoft Poro (Order, E5, M5)
The fodderUNL-153 Carrion Dredger (Order, E2, M1), two of them

None of the four is Signature (data/cards.json), and none is in data/legality.src.json.

The card text the play turns on:

2. Where the Poro can be, and what Ledros's cost takes

The Poro has to be at a battlefield you control, and he arrives exhausted. A unit is played to a valid location, and 355.2.a: "By default, Valid locations include the controller’s Base or a Battlefield the controller controls." 143.4: "Units enter the Board exhausted." His ability's cost is his own exhaust, so the turn he is played he makes nothing, and he spends the opponent's whole next turn standing at that battlefield. Walking him there from base instead costs the same exhaust, since 144.2: "Exhausting the Unit is the Cost for this action."

Control of a battlefield comes from units at it. 190.4: "Control is established by having Units at a Battlefield at the end of a Showdown or Combat after applying the contested status." A body that walks into an empty battlefield takes it, and Conquer scores it (469.1).

The kill is optional and reduces Power only. Ledros's clause uses as an additional cost and may, which is an Optional Additional Cost under 356.2.b.1. Each kill takes one Order rune off the printed four, and 356.6: "Energy and Power costs can't be reduced below 0." The 6 Energy is always paid. Any friendly unit will do: the card says any number of friendly units, not Birds.

A Dredger killed for the cost still makes its Bird. 428.1.a.1 makes a kill paid as a cost an Active Kill, and 428.1.a.1.b: the Dredger "first has any such ability added to the chain as a Pending Item". A Dredger that dies in combat triggers at the cleanup (323.4). Either way a Bird goes to your base, so killing a Dredger never lowers your fodder count. Killing a Bird does.

What 2 Power costs on the board. 164.2.a and 164.2.b let one rune be exhausted for 1 Energy and then recycled for 1 Power of its domain. Ledros at E6 + 2 Order Power is six runes, two of them Order and recycled back to the Rune Deck (161.2.b). You end the turn with two fewer runes on the board, the two a Channel Phase gives you (315.3.b).

3. Their order: Body/Chaos, bodies and an attack trigger

SFD-203 Battle Mistress (Body/Chaos): "When you recycle a rune, you may exhaust me to play a Gold gear token exhausted. When one or more enemy units die, ready me." Nothing they play costs Power, so they recycle no rune, and readying the legend does nothing in the walk. Its Chosen Champion carries the Sivir tag. They play UNL-097 Kinkou Initiate (Body, E3, M3), UNL-092 Demacian Diplomat (Body, E2, M2) and OGN-130 Crackshot Corsair (Body, E3, M3): "When I attack, deal 1 to an enemy unit here." That trigger chooses, so it targets (355.10). The Poro has no [Deflect] of his own, so it costs them nothing extra to aim it at him.

4. The turns, going first

Body/Order against Body/Chaos. Your battlefield is OGN-280 Grove of the God-Willow ("When you hold here, draw 1."), G; theirs is OGN-278 Bandle Tree ("You may hide an additional card here."), BT. Nobody hides a card in the walk. Your opening four are two Carrion Dredgers, Ultrasoft Poro and Commander Ledros. The only Power either side spends is Ledros's 2 Order on your T4.

turn    runes   your turn                                                 points
T1      2       Carrion Dredger (E2) to base.                             0
their T1        Kinkou Initiate (E3) to base. Three runes, none left.
T2      4       The Dredger walks to G, Conquer: +1. A second Dredger     1
                (E2) to base. Two runes left.
their T2        Kinkou Initiate walks to G: 3 against 1. The Dredger
                dies and its Bird goes to your base. Conquer. Crackshot
                Corsair (E3) and Demacian Diplomat (E2, 1 XP) to base.
                Five runes, none left.
T3      6       You control no battlefield. The second Dredger walks     2
                to BT, which is empty: Conquer, +1. Ultrasoft Poro (E5)
                to BT. One rune left. The Bird stays in base.
their T3        Hold G: +1, draw 1. Corsair and Diplomat walk from base
                to BT: 3 + 2 against the Poro and the Dredger. Corsair's
                1 on the Poro. Their 5: 4 on the Poro, 1 on the
                Dredger. Your 6 kill both attackers. Nobody is left at
                BT. The Dredger's Bird goes to your base. Seven runes,
                all ready.
T4      8       Commander Ledros to base, killing both Birds: E6 + 2      2
                Order Power. Six runes exhausted, two of them recycled.
                Two runes ready, six on the board.

Their points: 0 after their T1, 1 after their T2, 2 after their T3. After your T4 it is 2 to 2, with Ledros, an 8, exhausted in your base.

Your T3, why BT. Kinkou Initiate holds G, and the Dredger and the Bird are a 1 each, so you cannot take G back. BT is empty. The second Dredger walks in, the showdown ends with only your unit there, and you control BT (190.4). Now it is a valid location for the Poro (355.2.a), and he goes there, exhausted (143.4), with nothing to show for it until your T4.

Their T3, the combat. They hold G first and draw 1 from it. Corsair and Diplomat walk in from base in one move (144.3); neither can come from G, since only [Ganking] moves a unit from battlefield to battlefield (144.4.c). Corsair's attack trigger is theirs to place (464.2.e.1), and they put the 1 on the Poro. The damage step, 465.2.c: "Starting with the Attacker, each player assigns an amount of damage equal to their summed Might among the other's Units." They have 5. The Poro is a 5 with 1 marked, so 4 is lethal (142.4.b), and 465.2.c.3: "Units must have lethal damage assigned to them in full before damage is assigned to a different Unit." 4 on the Poro, 1 on the Dredger, and both die. You have 5 + 1 = 6: 3 on the Corsair, 2 on the Diplomat, and the last 1 on either. 466.5.b: "If there are no Units remaining here controlled by any player, the Battlefield becomes Uncontrolled." Had the Corsair's 1 gone on the Dredger instead, it dies to that, and their 5 is lethal on the Poro: the same two deaths.

Why they took the trade. Their two bodies, E5 between them, for the Poro, E5, and a Dredger that comes straight back as a Bird. The Poro is the only one of the four cards that makes fodder without dying, and he was going to make two Birds on your T4.

Your T4. Two Birds in base, both ready (315.1.b). Ledros kills both: 6 Energy and 4 − 2 = 2 Order Power. You have no battlefield, so he goes to base (355.2.a).

What the Poro would have bought. Had he lived through their T3, on your T4 he readies, exhausts, and two Birds go to your base. Ledros kills the Dredger, the first Bird and the two new ones: four kills, 6 Energy and no Power, with the Dredger's Bird back in base (428.1.a.1.b). That is the entry's own end state, on T4, with eight runes on the board instead of six.

What the Dredgers alone do, a turn sooner. On your T3, with six runes, the second Dredger walks to BT for the Conquer, and then Ledros kills it and the first Bird: 6 Energy and 2 Order Power, six runes exhausted and two recycled. The Dredger's Bird goes to your base. Ledros's location is chosen before the cost is paid: 355.2 picks it in step 2, while the Dredger still holds BT, and the kill is paid in step 4 (357.2). None of the checks in 358 re-tests the location, and 359.2.c: "If it is a Unit, it enters the Board exhausted at the Location that was chosen." So Ledros stands at BT, an 8, a turn before the walk's Ledros, and BT is still yours on their T3. Corsair and Diplomat, 3 + 2 with the Corsair's 1, do not take it. You have four runes on the board at the end of T3 and six on T4, the same six the walk has, and the Poro is still in your hand. The trade against the Poro's best case is one turn of Ledros against two runes, and the Poro's best case needs him to survive their T3.

How often this happens. The draw pile is 39 cards, the 40 of Tournament Rules 601.1.b less the Chosen Champion, which 103.2.a.1 places in the Champion Zone. Going first you have seen 5 cards by T1, 6 by T2, 7 by T3 and 8 by T4 (four opening, one draw a turn). At three copies of each card, computed exactly:

No battlefield in the walk is required, so no 1-in-3 factor from 485.5 applies.

5. Breaks to

The break in the walk costs them no card from hand and no rune: two bodies they already had walk into the Poro on the turn after he lands. He is a 5, exhausted, and standing where the rules require him to stand. Corsair and Diplomat, 3 + 2 with the Corsair's 1, are exactly lethal on him. They lose both, and you lose the only card that makes fodder without dying. Ledros still lands on T4, at 2 Power rather than none.

OGN-133 Flurry of Blades is not an answer to this line. The entry's last notable says the Birds are lethal to it "standing at a battlefield". Flurry reads "Deal 1 to all units at battlefields.", and every Bird in the walk is in base: the Dredger's Bird by its own text ("to your base"), and the Poro's Birds because their ability names no location, so 355.2.a lets you choose your base. A Dredger the Flurry kills at a battlefield hands you a Bird in base (323.4). The Poro, a 5, takes 1 and lives. Cast on their T3 in the walk, it removes no fodder.

What does reach the fodder. A Body/Chaos deck plays only Body, Chaos and Body/Chaos cards (103.1.b.1). The cards in those domains in data/corpus_flat.txt whose text reaches all units, all enemy units, each unit, all other units or all friendly units are ten. Two reach a base:

The other eight reach battlefields or combat only (Flurry of Blades, OGN-127 Cannon Barrage, OGN-268 Bullet Time, OGN-148 Anivia, Primal, OGN-190 Kog'Maw, Caustic), move units at a battlefield to base (UNL-107 Stare Down), or touch only their own units or trash (OGN-153 Overt Operation, UNL-148 Cursed Sarcophagus).

What answers the break. Not putting the Poro on the board. The Dredgers-only cast in §4 needs no battlefield and no turn of standing, and it is the faster Ledros.

6. Verdict

Right that Ledros's discount works and that the Dredgers refund Birds, wrong about which half carries it and about what refutes it. The Poro has to stand at a battlefield, exhausted, through a whole opponent turn before he makes anything, and two cheap bodies killed him. With him dead, Ledros landed on T4 at 6 Energy and 2 Order Power, on Birds the Dredgers left behind. The Dredgers alone cast the same Ledros on T3. The Poro's best case, if he lives, is the zero-Power Ledros on T4, which is a turn later than the Dredgers' Ledros for two runes saved. Flurry of Blades, the card the entry names as the refutation, reaches only battlefields and kills no fodder here. UNL-132 Angler Beast does.

7. Not verified

I did not deal the channel order. The walk assumes six Order and six Body runes, Keeper of the Hammer's two domains. Ledros on your T4 needs two Order among the eight runes channelled by then, and eight runes from a twelve with six Body always hold at least two Order, so it never fails at that split. The Dredgers-only Ledros on T3 needs two Order among the first six runes: it fails in 37 of 924 deals, 4.00%. Full-price Ledros on T3, with no kills, needs four Order among six, which holds in only 262 of 924, 28.35%. At twelve Order runes none of these fails.

I did not walk the Dredgers-only line or the Poro's surviving line in the turn table; both are derived in §4 from the same opening and the same opponent through your T3. Ledros standing at BT in the Dredgers-only line rests on reading 355.2, 357.2, 358 and 359.2.c in order. Control is not lost mid-play: 190.4.c takes it away only in an Open state, at the following cleanup, and 354.1, moving Ledros to the chain, "This Closes the State." I did not walk their T4, Ledros attacking with Ganking, Angler Beast cast on their T3, a different opening for them, the mulligan, or 2v2. Whether they have 5 Might of ready bodies in base on their T3 depends on their opening, which I fixed. The probabilities in §4 count only cards in hand at the turn named.

Leads