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Yuumi's grant is the +3, and one Flurry takes both

Issue #347 (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: yuumi-affectionate-poro-designated-tank, the Calm ENGINE in which UNL-056 Yuumi, Magical Cat gives a third body +3 Might and [Tank] when she attacks or defends, so that the opponent's combat damage cannot reach VEN-024 Affectionate Poro, which draws a card when a combat it was in ends and it has taken no damage that turn. Walked as a game, the engine held. On your T4 Yuumi, a Sunlit Guardian and the Poro attacked a battlefield held by two bodies summing 5. The grant made the Guardian a 6, all 5 went on it, nothing of yours died, and the Poro drew. Without Yuumi the same attack loses the Guardian and the card. Two things the entry does not walk decide the line. The third body in the walk is a printed [Tank], which the entry's sixth notable says wants the grant "elsewhere or not at all"; on this board elsewhere is the Poro, and the +3 on the Guardian is the whole effect. And the answer the entry names, OGN-133 Flurry of Blades, does more than it says: cast in response to Yuumi's trigger, it kills her before the grant resolves, the grant then has no "here" to read, and the attack that should have drawn a card loses all three bodies.

Why this line. scripts/sequence-pick.mjs --unplayed, re-run on 2026-10-14 at 8896448, reads 773 entries, 262 with forced-ordering language, 102 in the queue and 39 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 64 (a hit on first), second in the list. The other entry of this slice is rank 63, VEN-038 Akali, Silent covered by Twilight Shroud, played in Akali's Shroud goes on before she moves, and on their turn she is a plain 4.

1. Needs

Legendany legend with Calm among its two domains (103.1.b); here OGN-257 Blind Monk (Calm/Body)
The engineUNL-056 Yuumi, Magical Cat (Calm, E3 + 1 Calm Power, M1)
The payoffVEN-024 Affectionate Poro (Calm, E3, M3)
The third bodyhere OGN-054 Sunlit Guardian (Calm, E3, M3, [Shield], [Tank])

All three are mono-Calm, so 103.1.b admits them under any of the Calm legends. None is in data/legality.src.json.

The card text the play turns on:

2. What the grant decides

815.1.b, the keyword: "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 815.1.c.2: "Units without Tank are invalid assignments until all units with Tank have lethal damage assigned to them." So an opponent whose summed Might is no more than the Tank's lethal puts all of it on the Tank, and the Poro is dealt nothing. With one point more, the excess goes on another unit, and they choose which one. 465.2.c.3 makes them finish one unit before starting the next, but 465.2.c.4 lets the last unit take whatever is left: "Units cannot have more damage assigned to them than the minimum required to constitute lethal damage unless no further units remain to have damage assigned to them." One point on the Poro is enough to switch it off.

The Poro draws while their Might is at most the Tank's Might. At exactly that number the Tank dies and the Poro still draws.

The [Tank] half is redundant on a printed Tank, and that does not make the grant redundant. 815.2: "Multiple instances of Tank are redundant." The Guardian already has the keyword, so the grant adds only +3. But +3 is the threshold: on attack it moves from 3 to 6, and on defence from 4 to 7 ([Shield]). The other choice is worse. Yuumi's clause says "one of your other units here", so with Yuumi, the Guardian and the Poro at B, the only other unit is the Poro itself. Given [Tank], the Poro becomes a legal first assignment, by 815.1.c.2's first sentence: "If more than one unit with Tank is present with the same controller in Combat, damage may be assigned to any of them."

On attack the three must leave from base together. 144.3: "Players may perform multiple Units' standard move simultaneously. This is treated as one game action performed on multiple Units." A Standard Move goes from base to a battlefield or back (144.4.a, 144.4.b), never from battlefield to battlefield. So the Poro and the third body have to be in base at the start of the turn, not holding something.

3. Their order: Fury/Body, bodies from base

OGN-249 Relentless Storm (Fury/Body): "When you play a [Mighty] unit, you may exhaust me to channel 1 rune exhausted." Idle in the walk: none of their units has 5 Might. Its Chosen Champion carries the Volibear tag. They play SFD-006 Eager Drakehound (Fury, E3 + 1 Power, M3, "I enter ready."), OGN-013 Pouty Poro and OGN-010 Legion Rearguard (both Fury, E2, M2) and OGN-016 Dangerous Duo (Fury, E3, M3). The Duo's [Legion] needs another card played that turn, and it gets none. In the walk their hand holds no removal. §5 puts a Flurry of Blades in it.

4. The turns, going first

Calm/Body against Fury/Body. Your rune deck is six Calm and six Body; theirs six Fury and six Body. Your opening four are Stalwart Poro, Affectionate Poro, Yuumi and Sunlit Guardian; the draws are for later turns. OGN-052 Stalwart Poro is Calm, E2, M2 with [Shield].

turn    runes   your turn                                                 points
T1      2       Stalwart Poro (E2) to base.                               0
their T1        Eager Drakehound (E3 + 1 Fury) on the 485.7 extra rune:
                three exhausted, one recycled. It enters ready, walks to
                B, Conquer. Two runes, none ready.
T2      4       Stalwart Poro walks to A, Conquer: +1. Affectionate Poro  1
                (E3) to base. Blind Monk (E1) buffs the Stalwart Poro,
                Might 3. No runes left.
their T2        Hold B. Pouty Poro (E2) and Legion Rearguard (E2) to
                base. Four runes, all spent.
T3      6       Hold A: +1. Yuumi (E3 + 1 Calm): three exhausted, one     2
                of them recycled. Sunlit Guardian (E3) to base. Five
                runes, none left.
their T3        Hold B. Pouty Poro walks to B. Dangerous Duo (E3) to
                base. Six runes, three left.
T4      7       Hold A: +1. Yuumi, the Guardian and the Poro walk from    4
                base to B together: 1 + 3 + 3. Yuumi's trigger gives the
                Guardian +3, Might 6. 10 against 5 (Drakehound 3, Pouty
                Poro 2). Their 5 all go on the Guardian, short of 6;
                your 10 kill both. Conquer B: +1. The Poro draws 1.
their T4        Legion Rearguard and Dangerous Duo (2 + 3) attack A: the
                Stalwart Poro, 3 + 1. It dies; its 4 kill the Duo and
                mark 1 on the Rearguard. Conquer A.

Their points: 1 after their T1, 2 after their T2, 3 after their T3, 4 after their T4. After their T4 it is 4 to 4, and you are a card up.

Why they did not attack A on their T3. The buffed Stalwart Poro defends at 4 ([Shield]). Pouty Poro and the Rearguard sum 4: both die to its 4, and it dies to theirs, which leaves A uncontrolled and trades two bodies for one.

Your T4, the grant. The move ends in a cleanup that stages and then opens the combat (323.9, 460). Your three units take the Attacker designation (464.2.c.3), which is when Yuumi attacks, and her trigger goes on the Combat Chain (464.2.e). It chooses the Guardian. Nothing answers it, and the Guardian is 6 with [Tank] twice over. 465.2.c sums the Might: 1 + 6 + 3 = 10 against 3 + 2 = 5. They assign first to the Guardian, by 815.1.b, and 5 never reaches its lethal of 6, so nothing else of yours can be assigned anything (815.1.c.2). Your 10 kill both. Both their units are gone, so nothing is recalled (466.1.a.2), and you establish Control: Conquer. The combat ends (466.7), and the Poro, dealt nothing this turn, draws 1.

What Yuumi bought. Without her, the Guardian and the Poro attack at 3 + 3 = 6 against 5. The Guardian's printed [Tank] takes lethal first, 3 of the 5, and the other 2 go on the Poro, the only unit left. The Guardian dies and the Poro draws nothing. B is conquered either way. Yuumi's grant was worth the card and the Guardian.

Why they did not attack B on their T4. Your garrison there defends at 1 + (3 + 1 + 3) + 3 = 11, with Yuumi's trigger firing again on defence. Their base holds the Rearguard and the Duo, 5, which would all go on a Guardian whose lethal is 7. Nothing of yours dies, both of theirs do, and the Poro draws again. They took A instead.

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 6 cards by T2 (four opening, one draw a turn) and 7 by T3. The engine pair as walked, a Poro by T2 and a Yuumi by T3, is 16.89% at the entry's three of each, and 2.43% with one of each. With a Sunlit Guardian by T3 as well, at three copies, it is 6.36%.

5. Breaks to

The cheapest break is OGN-133 Flurry of Blades, one Energy, at Reaction speed, the card the entry names. "[Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Deal 1 to all units at battlefields." The scope: the 35 spells in data/corpus_flat.txt whose domains are Fury, Body or Fury/Body, whose text carries [Action] or [Reaction], and that say kill, deal, stun, return, banish, move, counter or Might, read by hand. Three cost one Energy and no Power: Flurry, OGN-004 Cleave and SFD-003 Blood Rush. Cleave and Blood Rush give [Assault], which counts only while a unit is an attacker, and on your T4 their units are defending. Flurry is the only one of the three that touches your units. The next sweep in the set is OGN-127 Cannon Barrage (Body, E2 + 1 Power).

Walked on your T4, with a Flurry in hand and three ready runes. Yuumi's trigger is on the Combat Chain, choosing the Guardian. They respond with Flurry (813.1.c.1), and it resolves first. One damage on every unit at a battlefield: Yuumi, the Guardian and the Poro at B, the Drakehound and Pouty Poro there too, and the Stalwart Poro at A. The cleanup kills Yuumi, 1 on a 1 (143.2.a). The Poro has been dealt damage this turn: no card, whatever happens next.

Then the grant mistargets. 359.3.f.2: "Information referenced in an instruction in this way will be checked on execution of the instruction." 359.3.f.1 names "here" as such a reference, read from the source. And 359.3.e.12 on a unit that has left the board: "A unit that is no longer on the board has no location". With Yuumi in the trash there is no "here" for the Guardian to be at. The example under 359.3.f.2 is the same shape: Yasuo's attack trigger mistargets when he is moved back to base in response. The Guardian stays a 3.

So the combat is 3 + 3 = 6 against 3 + 2 = 5, with 1 already marked on every unit. Their 5: the Guardian takes lethal first, 2 more; the Poro next, 2 more; the last 1 has no further unit to go to, so it stays on one of them (465.2.c.4). Both die. Your 6: the Drakehound needs 2 more and Pouty Poro 1; both die. Nobody is left at B, so it becomes uncontrolled (466.5.b) and there is no Conquer. After your T4 it is 3 to 3, and you have lost Yuumi, the Guardian and the Poro, nine Energy and one Power of units, to one Energy. The line without Flurry was 4 to 3 and a card.

What answers the Flurry. OGN-045 Defy (Calm, E1 + 1 Power, [Reaction]): "Counter a spell that costs no more than :rb_energy_4: and no more than :rb_rune_rainbow:." Flurry qualifies. On T4 you have seven ready runes; one Calm among them pays both halves (164.2.a, 164.2.b). UNL-106 Repulse (Body) does not: it counters only a spell that chooses your unit, and Flurry chooses nothing (355.10.d).

The draw alone has a one-rune answer that leaves the grant standing. VEN-015 Decree of Rage (Fury, E1 + 1 Power, "This can't be countered. Deal 4 to an enemy Calm (:rb_rune_calm:) unit.") and OGN-009 Hextech Ray (Fury, E1 + 1 Power, "Deal 3 to a unit at a battlefield.") are both [Action], so neither can answer Yuumi's trigger on the Combat Chain. Cast in the Combat Showdown once they have Focus, either one kills the Affectionate Poro, Might 3, and there is no card. The Tank half still works: Yuumi and the Guardian attack at 1 + 6 = 7, their 5 all go on the Guardian, your 7 kill both, and you conquer B. That is 4 to 3, with the Poro gone and no card. Defy or Repulse counters the Ray, because it chooses the Poro alone. The Decree cannot be countered, so neither of them answers it.

The answer that costs no card is Might. They need one point more than the Guardian's Might after the grant, 7 against your attack and 8 against your defence, to put anything on the Poro.

6. Verdict

Right about the mechanism and the answer, wrong about the printed Tank, and short about what the answer costs you. Yuumi's grant put all 5 of the opponent's damage on a body that survived it, and the Poro drew. Without her, the same attack lost the Guardian and the card. A printed Tank does not make the grant redundant: its +3 is the threshold, and the only other unit to give it to is the Poro itself. Flurry of Blades in response to the trigger kills Yuumi first, the grant then has no "here", and the attack that should have drawn a card loses all three of your bodies and leaves B empty.

7. Not verified

I did not deal the channel order. Their Drakehound needs one Fury among their first three runes, which it recycles: with six Fury in the twelve it fails in 20 of 220 deals, 9.09%. Flurry is Energy only. Your Yuumi needs one Calm among the six runes you have channelled by T3. With six Calm in the twelve the six hold none in 1 of 924 deals, 0.11%; with four, 28 of 924, 3.03%. Defy in §5 needs a second Calm among the eight runes channelled by T4; with six Calm it never fails, since eight runes hold at most six Body. With four Calm, Yuumi's Calm by T3 and Defy's by T4 together fail in 39 of 495 deals, 7.88%. Decree of Rage or Hextech Ray in §5 needs one Fury Power on your T4, from a rune other than the one the Drakehound recycled: a second Fury among the seven runes they have channelled by their T3. Together with the Drakehound's own need, that fails in 87 of 924 deals, 9.42%. Repulse needs one Body Power; with six Body in the twelve, the eight runes you have channelled by T4 hold at most six Calm, so it never fails.

The reading that the grant mistargets rests on 359.3.f.2 and 359.3.e.12; the rulebook's own example under 359.3.f.2 is a move to base, not a death. If the grant resolved anyway, the Guardian is a 6 with 1 marked, their 5 make it lethal, the Poro lives with 1 marked and still draws nothing, and your 3 + 6 = 9 win B: 4 to 3, with Yuumi and the Guardian gone and no card.

I put Flurry in their hand and Defy in no hand, and priced neither. I did not walk their T4 against the Flurry line, a second Yuumi trigger on their turn, the mulligan, or 2v2. The probabilities in §4 count only cards in hand at the turn named.

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