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The Captain's draw is never a card behind his buff, and a two-drop played first is what turns the Initiate on

Issue #406 (a slice of #200), 2026-10-18. 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 unopposed clock for the baseline this is measured against.

Subject: buhru-captain-kinkou-initiate-modal-cantrips, the Body ENGINE in which SFD-091 Buhru Captain (E3 + 1 Body Power, M3) may "draw 1 or buff me", and UNL-097 Kinkou Initiate (E3, M3) draws when your other units total Might 5 or more. The entry is right that the Initiate's threshold is read when its trigger resolves, so a body played earlier the same turn counts. It is wrong about what the Captain's buff buys. Call S the Might of your other units besides those two. The draw mode gives one card, plus the Initiate's when S is 2 or more; the buff mode gives the Initiate's card when S is 1 or more. So the buff never draws more than the draw does. It ties only at S = 1, where it gives the same one card plus a permanent +1 Might, and that card is the one an answer can still take. Walked as a game, going first, against a Mind/Order Viktor deck that killed the Captain's partner on its T2, the Captain took the draw on T2. On T3 OGN-136 Pit Rookie, the card he drew, went down first and buffed him, and the Initiate drew at 7: 3 to 3 after their T4, with two cards in hand and no rune idle. The honest control is the same deck with two vanilla 3-drops in the pair's slots. It ends 3 to 3 with an empty hand and one rune idle. The entry's own advice, the buff on T2, ends 3 to 3 with one card, one card fewer than the draw, though its extra Might is what refuses their best trade. The cheapest answer costs one ready rune and no Power: VEN-061 Decree of Insight, on the Captain, in response to the Initiate's trigger, takes the 7 to 3.

Why this line. scripts/sequence-pick.mjs --unplayed, re-run on 2026-10-18 at 4b613b4, reads 773 entries, 262 with forced-ordering language, 100 in the queue and 15 of them with no play, as the issue measured. The two picks are unchanged: this entry is rank 86, the first in the list. The other entry of this slice is rank 87, consuming-curse-annie-self-scaling-bonus, played in Three Incinerates kill Lux and one guard, the Curses kill Lux and two, and the third kill is the battlefield.

1. Needs

LegendOGN-267 Bounty Hunter (Body/Chaos, tag Miss Fortune)
Chosen ChampionOGN-162 Miss Fortune, Captain (Body, E5 + 1 Body Power, M5), unplayed through T4
The engineSFD-091 Buhru Captain (Body, E3 + 1 Body Power, M3)
The payoffUNL-097 Kinkou Initiate (Body, E3, M3)
The cheap bodiesUNL-111 Determined Sentry (Body, E1, M1), OGN-136 Pit Rookie (Body, E2, M2)

The entry admits any of seventeen legends with Body in their pair. Bounty Hunter is the one for this walk because its text plays no part in it: ":rb_exhaust:: Give a unit [Ganking] this turn. (It can move from battlefield to battlefield.)" The walk never uses it. Both cards are mono-Body, 103.1.b.3: "If a card has a single Domain, then that card is permitted in the Domain Identity that corresponds to the same Domain." Every other card in the deck is mono-Body or mono-Chaos. None is a Signature card (signature in data/cards.json), and none is in data/legality.src.json or marked [BANNED] in data/corpus_flat.txt. The Chosen Champion is tagged Miss Fortune, 103.2.a.2: "Must be a champion unit with a champion tag that matches the tag on your Champion Legend." She stays in the Champion Zone through T4 in every line below, so she changes no hand count.

The card text the play turns on:

2. What each mode buys, and when it is chosen

The Initiate's threshold is part of its effect, not its condition. 383.2.a.1: "Any additional conditional statement immediately after the Condition must be true in order for the Condition to be fulfilled." The Initiate's "if" is not immediately after "When you play me": "draw 1" stands between them. Riot's example under that paragraph has the same shape, and ends: "conditional statement is not immediately after the trigger condition, so it is part of the effect and not the condition." So the trigger always goes on the chain, and the sum is read as it resolves. The entry cites 359.3.f.2 for the same conclusion: "Information referenced in an instruction in this way will be checked on execution of the instruction." Both point the same way. "Other" keeps the Initiate's own 3 out.

The trigger is the only window. A unit does not wait on the chain, 337.2: "If, after finalizing the Chain Item, that item is a Unit, Gear, or an ability that Adds resources, it resolves immediately—Move to Step 4: Resolve." Its play effect goes on afterwards, 383.4.a.2: "These Triggered Abilities are put on the Chain as Pending Items after the Permanent these effects correspond to is finalized and enters the board." While the trigger waits the turn is closed, and only Reactions can be played, 309.1.a: "Only cards and abilities with the Reaction keyword can be played or activated in a Closed State."

The Captain's choice is made before anyone answers it. His "you may" is the first part of the effect. 402.1: "If the first part of a Triggered Ability’s effect is “you may,” or “they may,” its controller decides whether or not to perform the Triggered Ability now." That is the finalization step. Draw or buff is decided at the same step, by this play's reading of 402.2: "Make all choices required for this ability, such as targets, modes, or other relevant decisions." §7 says what changes if it is read the other way; nothing in the walk does, because nobody answers the Captain's trigger.

A buff is +1, once. 703: "Each Buff individually contributes +1 Might to a Unit." 702.3: "There can only be one Buff on a Unit at a time." 702.3.a: "If a Buff is added, or instructed to be added, on a Unit that already has a Buff, it is not placed instead." So a Captain who took the buff gains nothing from Pit Rookie, and a Captain who took the draw is Pit Rookie's best target.

The closed form. Let S be the Might of your other units besides the Captain and the Initiate, read when the Initiate's trigger resolves. The Initiate sees S + 3 under the draw mode and S + 4 under the buff mode.

Sdraw mode: cardsbuff mode: cardsbuff mode: extra
01 (the Captain's)0+1 Might
11 (the Captain's)1 (the Initiate's)+1 Might
2 or more21 (the Initiate's)+1 Might

The buff mode is never ahead in cards. At S = 1 it ties, and it trades a card already in hand for a card still on the chain. Against a -1 answer to the Initiate's trigger the rows shift by one: the draw mode gives 1 + [S ≥ 3] and the buff mode [S ≥ 2], so the draw mode is still never behind. And any 2-Might body played before the Initiate adds the same +1 to the sum that the buff adds, and more.

Where the bodies stand does not matter to the sum. The words "your other units" have no location clause, so units in base count. Most cheap removal says "at a battlefield" and cannot reach them; §5 counts it.

The runes, going first. You have 2, 4, 6 and 8 runes channelled by T1 to T4. Power is paid by recycling a rune, 164.2.b: "Recycle this: [Reaction] — Add [C]." A rune exhausted for Energy can be recycled for the Power, so the Captain is three runes, one of them a Body rune recycled. It goes to the bottom of the Rune Deck, 416.1: "Recycling cards is the action in which a player takes one or more cards from a specific zone and then puts it on the bottom of the corresponding deck." So you have one rune fewer on the board from then on. Captain and Initiate on one turn is six runes, so T3; Captain on T2 with the Sentry is exactly four.

3. Their deck: Mind/Order Viktor

OGN-265 Herald of the Arcane (Mind/Order): ":rb_energy_1:, :rb_exhaust:: Play a 1 :rb_might: Recruit unit token." Its Chosen Champion is OGN-117 Viktor, Innovator (Mind, E4 + 1 Mind Power, M3). Their bodies are OGN-210 Daring Poro (Order, E2, M2; "[Assault] (+1 :rb_might: while I'm an attacker.)"), SFD-159 Trusty Ramhound (Order, E2, M2; "While you have another unit here, I have +1 :rb_might:."), UNL-154 Crimson Pigeons (Order, E3, M3) and OGN-087 Lecturing Yordle (Mind, E3, M2; "[Tank] (I must be assigned combat damage first.) When you play me, draw 1."). Their removal is SFD-162 Blood Money (Order, E2): "[Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Kill a unit at a battlefield with 2 :rb_might: or less. If it was an enemy unit, play a Gold gear token exhausted. If it was a friendly unit, play two Gold gear tokens exhausted." And they hold OGN-095 Stupefy (Mind, E1): "[Reaction] (Play any time, even before spells and abilities resolve.) Give a unit -1 :rb_might: this turn, to a minimum of 1 :rb_might:. Draw 1." Going second, they channel an extra rune on T1, 485.7: "First Turn Process: The player going second channels an extra Rune from their Rune Deck during their first Channel Phase of the game." §5 names their answers.

4. The turns, going first

Body/Chaos against Mind/Order. Your battlefield is A, OGN-278 Bandle Tree ("You may hide an additional card here."); theirs is B, OGN-281 Hallowed Tomb ("When you hold here, you may return your Chosen Champion from your trash to your Champion Zone if it is empty."). Nothing in the walk uses either. Your opening four are SFD-099 Veteran Poro (Body, E2, M2), Determined Sentry, Buhru Captain and Kinkou Initiate. Your draws are UNL-092 Demacian Diplomat (T1), OGN-175 Shipyard Skulker (T2), SFD-096 Laurent Bladekeeper (T3) and OGN-130 Crackshot Corsair (T4); the two trigger draws are Pit Rookie (the Captain's, T2) and SFD-098 Sea Monkey (the Initiate's, T3). Their opening four are Daring Poro, Blood Money, Crimson Pigeons and Stupefy. Their draws are Trusty Ramhound (T1), Lecturing Yordle (T2), SFD-066 Frigid Touch (T3) and SFD-163 Deathgrip (T4); Yordle draws OGN-216 Soaring Scout.

turn    runes   your turn                                                 points
T1      2       Veteran Poro (E2) to base. None left.                     0
their T1  3     Daring Poro (E2) to base. Herald (E1): a Recruit to
                base. None left.
T2      4       The Poro walks to A, Conquer: +1. Determined Sentry       1
                (E1) to A. Buhru Captain (E3 + 1 Body Power) to A,
                draw 1: Pit Rookie. Four runes, one recycled; none
                left.
their T2  5     The Daring Poro and the Recruit walk to B, Conquer.
                Blood Money (E2) kills your Poro at A; a Gold token
                for them. Trusty Ramhound (E2) to B. One left.
T3      5       Hold A: +1. Pit Rookie (E2) to A, buffing the Captain     2
                to 4. Kinkou Initiate (E3) to A: the others are
                1 + 4 + 2 = 7, draw 1: Sea Monkey. None left.
their T3  7     Hold B. Crimson Pigeons (E3) and Lecturing Yordle (E3)
                to B; Yordle draws. One left.
T4      7       Hold A: +1. Demacian Diplomat (E2), Sea Monkey (E2)       3
                and Laurent Bladekeeper (E3) to A. None left.
their T4  9     Hold B. Viktor, Innovator (E4 + 1 Mind Power) from the
                Champion Zone and Soaring Scout (E2) to B; Herald
                (E1): a Recruit to B. Nine runes, one recycled; two
                left.

Their points: 0 after their T1, 1 after their T2, 2 after their T3, 3 after their T4. After your T4 it is 3 to 2; after their T4, 3 to 3.

Your hand, card by card: 5 after the T1 draw, 4 after the Poro; 5 after the T2 draw, 3 after the Sentry and the Captain, 4 after his draw; 5 after the T3 draw, 3 after Pit Rookie and the Initiate, 4 after its draw; 5 after the T4 draw, 2 after the Diplomat, the Sea Monkey and Laurent (Shipyard Skulker, Crackshot Corsair). Theirs: 5 after the T1 draw, 4 after the Daring Poro; 5 after the T2 draw, 3 after Blood Money and the Ramhound (Crimson Pigeons, Stupefy, Lecturing Yordle); 4 after the T3 draw, 2 after the Pigeons and Yordle, 3 after Yordle's draw; 4 after the T4 draw, 3 after the Scout, since Viktor comes from the Champion Zone (Stupefy, Frigid Touch, Deathgrip).

Your T2: the Captain takes the draw. The Poro takes A, which is empty, 316.8.b.1: "Showdowns that occur as a result of a player moving to an empty Battlefield are a stand-alone Phase and do not create a Combat." Nobody else is there, so you take control, 348.2.a: "If only one player’s Units remain at the Battlefield, and if that player does not already Control the Battlefield, that player establishes Control over the Battlefield." That is a Conquer, 348.2.a.1: "This results in a Conquer if that player has not yet scored that Battlefield this turn." The Sentry and the Captain go to A, now yours, 355.2.a: "By default, Valid locations include the controller’s Base or a Battlefield the controller controls." The Captain's runes are three, a Body one recycled for the Power, and the Sentry's is the fourth. At this moment S, for an Initiate you cannot yet cast, is the Poro and the Sentry: 3. The draw is right on that row of §2, so you draw Pit Rookie. A is 2 + 1 + 3 = 6. Their ready units are the Daring Poro and the Recruit, an attack of 3 + 1 = 4, so A is safe from a fight. They have no ready rune on your T2, so nothing answers the trigger.

Their T2: they take B and kill the 2. The Daring Poro and the Recruit walk into B, which is empty, for a Conquer (316.8.b.1, 348.2.a, 348.2.a.1). Blood Money kills your Veteran Poro at A: the Poro and the Sentry are the two units there at 2 Might or less, and the Poro is the bigger. They get a Gold token, exhausted. The Ramhound goes to B, a 3 with company there. B is 2 + 1 + 3 = 6. They keep one rune ready, which on your turn pays for Stupefy. The Gold token cannot help: it entered exhausted, and its Power ability needs :rb_exhaust:, so it is no use before their T3.

Your T3: a body first, then the Initiate. Your runes are 3 + 2 channelled = 5, all ready, 315.1.b: "1. The Turn Player readies all Game Objects they control that are able to be readied." You Hold A, 469.2: "Hold: A player maintains Control of a Battlefield they did not yet Score this turn during their Beginning Phase." S is now the Sentry alone, 1, and the Captain is a 3: the Initiate played first would see 4 and draw nothing. Five runes are exactly a 2-drop and the Initiate. Pit Rookie goes first, to A, and buffs the Captain to 4 (703). Then the Initiate, to A. Its trigger reads the Sentry 1, the Captain 4 and the Rookie 2: 7, and it draws Sea Monkey. Their one ready rune pays for Stupefy, and Stupefy takes the 7 to 6, which still draws, so they keep it. A is 1 + 4 + 2 + 3 = 10.

The Diplomat first would have made it 1 + 3 + 2 = 6, which draws too, and survives Stupefy at 5. Pit Rookie is the better 2-drop here because its buff goes where the Captain's would have gone, on top of a body.

Their T3 and your T4. They Hold B and build there: B is 2 + 1 + 3 + 3 + 2 = 11. Their units at B cannot reach A, 144.4.b: "Units may move from a Battlefield to their Base." Your units at A cannot reach B either, and 10 against 11 would lose anyway. On your T4 you Hold A and spend all seven runes on three bodies. On their T4 they Hold B. Nobody fights through T4.

The entry's advice: the buff on T2. Its first step says to choose "'buff me' when the trigger resolves if you intend to play the Initiate soon". The same game with that choice: no Pit Rookie in hand, and A is 2 + 1 + 4 = 7. Blood Money takes the Poro, and the 5 left refuses their attack (their other line, below). Your T3 draw is now Pit Rookie. It buffs the Sentry to 2, since the Captain already has one (702.3.a), and the Initiate reads 2 + 4 + 2 = 8 and draws Laurent. On T4 you play the Diplomat, the Sea Monkey and Laurent. 3 to 3 after their T4, with one card in hand (Shipyard Skulker) against the draw line's two, and 18 Might at A against 17. The buff mode cost the card the draw mode keeps, and bought one Might, here on the Sentry.

The honest control: the same deck with two vanilla 3-drops. Put a Shipyard Skulker (Chaos, E3, M3, "(no text)") in each of the pair's slots. Same 3 Might each, no Power, no draw. T2: the Poro takes A; a Skulker and the Sentry go to A, four runes, nothing recycled; A is 6. Their T2 is the same: B, and Blood Money on the Poro. T3 has six runes: two Skulkers to A. T4 has eight: Laurent, the Diplomat and Pit Rookie, which are the only cards left, with one rune idle. 3 to 3 after their T4, with an empty hand and 18 Might at A. The engine line is the same score with two cards in hand and one rune fewer. What the pair buys by T4 is two cards and nothing on the board. They are worth something only from T5, when the control is drawing one card a turn and playing all of it.

The other ordering: Skulker on T2, both on T3. The Skulker and the Sentry on T2, nothing recycled. After Blood Money, S is the Skulker and the Sentry, 4. On T3 the Captain takes the draw (three runes, one recycled) and the Initiate reads 4 + 3 = 7 (three runes): two cards by T3 again. It is the same count a turn later for the first card, and Pit Rookie arrives too late to be the T3 play.

Their other line: the trade. Blood Money on the Poro, then the Daring Poro and the Recruit attack A instead of taking B. 465.2.c: "Starting with the Attacker, each player assigns an amount of damage equal to their summed Might among the other's Units." Their 3 + 1 against your Sentry 1 and Captain 3: four each way, and everything dies. A becomes nobody's, 466.5.b: "If there are no Units remaining here controlled by any player, the Battlefield becomes Uncontrolled." Crimson Pigeons, with their last three runes, goes to their base. 1 to 0 after their T2. Your T3 has no unit and no battlefield: S is 0, and the Initiate cannot draw this turn. Laurent and Pit Rookie (buffing Laurent to 4) go to base. Their Pigeons takes B on their T3, which is empty, and the Ramhound and Yordle join it: B is 3 + 3 + 2 = 8. On your T4 Laurent and the Rookie walk into A, which is empty, for a Conquer. Then the Diplomat, and the Initiate reads 4 + 2 + 2 = 8 and draws; Sea Monkey with the last two runes. They Hold B: 2 to 2 after their T4, with your hand at two cards (Shipyard Skulker, Crackshot Corsair) as in the walk. The trade delays the Initiate's card by a turn and costs each side a point. It does not deny the card, and it costs them Blood Money and both their units.

Under the buff mode it fails. After Blood Money A is the Sentry 1 and the Captain 4, five against their four. They kill the Captain or the Sentry, lose both attackers, and A stays yours. That is what the buff is for on this board: not a card, but the one Might that turns a four-for-four trade into a loss for the attacker.

How often this happens. The draw pile is 39 cards, the 40 of Tournament Rules 402.1 less the Chosen Champion, which 103.2.a.1 places in the Champion Zone. Tournament Rules 402.1: "In a constructed event, players must register a Main Deck of exactly 40 cards (including a chosen champion), 1 Legend, 12 runes, and exactly 3 battlefields each with a unique name." Going first, you have seen 6 cards by T2 and 7 by T3 (four opening, one draw a turn from T1). With three copies (103.2.b: "Your Main Deck can include up to 3 copies of the same named card."), a Buhru Captain by T2 is 40.30%, a Kinkou Initiate by T3 45.73%, and both 16.89%. These are unconditional: they price drawing the two cards at all, not the walked hand around them.

5. Breaks to

What the engine did, and the predicate. On your T3 the Initiate's trigger read 7 and drew. On T2 the Captain drew. The Captain's card cannot be taken: "draw 1" has no condition, and nobody had a ready rune. So the predicate is: cast or played before the Initiate's trigger resolves on your T3, does it leave your other units below 5 at that moment, against your best T3?

The scope. A Mind/Order deck plays only Mind, Order and Mind/Order cards (103.1.b.1), and its Signature cards must carry its legend's tag, 103.2.d.2: "All of the Signature cards must have the Champion tag that corresponds to the Champion Legend of the deck." Herald of the Arcane's tag is Viktor. The predicate is: a card in data/cards.json whose domains are all Mind or Order, not a legend, battlefield, rune or token, and not a Signature card with another champion's tag. Folded by name, that is 253 cards. Three Signature cards are out (OGS-022 Final Spark, Lux; SFD-202 Hostile Takeover, Renata Glasc; UNL-200 Mirror Image, LeBlanc); Viktor's own OGN-266 Siphon Power is in. None of the 253 is banned.

Window 1: their T2, before your T3. Three runes, after Blood Money. Your best T3 adds Pit Rookie and its buff, 3 Might, so the break needs your surviving units at 1 or less: the Captain and the Poro both gone. Blood Money took the Poro. The Captain, a 3 at A, dies to any of these, each read, from the 253 swept sentence by sentence, reminder text (anything in parentheses) stripped, for the regex /\b(kill|banish|deal \d+|return\b.*\bto (?:its owner's |their owner's |)hand|move an enemy unit|take control of an enemy unit)\b.*\b(units?|it|them)\b|\bunits?\b.*\b(kill|banish|deal \d+|return)\b/i (47 cards; the it and them catch a sentence like "Then kill it", and the second half a kill that comes after the unit). It does not see a bounce written "Return a unit at a battlefield with 3 :rb_might: or less to its owner's hand.", but no Mind/Order card has one: the cards in data/corpus_flat.txt that return a unit on the board other than a friendly one to its owner's hand are 13, and all 13 are Chaos: OGN-169 Gust, OGN-172 Rebuke, OGN-187 Whirlwind, OGN-188 Zaunite Bouncer, SFD-132 Beast Below, SFD-138 Windsinger, SFD-147 Downwell, UNL-128 Star-Crossed, UNL-132 Angler Beast, UNL-134 Existential Dread, VEN-106 Wind and Ghosts, VEN-107 Decree of Discord and VEN-115 Ocean Drake. Left out: OGN-181 Pack of Wonders and SFD-207 Emperor's Dais, which return only your own, and VEN-103 Shadows of the Past, which returns units from trashes, not from the board. Twenty of the 47 cost three Energy or less; the rest are out of reach of three runes. Of the twenty, these kill the Captain:

Soul Harvest, Lacerate and Hidden Blade tie at two runes, one recycled: the cheapest spells in this window. None of them denies the card. Each leaves A's survivors at the Sentry or nothing, so your T3 is Laurent and Pit Rookie instead, and on T4 the Initiate reads Laurent 4, the Rookie 2 and a Diplomat played first: 8, or 9 with the Sentry. Window 1 moves the Initiate's card to T4. Under the buff mode Soul Harvest cannot choose the Captain at 4, Lacerate chooses him and does not kill him, and the trade loses. Hidden Blade, Shock Blast and Crescent Strike still kill him; Wages of Pain's 3 does not. The other fourteen of the twenty kill only their own unit or gear (SFD-163 Deathgrip, UNL-173 Sacrifice, OGN-242 Baited Hook, SFD-178 Blade of the Ruined King, VEN-124 Escaped Grayback, UNL-161 Divining Shells), reach only a Chaos unit (VEN-131 Decree of Unity), deal too little or not on their turn (SFD-080 Bellows Breath, 1 to each of up to three units, 2 with its [Repeat]; OGN-121 Teemo, Strategist, whose damage comes only when he defends), return the unit to the board (VEN-066 Temporal Breach, OGN-102 Portal Rescue, which chooses a friendly unit), or kill nothing of yours (SFD-090 The Zero Drive, VEN-133 Glowstone); and Blood Money, already spent, reaches only Might 2 or less.

Window 2: on the chain, in answer to the Initiate's trigger. One ready rune and any Power. Only Reactions (309.1.a). Among the 253, 48 have [Reaction], [Hidden] or [Ambush] in their text, reminder text included, or begin with Hidden (. That is a ceiling: it counts gear whose ability is a Reaction and UNL-073 Deadly Flourish, matched only in its Gold token's reminder text. Hidden cards are out: they can be hidden only at a battlefield they control, and a hidden spell's targets must be chosen there, 811.1.d.2: "If a hidden spell or a play effect of a hidden permanent chooses any targets, those targets must be chosen from among options at that battlefield, unless the ability explicitly restricts targeting in a way that makes this impossible." All your units are at A. [Ambush] needs units of theirs at A, and they have none. They have one ready rune, and any of their five runes can be recycled for Power. Of the 48, eight cost one Energy or less. One breaks the line:

The other seven do not:

With three ready runes, by keeping the Ramhound in hand on their T2, two more break it. OGN-093 Smoke Screen (Mind, E2 + 1 Mind Power) gives -4 to a minimum of 1: the Captain 1, the sum 4. UNL-063 Eclipse (Mind, E3) gives -4 with no minimum: the sum 3. SFD-066 Frigid Touch is -2 for two runes, 5, and its [Repeat] needs four. OGN-266 Siphon Power gives -1 to each enemy unit at A, to a minimum of 1: 1 + 3 + 1 = 5.

Playing around it. Decree of Insight reaches only a Body unit and only one, and it takes at most the Might of that unit off the sum. So the answer is a bigger sum, which means the Initiate on T4. Pit Rookie, the Diplomat and the Initiate all on T4 are 2 + 2 + 3 = seven runes, the whole of the walk's T4, and the Initiate reads 1 + 4 + 2 + 2 = 9; Decree on the Captain leaves 5. But that leaves T3 five runes and only 3-drops in hand (Laurent, the Skulker): one of them, and two runes idle. The order that costs nothing is the Diplomat and Laurent on T3 (five runes), then Pit Rookie on the Captain and the Initiate on T4 (five of seven): the Initiate reads 1 + 4 + 2 + 3 + 2 = 12, and Decree on the Captain leaves 8, on Laurent 9. Sea Monkey, drawn, takes the last two runes. That is the walk's board and the walk's two cards in hand at the end of T4, with the Initiate's card a turn later. An unbuffed Captain on their T3 is in reach of Soul Harvest and Lacerate again, and the sum on T4 without him is still 1 + 2 + 3 + 2 + 1 (the Rookie's buff on another unit) = 9. Against a held Decree the Initiate is a T4 play, and the Chaos Skulker is a body Decree cannot touch.

6. Verdict

Right about the timing; wrong about the buff. The Initiate's threshold is part of its effect (383.2.a.1), read when the trigger resolves, so a body played first counts. But the Captain's buff never draws more than his draw: it ties at S = 1 and loses a card at S = 2 or more, and any 2-Might body played before the Initiate adds what the buff adds. Walked against a Viktor deck that killed the Captain's partner, the draw on T2 and Pit Rookie first on T3 made two cards by T3 and 3 to 3 after their T4, with two cards in hand. The buff on T2 ends 3 to 3 with one. Two vanilla 3-drops in the pair's slots end 3 to 3 with none and a rune idle. So the pair is worth two cards by T4 and no point, and it pays from T5. The buff has a real use the entry does not name: the +1 Might that keeps the Captain out of Soul Harvest's and Lacerate's range and turns their best trade into a loss. The cheapest answer is Decree of Insight, one ready rune and no Power, on the Captain in answer to the Initiate's trigger: the 7 becomes 3.

7. Not verified

I did not deal the channel order. The walk assumes six Body and six Chaos runes for you, Bounty Hunter's two domains, in the twelve of Tournament Rules 402.1. The Captain on T2 needs a Body among the four channelled: it fails in 28 of 924 deals, 3.03%. The other ordering of §4 puts the Captain on T3 instead, which needs a Body among the six channelled: it fails in 1 of 924, 0.11%. Nothing else in any of your lines needs Power, and the control needs none at all: 0 of 924.

Their walk assumes six Mind and six Order. Herald, Blood Money, Stupefy and Decree of Insight need no Power, and Viktor's Mind Power among nine runes cannot fail: 0 of 924. Soul Harvest, Lacerate or Hidden Blade on their T2 needs an Order among five: it fails in 7 of 924, 0.76%. Smoke Screen needs a Mind among five on your T3: 7 of 924, 0.76%.

How likely an answer is. Out of their own 39, by your T3 they have seen 6 cards: four opening and a draw on each of their two turns. Decree of Insight, run three times, is among them in 40.30%. Soul Harvest, also run three times, has to be seen by their T2, which is the same six cards: 40.30%. Either of the two (six cards), 66.05%. Any of the three two-rune kills of Window 1, three copies each (nine cards), by their T2, 81.80%. Like §4's, these are unconditional: they assume three copies of each card named, the most 103.2.b allows, and they do not condition on the rest of the walked hands.

The draw-or-buff choice is read as a 402.2 decision. If instead it is made on resolution, an answer to the Captain's own trigger could change it: under the buff mode, a kill in response would leave you free to draw instead. No line here answers that trigger, so nothing above moves.

Not walked: going second, the mulligan, 2v2, Miss Fortune, Captain from the Champion Zone on T4 (five runes in either line, which moves both hands alike), Bounty Hunter's [Ganking] (no fight on T4 is worth it at 10 against 11), a second Captain or Initiate, and T5 on, where the two cards would be spent. The probabilities count only the cards named.

Leads