RIFTCOMBO
← All plays

Three Incinerates kill Lux and one guard, the Curses kill Lux and two, and the third kill is the battlefield

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: consuming-curse-annie-self-scaling-bonus, the Fury ENGINE in which VEN-010 Consuming Curse (E2, [Action]) deals 2 to a unit at a battlefield plus 1 for each Consuming Curse already in your trash, and OGS-001 Annie, Fiery adds 1 to every copy. The entry is right about the rules. The trash is a zone, read when the spell resolves; 714 adds Annie's instance to the Curse's own; and three copies cast in order under Annie are 3, 4 and 5. Walked as a game, going first, against a Mind/Order Lux deck that built its battlefield wide and put OGS-006 Lux, Illuminated (M5) on it, all three copies landed on your T4. They killed a 3, a 3 and Lux, and Annie took the battlefield: 4 to 2 after their T4. The honest control is the same hand with three OGS-003 Incinerate, the Curse's own first sentence and nothing else. Under Annie each is a 3, and damage stays marked until the end of the turn, so two of them kill Lux and the third kills one of her 3s. The 3 and the 2 left beside it are 5 against Annie's 4: 3 to 3, with Lux dead. Spent on the three small bodies instead, they leave Lux alone at 5 against the same 4. Three Deals of 3 kill Lux and one guard, or three guards. Three of 3, 4 and 5 kill Lux and two, and that third kill is the Conquer. It is all the scaling bought, and it needs all three copies in hand, which happens in 0.61% of games by T4. Two copies are 3 + 4, which kill Lux and nothing else: one kill fewer than the Incinerate line, and the same 3 to 3. One OGN-024 Void Seeker in the third slot does the third copy's job for one rune more. Their better T3 does not play Lux at all: it puts three more small bodies on the battlefield, and then the 4 and the 5 have nothing to kill that a 3 could not. That line ends 3 to 3. Three answers to the walked line tie at one ready rune: SFD-064 Cloth Armor, OGN-104 Retreat and VEN-052 Mesmerize. Only Cloth Armor and Mesmerize stop the Conquer, and only Cloth Armor does it with no Power: on their last defender in Annie's combat, the battlefield ends nobody's.

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 87, the second in the list. The other entry of this slice is rank 86, buhru-captain-kinkou-initiate-modal-cantrips, played in The Captain's draw is never a card behind his buff, and a two-drop played first is what turns the Initiate on. Annie's own rules (715.2, her Champion Zone under Dark Child) are walked in Annie's +1 kills the 5-Might body that 2 + 2 cannot, and that is a battlefield, and are not re-derived here.

1. Needs

LegendOGS-017 Dark Child - Starter (Fury/Chaos, tag Annie)
Chosen ChampionOGS-001 Annie, Fiery (Fury, E5 + 1 Fury Power, M4)
The spell, three copiesVEN-010 Consuming Curse (Fury, E2)
The bodiesOGN-010 Legion Rearguard (Fury, E2, M2) and OGN-175 Shipyard Skulker (Chaos, E3, M3), to hold your battlefield

The entry admits any of sixteen Fury legends. Dark Child is the one for this walk for the reason the Annie play gives: it is the only one of the sixteen tagged Annie, so Annie is its Chosen Champion and starts in the Champion Zone rather than being a draw. It also has a second reason here. Its text is "At the end of your turn, ready up to 2 runes.", and the Curse is an [Action] spell that costs Energy only, so those two runes can pay a copy on the opponent's turn. §4 walks that window.

Both cards are mono-Fury, so a Fury/Chaos deck admits them, 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." The three copies are the cap, 103.2.b: "Your Main Deck can include up to 3 copies of the same named card." None of the cards in this play 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 card text the play turns on:

2. What a copy deals, and when it is counted

Two instances, summed once. 713: "Bonus Damage is an intrinsic property that can be granted to Deal actions that influence the amount of Damage that the action is distributing." The Curse's clause is one instance and Annie's is another, 714: "If more than one instance of Bonus Damage is applied or granted to a Deal action, all instances are summed and applied once." A copy has one target, 715.1: "If the Deal action has a single target, the amount of Damage to that target will be increased by the Bonus Damage granted to it." So a copy is 2, plus the copies in your trash, plus 1 if Annie is on the board.

The copy being cast is never in the count. A spell goes to the trash after it has done its work, 157: "A spell creates a game effect according to its instructions and is then placed in the Trash of the player who owns it." So while a copy resolves it is on the chain, not in the trash, and the count is the copies cast or discarded before it. The first is a 2, the second a 3, the third a 4, and under Annie 3, 4 and 5. Only your own copies count, 056: "Cards a player owns may never be placed into a non-Board zone belonging to another player."

A copy that hits nothing still counts. If its target is gone when it resolves, it resolves anyway, 359.3.e.1: "The spell resolves even if some or all of its targets are illegal." Then 157 puts it in the trash. A countered copy goes there too, 425.1.a.1: "Cards that are cleared from the chain in this way are placed in the trash." So saving the target of one copy does not stop the next one growing.

Damage does not carry over. Each copy kills only if it is lethal on its own, or with damage marked earlier the same turn, because every unit heals at the end of the turn, 317.2.b: "Insert “3c. Heal all Units.”" The entry's "9 damage" and "12" are sums over three Deal actions, in practice to three different units.

Only units at a battlefield. The Curse says "a unit at a battlefield", so a unit in a base is out of reach.

When you can cast it. On your own turn in your Main Phase, and on theirs only in a showdown, 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." A showdown opens on their turn only when their units go somewhere they do not control, 190.3.a.1: "Units moving to or being played to a battlefield apply Contested status if that battlefield is not already Contested and that Unit’s controller does not already control that battlefield." A unit played to a battlefield they already control opens nothing.

The runes, going first. You have 2, 4, 6 and 8 runes on T1 to T4, less any you recycle. Power is paid by recycling a rune, 164.2.b: "Recycle this: [Reaction] — Add [C]." Annie is five runes, one of them a Fury rune recycled for her Power. A copy is two runes and recycles nothing. Dark Child's readies last into their turn, because the pool empties and the runes do not, 167: "Every player's Rune Pool empties at the start of each player's Main Phase and the end of each player's turn." Without Dark Child, a rune you exhausted stays exhausted for their whole turn, 415.3.a: "A player Readies all non-spell Game Objects they Control during the Awakening Phase on their turn."

3. Their deck: Mind/Order Lux

OGS-021 Lady of Luminosity - Starter (Mind/Order): "When you play a spell that costs :rb_energy_5: or more, draw 1." It never fires in the walk. Its Chosen Champion is Lux, Illuminated (Mind, E6 + 1 Mind Power, M5): "When you play a spell that costs :rb_energy_5: or more, give me +3 :rb_might: this turn." She is a unit tagged Lux and Demacia, and not a Signature card, so she starts in their Champion Zone. Their bodies are UNL-154 Crimson Pigeons (Order, E3, M3; "I have +2 :rb_might: while I'm attacking with another unit."), SFD-159 Trusty Ramhound (Order, E2, M2; "While you have another unit here, I have +1 :rb_might:."), OGN-210 Daring Poro (Order, E2, M2; "[Assault] (+1 :rb_might: while I'm an attacker.)") and OGN-087 Lecturing Yordle (Mind, E3, M2; [Tank], "When you play me, 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

Fury/Chaos against Mind/Order. Your battlefield is A, OGN-282 Monastery of Hirana ("When you conquer here, you may spend a buff to draw 1."); theirs is B, VEN-162 Protective Sands ("When you conquer here, if you control 4 or fewer runes, you may pay :rb_energy_1: to draw 1."). Neither fires: you have no buff, and nobody conquers B with four runes or fewer. Your opening four are two Consuming Curses, Legion Rearguard and Shipyard Skulker. Your draws are OGN-171 Mystic Poro (T1), OGN-185 Traveling Merchant (T2), OGN-003 Chemtech Enforcer (T3) and the third Consuming Curse (T4). Their opening four are Crimson Pigeons, Trusty Ramhound, Daring Poro and Lecturing Yordle. Their draws are OGN-096 Watchful Sentry (T1), SFD-155 Honest Broker (T2), OGN-219 Vanguard Sergeant (T3) and UNL-156 Loyal Poro (T4).

turn      runes   your turn                                                 points
T1        2       Legion Rearguard (E2) to base. None left; Dark Child      0
                  readies two at the end of the turn.
their T1  3       Crimson Pigeons (E3) to base. None left.
T2        4       The Rearguard walks to A, Conquer: +1. Shipyard Skulker   1
                  (E3) to A. One left, three ready after Dark Child.
their T2  5       The Pigeons walk to B, Conquer; you pass in the
                  showdown. Trusty Ramhound (E2) and Daring Poro (E2) to
                  B. One left.
T3        6       Hold A: +1. Annie, Fiery (E5 + 1 Fury Power) from the     2
                  Champion Zone to base. Six runes, one recycled; one
                  left, three ready after Dark Child.
their T3  7       Hold B. Lux, Illuminated (E6 + 1 Mind Power) from the
                  Champion Zone to B. Seven runes, one recycled; one
                  left.
T4        7       Hold A: +1. Consuming Curse three times (E2 each): 3 on   4
                  the Pigeons, 4 on the Ramhound, 5 on Lux. Annie walks
                  to B: 4 against the Poro's 2, Conquer: +1. One left.
their T4  8       Nothing to Hold. Vanguard Sergeant (E4), Honest Broker
                  (E2) and Watchful Sentry (E2) to base. None left.

Their points: 0 after their T1, 1 after their T2, 2 after their T3, 2 after their T4. After your T4 it is 4 to 2; after their T4, 4 to 2.

Your hand, card by card: 5 after the T1 draw, 4 after the Rearguard; 5, then 4 after the Skulker; 5 after the T3 draw, still 5 after Annie, who comes from the Champion Zone; 6 after the T4 draw, 3 after the three Curses (Mystic Poro, Traveling Merchant, Chemtech Enforcer). Theirs: 5 after the T1 draw, 4 after the Pigeons; 5, then 3 after T2 (Lecturing Yordle, Watchful Sentry, Honest Broker); 4 after the T3 draw, still 4 after Lux; 5 after the T4 draw, 2 after the three bodies (Lecturing Yordle, Loyal Poro).

Their T1: the 3-drop first. They lead with the Pigeons because a 3 survives the first copy's 2. A 2-Might body walked into B on their T2 is exactly what Dark Child's readied runes kill on their turn; the end of this section walks that, and it is worse for them.

Your T2. The Rearguard 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." The Skulker goes to A, which you now control, 355.2.a: "By default, Valid locations include the controller’s Base or a Battlefield the controller controls." A is 5, so the Pigeons alone, a 3, cannot take it on their T2. One rune is left; Dark Child readies two more, so three are ready on their turn.

Their T2: a window with nothing in it. The Pigeons walking into empty B open a showdown there. They have Focus first, 345: "As a Showdown begins, the player who applied Contested status to the Battlefield gains Focus." They pass, and Focus comes to you, 347.2.b: "Otherwise, Focus passes to the next Player in Turn Order." A copy now is a 2 against a 3, and the 2 heals at the end of their turn. You pass. Casting it anyway, to put a copy in the trash, is the entry's own trap, and it is walked below. The Pigeons take B. The Ramhound and the Poro go to B, which they now control (355.2.a): B is the Pigeons 3, the Ramhound 3 (2, +1 for company) and the Poro 2.

Your T3: Annie, kept home. Six runes pay her: five exhausted, a Fury one of them recycled for the Power. One rune is left, and a copy costs two. Dark Child readies two at the end of the turn, so three are ready on theirs. All three copies wait for T4.

Their T3: Lux to B, and no window. They Hold B, 469.2: "Hold: A player maintains Control of a Battlefield they did not yet Score this turn during their Beginning Phase." Lux goes to B, which they control, so nothing is contested and no showdown opens (190.3.a.1). Your three readied runes have no window to spend in. Seven runes pay her: six exhausted, a Mind one of them recycled. B is the Pigeons 3, the Ramhound 3, the Poro 2 and Lux 5: 13.

Your T4: three copies, smallest first. Your runes are 5 + 2 channelled = 7, all ready, 315.1.b: "1. The Turn Player readies all Game Objects they control that are able to be readied." You Hold A. Each copy is cast on its own and resolves before the next, and each kill happens in the cleanup after it.

Lux is the only body here that needs the 5, so she takes the last copy, and the 3 and the 4 go to the two 3s. Six runes are spent. The Poro is alone at B, a 2. Annie, ready in base since T3, walks in, 465.2.c: "Starting with the Attacker, each player assigns an amount of damage equal to their summed Might among the other's Units." Her 4 kill the Poro, whose [Assault] counts only when it attacks; its 2 do not kill her. Only your unit is left, and that is a Conquer, 466.5.d: "Establishing Control results in a Conquer if that player has not yet scored this Battlefield this turn." One rune is left, and nothing in your hand costs one.

Their T4. There is nothing to Hold. Their board is empty and everything they play enters exhausted, 143.4: "Units enter the Board exhausted." They play three bodies to base, and none can score this turn.

The control: three Incinerates. The same hand with OGS-003 Incinerate in place of every Curse is the same runes, the same windows and the same first sentence. Under Annie each is a 3, and a kill can be built from two of them, because damage stays marked until the turn ends (317.2.b) and the cleanup reads the total, 143.2.a: "If a Unit ever has nonzero damage marked on it equalling or exceeding its Might, it is Killed." Every way to spend three Deals of 3 on B:

So Annie stays home either way. After your T4 it is 3 to 2, and after their T4, when they Hold B, 3 to 3. Take the first split, and Lux is dead and B is two small bodies. The Curses' 3, 4 and 5 kill Lux with one Deal, not two, and that frees a Deal for the third kill, which leaves the Poro alone and gives Annie the Conquer. The scaling bought one point and a third body. Lux dies in both lines.

The control with the best plain card: Void Seeker. OGN-024 Void Seeker (Fury, E3 + 1 Fury Power): "[Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Deal 4 to a unit at a battlefield. Draw 1." Under Annie it is a 5. In the third slot it is three runes, one Fury recycled, so the two Curses and the Seeker are exactly the seven T4 runes, and the walk ends the same, with a card drawn. It needs no other copy beside it. §7 prices the difference.

What Annie added. Without her the copies are 2, 3 and 4. They kill the Poro and the two 3s, and Lux is alone at B, a 5, with nothing of yours that can walk into her. Annie's +1 on every copy is what turns the third copy into a 5.

Their better T3: wide, not Lux. Lux is not their best turn. Their seven runes pay for Lecturing Yordle (E3; they draw 1), Watchful Sentry (E2, M1) and Honest Broker (E2, M2), all to B. B is the Pigeons 3, the Ramhound 3, the Poro 2, the Yordle 2, the Sentry 1 and the Broker 2: six bodies and 13 Might, with nothing above 3. On your T4 the three copies kill three bodies, and nothing there needs more than a 3. Kill the Pigeons, the Ramhound and the Yordle, the three without a [Deathknell], and the Poro, the Sentry and the Broker are 5 against Annie's 4. You Hold A and do not attack: 3 to 2 after your T4. They Hold B on theirs: 3 to 3, with Lux still in their Champion Zone. Three Incinerates do exactly the same. Better still for you is to cast two copies and keep the third: its count is in the trash already, so it is still a 5 on the turn Lux reaches a battlefield. Against a board of 3s the 4 and the 5 are overkill, and the engine is three Incinerates until something with Might 5 or more appears.

The trap, walked. On their T2 you could cast the first copy at the Pigeons anyway: 2 on a 3, healed at the end of the turn, and a copy in the trash. Then your T4 copies are 2 + 1 + 1 = 4 and 2 + 2 + 1 = 5, and there are only two. They kill the Ramhound and Lux. The Pigeons 3 and the Poro 2 hold B against Annie's 4: 3 to 2 after your T4 and 3 to 3 after theirs. The entry's notable is right: a copy spent on nothing loses a Deal action, and the extra point of damage on the next two does not pay for it.

Curses first, Annie second. The entry plays Annie first. Cast the other way, on your T3, two copies are 2 and 3 with no Annie yet. They kill the Poro and the Pigeons, and the Ramhound, alone, is a 2. Your last two runes put Mystic Poro in base. They Hold B on their T3 and put Lux beside the Ramhound. On your T4, Annie is five runes with one recycled and the third copy is two, so seven runes pay for both. Under her it is a 5 and kills Lux. But Annie enters exhausted, and your Mystic Poro walks into the Ramhound 2 against 2: both die and B is nobody's, 466.5.b: "If there are no Units remaining here controlled by any player, the Battlefield becomes Uncontrolled." 3 to 2 after your T4, and still 3 to 2 after theirs. Annie first is a point better here.

Their other T1: the Poro first, into Dark Child's runes. If they open with Daring Poro (E2) instead and walk it into B on their T2, the showdown there has a target. Two of your three readied runes cast the first copy, a 2, and the Poro dies. No one is left at B, so no one takes it (466.5.b). The Ramhound and the Pigeons go to their base, because B is not theirs. On their T3 the two walk into B together, 144.3: "Players may perform multiple Units' standard move simultaneously. This is treated as one game action performed on multiple Units." Another showdown opens, and your three readied runes cast the second copy: 2, +1, +1 from Annie = 4, on the Pigeons. The Ramhound takes B, and Lux goes beside it. On your T4 the third copy, a 5, kills Lux, and Annie walks into the lone Ramhound, a 2. After your T4 it is 4 to 1, and still 4 to 1 after theirs. Dark Child paid for two copies out of runes you would otherwise have had idle on their turn. Under any other legend you end T2 and T3 with one ready rune, and a copy needs two. The total is 2 + 4 + 5 = 11, not the entry's 12, because the first copy was cast before Annie. On a 2-Might body, a copy on their T2 was worth more than the +1. This is why the walked T1 is the Pigeons.

How often this happens. The draw pile is 39 cards, the 40 of Tournament Rules 402.1 less the Chosen Champion. 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 8 cards by T4. All three Curses are among them in 0.61% of games; exactly two, 9.50%; at least two, 10.11%. Even by 12 cards seen, T8, all three is 2.41%. With two copies on T4 the walk ends where the Incinerate line does, one kill short of it. The 3 and the 4 on Lux are 7 on her 5, and she dies, or they kill the Pigeons and the Ramhound and she lives. Either way the two Deals leave B at 5 or more against Annie's 4, and it ends 3 to 3. The third kill is about a one-in-163 hand on T4. One Void Seeker in three copies is among the 8 in 50.82%.

5. Breaks to

What the engine did, and the predicate. On your T4 the third copy killed Lux, and Annie took B. The predicate is: cast or played on your T4, or prepared on their T3, does it keep Lux alive or stop Annie's Conquer of B?

The scope. A Mind/Order deck plays only Mind, Order and Mind/Order cards (103.1.b), 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." The predicate is: a card in data/cards.json whose domains are all Mind or Order (tokens carry no domain), not a legend, battlefield or rune, and not a Signature card with another champion's tag. Folded by name, that is 253 cards. Of the four Signature cards in those domains, three carry another tag and are out (OGN-266 Siphon Power, SFD-202 Hostile Takeover, UNL-200 Mirror Image); Lux's own OGS-022 Final Spark is in. None of the 253 is banned.

Two windows, two keyword sets. While a copy is on the chain the turn is closed, 309.1: "If a Chain exists, the turn is in a Closed State." Only [Reaction] plays there, 309.1.a: "Only cards and abilities with the Reaction keyword can be played or activated in a Closed State." 47 of the 253 have [Reaction], [Hidden] or [Ambush] in their text (the regex \[(Reaction|Hidden|Ambush)\], case-insensitive, on the whole text with reminder text left in). That is a ceiling: it includes gear whose [Reaction] is an ability on the board, and OGN-107 Ava Achiever, whose text only names [Hidden]. Annie's walk into B opens a combat showdown, where [Action] plays as well (806.1.b). With \[Action\] added it is 65.

The walk leaves them one ready rune. On your T4 they have six runes, one of them ready, and any of the six can be recycled for Power. Of the 65, nine cost one Energy or less. Three break the line, and none of them breaks both halves:

The three tie at one ready rune. Retreat and Mesmerize's first mode save Lux and leave the Conquer. Cloth Armor and Mesmerize's second mode stop the Conquer and leave Lux dead. Only Cloth Armor stops the Conquer with no Power, and Mesmerize recycles a rune for good. [2026-10-24, #452: not for good. A recycled rune goes to the bottom of the Rune Deck (416.1, 416.1.b) and is channelled again when the deck reaches it (430.1). Going second, with 485.7's extra rune and then only the Channel Phase's two a turn (315.3.b), each rune they recycle is a rune short on every turn through their T5, until their Rune Deck runs dry (161.2.a); a card that channels more (430.2) brings it back sooner. The walk ends after their T4, so the count stands for every turn it covers. The wording above is kept as history.]

The other six do not:

A card hidden at B on their T3. They control B, which is what hiding needs, 811.1.b: "While this card is in your hand or in your Champion Zone on your turn during an Open State, you may pay [A] to hide this facedown at a battlefield you control that doesn't already have a facedown card hidden there for as long as you control that battlefield. Beginning on the next turn, this gains [Reaction] and you may play this, ignoring its base cost." The [A] is one more rune recycled (164.2.b). Lux and the hide together are seven runes with two recycled, so it costs them a rune for good and nothing on your T4. [2026-10-24, #452: not for good. A recycled rune goes to the bottom of the Rune Deck (416.1, 416.1.b) and is channelled again when the deck reaches it (430.1). Going second, with 485.7's extra rune and then only the Channel Phase's two a turn (315.3.b), each rune they recycle is a rune short on every turn through their T5, until their Rune Deck runs dry (161.2.a); a card that channels more (430.2) brings it back sooner. The walk ends after their T4, so the count stands for every turn it covers. The wording above is kept as history.] Played from facedown, the card has Reaction, 811.6: "A card that is Hidden gains Reaction while facedown or played from facedown, and may be played any time a card with Reaction may be played as a result." A unit it plays goes to B, 811.1.d.3: "If a hidden spell or a play effect of a hidden permanent causes you to play a unit, you must choose to play that unit at that battlefield." 13 of the 253 carry the [Hidden] keyword. Eleven stop the Conquer, and one of them also saves Lux:

OGN-083 Consult the Past only draws, and UNL-083 Smoke and Mirrors needs a [Temporary] unit, so neither stops it.

On their T3: name the spell. VEN-132 Fallen Feline (Order, E2 + 1 Order Power, M3): "When you play me, name a spell. While I'm at a battlefield, opponents can't play spells with that name." Played to B naming Consuming Curse, it shuts off all three copies at once, because all three have that name. Their seven runes pay for it (two, one of them recycled), Lecturing Yordle and Watchful Sentry. On your T4 no copy can be cast. B is six bodies, and Annie stays home: 3 to 2, then 3 to 3 after their Hold. The Feline itself is a 3 at a battlefield that only a card with another name can remove. One Main Phase card answers the whole engine for two runes.

And the windows on their turn. In the Poro line of §4, the first two copies are cast in their own showdowns, and a player moves before spending, so they meet every rune they have ready: five on their T2, seven on their T3. For example, SFD-151 Bonds of Strength (Order, E2, [Reaction]) makes the Poro a 3 that survives the first copy and takes B. UNL-071 Chakram Dancer ([Ambush], E3) joins it and stays when it dies. Retreat saves it, though B still ends nobody's. They can also spend first and move second, which leaves them nothing to answer with. Dark Child's window is real, and it is open exactly when their runes are open too.

6. Verdict

Right about the rules; one card short of its own number. The trash is a zone, a copy is counted after the one before it has resolved, a saved target still puts the copy in the trash, and 714 adds Annie's 1 to every copy. Walked against a Lux deck that put its 5-Might Chosen Champion on its battlefield, three copies on T4 were 3, 4 and 5. They killed two 3s and Lux, and Annie took B: 4 to 2 after their T4. Three Incinerates kill Lux too, with two of them, and one 3 with the third, and the two bodies left hold B against Annie: 3 to 3. So the scaling was worth one point, and what it bought was a third kill: Lux needed one Deal instead of two. That needs all three copies, about a one-in-163 hand on T4 (0.61%); two copies kill one body fewer than the Incinerate line and end 3 to 3 with it. One Void Seeker does the third copy's job for one rune more and draws a card. Against their better T3, three more small bodies and Lux held back, the 4 and the 5 have nothing to kill that a 3 could not: 3 to 3. The Curse's edge over Void Seeker is that one rune. A copy is two runes, the Seeker three with a Fury recycled, and the walk has three ready on their turn under Dark Child, so either fits that window. In the line where they walked a 2 into it, the walk ended 4 to 1. Three answers tie at one ready rune, which the walk leaves them: Cloth Armor, Retreat and Mesmerize. Cloth Armor in Annie's combat makes the Poro a 4, and B ends nobody's, with no Power. Mesmerize does the same for a recycled Mind rune. Retreat saves Lux and leaves the Conquer. Temporal Breach, hidden on their T3 for one recycled rune, does both. Fallen Feline, named on their T3, stops all three copies.

7. Not verified

I did not deal the channel order. The walk assumes six Fury and six Chaos runes for you, Dark Child's two domains, in the twelve of Tournament Rules 402.1. Annie on T3 needs a Fury among the six channelled: it fails in 1 of 924 deals, 0.11%. The Curses need no Power, and nothing else of yours in the walk does. Void Seeker in the control needs a second Fury among the first eight, since Annie's went to the bottom of the rune deck: 0 of 924.

Their walk assumes six Mind and six Order. Lux on T3 needs a Mind among their seven: 0 of 924. Mesmerize's Power on your T4 needs a second Mind among those seven, because Lux's went to the bottom: it fails in 7 of 924, 0.76%. Fallen Feline's Order Power: 0 of 924. Cloth Armor, Retreat and hiding need no particular domain.

How likely an answer is. Out of their own 39, by your T4 they have seen 7 cards: four opening and a draw on each of their three turns. A hidden card has to be in those seven too, since it is hidden on their T3. Cloth Armor, run three times, is among them in 45.73%. Two answers in three copies each (six cards), 72.23%; three (nine cards), 86.76%. These count only the cards named, not how many of them a deck runs.

Their hand holding no answer is the walk's assumption; §5 prices it. Not walked: going second, the mulligan, 2v2, Lux's own +3 (they cast no spell of 5 Energy or more), discarding a Curse to Chemtech Enforcer, a turn later than T4 for the third copy, and Annie meeting a removal spell before T4. The probabilities count only the cards named.

Leads