1×Champion4Champion ZoneBoth halves of the engine in one card. Playing it from the Champion Zone is itself a card played from outside your hand, so it empowers the Legend before its own text resolves. Burn 2 stocks the trash, and its conquer trigger hands a trash spell Flow equal to its cost for the turn.
2×Unit3Best single enablerPlays a spell from your trash costing three or less, ignoring its Energy cost, and recycles it after. You still pay the Power. One card, one body, one empower, and one spell you already used.
2×Unit4Free empowerWhen you look at cards from the top of your deck and see him, you may play him for Action speed. Lightning Rush and Stacked Deck both look at three, which is what turns him from a four-drop into a reactive body and an empower.
1×Spell–Largest single playPlays a unit from your trash ignoring its Energy cost, Power still paid. The card that turns a burned Baron Nashor or a burned Rhasa into a six-Energy play instead of a ten-Energy one.
Selection and trash depth
6 cards
3×Spell–Does three jobsDigs one card, puts two in the trash, sees Nocturne, and can later be replayed from the trash for its Flow cost, which is another empower. The most load-bearing one-Energy card in the deck.
3×Spell–Selection, not fuelRecycles the other two rather than trashing them, so it finds cards without feeding Rhasa. It still sees Nocturne, which is often the reason to cast it.
Early bodies
6 cards
3×Unit2Loot on legsEvery movement filters a card and puts one in the trash. It is how a dead Rhasa or a dead Harrowing turns into fuel rather than a wasted draw.
3×Unit1Ramp, not an empowerThe Gold it makes is a token, and tokens are not cards, so playing one does not empower the Legend. It is Energy acceleration and a one-Might body, and pricing it as an engine piece is the most common error with this deck.
Payoffs
4 cards
3×Unit6The trash cashed inTen Energy on paper, and the trash is the discount. At eight cards in the trash it is a two-Energy six-Might body. This is what the burning is actually for.
1×Unit12Top endTwelve Might that enemy spells and abilities cannot choose, a new battlefield anything can move to, and +2 Might for the rest of your board. Hard to cast honestly, which is why The Harrowing exists.
Interaction
10 cards
2×Spell–Cheapest answerOne Energy at reaction speed, capped at three Might. Excellent against the early bodies that beat you and blank against anything that has grown.
1×Spell–Uncapped bounceNo Might cap, but Action speed and two Chaos Power. The answer to the protected unit Gust cannot touch.
1×Spell–Symmetrical rescueReturns a friendly and an enemy unit. The friendly half is the point as often as the enemy half: it saves a unit from removal and replays a play ability.
1×Spell–Unconditional killThe only unconditional kill in the main deck, and it pays them two cards for it. Aim it at something whose loss costs more than two cards.
1×Spell–Cheap tradeEach player kills one of their own units, so it is best when your worst unit is a spent Treasure Hunter and theirs is not.
1×Spell–Taxing counterCounters unless they pay two, and Repeat lets you buy a second counter in the same cast. A tax, not a wall, so use it on the turn where two Energy is the most they can spare.
1×Spell–EvasionMoves up to two friendly units to base at reaction speed, which dodges removal and combat, and triggers Traveling Merchant on the way.
1×Spell–Combat mathsSwaps the Might of two units at one battlefield. Best against a single tall defender, where it turns your one-Might Treasure Hunter into their problem.
1×Spell–Gear answerKills a gear and replaces itself, so it is never fully dead. The main-deck copy exists because the format runs enough Gear to justify one.
Board and movement
3 cards
2×Spell–Second actionMoves a friendly unit and readies it, which is a second attack, a second move trigger, or a defender that had already acted.
1×Spell–Bodies, not empowersTwo one-Might bodies, and the tokens are not cards so they do not empower the Legend. The Flow replay from the trash does, which is the half worth planning around.
Gear
5 cards
3×Gear–Power fixingFree to play and it taps for Chaos. In a deck that wants two Chaos Power on the same turn as an Order card, three copies is the reason the mana works at all.
1×Gear–Trash resetA body on entry, and killing it recycles up to four cards from trashes. Aimed at the opponent’s trash more often than your own, since yours is Rhasa’s discount.
1×Gear–Flex slotThe most cuttable card in the list. Its Equip cost recycles two cards from your trash, which is in direct tension with Rhasa wanting them left there.
Legend and battlefields
4 cards
1×Legend–The engineEmpowers when you play a card from anywhere other than your hand. Spending one costs a disempower and an exhaust, so however many you bank, only one converts per turn, and Assault 2 only matters while attacking.
1×Battlefield–Fuel battlefieldConquering here burns two, which is two more off Rhasa’s cost and two more Fizz and Harrowing targets. The scoring and the engine point the same way.
1×Battlefield–Filter battlefieldConquering filters a card and puts one in the trash. The place to send a stranded Baron Nashor before The Harrowing is live.
1×Battlefield–Anti-tallA unit defending alone here is two Might smaller, which is how a deck of one and two-Might bodies beats one large defender. Symmetrical, and your board is exactly the shape that suffers from it.
Might, Energy and Power appear only where the guide states them; anything it leaves unstated is left blank rather than filled in with an invented value. Rhasa the Sunderer is listed at its printed ten Energy; read it as ten minus the number of cards in your trash.
Sideboard · 10
2×Kills ChaosKills an enemy Chaos unit or gear for two Energy. Reads as narrow and is not: Chaos is the most played domain in the field, and this answers a resolved threat rather than trading in combat.
1×Deployment taxDeflect, and it Stuns every unit an opponent plays while it is at a battlefield. Against a deck that wins by deploying bodies, it makes each one arrive a turn late.
1×Symmetrical resetEach player keeps two units, two gear, two runes and two cards, and recycles the rest. You keep the board you built and hand the opponent a rebuild.
1×Full bounceReturns all units and gear to hand for eight. The answer to a board you cannot beat, and it does not care how large anything is.
1×Discounted finisherKilling a friendly unit as an additional cost reduces both its Energy and its Power, and Ganking lets it choose the battlefield. When it attacks, the defender has to kill one of their own units there.
1×Counter to handCounters a spell and returns it to hand instead of the trash, which is the mode that matters against decks whose trash is an asset. Predict smooths your next draw.
1×Second gear answerThe second copy, for the Gear matchups where one is not enough and a dead card is unacceptable.
1×Second Might swapThe second copy, against tall single-defender decks where swapping Might is better removal than removal.
1×Second rescueThe second copy, in matchups where protecting your own play-ability unit is worth as much as answering theirs.
Chosen championKennen, Storm of Shuriken. Playing it from the Champion Zone is itself a card played from outside your hand, so it empowers the Legend before its own Burn 2 resolves.
No alternateThe sideboard carries no second Chosen Champion. Post-board identity never changes; what changes is interaction density and which payoffs you can still afford to reach. §9 →
Energy curve
40 cards
30
Energy 03×
81
Energy 13×3×2×
162
Energy 23×3×1×1×1×1×1×1×1×2×1×
63
Energy 31×2×1×1×1×
24
Energy 42×
05
16
Energy 61×
07
08
09
410
Energy 103×1×
4 cards sit outside the curve: the Battlefield and the Legend are played from their own zones and have no Energy cost.
Card types
Unit15
Unit1×2×2×3×3×3×1×
Spell20
Spell1×3×3×2×1×1×1×1×1×1×1×1×2×1×
Gear5
Gear3×1×1×
40 cards in the main deck. The Battlefield and Legend play from their own zones and are not counted.
Power by domain
Chaos37 · 23 Power
Chaos1×2×2×1×3×3×3×3×3×1×2×1×1×1×1×1×2×1×3×1×1×
Order8 · 3 Power
Order3×1×1×1×1×1×
Colorless3
Colorless1×1×1×
21 of 44 listed cards carry a Power requirement. A card with two domains counts under both, so these do not sum to the deck size.
Energy, type and domain are printed card values from the Riftcodex snapshot, joined against this guide’s list.