C · Positioning & Configuration · §17

Battlefield Roles

The Lab is the engine, Star Spring repositions, Windswept Hillock pressures.

Dusk Rose Lab — the engine battlefield

Primary functions: converting Temporary Reflections before scoring; triggering Fragmented during the Beginning Phase; cashing in Ruined Rex; triggering Glasc; enabling Karthus multiplication; turning a body that would die anyway into an additional card.

⚠ WarningThe Lab should not be treated as a mandatory sacrifice every Beginning Phase. Killing the wrong unit can lose the Hold the Lab was supposed to support.

Star Spring — the repositioning battlefield

It helps preserve an important unit by returning it to base; re-stage Rift Herald for another movement trigger; re-stage Vi for another attack; remove a valuable engine unit from an exposed battlefield; consolidate or redistribute presence.

Rules noteThe effect is symmetrical — consider whether playing a non-token unit there gives the opponent a beneficial reposition.

Windswept Hillock — the pressure battlefield

Ganking enables cross-battlefield attacks; better use of ready Reflections; Vi access to important defenders; tall units influencing more than one scoring location; the Everywhere At Once fortress plan. Hillock is where raw Might and positional flexibility convert most directly into scoring tempo.