B · Engine & Sequencing · §9
Where the +1 actually goes, why Pit Rookie is two allocations, and what Trophy Hunter does to the opponent’s safe deployment.
The Legend’s ability has no Energy or Power cost. Its cost is structural: you have to keep drawing and preserving units.
The right target may be a unit in an ongoing Showdown, a lone defender that has to survive, a four-Might board that needs to reach five for Kinkou, a unit sitting just inside damage range, a unit at the second battlefield, or an attacker whose growth forces them to spend a trick.
Playing creates a permanent buff from Rookie and a temporary +1 from the Legend. They can target different units, so one two-Energy card can improve two battlefields at once.◆src
A third bonus on a unit that already beats their board exposes more temporary value to recall, Stun, kill effects, movement, combat cancellation, or the opponent simply declining to fight.
Your guaranteed five-Energy threat and your broadest Ambush location. It punishes an opponent taking an apparently empty battlefield, reinforces without telegraphing six Might, enters after their interaction has been spent elsewhere, breaks a lone defender at , becomes a large body for or Twilight to ready later, and forces respect for five open Energy even when your hand is weak.
gives a lone defending unit −2 Might while it defends alone.◆src
So: they leave one defender there, you Ambush Trophy Hunter in, the defender loses two Might, Trophy adds six, and playing it triggers the Legend, whose bonus can go to Trophy or to another battlefield entirely.
The Chosen Champion goes to the trash like any other unit, and this list has no recursion for it. Thrill can only affect a friendly unit currently on the board, so it cannot bring Trophy back. Preserving it matters in every matchup where a six-Might Ambush is still your best late threat.
There is no alternate Chosen Champion in the sideboard. Your post-board identity stays the same Legend, the same Champion and the same unit-play engine, and matchups change through interaction and unit texture rather than a champion transformation.