How to play : Riven The Exile

Everything starts with controlling a battlefield, because that is the only place the Legend works. A unit you play there arrives ready instead of exhausted, and a ready unit has options: move back to base, or be exhausted to pay a cost that asks you to exhaust a friendly unit. Blade of the Exile adds the option that matters most: an attack. It is a gear for three energy and one power; the unit it is attached to gets +3 might and Ganking, so it can move straight from one battlefield to another, and its Equip is paid with one power of any domain or by exhausting a friendly unit. With a Blade already on the board, play a unit to your battlefield, attach the Blade, and that unit can walk into the opponent’s battlefield on the turn it arrives.

Riven, Broken Blade is the Chosen Champion: she waits in the Champion Zone from the first turn, costs four energy, and is the best home for the Blade. Each time she becomes exhausted, you pick a mode not yet picked that turn: buff her (+1 might), spend that buff to stun an enemy unit, or spend it to ready her. With a Blade of the Exile already on the board, play her to your battlefield and she arrives ready; pay the Equip with a power rather than with her own exhaust, then use the Blade’s Ganking to move her into their battlefield. The move exhausts her, you pick the buff, and she attacks at 8 might: her own 4, 3 from the Blade and 1 from the buff.

You draw four and may replace up to two. Keep the cheap units that take a battlefield and switch the Legend on: Scuttle Crab (two energy, draws a card as it arrives, and can conquer and hold even at 0 might), Tideturner, Bedeviling Stranger and Reckless Innovator. One of them next to a Discipline (a two-energy Reaction that gives +2 might and draws a card) or a Defy is a hand to keep. Never mulligan to find Riven, Broken Blade: she is already waiting in the Champion Zone.

Astral Heron costs seven energy. One in a hand of cheap cards is fine; two leave you with almost nothing to play in the first turns, so send them back. A Blade of the Exile with no unit to carry it is the same problem: keep it only next to a unit. And when you keep Reckless Innovator, plan to play it to your battlefield rather than to base: there the Legend already has it enter ready for free, so its Accelerate (one energy and a Chaos power on top) is only worth paying when it has to start at base.

Your first job is to control a battlefield, since the Legend does nothing until you do; a Scuttle Crab walking onto an empty one is enough. All three of our battlefields help. Hunters’ Circle makes the first unit or gear each player plays there on their turn cost one energy less, which puts an Astral Heron at six and The Good Stuff at two energy and a Chaos power. At Star Spring, the first time a player plays a non-token unit there each turn, they may move another of their units there back to base. Emperor’s Dais, when you conquer it, lets you pay one energy to return a unit of yours there to hand and play a 2-might Sand Soldier token in its place.

Your extra cards come from two places. The Good Stuff can only be played to a battlefield: when you play it you discard one card and draw three, and each time you hold that battlefield it returns to your hand to be played again, though it dies if an opponent holds there. Stellacorn Herder draws a card each time it moves: played to your battlefield it arrives ready, so it can move and draw that same turn, and a swap with a Tideturner played from hand or a trip home from Star Spring draws another. The early turns aim for a battlefield you control, a Hidden card set on it, and a hand that keeps growing.

Hide on your turn, spring it on theirs. A Hidden card costs one power of any domain to set face down at a battlefield you control. From the next turn on, the opponent’s included, you can play it from there as a Reaction for 0 energy, but it can only choose things at that battlefield, and you lose it if you lose the battlefield, so hide where you mean to stay. A Hidden unit played that way lands at a battlefield you control, so the Legend has it enter ready. Bedeviling Stranger returns an enemy unit there to its owner’s hand when the battlefield holds four or more units, both sides counted: two attackers against one defender, plus the Stranger itself, already make four. Switcheroo swaps the might of two units at that battlefield for the turn: pair their biggest attacker with a 0-might Scuttle Crab and the giant fights at 0.

Decide what pays for what. The Blade’s Equip can be paid by exhausting a friendly unit, and Ki Burst asks for that exhaust as an additional cost, so pay both with a unit that has nothing better to do: a Scuttle Crab already standing on your battlefield, or a Reckless Innovator you just played there, which arrives ready and, each time it becomes exhausted, gives you a Gold token or, for a Chaos power, a card. Every power you take from a rune sends that rune to the bottom of your rune deck; the Gold token arrives exhausted, and once it is ready you can kill it for one power of any domain without spending a rune. With an Astral Heron at a battlefield, the first card you play each turn makes your next one cost two energy and two power less: lead with a Discipline, and a Rebuke right after it costs nothing.

Ki Burst costs one energy plus the exhaust of a friendly unit and stuns a unit, which then deals no combat damage this turn; as an Action, it works on your turn or in any showdown. With Ride the Wind in hand as well, Riven gets two exhausts in one turn. While she is ready and a Blade is on the board, exhaust her to pay its Equip (pick the buff), cast Ride the Wind to move her into their battlefield and ready her, then exhaust her again to pay for Ki Burst: she spends the buff to stun one defender and Ki Burst stuns a second, for three energy and a Chaos power in all. Zhonya’s Hourglass saves the next friendly unit that would die, whichever it is, and recalls it to base exhausted, so keep it face down and play it only when the unit about to die is Riven: the list has only one of her.

Every removal spell here returns a unit to hand instead of killing it. Gust is the cheap one: one energy, as a Reaction, for a unit at a battlefield with 3 might or less. Rebuke reaches any unit at a battlefield for two energy and two Chaos power, as an Action. Star-Crossed returns one of your units with one of theirs, so send back a unit worth playing again: Scuttle Crab draws again, and Blitzcrank, Impassive, played to a battlefield, moves an enemy unit there to face a 5-might Tank, then goes back to your hand on his own each time he holds. Defy counters a spell that costs up to four energy and one power. Twilight Shroud gives a friendly unit +1 might and keeps enemy spells and abilities from choosing it this turn, but it has neither Action nor Reaction: cast it on your turn, before the Blade carrier moves in, and its Flow lets you cast it once more from the trash for two energy.