Elder Dragon
Unofficial Riftbound rulings for Elder Dragon, with rules explanations, examples, and Core Rules citations.
How does Elder Dragon affect combat damage assignment?
While you control Elder Dragon on the board, 1 combat damage from your units is lethal to an enemy unit regardless of its might, unless another effect changes how much must be assigned or prevents that damage. Elder Dragon changes the lethal-damage value for enemy units with its controller's damage, and the smallest valid amount of damage is 1.
You must assign lethal damage to one unit before assigning damage to another, and you cannot assign more than the lethal minimum while another unit remains. With Elder Dragon, that normally means assigning exactly 1 damage to an enemy unit before moving to the next. Passive abilities and replacement effects, including prevention, are considered during assignment and can change this minimum.
Elder Dragon vs. Imperial Decree
Suppose Pakaa Cub, with 3 might, is your only attacker against three undamaged copies of Noxus Hopeful, each defending with 4 might. With Elder Dragon, you assign 1 damage from Pakaa Cub to each Noxus Hopeful, and all three are killed during the combat cleanup.
Imperial Decree does not change lethal damage or combat damage assignment. Assigning damage is not dealing damage, so its delayed triggered ability triggers only after a unit actually takes damage and then attempts to kill that unit.
With Imperial Decree instead, Pakaa Cub still assigns all 3 damage, but you cannot split it among the three Noxus Hopefuls. You must assign lethal damage to one before moving to another, so all 3 damage is assigned to the Noxus Hopeful you choose first. Of the three Noxus Hopefuls, only that one takes Pakaa Cub's combat damage, so Imperial Decree's kill ability triggers for it and not the other two.
Does damage from earlier in the turn become lethal when Elder Dragon enters, and can I react?
Damage still marked by Elder Dragon's controller becomes lethal to enemy units when Elder Dragon enters, and opponents cannot react after it enters before the resulting cleanup handles that lethal damage. Elder Dragon's "your damage" means damage marked by its controller. Its first ability is a passive statement that changes the lethal-damage value for those enemy units while Elder Dragon is on the board.
Finalizing a unit does not pass priority, and the unit resolves immediately. After Elder Dragon enters, a cleanup happens without passing or awarding priority, and every unit with lethal damage is killed unless that death is replaced. Elder Dragon's separate "When you play me" ability is a triggered play effect, but it does not create a response window before this lethal-damage check.
Example
You play Flurry of Blades during your turn, and its 1 damage remains marked on enemy units at battlefields. When you later play Elder Dragon directly, each of those units is killed in the cleanup caused by Elder Dragon entering before your opponents can react.
The same result occurs if Dazzling Aurora plays Elder Dragon at the end of your turn. End-of-turn abilities happen in the Ending Step, before the Expiration Step's special cleanup heals all units, so reaching the end of the turn has not itself healed Flurry of Blades' damage yet. Opponents may react while Dazzling Aurora's triggered ability waits to resolve. Once that ability begins resolving and reveals Elder Dragon, no new priority window opens before Elder Dragon enters and the affected units are killed.
Can Elder Dragon target a unit after Zhonya's Hourglass recalls it?
Yes, if you play Elder Dragon while an enemy unit at a battlefield has your damage marked on it and that unit's controller controls Zhonya's Hourglass in their base: Zhonya's Hourglass replaces that unit's death and recalls it before you choose targets for Elder Dragon's play effect, so you can choose the recalled unit in its controller's base. If another valid enemy unit remains at a battlefield, you can choose that unit as well because it is at a different location.
Elder Dragon enters, and its passive makes your marked damage lethal to the damaged enemy unit. Its play effect is then added to the chain as a pending item.
Both Elder Dragon entering and its play effect being added require cleanup before play continues. All outstanding cleanups finish before the pending effect can begin finalization.
During cleanup, the damaged unit would be killed. Zhonya's Hourglass replaces that death: the Hourglass is killed instead, and the unit is healed, exhausted, and recalled to its controller's base rather than killed.
Killing Zhonya's Hourglass sends it from the board to the trash, making another cleanup outstanding after the current one.
After all cleanups finish, you choose targets while finalizing the play effect. The recalled unit is now in base, and any valid enemy unit that remains at a battlefield is at a different location, so both can be chosen.
When the effect resolves, it deals 1 to each target it affects, marking damage on each unit separately. If Elder Dragon remains on the board, its passive makes that damage lethal, so each affected unit would be killed during the cleanup after the ability leaves the chain.
Does Elder Dragon's play effect finalize if its passive leaves no enemy units to target?
Yes. The words "up to" allow Elder Dragon's controller to choose zero targets. Because the ability does not begin with "you may," its controller cannot decline to perform it, so the play effect finalizes even when no enemy units remain.
After Elder Dragon enters, its play effect is added to the chain before the resulting cleanup. Elder Dragon's passive ability makes its controller's marked damage on enemy units lethal, so that cleanup may kill an opponent's last units. The pending play effect remains on the chain throughout the cleanup, so the opponent retains control of their empty battlefields and their Hidden cards remain there. After the play effect finalizes with zero targets, the opponent may play an eligible card from face down as a Reaction before the effect resolves. When the effect resolves with no targets, it simply does nothing.
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Written by Christian “Near” Ivicevic.
Last updated on .