Updated for Vendetta

Ornn

Fire Below the Mountain

Calm

MindIntermediate

Ornn turns Gear into the resources and readiness to keep fighting. Blacksmith rewards a successful Hold, while Pit Crew makes the next Gear play part of the attack.

Should you play Ornn?

Pick Ornn if you like turning small resource savings into a board that is difficult to exhaust. Think twice if you want every card in your opening hand to attack or remove something immediately.

Best for: Players who enjoy sequencing Gear, preserving useful units, and choosing between another attack and a stronger next-turn Hold.
Think twice if: You dislike setup cards or tend to invest in equipment before establishing a unit worth protecting.

Key Cards

Fire Below the Mountain supplies one Power for playing Gear or using Gear abilities, leaving runes available for other costs. Blacksmith can find another Gear on play or Hold, and Pit Crew readies whenever you play one. Together they give the equipment a purpose beyond making a unit larger: keep the hand supplied, develop an attacker and preserve the unit already scoring.

Ornn’s Field Guide

Ornn makes Gear easier to support without turning it into the whole game plan. His Legend can exhaust to add one Power for playing Gear or using Gear abilities. That is a Power saving, not another Energy, and it does not directly pay for a normal unit or counterspell. The useful Ornn turns put that saving behind a board: an early unit to contest, a Gear that improves the exchange, and enough resources left to keep the unit alive. It is easy to build an impressive base full of equipment while the opponent scores elsewhere. Decide which unit is taking the next point before deciding which Gear deserves the discount.

How Ornn wins

Use inexpensive bodies to reach the first contested field, then make those bodies more useful than their printed Might suggests. Pit Crew can ready after a Gear play and attack on the turn it was played. Brutalizer gives its bearer three additional Might on the turn it becomes attached, then one on later turns. Blacksmith is a more durable holder whose play and Hold abilities can find another Gear from the top four cards. The deck can win an exchange, keep the equipment after losing its bearer, and rebuild without needing an entirely new hand. It still needs enough permanent units to Hold; temporary Sprite pressure and Guardian Angel recalls can leave a field empty at the wrong time.

Key interactions

Spend the Legend on the right resource

Fire Below the Mountain · Seal of Focus · Poro Snax

The Legend's Power can pay for Snax, an Equip ability or Helm's Empower, but not Defy. Seal of Focus provides a useful bridge: play the Seal using the Legend's restricted Power, then exhaust the ready Seal for a new Calm Power with no such restriction. Snax replaces itself when played and can later be cashed in for another card, but that second draw costs another Energy and Calm Power, plus exhausting and killing it. Do not count the same exhausted Legend or Seal twice.

Ready the attacker before committing it

Pit Crew · Brutalizer · Patched Porobot

Playing any Gear can ready Pit Crew, including Porobot because it is both a Unit and a Gear. Attaching Brutalizer is an Equip activation, not a Gear play, so it does not ready Crew by itself. With Crew at base, play the Gear that readies it, attach an available Brutalizer for one Calm Power, and the three-Might unit can attack at six that turn. Readiness is not Ganking: Crew cannot move directly between battlefields. A second attack elsewhere needs a legal route back through base and another way to ready.

Reuse the investment without losing the point

Guardian Angel · Aspiring Engineer · Ornn, Blacksmith

Guardian Angel dies instead of its bearer, healing, exhausting and recalling the unit. That preserves Blacksmith, but it can also give up the field he was supposed to Hold. Engineer can return the spent Angel or another Gear from trash to hand; replaying and attaching it still costs resources. Equipment left behind after a bearer dies can be equipped again. Equipment that is still attached cannot simply be moved with its inactive Equip ability in this Blacksmith list; Veiled Temple provides a way to detach it first.

Strengths

Cheap cards that replace themselves help develop a board without immediately emptying the hand.
Gear plays can provide both their printed effect and a ready Pit Crew, making small development plays matter to the current attack.
Blacksmith's Hold trigger and Engineer's recovery reward preserving a stable board through several exchanges.

Weaknesses

Gear-heavy hands still need a useful unit or Fountain. Developing resources alone does not contest the opening points.
Pit Crew has no built-in movement shortcut, and its printed three Might needs help to beat larger defenders.
Some protection preserves the card by surrendering its battlefield. Saving a unit is not always the same as saving the game.

Shadow's Pick

Ornn tournament list by MICE TheMаnLаnd

1st place · Riftbound Regional Qualifier - Barcelona - Final Standings, 2026-08-23

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Deck total $85.26

Legend (1)

1x$0.13 ea.

Runes (12)

4x$0.16 ea.
8x$0.11 ea.

Battlefields (3)

1x$0.12 ea.
1x$0.11 ea.
1x$0.09 ea.

Spells (5)

2x$0.96 ea.
Power
1
Energy
1
3x$3.42 ea.
Power
1
Energy
1

Gear (19)

1x$0.31 ea.
Energy
2
3x$0.28 ea.
Energy
2
3x$0.19 ea.
Power
1
Energy
1
1x$1.03 ea.
Energy
2
3x$0.23 ea.
Power
2
Energy
3
1x$0.09 ea.
Energy
1
3x$11.96 ea.
Power
1
Energy
0
3x$2.59 ea.
Power
1
Energy
2
1x$5.60 ea.
Power
1
Energy
4

Units (16)

1xChosen$0.76 ea.
Might
5
Power
1
Energy
5
3x$0.10 ea.
Might
2
Energy
2
1x$0.12 ea.
Might
2
Energy
3
3x$0.12 ea.
Might
3
Energy
3
2x$0.07 ea.
Might
3
Power
1
Energy
3
3x$4.09 ea.
Might
0
Energy
2
3x$0.18 ea.
Might
2
Energy
2

Sideboard (10)

2x$0.24 ea.
Energy
1
2x$0.24 ea.
Energy
1
2x$0.13 ea.
Might
2
Power
1
Energy
3
1x$1.03 ea.
Energy
2
1x$1.27 ea.
Power
1
Energy
2
2x$0.16 ea.
Might
3
Energy
3

Shadow's take

This is my Ornn pick because the Blacksmith plan keeps the Gear tied to something that actually scores. The cheap replacement bodies establish the board, Pit Crew turns the next Gear into an attacker, and Blacksmith makes a successful Hold worth another look for equipment. I like the three Brutalizers here. A Crew that readies at base can become a six-Might attack without asking you to pay for a completely new threat. The three Gages also mean the opponent cannot treat your available Calm Power as only a counterspell. The part I would be careful with is spending a full turn improving the engine while neither field is secure. Helm is useful against spell-heavy hands, but its four-Energy play and separate four-Energy Empower are real investments. If that turn needs another body, play the body. You get paid for keeping Blacksmith at a battlefield, not for collecting every Gear in the deck at base.

The Game Plan

Early gameKeep a route to an actual board. Crab replaces itself, Clockwork can draw if you pay the extra Calm Power, and Crew becomes much better when the hand includes a Gear to ready it. Seal is useful resource development, but I would send back an opening full of expensive protection and no unit to protect. Fountain makes a ready three-Might Sprite at base and gives the deck an immediate attack. Its Temporary bodies are pressure, not reliable next-turn holders. Porobot enters exhausted and only draws when you already have three other Gear, so do not count the card replacement in an opening where that condition is missing.
MidgameBuild the turn around the attacker and leave the holder alone when possible. With Blacksmith already holding Forge, an exhausted Crew at base, a ready Seal and an unattached Brutalizer, the first Snax of the turn costs no Energy after Forge. The Legend pays its Calm Power, Snax draws, and Crew readies. Seal can then fund Brutalizer's Equip, producing a six-Might Crew that can attack from base while Blacksmith stays home. That assumes all the earlier setup is already paid and the opponent does not disrupt it. On less developed boards, settle for the Gear and protection that win one useful exchange instead of forcing the whole sequence. Defy only answers spells within both its printed Energy and Power limits.
Late gameMake the next Hold the priority. Blacksmith can keep finding Gear, and Engineer can recover a spent Snax, Angel or Fountain, but each replay costs again. Save Gage for a fight its three Might changes; Quick-Draw attaches it during play without another Equip payment. Cloth Armor is the cheaper defensive surprise, with Shield 2 rather than an offensive Might bonus. Helm taxes opposing spells and adds a Power tax after its separate Empower, but it does not tax units or Gear. Before attaching Angel or committing its bearer to a fight, check whether its compulsory recall would surrender the decisive field. If the opponent only needs that point, preserving an expensive card at base may be the wrong victory.

Battlefields

Blind

Ornn's Forge · Poro Snax · Sterak's Gage

Forge is the natural starting point when the opening can establish a real holder. While you control it, the first non-token Gear you play each turn costs one Energy less, including an opposing-turn Gage. Be deliberate about the first Gear: playing a zero-Energy Seal can consume the reduction without saving anything. The discount does not reduce Equip costs, and you do not get it before taking control.

Going First

Seat of Power · Ornn, Blacksmith · Pit Crew

Seat rewards holding another battlefield before you conquer this one. A stable Blacksmith on the first field lets Crew's attack here produce a card as well as the point. Conquering Seat as your only battlefield draws nothing. I would favor it with a hand capable of developing two useful bodies; do not split a weak board just to chase the additional draw.

Going Second

Veiled Temple · Seal of Focus · Patched Porobot

A successful recapture can ready a Seal for another Power or Porobot for a later legal move. If you choose Equipment, you can also detach it, making its ordinary Equip ability available again afterward. This is a resource recovery field, not free movement for Crew or a free reattachment. Pick the target that makes the rest of the turn work, and keep the actual Equip payment available if that is the plan.

Sideboard

Answer the Gear that matters

Disarming Rake · Pickpocket

Rake can kill any Gear on play for three Energy and a Calm Power. Pickpocket costs three Energy with no Power, but only kills Gear with printed Energy cost one or less, then makes an exhausted Gold. That catches Seals, Snax and Cloth Armor, not a Porobot discounted to one by Forge. The Gold play can ready Crew, although the exhausted Gold cannot immediately fund another play. I would cut counters with no good targets or the slow Helm before stripping out the bodies needed to exploit the answer.

Change the combat math by domain

Decree of Focus · Decree of Insight

Focus gives a friendly unit four Might when it is fighting an enemy Fury unit or being chosen by an enemy Fury spell. Insight gives an enemy Body unit minus five Might and ignores Deflect while you pay. Those are specific conditions, not benefits granted just because the opposing Legend includes that domain. Bring the relevant pair for the units and spells actually deciding combat, trimming protection or slower development that has been less useful in those exchanges.

Protect the established board

Guardian Angel · Not So Fast

The second Angel favors games where keeping the unit for another turn is worth recalling it. Not So Fast instead counters an enemy spell or ability choosing your unit or Gear, which can preserve both the threat and its current location. It does not answer an untargeted reset. I would use these slots when the opponent is repeatedly removing the important holder, and avoid adding both if the real problem is falling behind before Blacksmith reaches a battlefield.