Official Riftbound ruling
What happens when I play Temporal Breach targeting my Elder Dragon in base and pay
Any Rune
Any Rune for Dragon Roost while playing Elder Dragon? Will it be played to base or to Dragon Roost?
You can choose which of those two locations you want to play it to.
In general, there are not many cases where we have this kind of competing instruction: one effect that tells you to play a unit to one location, and one that tells you to play it to another. That being said, when they do arise with contradictory requirements, the precedent from other areas of the rules is that the player chooses one of those requirements and ignores all others.
Note that this only applies to mandatory positive requirements, ones that specify a location or method without also preventing the action from being performed to other locations or with other methods and that aren’t optional. For example, an effect like Perched Grimwyrm’s passive ability is a restriction on playing that unit to any location other than a battlefield you’ve conquered this turn. Rockfall Path’s passive ability is a restriction on playing units to Rockfall Path. If you’ve conquered only Rockfall Path this turn, you can’t play Perched Grimwyrm at all, because those two restrictions are contradictory.
In this case, the contradictory requirements don’t directly prohibit the playing of these units to other locations, so we can choose one of the contradictory requirements and ignore the rest.
Riot's question and answer, word for word, from theVendetta Rules FAQ and Clarifications
The cards
- Temporal Breach
Spell
Hidden (Hide now for
Any Rune to react with later for
0 Energy.)
Banish a unit, then its owner plays it to the same location, ignoring its cost.
- Elder Dragon
Unit
Any amount of your damage is enough to kill enemy units.
When you play me, choose up to one enemy unit at each location. Deal 1 to them.
- Dragon Roost
Battlefield
Any player may pay
Any Rune
Any Rune as an additional cost to play a Dragon. If they do, they play it to this battlefield.
More rulings on these cards
- What happens when I play Perched Grimwyrm while I haven’t conquered Dragon Roost this turn? Can I pay
Any Rune
Any Rune and play it to Dragon Roost? What if I’ve conquered another battlefield this turn?
- What happens when I play Hostile Takeover gaining control of my opponent’s ready unit, move it to base, and then play Temporal Breach choosing it? Where will the unit go?
- What happens when I play Hextech Ray on an Elder Dragon while Imperial Decree’s delayed trigger is active and I have an Immortal Phoenix in the Trash? Can I play Immortal Phoenix from the Trash?
- If I play Counter Strike in response to my opponent’s Elder Dragon’s play effect, will the chosen unit still die?
- My opponent plays Elder Dragon and targets my two units at the two battlefields, as well as one of my units in base. If I play Flash in reaction, moving the two units at battlefields to base, will they be dealt damage?


