Your Riftjudge ruling #11530 — is against core rule 419.4.b. What stands here?

The Core Rule stands — ruling #11530 is overruled. A countered spell does count toward Battering Ram's discount, so Ram costs [4] (5 base, −1).

Battering Ram's cost check is a non-triggered ability, and non-triggered abilities that check cards played reference Finalization (CR 419.4.b) — the spell was already a Finalized Chain Item before Defy countered it. Rule 425.1.b, which #11530 misapplied, only covers abilities that trigger on cards being played; it doesn't govern static cost checks. The rule's own example confirms this: play a spell, it gets Defied, then Battering Ram "will cost [4] Energy."

This doesn't change the triggered-ability cases (Ravenbloom Student, Abandoned Hall) — those still don't fire on countered spells.