Locations
You walk past CJ’s table, glance at the board state, and keep moving. Then the oddity of the situation suddenly hits you, and you come back.
CJ gives you an even look. “A Goblin deck,” he says.
You stare at the pile of cards on his side of the table. “That’s a Goblin deck?”
“I didn’t have a lot of Goblin cards,” CJ shrugs.
You’re not quite sure if that makes sense, so you let your attention drift to the other side of the table, where CJ’s elderly opponent is playing . . .
“Is that . . . an Urza’s Saga preconstructed deck?”
He smiles. “It is, yes,” he says. “Sleeper,the one that’s full of enchantments. I found it in my old collection.”
“And Verne’s running over me with it right now,” CJ says.
“Well, you had a good run.”
“There’s no way I can survive your three flyers,” CJ says, “and even if I got more creatures in play, that Opal Titan and Opal Caryatid you cast last turn won’t let me through.”
“So you’re conceding?”
“One more game?” Verne asks.
“One more game,” CJ agrees, as he starts shuffling up.
You don’t say a word throughout the entire exchange, possibly because the odd combination of decks has shocked you into silence. But you do know that you would have played CJ’s position quite differently, and that as long as he doesn’t learn to pay attention, his losing streak will continue.
It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Verne before the end of your turn.
You are at 5 life with the following cards in play:
- Shambling Goblin
- Mogg Conscripts
- Goblin Medics
- A face-down 2/2 creature (Skirk Volcanist)
- Warren Pilferers (with Verne’s Pacifism attached)
- 3 Swamps
- 3 Mountains
- Blood Crypt
You have the following cards in your hand:
You have the following relevant cards in your graveyard:
You have not yet played a land (or cast any spells) this turn. You do not know the identity of any of the cards that are currently on top of your library.
- Songstitcher (with Serra's Embrace attached)
- Disciple of Law
- Opal Gargoyle (tapped, currently a 2/2 Gargoyle creature with flying)
- Pegasus Charger (tapped, with Brilliant Halo attached)
- Opal Caryatid (currently a noncreature enchantment)
- Opal Titan (currently a noncreature enchantment)
- 6 Plains (four tapped)
- Drifting Meadow (tapped)
If you think you’ve got a great solution in mind, don’t put it in the comments! Instead, send it to puzzles at gatheringmagic dot com with the subject line “Puzzle – Sleeper Hold”. We’ll include the best ones in next week’s article along with the next puzzle!
Last Week’s Puzzle
Correct solutions to last week’s puzzle were received from Russell Jones, Aaron Golas, Chadwick Bond, Matthew Harvey, jmbanister83, Bohdan Yarema, Ryou Niji, Luke Pebody, Jiri Klaudy, Kha Chu, and Quadrangolo Tetra.
“Looking at the board,” Matthew Harvey writes, “we can only attack with two creatures at most, due to Crawlspace. We can, however, use Golgari Charm to clear the board a little, and thanks to undying, Strangleroot Geist comes back even stronger.
“This leaves Kiara with just our Gibbering Hyenas, which can't block black creatures. We can use Ghoulflesh to make one of our creatures black, but the question is how to bring its power high enough to win.”
“The only way to get 5 power on any creature at all,” Kha Chu adds, “is to enchant a reanimated Strangleroot Geist with Armor of Thorns. Once you figure that out, it's possible to work out in reverse how to make it that big while being able to slip through the defenses of Kiara's creatures.”
Chadwick Bond submits the solution below, with an additional word of warning: “We can't cast Armor of Thorns until Ghoulflesh is removed from Strangleroot Geist, since Armor of Thorns cannot target or enchant a black creature.”
- Tap all five Forests for mana. Use Llanowar Druid's ability to untap them all. Llanowar Druid and Armor of Thorns go to the graveyard. We have
in our mana pool. - Tap a Swamp and cast Golgari Charm for its mode that says, “All creatures get -1/-1 until end of turn.” Azure Mage, True-Name Nemesis, Eternal Witness, and Strangleroot Geist all die. Undying triggers, and Strangleroot Geist returns to the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter. (We have in our mana pool.)
- Cast Reviving Melody to return Eternal Witness and Armor of Thorns to our hand. (We have in our mana pool).
- Tap a Swamp to cast Ghoulflesh on Strangleroot Geist.
- Tap two Forests to cast Eternal Witness to return Golgari Charm to our hand. (We have one Swamp and three Forests untapped.)
- Since Strangleroot Geist has haste, it can attack. Attack with Strangleroot Geist. Ghoulflesh has turned it black, so it cannot be blocked by Gibbering Hyenas, and Kiara has no other blockers available. At the declare blockers step, Geist will go unblocked.
- Before combat damage, cast Golgari Charm for its mode that says, “Destroy target enchantment,” targeting Ghoulflesh.
- After Golgari Charm resolves, maintain priority, and cast Armor of Thorns on Strangleroot Geist. Strangleroot Geist is now a 5/4 creature. Go to combat damage and it will deal lethal damage to Kiara.
Chadwick adds: “I thought that Kiara might have stood a better chance had she Dominated our Llanowar Druid instead of our Hyenas, but then I realized we could have just sacrificed it in response to the Dominate.
“If she had stolen Strangleroot Geist or Eternal Witness, we could have used Ghoulflesh or Golgari Charm to kill them and bring back Strangleroot Geist due to undying. So really, Dominate was pretty useless to Kiara overall. Enchantment removal would have been more useful, so she could destroy her own Banishing Light and give us back Vampiric Spirit, along with the life-loss from its enters-the-battlefield trigger.”
The only thing that remains unknown is exactly what we whispered to Lalitha. “Most likely,” Kha Chu writes, “the advice we gave was something to the effect of, “If something that can't be blocked loses the reason it can't be blocked after the declare-blockers step, all blocks (and non-blocks) are still locked in and can't be changed.”
“It's a fine detail that doesn't show up very often, but in some cases like this, it means all the difference.”
