At the moment, you're at 1-1 and facing Thulani, who's playing a deck that's roughly about as good as yours. However, it's far better at playing the long-term game . . .  so after about twenty turns, his side of the board is looking good while your side looks like something the cat dragged in.

Thulani taps two of his lands. "Cleansing Ray," he announces. "I'll destroy your Skymarcher Aspirant."

You sigh as you drop yet another card into your graveyard. Unfortunately for you, your 2/1 flying Vampire was one of the creatures holding back Thulani's evasive forces. Thulani's not likely to attack with a nonflyer into your Cherished Hatchling and Dusk Legion Dreadnought, but without the Aspirant on your side, his creatures now look a lot more intimidating.

"I'll attack with my Storm Sculptor," Thulani says. He pauses for a while, then reaches for another one of his creatures. "And my Soul of the Rapids, too."

You wonder why he's not attacking with his Pterodon Knight as well, but he's probably probing your defenses and seeing if you're going to block with your lone flyer, an Imperial Aerosaur. Unfortunately, you don't have any tricks that can help you: Either you block his Soul of the Rapids and open yourself up to the Knight next turn, or you take six damage and go down to 4 life.

You choose the six-damage option, scribbling your new life total down on your scorepad. Some of us sail through our troubles, you muse, and some have to live with the scars.

Thulani taps three more lands and casts the last card in his hand, a Resplendent Griffin. "I'll end my turn," he says, and you begin untapping your permanents.

Your draw for the turn is a Pounce, which would normally get you excited at the prospect of removal. But stabilizing the board seems unlikely at this point: Thulani has no less than four evasive creatures, and the rest of his army has some high toughness to contend with.

As much as you hate to admit it, you have more to do than can ever be done right now. But where do you start?

It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Thulani before the beginning of his next combat phase.

You are at 4 life, with the following cards in play:

• Jade Bearer
• Ixalli's Diviner (with a +1/+1 counter on it)
• Cherished Hatchling
• Imperial Aerosaur
• a 1/1 Vampire token with lifelink
• Dusk Legion Dreadnought
• 4 Forests
• 6 Plains

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Pounce
• Verdant Rebirth
• Raptor Companion

You have not yet played a land this turn. You still have a number of cards in your library, but you know neither the identities nor the order of these cards.

Thulani is at 6 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:

• Sailor of Means
• Resplendent Griffin
• Looming Altisaur
• Storm Sculptor (tapped)
• Pterodon Knight
• Soul of the Rapids (tapped)
• 5 Plains (three tapped)
• 4 Islands (two tapped)

If you think you've got a great solution in mind, don't put it in the comments! Instead, send it to puzzles@ gatheringmagic.com with the subject line "Puzzle -- Circle of Life" by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, January 28, 2017. 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 Stephen Gross, Addison Fox, Ryou Niji, Aaron Golas, Russell Jones, Simon Lazarus, Maarten Wybaillie, Argon Gruber, Greg Dreher, Chris Billard, Bill Cheng, Florian Kupferschmid, and Michael Feldman.

"It's a good thing Gloria is so close to losing," Greg Dreher writes."If she weren't, there would be no way of winning through her army of dinosaurs. Fortunately, your teeth are sharper, and you can bite your way to victory."

"Between the Needletooth Raptor, Fanatical Firebrand, and Reckless Rage we have a lot of removal potential," Maarten Wybaillie writes."However, these are all damage-based, so they will all trigger the Enrage ability of the Imperial Ceratops. This will put Gloria out of reach, because there is no way we can get more than 4 damage across. However, Enrage is a triggered ability, so if we kill her at the same time as damaging the Ceratops, we are golden."

Argon Gruber's plan follows below. In a way, most of it boils down to a single statement: "Don't touch the Imperial Ceratops."

"If Gloria blocks the Headstrong Brute with Looming Altisaur and Imperial Ceratops," Chris Billard adds, "it is possible that the Ceratops' ability may not trigger at all as we can deal all of Headstrong Brute's damage to the Altisaur."

"What's interesting about this puzzle," Simon Lazarus remarks, "is that it's one of those scenarios where triggered abilities being 'unable to hurt the player who controls them' has made it harder for us to win.

"If Needletooth Raptor were allowed to use its triggered ability to damage our own creatures, then there's a somewhat simpler solution here where we just:

"In the old days, cards like Needletooth Raptor would probably be allowed to damage our own creatures, which would potentially allow them to harm us in scenarios where our opponent has no creatures."