Locations
"I'm not sure if playing Nikya of the Old Ways was the best idea," Mari whispers to you. "On the other hand, CJ could just have gotten unlucky with his last few draws. I don't know why he's not trying to kill Nikya by attacking with her, though."
You shrug. Today's Ravnica Allegiance prerelease has been interesting so far, if only for the game states you've seen. Your win-loss records aren't important right now; what's relevant is that your matches have finished early enough that you can sit and do background commentary for CJ's games.
CJ's opponent, Anton, untaps and draws his card for the turn. CJ's expression looks hopeful for a second, then darkens again as Anton activates his Senate Guildmage to exchange his draw for another one.
"I'll declare my attack," Anton announces. "Any responses?"
CJ glances at his Sharktocrab, but doesn't tap any lands. "No," he finally says. "Go ahead."
Anton pushes forward his Sphinx of New Prahv and Bloodmist Infiltrator. "My Infiltrator triggers," he says. "I'll sacrifice my Sage's Row Savant to make it unblockable."
"I'll block your Sphinx," CJ says, pushing his Faerie Duelist forward.
Anton nods. "Okay," he says, "you'll take three damage and the Duelist dies. You're at... six life."
"His opponent's at eleven, right?" Mari whispers to you.
You glance at CJ's phone. "Yeah," you tell her. "He's still at eleven."
"His opponent's been waiting for him to use that Sharktocrab for a long time now," she observes. "If we know CJ, he's probably still looking for the right target for it. So his opponent is probably forcing him to make that move."
"I'll move to my postcombat main phase," Anton says, tapping four lands. "I'll cast Ill-Gotten Inheritance."
CJ's frown deepens, and you glance at Mari. She nods.
"I guess that'll force CJ to make the move," you whisper to her.
"Not really," Mari says. "He knows he's got a lot of mana from Nikya of the Old Ways. He's going to wait till his turn before he decides."
Sure enough, Anton passes his turn without any response from CJ. CJ untaps and draws a card - and unfortunately, finds that it's another noncreature: Applied Biomancy.
At that point, CJ lets out a huge breath and drops his hand on the table. "Let's go to Game 3," he says. "My deck's just giving me uncastables at this point."
As CJ and Anton shuffle up for their final game, you turn back to Mari. "Well, it turns out we were both wrong," you admit. "CJ technically never activated his Sharktocrab at all. I think his concession was premature, though."
"Yeah, that was a shame," Mari says. "He had the win right there on the table."
It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Anton before the beginning of his next combat phase.
You are at 6 life, with the following cards in play:
- Saruli Caretaker
- Smelt-Ward Ignus
- Combine Guildmage
- Sharktocrab
- Nikya of the Old Ways
- 3 Forests
- 2 Islands
- 2 Simic Guildgates
You have the following cards in your hand:
You have not yet played a land this turn. You still have a substantial number of cards remaining in your library, but you know neither the identities nor the order of those cards.
Anton is at 11 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:
- Senate Guildmage (tapped)
- Bloodmist Infiltrator (tapped)
- 2 Skitter Eels
- Sphinx of New Prahv
- Ill-Gotten Inheritance
- 2 Plains (both tapped)
- 3 Islands (two tapped)
- 2 Swamps (one tapped)
- Azorius Guildgate
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 - Restrictions Apply" by 11:59 P.M. EST on Monday, January 28, 2018. 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 Addison Fox, Russell Jones, Sean Patrick Keatley, Ryou Niji, Max Bernstein, Greg Dreher, and Michael Feldman. Sergey Sirotin, Daniel Fleischer, Jacob Lorenzo, Andrew R, and Hyman Rosen also submitted partial solutions, some of which came quite close.
Three items probably made this puzzle quite difficult: The number of moving parts, the need to survive multiple turns, and the obstacles that stand in your way. Among other things, you need to consider that:
- Whispersilk Cloak makes its equipped creature unblockable, and gives it shroud on top of that. It's currently on a 4/4 Faultgrinder, but Yoyo can just as easily attach it to any of her other creatures.
- Protection of the Hekma prevents you from using Thornbite Staff to ping Yoyo to death.
- Should you declare an attack, Sandstone Deadfall can remove your best attacker.
- You can have Shapesharer copy any of the other creatures on the battlefield, but once its ability resolves, you won't be able to use it again in the same turn: Its ability refers to a "target Shapeshifter", and once Shapesharer changes into something else, it will no longer be a Shapeshifter until the effect wears off.
- There are currently no creature cards in any graveyard that Scavenging Ooze can use to make itself bigger.
- Simic Ascendancy's win condition triggers at the start of your upkeep, which means that you need to survive your opponent's turn.
"The key is Gideon's Avenger adding counters whenever Galvanic Juggernaut becomes tapped," Daniel continues."Using Kapsho Kitefins to repeatedly tap it down, we can continually untap it by cycling Archangel's Light between graveyard and exile using the abilities of Scavenging Ooze and Void Attendant, then repeatedly sacrificing the Eldrazi Scion token for mana. Because Fyndhorn Elder also untaps each time the Scion dies due to the ability of Thornbite Staff, you can repeat this until you get 20 growth counters on Simic Ascendancy!"
"I was really distracted by the Scavenger Ooze and thought that was my avenue to victory," Sean Patrick Keatley writes, "but then I remembered that I could turn my Shapesharer into their Gideon's Avenger and go crazy:
- Tap one Forest and one Island to cast Simic Ascendancy.
- Tap three Islands to have Shapesharer become a copy of Gideon's Avenger.
- Tap one Island for mana.
- Tap Fyndhorn Elder for mana, then:
- Exile Archangel's Light with Scavenging Ooze.
- Return Archangel's Light from exile to our opponent's graveyard with Void Attendant and create a 1/1 Eldrazi Scion token.
- Kapsho Kitefins triggers and taps our opponent's Gideon's Avenger.
- Gideon's Avenger / Shapesharer triggers and gets a +1/+1 counter.
- Simic Ascendancy triggers and gets a growth counter.
- Sacrifice the Scion token for mana, untapping the Fyndhorn Elder and the Galvanic Juggernaut in the process.
- Repeat steps 4 and 5 three times, tapping the Mindsparker, Stingscourger, and Soulmender.
- Repeat steps 4 and 5, tapping the Galvanic Juggernaut this time. Because the Juggernaut untaps whenever we sacrifice the Scion token, we can repeat this an infinite amount of times, gaining counters on both the Gideon's Avenger / Shapesharer and the Simic Ascendancy. Do this 8 million times just for fun.
- When we are done, do NOT sacrifice the Scion token. This ends with our Elder and the Juggernaut tapped.
- Swing with our 8-million-power Avenger / Shapesharer. Our opponent dies unless they pop the Sandstone Deadfall, killing it. This untaps our Elder and the Juggernaut.
- On our second main phase, tap the Elder for mana and sacrifice the Rootrunner, putting a Plains on the top of our opponent's deck. Soulshift triggers, returning the changeling Shapesharer to our hand.
- End the turn.
- On our opponent's turn, they draw a Plains. They can swing with everybody, but we can then tap our last Forest and tap the Dawnstrider, pitching the Shapesharer in our hand and making it so that there is no combat damage.
- Our opponent is unable to do anything else, so at the beginning of our upkeep, we win the game from Simic Ascendancy.
That said, the conditions of the puzzle are to defeat Yoyo before she defeats you - so if you can somehow survive for multiple turns, that would also work. Ryou Niji shows that this is possible:
- Cast Simic Ascendancy.
- ActivateShapesharerto become a copy of Rootrunner.
- Tap Fyndhorn Elder for
and sacrifice Shapesharer to put one of the opponent's Mountains on the top of her library. - The opponent's Galvanic Juggernaut untaps.Fyndhorn Elder untaps too, thanks to the ability granted by Thornbite Staff.
- Tap Fyndhorn Elder for and sacrifice Rootrunner to put another one of the opponent's Mountains on the top of her library.
- Fyndhorn Elder untaps again. (So does the Juggernaut, but it was already untapped.)
- With the Soulshift 3 ability of Rootrunner, return Shapesharer to our hand.
- Pass the turn.
Turn two:
- The opponent draws a Mountain.
- Activate Dawnstrider and discard Shapesharer to prevent all combat damage this turn.
- We don't care about anything else. The opponent may move Whispersilk Cloak around, or even destroy one of her own creatures with Sandstone Deadfall, but nothing is too relevant.
Turn three:
- Draw a card during our draw step.
- Assuming that the opponent didn't attack and destroy one of her own creatures, at least one of Stingscourger and Mindsparker must be targetable at this point.
- ActivateFyndhorn Elder to deal 1 damage to Mindsparker or Stingscourger.
- Activate Scavenger Ooze to exile Archangel's Light from the opponent's graveyard.
- "Process" Archangel's Light for Void Attendant's ability and create an Eldrazi Scion token.
- Sacrifice the Eldrazi Scion token for
. Our Fyndhorn Elder and the opponent's Juggernaut untaps. - ActivateFyndhorn Elder to deal 1 damage to Mindsparker or Stingscourger, killing it. Fyndhorn Elder untaps again.
- Tap Fyndhorn Elder for . We now have floating.
- Activate Scavenger Ooze to exile Mindsparker or Stingscourger from the opponent's graveyard. We put a +1/+1 counter on Scavenger Ooze and gain 1 life. Simic Ascendancy gets a growth counter.
- "Process" Mindsparkerfor Void Attendant's ability and create an Eldrazi Scion token.
- Sacrifice the Eldrazi Scion token for . Fyndhorn Elder untaps again.
- Repeat steps 3 to 6 twenty times to put twenty growth counters on Simic Ascendancy.
- With Fyndhorn Elder untapped, pass the turn.
Turn four:
- The opponent draws a Mountain.
- Activate Dawnstrider and discard the card we drew in our last draw step to prevent all combat damage this turn.
- We don't care about anything else. The only reason we even care about combat damage is that the opponent's Gideon's Avenger is ridiculously large.
Turn five:
- Simic Ascendancy triggers on our upkeep, andwe win the game.
Michael Feldman has a similar solution that covers multiple turns, but with one major difference: This ignores the safety valve provided by Dawnstrider and anticipates the likely attacking and blocking scenarios.
- Have Shapesharer copy Rootrunner.
- Tap Fyndhorn Elder for mana and sacrifice Shapesharer to put any of Yoyo's lands on top of her library. (1 creature in your graveyard.)
- Fyndhorn Elder's tapping triggers Gideon's Avenger (now 3/3).
- Shapesharer's death triggers Galvanic Juggernaut to untap.
- Shapesharer's death triggers Fyndhorn Elder to untap via Thornbite Staff.
- Pass the turn.
Turn two:
- Yoyo draws the land you sent to her library with Shapesharer.
- Galvanic Juggernaut forces Yoyo to attack with it. She may also attack with any number of her other creatures. Block as follows:
- If Yoyo attacks with Gideon's Avenger, block it with Scavenging Ooze and block Galvanic Juggernaut with Fyndhorn Elder. Otherwise, block Galvanic Juggernaut with Scavenging Ooze.
- If Mindsparker attacks, block it with Dawnstrider or Rootrunner.
- If either or both attack, block Soulmender and Stingscourger with any of your other available creatures other than Fyndhorn Elder.
- If Yoyo attacks with Faultgrinder, it goes unblocked per Whispersilk Cloak.
- Before damage is dealt, tap Fyndhorn Elder for mana and sacrifice Rootrunner to put any of Yoyo's lands on top of her library. (2 creatures in your graveyard.)
- Fyndhorn Elder's tapping triggers Gideon's Avenger (now 4/4).
- Shapesharer's death triggers Galvanic Juggernaut and Fyndhorn Elder to untap.
- Rootrunner's Soulshift triggers. Choose NOT to use it.
- Tap Fyndhorn Elder via Thornbite Staff to deal 1 damage to Dawnstrider.
- Gideon's Avenger triggers (now 5/5).
- Dawnstrider dies. (3 creatures in your graveyard.)
- Dawnstrider's death triggers Fyndhorn Elder to untap.
- Tap Fyndhorn Elder and a Forest to activate Scavenging Ooze three times, exiling your three graveyard creatures (now 7/7), and gain you 3 life total, bringing you to 5 life.
- Fyndhorn Elder's tapping triggers Gideon's Avenger (now 6/6).
- Proceed to damage.
- Mindsparker's first strike damage goes nowhere because its blocker is dead.
- If Faultgrinder attacked, it deals 4 damage to you and brings you to 1 life.
- Scavenging Ooze (7/7) deals 7 fatal damage to Gideon's Avenger (6/6) or Galvanic Juggernaut (0/5 with Dwindle), and survives with 6 or 0 damage. (1 creature in Yoyo's graveyard.)
- If Fyndhorn Elder (1/1) blocked, it deals 1 damage to and receives 0 damage from Galvanic Juggernaut (0/5 with Dwindle).
- If either or both attacked, Soulmender and Stingscourger each either deal and receive no damage to or from a dead blocker, or deal 1 or 2 nonfatal damage to Void Attendant (2/3). The 2 damage dealt by Void Attendant either kills Stingscourger or is survived by Soulmender. (1 or 2 creatures in Yoyo's graveyard.)
- Yoyo has no more significant moves, and passes the turn.
Turn three:
- Untap your permanents and draw a card.
- Tap your lands and Fyndhorn Elder for mana.
- Now cast Simic Ascendancy.
- Activate Scavenging Ooze to exile a creature in Yoyo's graveyard, gain a +1/+1 counter (8/8), and give you 1 life (2 total).
- Simic Ascendancy triggers and gets a growth counter (1 total).
- Activate Void Attendant and put Yoyo's exiled creature in her graveyard to create an Eldrazi Scion token.
- Kapsho Kitefins triggers and taps one of Yoyo's creatures (other than Faultgrinder, which can't be targeted due to its Whispersilk Cloak-granted Shroud).
- Sacrifice the Eldrazi Scion for .
- The death triggers Galvanic Juggernaut (if still alive) and Fyndhorn Elder to untap.
- Tap Fyndhorn Elder for mana.
- Repeat steps (4) through (7) nineteen times. (Scavenging Ooze is 27/27, you have 21 life, Simic Ascendancy has 20 growth counters, and Gideon's Avenger is 27/27 if still alive.)
- Pass the turn.
Turn four:
- Yoyo draws the second land you sent to her library with Rootrunner.
- Galvanic Juggernaut forces Yoyo to attack with it (if it's still alive). She may also attack with any other creatures that are still alive.
- If Gideon's Avenger is alive and attacking, block it with any of your creatures. Whether you block any other attackers makes no difference, since you're at 21 life.
- Yoyo has no more significant moves, and passes the turn.
Turn five:
- Simic Ascendancy triggers with 20 growth counters and wins you the game.
This latter solution may go into further complexities (possibly removing the sure win) if your opponent chooses to move the Whispersilk Cloak around, but that would be an exercise for another time.
Notably, the original version of this puzzle placed a Stonecloaker in your opponent's exile zone. This was corrected for one reason: "There's an alternate solution available if Yoyo has a creature in her exile zone," Greg Dreher explains."In that case, you can use the exiled creature in place of Archangel's Light, which grows your life total and Scavenging Ooze's power. This lets you attack with two lethal threats in Gideon's Avenger / Shapesharer and Scavenging Ooze... and Yoyo can only stop one with her Sandstone Deadfall."
