Your local Oath of the Gatewatch release party hasn’t gone well. You’re currently stuck in the 0–2 bracket of your eight-person Booster Draft, playing for the single booster pack that’s acting as today’s consolation prize.

Your opponent Brandon is playing what looks to be a pile of random red and green cards. Nevertheless, it hits like a truck, and Brandon’s managed to bring you down to a single point of life this game. Your opponent hasn’t been able to take it any further than that, though, after you clogged the table with several high-toughness creatures.

Eventually, things became worse from there. First, Brandon drew and played a Wastes, triggering landfall on his Embodiment of Fury and turning one of his Mountains into a 3/3 Elemental. Then he cast Press into Service to steal your Ruination Guide, tossing a couple of +1/+1 counters onto his creatures in the process. Then, he used the Wastes to activate Immobilizer Eldrazi and make sure you couldn’t block . . . and sent four of his creatures into the red zone!

In desperation, you cast Expedite to see if your library will offer you anything. Unfortunately, your draw is an Abstruse Interference . . . which might have been a lot more useful if you had drawn it while Brandon was still casting his spells.

Cursing your luck, you look at the board one more time to see if you can somehow survive this turn. You’re not quite thrilled at the possibility of ending this day on a low note.

It is the beginning of the combat phase on Brandon’s turn. Survive Brandon’s turn, and find a way to defeat him before the end of your next turn.

You are at 1 life with the following cards in play:

• Hedron Crawler
• Kozilek's Sentinel
• Cultivator Drone
• Herald of Kozilek
• Vestige of Emrakul
• 4 Islands
• 4 Mountains (one tapped)
• Wastes

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Dimensional Infiltrator
• Abstruse Interference (drawn this turn via Expedite)
• Sweep Away
• Volcanic Upheaval

Brandon is at 9 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:

• Lifespring Druid (tapped, not attacking)
• Immobilizer Eldrazi (attacking, with a +1/+1 counter)
• Ruination Guide (stolen from you this turn via Press into Service, attacking)
• Embodiment of Fury (attacking)
• Mountain (currently a base 3/3 Elemental creature, attacking)
• 3 Mountains (all tapped)
• 3 Forests (all tapped)
• Wastes (tapped)

If you think you have 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 — Sucker Punch”. 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 Dorian Sinclair, Russell Jones, Norman Dean, Sanjay Saith, Regis Michelena, Aaron Golas, Andrew Muravskyi, Mark Churchwell, Lane Engelberg, James Koutroulias, Matthew Harvey, Chadwick Bond, Quadrangolo Tetra, Evelyn Kokemoor, Grzegorz Wilczy?ski, Rob Salisbury, Victor Munson, George Leung, Matthew Myrick, David Jacobs, Subrata Sircar, David Foodym, Ji?í Jech, Bill Murphy, Miko Losantas, Vincent Bud, Luke Pebody, Ryou Niji, Alex Boscolo, Eduardo Racciatti, Andrew McLaren, Bob Wilson, Luke Paulsen, and Kriz Lee.

The Two-Headed Giant rules turned out to be a sticking point for some solutions, specifically this one (from the Battle for Zendikar release notes):

Most people who got this bit incorrect were close enough to a correct solution, though, and have been included in the above list.

With regard to the solution itself, David Foodym’s analysis hit the nail squarely on the head: “The twins may have ten creatures, but only three of those creatures have flying or reach (Angel of Renewal, Windrider Patrol, and Netcaster Spider), so an attack in the air seems to be the most likely path to victory. We can use our Steppe Glider to give any creature with a +1/+1 counter flying and vigilance (not just our creatures), so pairing that powerful ability with Cécile's removal suite should get us there.”

Lane Engelberg illustrates the most direct solution, which involves removal and straight combat:

That said, as Evelyn Kokemoor writes, “There are multiple solutions to this puzzle if we start by using the three pseudo-removal effects on the opponents' three flying/reach creatures. From there, the only issue is placing +1/+1 counters on enough creatures to target with Steppe Glider, and there are many valid options here. I like the solution that involves a flying land, but you can give flying to any creature you like by putting a +1/+1 counter on it with Serene Steward. Even the Allies can be used for this since Steppe Glider also gives them vigilance.”

This logic leads to a second solution, which Subrata Sircar notes:

Interestingly, you can choose to put Serene Steward’s +1/+1 counter on either the Envoy, the Mage, the Chainmage, or even the Steward itself in this way, and a variant of this solution would still work.

But then again, why bother removing all three blockers? George Leung submits a solution in which you can leave the twins with a single blocker and still overwhelm them with superior force:

“What is notable,” Matthew Harvey writes, “is that if these had been two one-on-one games, neither we nor Cécile would have been able to win. But thanks to this being a game of Two-Headed Giant, we can help each other out.”

“And thus, the twins are defeated,” Andrew Muravskyi adds. “But they're still young and have a lot of time to develop their skills. And if they'll become too good at Magic, they may be banned from playing Modern . . . ”