"They do have great decks today," Cécile says. "I'm not surprised that they're at the top table."

You smile. "There's a little bit of justice in that they're playing against each other," you admit.

Cécile gives you a look. "That's not as satisfying as you think it is," she says. "They just split their games, that's all."

"Well, I wasn't really expecting us to land at the far end of the spectrum."

Cécile shrugs. "For every 4-0, there's a 0-4," she says.

Your local game store's Theros Beyond Death release tournament is over, and it's far from the best performance you've had. However, Cécile's charges are taking their sweet time finishing their final match, so you decided to bust out your losing decks for one more game.

After a while, you could see why both of you are in the zero-win bracket. Cécile's playing a mostly deck with a minor escape theme, and the fact that she's splashing White for removal says a lot about her options. You, on the other hand, are playing a low-cost deck with very few gamebreakers, which has not been lost on Cécile at all.

"I'll cast Relentless Pursuit," Cécile says. She glances at the top four cards of her library, and then frowns.

"Not good?" you ask.

Cécile shows you a Forest, then throws the other three cards into her graveyard: a Gift of Strength, a Memory Drain, and a Warbriar Blessing.

"That's unlucky," you say.

"At least I have some fuel for my Glimpse of Freedom," Cécile says, playing the Forest and casting her two-mana draw spell. She draws a card, pauses for a moment, and then lays it on the table.

"Revoke Existence?" you ask, raising an eyebrow.

"On your Enemy of Enlightenment," she says.

"That'll go the way of my Nightmare Shepherd, then," you say, setting it aside and putting Mogis's Favor into your graveyard. "That was a really well-timed Deny the Divine, by the way."

"You don't have a lot of bombs, so I figured I would save my removal for them."

"And now we know why I've only won one game so far today," you say.

"I'll attack with my Witness of Tomorrows now," Cécile nods.

You shake your head. The Mirror Shield on the Witness has made it almost impossible for you to attack, much less target the 3/4 flyer with anything. "I'll take it and go down to four life," you mumble.

"You're not blocking with your Scavenging Harpy?"

"I don't think my situation's gotten that desperate yet. Besides, you're at four life too."

"I'm banking that you don't want to attack into my Chainweb Aracnir," Cécile says. "Postcombat, I'll cast Glimpse of Freedom for its escape cost."

"Go ahead."

Cécile draws a card and frowns again. "I should have cast this before combat," she says, casting a Wings of Hubris.

"And I should have fed my Enemy to my Woe Strider the moment you hit it with the Revoke Existence," you admit. "I guess we're both not so good at this game."

"I'd prefer that over playing against the twins again," Cécile says, laughing. "Okay, I'll just attach the Wings to my Riptide Turtle - the one with the +1/+1 counter on it."

"Not Renata, Called to the Hunt?"

"You said it yourself," Cécile says. "I'm at four life, so I think some defense is in order."

"Point taken," you say. "My turn?"

Cécile glances toward the other end of the store. "I think the twins are finishing up," she says.

"You can see them from here?"

"No, that big judge you told me about is walking over to them. Maybe they're getting into a draw."

"If Boris is on his way, then it's definitely extra turns," you say. "I didn't even know that the round was over."

"I think you have just enough time for your turn, though."

"I think so too," you say, untapping your permanents. Without your best creatures, it's starting to look like your best option is to run Cécile out of cards to draw. However, you both still have a good number of cards in your libraries, so that probably isn't going to happen anytime soon.

You take your draw, adding a Mystic Repeal to your hand and joining the Warbriar Blessing there. That makes two pieces of removal that you aren't quite sure about how to use.

"They're drawing their game, all right," Cécile says. "I'll be taking them home shortly."

"Could you give me a couple of minutes?" you ask. "I think I have something here."

"You do?"

"Well, I think I do. Just let me finish counting the cards I have left."

It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Cécile before the beginning of her next combat phase.

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

• Grim Physician
• Hateful Eidolon
• Moss Viper
• Ilysian Caryatid
• Nessian Wanderer
• Setessan Skirmisher
• Scavenging Harpy
• Woe Strider
• 5 Swamps
• 7 Forests

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Mystic Repeal
• Warbriar Blessing

You have not yet played a land this turn. You have a total of 15 cards remaining in your library, but you know neither the identities nor the order of those cards.

You have the following card in your graveyard:

• Mogis's Favor

Cécile is at 4 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:

• Chainweb Aracnir
• Riptide Turtle (with a +1/+1 counter on it, and Cécile's Wings of Hubris attached)
• Riptide Turtle
• Skola Grovedancer
• Elite Instructor
• Nyxborn Seaguard
• Renata, Called to the Hunt
• Witness of Tomorrows (tapped, with a +1/+1 counter on it, and Cécile's Mirror Shield attached)
• 7 Forests (all tapped)
• Plains (tapped)
• 4 Islands (all tapped)
• Temple of Enlightenment (tapped)

Cécile currently has no relevant cards in her graveyard.

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 - Bottom of the Barrel" by 11:59 P.M. EST on Monday, February 3, 2020. 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 Sean Patrick Keatley, Michael Feldman, Jonah Comstock, Jacob Butcher, Hyman Rosen, and David Arnold.

"The hardest part of this puzzle," Jonah Comstock writes, "was figuring out exactly who to sacrifice to what when in order to spend only eleven mana and deal a full 12 damage. There's no real tricks here, other than remembering that vigilant creatures can both attack and use their tap abilities, as long as they time everything just right."

"There are many threes in this puzzle's solution," Jacob Butcher notes. "We use Sentinel's Eyes on three different creatures, we use three different sacrifice abilities, we sacrifice three different creatures, and we sacrifice Alseid of Life's Bounty three times:

"The key to this," Sean Patrick Keatley muses, "was realizing that with Dawn Evangel, you can return any creature, not just the one that died."

There are a few variants to this solution, mostly because you can grant the Alseid's protection abilities in any order. The most important parts are to ensure that no blockers can stand in front of your Blood Aspirant, and to disable enough blockers that could normally intercept your Skophos Warleader. Your opponent's Voracious Typhon would block it, if it weren't for menace!

The other major consideration for this puzzle is that you need to figure out what to get into your graveyard for use with the escape ability. As with many of these situations, a little planning apparently goes a long way.

After all, in Theros, there's probably no party like a war party.