Octavia gives you one of those looks. “How could you tell?” she asks.

“You’re wearing a red-and-white dress with little hearts all over it,” you say. “The heels you kicked off a while ago have red hearts on them. You have heart-shaped glitter on the side of your face. Your hairband has a couple of plastic hearts attached to it. And you’re wearing heart-shaped earrings.”

Octavia sighs. “Merriwether’s has a promotion going on right now. They’ve gone overboard with the Valentines’ Day material.”

“Merriwether’s? At the mall?”

“I arrived for an early shift, only to find that they wouldn’t need me for two more hours,” she says. “I’ll attack you with just my Thunderbreak Regent.”

“No blockers, so I’ll take four damage and go down to three life,” you say. “I’ll put four charge counters on the Angelheart Vial, too. Why not just change out of that . . .  costume?”

“I’ll still need to put it on again,” Octavia says. “When I did it this morning, it took me thirty minutes just to get the cut right.”

You nod, feeling a little sorry for her. The feeling doesn’t last long, though.

“Wait, what?”

She shows you the card. As it turns out, the Unabridged Cube — a collection of one of each card ever printed — still has the capacity to surprise you.

“You mean it forces me to lose all the cards in my hand?” you ask.

“Sorry,” Octavia says. “I felt it was worth a try, seeing that I had a Rise from the Grave and a Necromancy in my Sealed pool.”

You pitch your hand in disgust, then watch as Octavia goes over your cards. “That’s all for my turn,” she eventually says.

“Before it ends, I’ll activate the Angelheart Vial,” you say, removing all of its charge counters. “I’ll go to five life.”

You draw a Plains, which doesn’t make you any happier. Then you untap and draw a second Plains during your draw step, which makes you feel a whole lot worse.

“Bad draw?” Octavia asks, seeing the expression on your face.

You glance at the table again, trying to figure out your best play at this point.

“No,” you eventually admit. “If you’ll pardon the pun, I just needed to make sure that my heart was in the right place.”

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

You are at 5 life, with the following cards in play:

• Child of Thorns
• Caregiver
• Hua Tuo, Honored Physician
• Moonlit Strider
• Timbermare (with Octavia’s Weight of the Underworld attached)
• Angelheart Vial
• 5 Forest
• 4 Plains

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Plains
• Plains

You have not yet played a land this turn. You do not know the identities or order of any of the remaining cards in your library.

You have the following relevant cards in your graveyard:

• Niblis of the Mist
• Vengevine
• Strangleroot Geist

You have the following cards exiled with Octavia’s Hypnox:

• Timely Reinforcements
• Righteous Charge
• Hunter's Prowess

Octavia is at 10 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:

• Hand of Cruelty
• Rock Jockey
• Thunderbreak Regent (tapped)
• Hypnox
• 6 Swamp (all tapped)
• 4 Mountains (all tapped)
• Akoum Refuge (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 — Hearts and Flowers” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, February 19, 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 Addison Fox, Norman Dean, Aaron Golas, Russell Jones, Hyman Rosen, Guy Ronen and Phil Maconi, Greg Dreher, Dominic Chan, Matt Stanford, Ben Homer, Ryou Niji, Paul Seitz, and Will and Eli Clendenning.

“Dug has an interesting take on the W/B lifegain deck,” Dominic Chan writes.“Did Black cards in the older sets have an inverted sense of life drain, since the only thing being drained here is Dug's life total? Thanks to Dug's Wretched Anurid and Thrashing Mudspawn, he'll lose more than half his life total before we enter combat. Dug might have been able to gain a ton of life, but easy come, easy go.”

“Our opponent also has the mana to activate Starlight Invoker exactly once,” Ryou Niji observes,“ which means that he is really at 26 life. He could also sacrifice Crown of Awe to its ability, but since there are no other Angels on the board besides Exalted Angel, sacrificing the Crown would just make the Angel lose and then regain protection from Black and Red, which is not particularly useful. Therefore, we may as well assume that he is already at 26, and cannot do anything else meaningful to interact with us.”

“With a puzzle name like Sciurophilia,” Greg Dreher remarks, “the solution is obviously going to involve a chatter of squirrels . . . if you can call seven a chatter.”

“My initial approach,” Ben Homer writes, “had the Druid's Call being cast on the Thrashing Mudspawn, but you just can't deal enough damage to make enough tokens to kill Dug that way! The key realization for me was that we can use Guilty Conscience to our advantage.”

“I think Dug might've wanted to exchange his Wretched Anurid for an indestructible Soul Warden,” Dominic muses.“Or maybe just no Anurid at all.”