Summer spends the rest of her mana and drops a Dread Reaper on the table. “I’ll lose 5 life and go to 7,” she says and wrinkles her nose at the loss. “Did they really think that this was a good creature back then?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” you say, and you’re both quiet for a while.

Summer glances at her board. “Did I attack already?” she asks.

You point at her tapped Ihsan's Shade. “I blocked it with my Phantom Nantuko,” you add.

“Could I see that card again?”

“Sure.”

Summer takes a minute to read it before handing it back. “That’s a really weird card,” she says. “I’ll end my turn now then. Do you have anything that can get rid of my Reaper?”

“Not yet,” you say, “but top-decks are a thing. In response, I’ll tap the Nantuko to put a +1/+1 counter on itself.”

“Okay.”

You untap and take your draw, looking over the new Fate Transfer in your hand.

“It’s a huge part of the game, isn’t it?” Summer asks. “The art, I mean. It’s like a whole legacy scattered across millions of tiny pieces of cardboard.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m glad they share this kind of talent with us.”

You nod, looking at the table as the pieces start locking into place. The last brushstroke may have been painted, you think, but the game still remains.

It is the beginning of your first main phase. Defeat Summer this turn.

You are at 7 life with the following cards in play:

• Putrid Imp
• Phantom Nantuko (with two +1/+1 counters on it)
• Symbiotic Elf
• Nephalia Seakite
• Faces of the Past
• 2 Forests
• 4 Islands
• 3 Swamps

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Fate Transfer (drawn during your draw step this turn)
• Spawnbroker
• Hysterical Blindness
• Krosan Groundshaker

You currently have the following cards in your graveyard, from top to bottom:

• Essence Fracture
• Temporal Eddy
• Sylvok Explorer
• Moonglove Changeling
• Martyr of Frost

You have not yet played a land this turn. You do not know the identity of any of the cards that are currently on top of your library.

Summer is at 7 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:

• Yotian Soldier
• Junún Efreet
• Krovikan Horror
• Rashka the Slayer
• Ihsan's Shade (tapped)
• Dread Reaper
• 3 Plains (all tapped)
• 5 Swamps (all tapped)

Summer currently has the following cards in her graveyard, from top to bottom:

• Descendant of Kiyomaro
• Nether Shadow
• Indomitable Will
• Basal Thrull
• Urza's Bauble

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 — Old Artists Never Die”. 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 Russell Jones, Norman Dean, Aaron Golas, Andrew Muravskyi, Andrew McLaren, Matthew Harvey, Tim Reinholz, Kriz Lee, Suraj Srinivasan, Mitch Winkens, David Foodym, David Solomon, Alexander Breuers, Ryou Niji, Bill Murphy, and Tom Kellett.

“The solution could be easy,” Tom Kellett writes, “were it not for the fact our Raiding Party can't be targeted by Fell the Mighty as our benchmark for destruction. Its power would be the ideal value to set for Fell the Mighty, clearing out two of Javert's three blockers while only costing us one attacker, giving us enough to win with Blockbuster and Seal of Fire after one attack.

“But since Raiding Party can't be the target of white spells like Fell the Mighty, we're going to need to go for a more unintuitive, roundabout play, relying on the fact that most of our creatures are only creatures conditionally. We're going to need to turn off the stars.”

Matthew Harvey adds: “Our first decision to be made is which enchantment to return from the graveyard with Starfield of Nyx's ability. Of the five choices we have, only one makes any real sense: Seal of Fire.

“Now we come to the task of removing Javert's blockers. We can use Fell the Mighty to destroy all of his blockers if we target Perilous Myr so that it destroys all creatures with power greater than 1. However, this would also destroy all of our creatures, leaving us with no way to win. Of course, our creatures will only be destroyed if they are still creatures.”

Kriz Lee uses this approach for his solution, noting: “The only response I can expect from Javert is for him to activate his Air Servant, which has no targets beyond Vampire Nighthawk, and would make no sense whatsoever.”

Interestingly, an alternate solution exists that doesn’t use Seal of Fire. Even if you can’t target Raiding Party with Fell the Mighty, David Foodym observes that you can find a 3-power creature elsewhere:

“And so it must be,” Aaron Golas concludes, “for so it is written on the doorway to paradise.”