Today’s Sealed Deck competition is a step away from the ordinary. Instead of getting the expected six booster packs from a single block, you and the other participants received one booster pack of each Standard-legal expansion with which to make a deck. That’s one pack each of Khans of Tarkir, Fate Reforged, Dragons of Tarkir, Magic Origins, Battle for Zendikar, and Oath of the Gatewatch.

You’re now playing against Mustaba in the second round of the tournament. You won your first game through the use of some very timely combat tricks, and your opponent has been second-guessing you ever since. This has had mixed results: You don’t have as many instants as Mustaba probably thinks you do, but the fact that he’s been delaying his attacks also means that his defense has been tough to crack.

It doesn’t look like Mustaba’s going to hold back for much longer though. On his previous turn, he tapped most of his lands to play a Plated Crusher, and now he’s eyeing the life total scribbled on your score pad. You don’t think you can get rid of the Crusher fairly easily either—even if you did have some convenient removal in hand, hexproof is a really nasty ability.

Going into your draw phase, it’s obvious you need something that will change the scope of the game. Unfortunately for you, a Makindi Aeronaut is not exactly what you had in mind.

Looking at the board again, however, you see a possible line of play. It’s a little blurry on the details, but it’s definitely there—and, well, you’ll figure it out as you go along. Mustaba may be planning to make something happen on his next turn, but you’ll be making sure that it doesn’t get that far.

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

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

• Kor Bladewhirl
• Scaldkin
• Chasm Guide
• Living Lore (exiling Howl of the Horde)
• 3 Islands
• 2 Mountains
• Plains
• Mystic Monastery

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Turn to Frog
• Brute Strength
• Makindi Aeronaut (drawn during your draw step this turn)

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.

• Sky Scourer
• Shambling Ghoul
• Malakir Familiar
• Alpine Grizzly
• Abzan Kin-Guard
• Plated Crusher
• 4 Swamps (three tapped)
• 4 Forests (all 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 — He Who Hesitates”. 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, Jonathan Kustina, Ryou Niji, Andrew Muravskyi, John Broky, Chadwick Bond, Matthew Siff, Sanjay Saith, David Foodym, Luciano Robino, Tim Reinholz, David Solomon, Kriz Lee, Aaron Golas, Aaron Tesler, Quadrangolo Tetra, Dorian Sinclair, Nate Burgess, Subrata Sircar, Bob Wilson, and Bill Murphy.

“The key to the whole thing is Faces of the Past,” Dorian Sinclair writes, “which, when combined with some careful sequencing, can remove our opponent's ability to block flyers entirely, and (thanks to its interaction with Phantom Nantuko and our very lucky top-deck) gives us the power in the air we need to take advantage of that.”

We’ll need to get up to speed first, though—Andrew Muravskyi points out that several cards in the puzzle have seen updates from their original printing: “The long trawl across Gatherer brings us the following list of Faces of the Past interactions:

This, of course, assumes you have a way to send creatures to the graveyard. Fortunately, Summer’s Krovikan Horror fits the bill nicely, and all you have to do is get it on your side of the table.

“Unfortunately,” Andrew adds, “our three spells cost 8 mana (Krosan Groundshaker isn't castable and should become Imp fuel), and this would mean only one Horror activation, which won’t be enough. Spawnbroker is required to steal the Horror, and Fate Transfer is a yummy combat trick; therefore, Hysterical Blindness should also be relegated to Imp fodder.”

This leads up to Bob Wilson’s solution, which involves feeding two cards to the Putrid Imp:

“Realizing that one of the Horror activations needed to damage one of our own creatures was a breakthrough,” Chadwick Bond muses, “since we need the Elf, both Insect tokens, Spawnbroker, and the Horror itself to all die from four activations. It was clear we needed to kill Junún Efreet since Faces wasn't able to tap him, but that left 1 stray damage left over.”

Even so, a variant solution exists in which you can leave one of your Insect tokens alive, with the key insight being the fact that you can target an opponent’s creatures with Fate Transfer. Luciano Robino demonstrates:

Then again, both of these solutions assume that you need to clear the skies completely. Aaron Golas points out that using Krovikan Horror’s ability on Summer means that you can leave the Junún Efreet alive:

“The Fate Transfer you drew this turn isn't even strictly necessary,” Aaron adds. “Follow the solution as above, but sacrifice your second Insect token to Krovikan Horror instead of leaving up mana for Fate Transfer. Now your attack only needs to deal 2 damage to Summer, and both of your attackers naturally have 2 power.”

“It's really poetic how we needed to combine both artists' cards to complete the win,” Kriz Lee observes. “Thank you, Christopher Rush and Wayne England. May you both rest in peace and know you left an everlasting legacy.”