You’re finishing off the final match of your local game store’s Modern Masters 2017 booster draft, and it hasn’t been easy. Your opponent, Aisha, is just as canny and unpredictable as you are, and your games have left you with a lot of broken board states.

Currently, you’re at a stalemate. You managed to stop Aisha’s Rhox War Monk with an Arachnus Web before it could pump her life total beyond your reach. However, that didn’t stop her from playing a Lone Missionary to put her in a comfortable spot. On her last turn, Aisha compounded your problems by casting a Centaur Healer, just barely pushing her life total into the double digits.

Fortunately, Aisha hasn’t attacked you recently, and the big reason is sitting right in the middle of your side of the board. You got Wort, the Raidmother onto the battlefield several turns ago, and Aisha’s been paranoid about her ever since. You lost the Raidmother’s two goblin warriors to an annoying Ulvenwald Tracker (long since fried to a crisp by a Magma Jet), but you have no shortage of other creatures in play. You’ve also maintained a couple of spells in hand, just looking for an opportunity to break through her defenses.

You untap, take your draw, and realize that you have an Auger Spree staring back at you. You smile.

“That’s not a good sign,” Aisha says, frowning.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to tip my hand.”

Aisha sighs. “It is what it is,” she says. “So, are you winning this turn?”

“Against this board?” you ask, glancing at the table. “Maybe not yet.”

But Aisha’s question gets the gears turning, and you have to admit that there are a few possibilities open to you. And in the end, there’s always the more important question: Can you actually win this turn?

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

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

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Strength in Numbers
• Sundering Growth
• Auger Spree

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.

Aisha is at 11 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:

• Sylvan Ranger
• Lone Missionary
• Centaur Healer
• Rhox War Monk (with your Arachnus Web attached)
• a 1/1 Green Saproling token
• a 3/3 Green Centaur token (with Aisha’s Fists of Ironwood attached)
• Intangible Virtue
• 3 Forests (one tapped)
• 3 Plains (two tapped)
• 1 Island
• Azorius Guildgate

Aisha has been looking at you suspiciously for a while now. If you attack with any creatures, you have no idea how she will distribute her blockers.

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 — The Scheme of Things” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, April 2, 2017. We’ll include the best ones in next week’s article along with the next puzzle!

Last Week’s Puzzle

There are more than a few solutions to this puzzle, but unfortunately no happy endings for CJ. “’Everything'll be fine,’” Matthew Harvey writes, “is a sure sign that everything is about to go spectacularly wrong.”

“The key to this puzzle is CJ’s Deadeye Navigator, our Vampire Aristocrat, and CJ not having any flyers to block,” Steffen Dannemann explains.“We can make one huge flyer, and kill CJ in one blow. The trick is having four creatures in the graveyard every time Pit Keeper enters the battlefield.”

“It is critical to never underestimate creatures with the ability ‘Sacrifice a creature: Get +2/+2’,” Mike Ryan writes.“It is amazing how fast that can add up.

“For this one we need to get our Vampire Aristocrat across the line for 16 or more damage. We have a handy Wingcrafter that can help since CJ ended the turn with no way to get a flying blocker. In order to pair the Wingcrafter to our Aristocrat, we need it or its pair to leave the battlefield and return.”

So Nick Makris’ solution goes as follows:

“Remember that an activated ability, once activated, resolves even if the source loses the ability later on,” Steffen Dannemann adds.

That said, you don’t have to use Rubblebelt Maaka to win this one. “Because our aim is to give Vampire Aristocrat flying and make him a 16/16,” Gary So continues, “a total of seven creatures need to be sacrificed. Based on board and hand, there's a total of six possible sacrifices: four creatures other than Vampire Aristocrat, an unearthed Dregscape Zombie, and a Phantasmal Image copying Urbis Protector for an additional creature.”

The seventh creature for sacrifice can therefore come out of Pit Keeper shenanigans, as Marcos Ponce writes:

Other approaches are possible. After initially sacrificing Wingcrafter and Dregscape Zombie to get four creatures in your graveyard, you could:

Return Mist Raven from your graveyard (Argon Gruber):

Have Phantasmal Image copy Kor Skyfisher, bouncing Pit Keeper (Liu Mendoza):

Have Phantasmal Image copy Deadeye Navigator and then Kor Skyfisher, bouncing an Island (Samuel Heersink and Allen Smith):

Stick to what you have on your side of the table (David Parke):

“By exposing Deadeye Navigator,” Addison Fox writes, “CJ didn't just allow us to draw a removal spell, but also let us reference its potent Soulbond ability with our Phantasmal Image. Reusing powerful ETB abilities are one way to abuse a two-mana flicker effect, but we can also do something more exciting for the rules-lawyering crowd by cheating the laws of undeath itself:

“CJ was punished for playing Deadeye Navigator,” Allen Smith notes, “though it may only have been this draw that punishes him with a game loss. In fact, I don't think it's as wrong as Mari made it out to be — any instant-speed removal we could draw would be good enough to kill the Navigator had he held it for a turn, since we can respond to the Soulbond trigger.

“There are also a handful of cards that make CJ's play correct: any discard or counterspell effect means CJ would be kicking himself for not playing it the turn before, and Blue and Black have plenty of those in this format. Imagine how upset CJ would be with Mari if he had listened and waited, only to get blown out by Familiar's Ruse, picking up Wingcrafter to re-pair it with Vampire Aristocrat.”

“’A Matter of Taste’?” Damien Griffin remarks. “I'm surprised that the Aristocrat has any sense of taste left after the in-flight snacks it consumed. I mean, some of those were even eaten twice!”