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“Wanna hear a bad-beats story?” CJ asks.
“What, from you?”
“Yeah, last week.”
“I won the first game and brought in Needle Storm from the sideboard to deal with my opponent’s flyers. I managed to cast it in our second game, but I was smashed by Angelic Blessing and Skyshaper a turn later.
“In our third game, my opponent played a Sea Monster against me, which stopped me from attacking. Fortunately, I had a few creatures that could block: a Spined Wurm against the Sea Monster and a Thalakos Drifters against her shadow creatures.”
“And that’s the bad beat?” you ask.
“No,” CJ says. “After a few turns, my opponent cast Repentance on my Spined Wurm and then cast Conviction on her Wayward Soul. After she attacked with the Wayward Soul and the Sea Monster, I was down to 3 life!
“Even worse was the fact that, once I started my turn, I had only slightly more than one minute left on my clock. I had to think fast! I was sure that I didn’t have enough time for more than two turns!”
You glance at what CJ has written down. “But you had the Needle Storm in hand.”
“So what did you do?”
“I panicked! I cast the Needle Storm to get rid of the Armored Pegasus and then finished off the Wayward Soul with Rootwater Hunter. But she still won the game on her next turn.”
You pause for a moment. “Yeah, that’s a bad beat.”
“I know, right?”
You glance at the table again. You’d tell CJ right now that he would have won the game if he had played his turn correctly, but that’s not something that friends do.
It is the middle of your first main phase. Defeat KeyboardValkyrie78 before the end of your next turn—and before she defeats you. (That is, you complete this turn, your opponent completes her turn, and then you win the game on your next turn.)
You have the following cards in your hand:
- Provoke
- Needle Storm (drawn during your draw step)
- Tranquility
- Legerdemain
You have not yet played a land for this turn. You are not aware of the identities of any of the other cards in your library.
KeyboardValkyrie78 is at 9 life, has no cards in her hand, and has the following cards in play:
- Armored Pegasus
- Soltari Priest
- Horned Turtle
- Thalakos Scout
- Wayward Soul (tapped, with Conviction attached)
- Sea Monster (tapped)
- 4 Plains (all tapped)
- 4 Islands (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 — Light and Shadow”. We’ll include the best ones in next week’s article along with the next puzzle!
Last Week’s Puzzle
I had a solution in mind for last week’s puzzle, but I underestimated the creativity and efficiency of GatheringMagic.com readers—at least four alternate solutions to the puzzle apparently exist!
As most respondents pointed out, playing the Swamp in your hand is not necessary to earn the win. Evelyn Kokemoor writes:
- Cast Forked Bolt targeting Akroan Conscriptor and Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro. With the heroic trigger, take Force of Nature. (Mana spent:
.) - Sacrifice Seal of Fire to finish off Sachi.
- Alfred will probably animate Treetop Village in response. Either way, destroy it with Fulminator Mage.
- Use Tortured Existence to swap Pyre Zombie in your graveyard with Maze Rusher. (Mana spent:
.) - Use Tortured Existence again to swap Fulminator Mage in your graveyard with Big Game Hunter. Cast the Hunter using its madness cost and destroy Barishi. (Mana spent: .)
- Barishi's trigger removes Alfred's creatures from his graveyard. This is very convenient, making our Exhume much safer. Exhume Maze Rusher. (Mana spent: )
- Sacrifice Sandstorm Eidolon to disable Jaddi Lifestrider from blocking. (Mana spent: .)
- Attack for 17 with Force of Nature, Maze Rusher and Akroan Conscriptor. Alfred has to take it.
Most submissions covered the correct solution above, including e-mails from Russell Jones, Etienne Beureux, Connor Hackney-Smith, Miko Losantas, Aaron Golas, Michael Whalley, Eric Chang, Michael Shoemaker, Mitch Winkens, Jonathan Kustina, Matthew Harvey, Evelyn Kokemoor, Vivien Gaillet, Brent Jeffreson, Chris Luiten, and Parker May.
Jared Herretes took a different route, pointing out that you can also reanimate Sandstorm Eidolon to use its ability a second time:
- Pay (6 mana remaining) to discard Big Game Hunter to your Tortured Existence, returning your Pyre Zombie to hand. Use the madness ability to bring the Hunter into play, killing Barishi. This exiles and shuffles all creatures from Alfred’s graveyard back into his library.
- Pay (5 mana remaining), and sacrifice Sandstorm Eidolon to make Jaddi Lifestrider unable to block.
- Pay (3 mana remaining), and Exhume your Sandstorm Eidolon while Alfred has no creatures in his graveyard.
- Pay (2 mana remaining), and sacrifice Sandstorm Eidolon to make Sachi unable to block.
- Pay to cast Forked Bolt targeting Alfred for 1, bringing him to 13, and your Akroan Conscriptor for 1, triggering its heroic ability and taking control of his Force of Nature.
- Swing with Akroan Conscriptor and Force of Nature. Alfred will be forced to tap his Sachi to activate his Treetop Village. At this point, sacrifice Fulminator Mage to destroy the Treetop Village. Alfred now has no blockers and takes 11 damage, bringing him to 2 life.
- Sacrifice your Seal of Fire for the remaining 2 damage.
Ivo de Vero took yet another route, which is a variant of the most common solution. Ivo’s submission is particularly interesting because it leaves Sachi completely untouched:
- Sacrifice Fulminator Mage to destroy Treetop Village.
- Play your Swamp, tap it to discard Big Game Hunter and bring back Fulminator Mage. Tap another Swamp for Big Game Hunter's madness cost, and destroy Barishi. This shuffles Alfred's graveyard back into his library.
- Tap a third Swamp to discard Maze Rusher and bring back Pyre Zombie.
- Cast Forked Bolt targeting Akroan Conscriptor and ping Alfred, putting him at 13. Akroan Conscriptor's effect takes control of Force of Nature.
- Cast Exhume targeting your Maze Rusher.
- Sacrifice Seal of Fire, putting Alfred to 11.
- Sacrifice Sandstorm Eidolon, making the Lifestrider unable to block.
- Swing with Akroan Conscriptor, Force of Nature, and Maze Rusher. Alfred still has Sachi as a blocker but has no good blocks.
Akshaya Srivastava goes this solution one better: “You can attack with Fulminator Mage, Akroan Conscriptor, Force of Nature, and Maze Rusher, dealing a minimum of 13 damage to Alfred’s now 13 life because Alfred’s best move is to block Maze Rusher with either his Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro or his Treetop Village.”
Simon Lazarus and Nathaniel Shar both hit upon the most complex solution, of which Simon writes:
- Play the Swamp from your hand.
- Cast Forked Bolt targeting each of Akroan Conscriptor and Barishi for 1 point of damage. This triggers Akroan Conscriptor’s ability; use this to untap and gain control of a hasty Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro until end of turn. You have five untapped Swamps and two untapped Mountains left.
- Sacrifice Seal of Fire to deal 2 damage to Barishi. This exiles Barishi and shuffles your opponent's graveyard into his library.
- Since Fulminator Mage is a Shaman, tap it for
. Then, sacrifice it to destroy Treetop Village. - Since Sachi and Akroan Conscriptor are both Shamans, tap both of them for a total of . You thus have 6 green mana in your mana pool.
- Use 5 of this 6 green mana along with one untapped Mountain to cast Maze Rusher. You thus have in your mana pool, one untapped Mountain, and five untapped Swamps.
- Tap one of these Swamps to use Tortured Existence to discard Big Game Hunter and return Fulminator Mage from your graveyard to your hand.
- Tap another Swamp to cast Big Game Hunter for its madness cost. When it enters the battlefield, use its ability to destroy Force of Nature. You then have in your mana pool, one untapped Mountain, and three untapped Swamps.
- Tap the Mountain and sacrifice Sandstorm Eidolon to make Jaddi Lifestrider unable to block this turn. In particular, this means that none of your opponent's remaining creatures can block this turn.
- Tap two Swamps, and use the in your mana pool to cast Fulminator Mage. This leaves you with exactly one untapped Swamp.
- Attack your opponent for 6 damage with Maze Rusher. This puts him to 8 life since none of his creatures can block this turn.
- Since Maze Rusher grants haste to Fulminator Mage, tap Fulminator Mage for and then sacrifice it to destroy Tranquil Thicket.
- Tap your last Swamp and spend to cast Exhume, returning Fulminator Mage from your graveyard to the battlefield. Since the only creature in your opponent's graveyard is Force of Nature, your opponent is . . . ahem . . . forced to return it to the battlefield.
- Since Fulminator Mage has haste, tap it for . This means you have a total of in your mana pool. Spend this all to use Barl's Cage’s ability to make Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro not untap during its controller's next untap step.
- Sacrifice Fulminator Mage to destroy Miren, the Moaning Well.
- Pass the turn to your opponent, returning control of Sachi to him. When your opponent's turn begins, his Sachi does not untap. He can only produce at most 3 green mana this turn, and he will therefore be unable to pay the upkeep cost of Force of Nature, meaning that Force of Nature's ability to deal 8 damage to him will go on the stack. Since your opponent no longer has Miren, the Moaning Well, he presumably has no way to prevent himself from going to 0 life and losing when this ability resolves.
“It's possible to take out [enough of] Alfred's green sources to make him take 8, but if we let him untap, he can survive by means of Miren, the Moaning Well,” Evelyn notes.
Nathaniel adds: “There is more than one way to defeat Alfred, but making him take the last 8 damage from Force of Nature's triggered ability may be the most satisfying.”
