You’re in the deciding game of the last match of your Modern Masters 2015 Edition Booster Draft, and all eyes are now on you. Your opponent, Graeme, apparently drafted the majority of the removal spells at your table, and he’s been wiping out your bombs as quickly as you cast them. In addition to that, he’s managed to attach a Goblin War Paint to his Skyhunter Skirmisher, and you’re not sure how much longer you can survive a 3/3 flying double-striker.

Graeme had other ideas, though: At the end of your turn, he cast Fiery Fall and Lightning Bolt to kill your Ulamog's Crusher. Then, he started his turn, drew and played a land, and tapped out to cast the last card in his hand: Iona, Shield of Emeria!

Now you officially have a problem. Iona and the Skyhunter Skirmisher will overwhelm your air defenses next turn, and your remaining creatures are too small to make it past Graeme’s blockers. Your deck isn’t of much help either: Your draw this turn is a Blades of Velis Vel, which is useless in the face of Iona’s no-red-spells restriction.

You’re feeling rather frustrated about these developments, especially considering that Graeme is within striking distance at 8 life. There has to be a way you can break through!

It is the middle of your first main phase. Defeat Graeme this turn.

Click here to view the board-state image.

You are at 6 life with the following cards in play:

• Noble Hierarch
• Thrummingbird
• Smokebraider
• Soulbright Flamekin
• Vigean Graftmage (with two +1/+1 counters on it)
• Bloodshot Trainee
• 2 Islands
• 3 Mountains
• 4 Forests

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Blades of Velis Vel (drawn during your draw step)
• Smash to Smithereens
• Thrive

You have not yet played a land for this turn.

Graeme is at 8 life, has no cards in his hand, and has the following cards in play:

• Goblin Fireslinger
• Skyhunter Skirmisher (tapped, with Goblin War Paint attached)
• Taj-Nar Swordsmith (with Sickleslicer attached)
• Conclave Phalanx
• Iona, Shield of Emeria (choosing red)
• 3 Mountains (all tapped)
• 4 Plains (all tapped)
• Boros Garrison (tapped)

Graeme’s Goblin Fireslinger is without summoning sickness. Graeme has been tapping the Fireslinger for its ability at the end of each of your turns, and he will use it at the most appropriate time each turn.

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 — Burning Bright”. We’ll include the best ones in next week’s article along with the next puzzle!

Last Week’s Puzzle

The responses to last week’s puzzle were . . . interesting, covering allusions to Nintendo, South Park, organized religion, Aristotelian logic, action-movie catchphrases, the power of greed, and cruelty to Kithkin.

Correct solutions were received from Russell Jones, Aaron Golas, David Jacobs, Norman Dean, João Filipe Cid, Andrew Muravskyi, John Healy, John Betts, Shigeo Rosenzweig, Shaun Spielman, Jordi van der Zon, Thomas Chereau, Bill Cheng, Joseph Megill, Flakey the Leper, Max Brett, and John Stein.

In his solution, Norman writes:

One of the puzzle’s sticking points was Necromancer's Magemark, the relevant abilities of which read:

This results in several implications: First, the Mosquito Guard is currently a 3/3 because it gains an additional +1/+1 from the Magemark. (This explains why the Mosquito Guard hasn’t died from the 2 damage on it and why it is not a legal target for Last Breath at the moment.) Second, if either the Mosquito Guard or the Sengir Bats would die while the Magemark is in play, it would return to your hand instead of being placed in your graveyard—and not triggering Soul Net in the process.

With this in mind, Max concludes: “This points us to two sub-problems: Putting three black cards into our graveyard to take advantage of the alternate cost on Spinning Darkness and having enough creatures to target with the life-gain spells.”

Flakey identifies one creature as the key to surviving: “To get out of this bind, you are going to have to allow your Kithkin Spellduster to die for your sins . . . multiple times.”

Thomas writes out a more detailed solution as follows:

Several other solutions mentioned the possibility of casting Spinning Darkness on Kithkin Spellduster and then casting Last Breath on it while Darkness is on the stack. However, this move doesn’t work as expected: When the stack resolves, Last Breath does exile the Spellduster (and gains you 4 life), but Spinning Darkness then fails to find a target and is countered (losing the effect of gaining 3 life).

Whatever the case, Zelda’s move was a subtle one and would have won her the game if you had not figured out a way to deal with your own Archdemon. João sums it all up: