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“This set,” Rodrigo says. “It is complicated, yes?”
You look at the cards in your hand. It’s not hard to see why your opponent mentions the point: You’re deep into your local game store’s first Eternal Masters booster draft, and you’ve both struggled to figure out the available deck archetypes. Fortunately, you and Rodrigo ended up playing decent decks with some solid creatures — you in W/B and Rodrigo in U/G.
Unfortunately, Rodrigo has been getting the better of you this game. His defenses are too significant for you to handle right now, with multiple reach and/or flying creatures in play, and a Honden of Life's Web to generate more blockers. While your Calciderm has stopped his offense cold, Rodrigo caught out your Serra Angel with a Counterspell a few turns ago, and you don’t have enough lands to cast the Havoc Demon in your hand.
As Rodrigo ends his turn, you activate your Emmessi Tome in response. Rodrigo immediately casts Nature's Claim on it, and you groan.
“Sorry,” Rodrigo says. “Don’t want you drawing out. At least you are at 11 life now.”
You still resolve the Tome’s ability, though, and it gives you a Malicious Affliction and a Victimize — none of which are lands. You discard a Welkin Guide, untap to start your turn, and remove the next-to-last counter from your Calciderm.
However, your draw phase still doesn’t give you a land. It gives you a Cabal Therapy, which you assume to be useless until some of the possibilities start coming to mind.
“Something good?” Rodrigo asks.
You survey the board, counting a few things and seeing if your plan will actually work. Rodrigo’s obviously waiting for you to lose your Calciderm before he starts attacking, which may be a mistake on his part.
After all, he’s not going to expect it when you play for the win.
It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Rodrigo before the start of his next combat phase.
You are at 11 life, with the following cards in play:
- Benevolent Bodyguard
- Soulcatcher
- Skulking Ghost
- Calciderm (with one time counter on it)
You have the following cards in your hand:
- Cabal Therapy (drawn during your draw step this turn)
- Malicious Affliction
- Victimize
- Havoc Demon
You have not yet played a land this turn. You do not know the identities of any of the next cards in your library.
You have the following creature cards in your graveyard:
Rodrigo is at 8 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:
Wonder (with your Pacifism attached)
2 Spirit tokens (from Honden of Life's Web)
3 forests (two tapped)
3 islands (two tapped)
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 – Raising Cain” by 11:59 P.M. on Sunday, June 19, 2016. 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 Aaron Golas, Russell Jones, Ryou Niji, Lane Engelberg, Stav Gold, Dominic Chan, David Jacobs, Hyman Rosen, Subrata Sircar, Kriz Lee, and Andrew Muravskyi.
“This one's quite tricky,” Lane Engelberg writes, “and in fact requires you to be about as fast as Mari does, given that you have to win the game before a certain triggered ability resolves.”
“The good thing about Mana Echoes,” Stav Gold adds, “is that it counts the creature that got played — which means that you’ll always get at least 1 mana off the trigger. That means that sacrificing Flayer of the Hatebound to Blazing Hellhound is a wash, mana-wise . . . and if you have another Devil in play, you even net 1 mana. Nifty.
“Unfortunately, the only Devil we have access to pings us for lethal as it enters the battlefield. No problem: we just stack all of our Flayer triggers on top of the ability, and kill our opponent before it resolves!”
“The key to the solution,” Dominic Chan muses, “is that +1/+1 counters cancel with -1/-1 counters, so abilities such as Undying can be reused. While Soul Snuffers can give us -1/-1 counters, a more creative solution exists in Corrosive Mentor + Blazing Hellhound + Flayer of the Hatebound.”
Putting all this together, Lane’s solution goes as follows:
- First off, let's tap all of our mana so we know exactly what we're working with. The Urborg Volcano can be tapped for either color; it doesn't matter which one. (Mana pool:
) - Use to cast Macabre Waltz for Forge Devil and Corrosive Mentor, discarding Vicious Hunger — we won't be needing any extra life. (Mana pool:)
- Use the rest of our mana to cast the Mentor, then the Devil. Mana Echoes triggers twice, and we need to stack our triggers so that Forge Devil's damage trigger is on the bottom, since we lose if we let it resolve.
- Because Mana Echoes counts the creature that triggered it, we get a total of four colorless mana from having two Devils and two Elementals. (Mana pool:
) - Now that Blazing Hellhound has wither, we have everything we need.
- Here's where things get fun! Use
to sacrifice Flayer of the Hatebound, and have the Hound ping Fiend Hunter. Let Flayer's triggered ability hit Christina for 5 damage, bringing her down to 15 life. Echoes triggers from Flayer’s return, giving us two more colorless mana. (Mana pool:) - Use Sorceress Queen on Fiend Hunter to turn it into a 0/2.
- Use to sacrifice Queen, and have the Hound ping Flayer. The Hound has wither due to Corrosive Mentor, so the resulting -1/-1 counter and the +1/+1 counter remove each other. (Mana pool:
) - Use to sacrifice Flayer again, and have the Hound ping Fiend Hunter to kill it and get back our Foul Familiar, giving us one colorless mana from Echoes. Flayer hits Christina for another 5, bringing her down to 10 life. Echoes triggers again, giving us another colorless mana. (Mana pool:)
- We're in the home stretch! Use to sacrifice Familiar, and have the Hound ping Flayer, removing the +1/+1 counter. (Mana pool:)
- Use to sacrifice Flayer, and have the Hound ping Cristina. Flayer hits her for 5 damage and triggers Mana Echoes. In total, she takes 6 damage, bringing her down to 4 life. (Mana pool:)
- Use to sacrifice Forge Devil, and have the Hound ping Flayer, removing the +1/+1 counter one last time. (Mana pool:)
- Finally, use to sacrifice Flayer of the Hatebound once more to deal a total of 6 damage to Cristina, bringing her down to -2 life, and winning Mari the game!
- And all of this is done with Forge Devil's trigger on the stack, which would have dealt us a singular lethal point of damage if we ever let it resolve.
One variant of this solution involves actually letting Forge Devil’s ability resolve: You would need to cast Vicious Hunger to survive, and you’d have a lot less mana to work with, but it’s possible. Kriz Lee’s opening sequence goes:
- Activate Sorceress Queen to make Fiend Hunter a 0/2.
- Cast Vicious Hunger targeting Fiend Hunter. We are at 3 life. ( spent.)
- Fiend Hunter dies and its ability returns Foul Familiar to the battlefield under our control.
- Mana Echoes adds to our mana pool. ( in pool.)
- Pay 1 life and to return Foul Familiar to our hand. ( spent. We are now 2 life.)
- Cast Macabre Waltz and return Forge Devil and Corrosive Mentor to our hand. Discard Foul Familiar ( spent.)
- Cast Forge Devil. ( spent.)
- When Forge Devil enters the battlefield, deal 1 damage to any of Cristina's creatures and 1 damage to ourselves. Mana Echoes adds
to our mana pool. ( in pool. We are now 1 life.) - Cast Corrosive Mentor. ( spent.)
- When Corrosive Mentor enters the battlefield, Mana Echoes adds to our mana pool ( in pool.)
At this point, that is all you need to perform the Corrosive Mentor / Blazing Hellhound / Flayer of the Hatebound combo, bringing Cristina from twenty to zero life.
Several people also considered the possibility of attacking for the win. Kriz in particular notes that — assuming that you kill Fiend Hunter early on — you can attack with Flayer of the Hatebound and either force your opponent to take 4 damage or block it to trigger undying. “Cristina is tapped out, though,” Kriz writes, “and therefore unable to really respond to our kill, so what's the point?”
“We can probably expect nothing less of Mari than securing the win off the brink of defeat,” Dominic adds. “If you think winning from 1 life is close, Mari has got daredevil's blood to win from an even more critical position.”
