Mari growls. She's in the third game of her Modern Horizons booster draft match, and is in extra turns. Mari's drafted a relatively consistent rush deck - or at least, one that's consistent enough to have gotten her this far - but she's now facing Penelope, an opponent who's confounded her with more than a few interesting sideboard choices.

You glance at their playing field. They're solidly in the late game right now, and Penelope has the advantage in terms of creature quality. But Mari has more than a few disposable blockers, with a Valiant Changeling and a Bogardan Dragonheart making her opponent's attacks difficult.

Boris glances at his watch. "turn three," he announces.

"Yeah, I know," Mari says, tapping six of her lands. "I'll cast Magmatic Sinkhole for five damage to your Onoro... your Oniro... your flying squid."

Penelope pauses, then reaches over and drops her Oneirophage into her graveyard. "Okay," she says.

"Your Windcaller Aven doesn't fly anymore, right?" Mari asks.

"Not with your Reprobation, it doesn't."

"And you're at ten life?"

"I'm at ten life," Penelope admits.

"I'll sacrifice my Goblin Champion to my Bogardan Dragonheart," Mari says. "Then I'll attack with four creatures: my Dragonheart, my Orcish Hellraiser, my Vesperlark, and my Segovian Angel."

"That's, what... ten damage?"

"You can still block the Hellraiser," Mari points out.

"If I kill that Hellraiser," Penelope reasons, "I'll take two damage from it, for a total of nine... and then your Vengeful Devil will kill me. The other option is for me to block it with my 0/1 Aven, which leaves me at three life."

"That's right," Mari says, sounding as though she's waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"And vulnerable to your Firebolt," Penelope adds.

Mari's grip tightens on her hand, but to her credit, she doesn't reveal that her Ephemerate is anything but a Firebolt. "Right," she simply says.

"I'll declare no blocks," Penelope announces. "But I'll cast my Weather the Storm now, and it'll copy itself once for your Magmatic Sinkhole."

You raise an eyebrow in surprise, and Mari grunts in frustration. "Okay," she finally says. "That'll leave you at six life."

"No other plays?"

"No other plays," Mari says. "I'll end my turn."

Boris nods, still looking at his watch. "That's turn four, players," he says as Penelope untaps her permanents and draws a card.

"About time I drew this," Penelope says, dropping a Snow-Covered Plains on the table. "I'll cast Settle Beyond Reality to exile your Valiant Changeling."

"You're splashing White?" Mari asks in surprise. "Wait, don't tell me... you sideboarded that in!"

"Maybe I did," Penelope says, smiling, "or maybe I didn't."

"Finish the targeting announcement, please," Boris interjects. "Are you using the second mode?"

"No," Penelope says. "I'll just use the first one to remove the Changeling."

"I would have thought you'd use it on your Aven," Mari says.

"I won't have another turn after this, and I need it without summoning sickness," Penelope says. "So, are you putting that Changeling away, or not?"

Mari moves her Valiant Changeling off to the side, then turns back to her opponent.

"I'll declare the start of my combat phase," Penelope says. "Any responses?"

Mari shakes her head, and then realizes that she's still holding the Ephemerate in her hand. She curses.

"Language," Boris says, without looking up.

"I'll take that as an encouraging sign," Penelope says, tapping all her creatures. "I'll attack with everything I have, even the Windcaller Aven. You're at seven life, right?"

Mari looks as though she's going to start cursing again, but this time she just nods.

"Any blocks?"

Mari slumps, her head in her hands. "I guess this one just wasn't meant to be," you say, touching her shoulder.

She looks up at you. "What do you mean?" she asks.

"Um... you've got five creatures coming at you, and you've only got two blockers."

Mari looks back at the table. "Yeah," she finally says. "I've only got a narrow option here. I need to play this one carefully."

It is the beginning of the combat phase on Penelope's turn. Survive Penelope's combat phase.

Penelope has declared her attack and assigned all of her creatures as attackers. You may still cast spells or activate abilities before you declare blockers.

You are at 7 life, with the following cards in play:

• Segovian Angel
• Vengeful Devil
• Orcish Hellraiser (tapped)
• Vesperlark (tapped)
• Bogardan Dragonheart (tapped)
• 5 Mountains (four tapped)
• 4 Plains (two tapped)

You have the following card in your hand:

• Ephemerate

• Goblin Champion
• Magmatic Sinkhole
• Answered Prayers
• Rhox Veteran
• Orcish Hellraiser

Penelope is at 6 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:

• Mist-Syndicate Naga (attacking, with Penelope's Treefolk Umbra attached, currently a 3/3 creature)
• Bellowing Elk (attacking, currently a 4/2 creature)
• Windcaller Aven (attacking, with your Reprobation attached, currently a 0/1 creature)
• Murasa Behemoth (attacking, currently a 5/5 creature)
• Krosan Tusker (attacking, currently a 6/5 creature)
• Cunning Evasion
• Talisman of Curiosity (tapped)
• Ayula's Influence
• 4 Forests (two tapped)
• Snow-Covered Forest
• Snow-Covered Plains (tapped)
• 4 Islands (one tapped)

Penelope may choose whether or not to make any plays that are available to her. She also still has a substantial number of cards in her library, and you're pretty certain that at least some of those are basic lands.

Penelope has the following cards in her graveyard:

• Settle Beyond Reality
• Weather the Storm
• Oneirophage
• Phantasmal Form
• Saddled Rimestag
• Man-o'-War

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 Boars and the Beasts" by 11:59 P.M. EST on Monday, June 24, 2019. 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 Sean Patrick Keatley, Dan Wilson, Max Bernstein, Hyman Rosen, Addison Fox, Russell Jones, Simon Harris, Evan Thompson, Bastian Grimberg, Philip Belin, Michael Feldman, Alex Buhlan, and Brian Olas.

"As mentioned in the prologue," Bastian Grimberg writes, "the Smoke Shrouded Ninja of the New Moon is precisely the right size to take Jono down. Now we just have to figure out how to get past Jono's one flying blocker without any removal.

"The freshly-drawn Carrion Feeder is useless combat-wise since we have no way of giving him haste. And the rest of our ground troops just get eaten by Jono's superior blockers. So, we need to get creative."

"The Ninja of the New Moon is our savior here," Evan Thompson remarks, "but it has to take a rather roundabout route to the red zone:

The interesting bit here is that bouncing your unblocked attacker is a cost of the Ninjutsu ability. This means that in a scenario where a Smoke Shroud-enchanted Graveshifter goes unblocked, you can bounce the Graveshifter to your hand as part of the Ninjutsu ability's cost, put Smoke Shroud into your graveyard, and then pick it up when the ability resolves and puts Ninja of the New Moon onto the battlefield.

It's also worth noting here that the Unearth ability is played whenever you could play a Sorcery. As a result, you need to sacrifice and unearth your Graveshifter before combat - which means that you also need to sacrifice your Ninja of the New Moon at about the same time.

"A neat motif that shows up in this puzzle more than usual and adds to the challenge is dual but differentiated utility," Michael Feldman writes. "To wit, Graveshifter's changeling status is helpful at different points and for different reasons as Sliver and then as Ninja. Similarly, but perhaps more deviously, Smoke Shroud is necessary both for flying and for +1/+1, yet the two bonuses are never both necessary for the same creature."