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“So this is your dad’s old deck?”
“Yup,” Claire beams. “We found it in an old shoebox while cleaning my nana’s house last weekend. It was sleeved and everything.”
“I see.”
“He says he built it around the time when Mirage block and Fifth Edition were in stores, although he added some cards from newer expansions as they came around. I think he last updated it around Mirrodin.”
“Considering how your Plated Slagwurm’s been dominating our games,” you tell her, “I would say I noticed that bit.”
Claire’s dad’s deck is a clear example of mana ramp: it’s obviously built to get huge creatures into play quickly. It clearly outmatches your deck from the local Sealed League, mostly because it’s built to get creatures like the Slagwurm out on turn four.
You do have one advantage, however. Someone snuck a booster pack of Eldritch Moon into your card pool. You don’t know where it came from, and you don’t want to know — but with some luck, your set of untested cards may make the difference.
Sadly, Claire’s Plated Slagwurm has been making things difficult for you again this game. After you chump-blocked her Slagwurm and her 5/5 Primordial Ooze last turn, she tapped her six remaining lands for a Shivan Dragon and passed the turn to you. You could have cast a Pinion Feast to take out the Dragon before the end of her turn; instead, however, you cast an Enhanced Awareness for more options, drawing Sidisi's Faithful, Unsubstantiate and a Forest (then discarding the Forest).
When your next draw turned out to be Hunger of the Howlpack (from the Conspiracy booster in your pool), you started to see a way out of your downward spiral. Claire may have the power of old-school nostalgia on her side, but you have the new tech on yours . . . and if you play this right, Claire won’t know what hit her.
It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Claire before the start of her next combat phase.
You are at 5 life, with the following cards in play:
- Conifer Strider
- Willbreaker
- Bone Saw
- 4 forests
- 6 islands (one of which has your Squirrel Nest attached)
You have the following cards in your hand:
- Hunger of the Howlpack
- Sidisi's Faithful
- Unsubstantiate
- Pinion Feast
You have not yet played a land this turn. You do not know the identities of any of the next cards in your library.
Claire is at 11 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:
- Birds of Paradise
- Primordial Ooze (tapped, with four +1/+1 counters on it)
- Servant of the Scale (stolen from you via Helm of Obedience, with a +1/+1 counter on it)
- Uktabi Orangutan
- Brothers of Fire
- Shivan Dragon
- Plated Slagwurm (tapped)
- 4 mountains (all tapped)
- 6 forests (all 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 — Nostalgia” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, July 10, 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 Russell Jones, Dominic Chan, Ryou Niji, Aaron Golas, Kriz Lee, Robert Rugart, Matt Vorpahl, Matthew Harvey, David Jacobs, Subrata Sircar, Liam Childs, Bill Murphy, Adam Marshall, Hyman Rosen, David Foodym, Tonya Patterson, Bastian Grimberg, Michael Feldman, Andrew Muravskyi, Scott Stoops, and Chadwick Bond.
One critical piece of information was missing from last week’s article, and that’s the question of which player was the target of Laquatus's Champion’s enters-the-battlefield effect. We would normally assume that Verne targeted you with the ability when the Champion originally came into play . . . but if these puzzles have taught us anything, it’s that we can’t be certain about a lot of assumptions. (Adam Marshall: “I can't see why you'd target yourself with it, unless you're being Mindslaver-ed by Emrakul, of course!”)
Surprisingly, a solution exists where this question is completely irrelevant. In fact, according to Dominic Chan, the important card isn’t the Champion at all:
- With Sheoldred, Whispering One's ability, return Verne’s Invasive Species to the battlefield.
- Invasive Species' ability triggers. Choose to return Visions of Brutality to Verne’s hand.
- Have Verne draw Noxious Field and move on to his Main phase.
- Have Verne cast Visions of Brutality on Sheoldred.
- Move to combat and have Verne attack with Sheoldred. Block Sheoldred with Emrakul.
- Sheoldred deals 6 damage. Visions of Brutality triggers, and Verne loses 6 life and the game.
As it’s safe enough to assume that Laquatus's Champion targeted you, though, most solutions went down this route. “We don't know which player was originally targeted by Laquatus's Champion,” Andrew Muravskyi writes, “but we have to assume that the target was us. The only thing left is to bounce and recast the Champion, and there is an easy way of doing this.”
I’ll let Robert Rugart do the honors here:
- Have Sheoldred, Whispering One’s ability bring back Invasive Species.
- Have Invasive Species’ trigger return Laquatus's Champion to Verne’s hand. (Presumably the Champion targeted us when initially cast, so this will bring us to 11 life.)
- Recast Laquatus's Champion, targeting Verne. Verne loses 6 life, bringing him down to 0.
- All hail our new Eldrazi Overlords!
“Note that shroud does not prevent returning Laquatus's Champion,” Hyman Rosen adds, “since Invasive Species does not target the returning permanent.”
Meanwhile, Michael Feldman has a more complex solution in mind. It turns out that you have all the tools you need even if Invasive Species doesn’t choose to bounce the Champion:
- When choosing a creature in Verne's graveyard for Sheoldred, Whispering One's triggered ability, pick Invasive Species.
- In response, tap Deserted Temple and any one of Verne's basic lands to activate the Temple's second ability. Untap one of our Plains.
- Have Invasive Species return Deserted Temple to Verne's hand.
- Draw Noxious Field.
- Cast Noxious Field, targeting one of Verne's untapped basic lands.
- Attack with Rottenheart Ghoul and Laquatus's Champion.
- Block Rottenheart Ghoul with Emrakul, the Promised End. Block Laquatus's Champion with Femeref Archers and Sunseed Nurturer.
- Resolve combat damage. Have Verne assign all of the Champion's damage to Femeref Archers.
- The Champion receives 3 damage and stays in play due to its +1/+1 counter. Rottenheart Ghoul takes lethal damage and dies (along with Femeref Archers, not that we care).
- Rottenheart Ghoul's dying ability triggers. Target Verne with this ability and discard Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. This, in turn, triggers Emrakul's "put into a graveyard" ability, causing itself and the rest of Verne's graveyard to be shuffled into Verne's library.
- Tap Forcemage Advocate to activate its ability, returning any card to our hand and giving itself or Sunseed Nurturer a +1/+1 token.
- Tap a land and activating Magewright's Stone's ability to untap Forcemage Advocate.
- Tap Forcemage Advocate to activate its ability again, returning Gilded Light to our hand if we haven't done so already (otherwise any card will do), and giving itself or Sunseed Nurturer a +1/+1 token (whichever doesn't already have one).
- Tap the land enchanted by Noxious Field, activating the Noxious Field-granted ability. This finishes off Laquatus's Champion. Sunseed Nurturer and Forcemage Advocate both survive by virtue of their +1/+1 counters. Both players take 1 damage, and we gain 6 life from the Champion leaving the battlefield, but that doesn't really matter. (Note that if we never gave Forcemage Advocate a +1/+1, it would accompany Laquatus's Champion in the graveyard, thwarting our plans.)
- Allow Verne's turn to end. Now he gets to take an extra turn. Supposedly, that means he is now in control. As if we'd actually let him make any real choices . . .
- At the beginning of Verne's upkeep, Sheoldred's ability will trigger once more. Verne will have no choice but to select Laquatus's Champion to return to the battlefield, as it is the only card in his graveyard (thanks to the Emrakul shuffle).
- Before Sheoldred's ability resolves, cast Gilded Light with mana from Sunseed Nurturer and the Plains earlier untapped by Deserted Temple. We gain shroud, then Laquatus's Champion enters the battlefield.
- The Champion's "enters the battlefield" ability triggers. Since we have shroud and thus cannot be targeted, Verne will have no choice but to target himself, losing 6 life and the game.
Bouncing Verne’s Deserted Temple denies him the possibility of tapping the land enchanted with Noxious Field in response to Sheoldred’s upkeep trigger, untapping the enchanted land, then tapping it for the Field’s ability again to kill Forcemage Advocate. It wouldn’t matter, though — Sheoldred’s target gets chosen upon her trigger, and she would bring back the Champion either way.
David Jacobs notes that bouncing Deserted Temple does allow you to replay it on the same turn for a specific purpose, though:
- When Sheoldred, Whispering One triggers, return Invasive Species to the battlefield. In response, untap one of your Plains with Deserted Temple, then have Invasive Species bounce Deserted Temple.
- Have Verne play Deserted Temple, then untap another of your Plains with it.
- Have Verne return Gilded Light to your hand with Forcemage Advocate. Put a +1/+1 counter on Rottenheart Ghoul.
- Have Verne attack with Ghoul and Laquatus's Champion.
- Pay
with Sunseed Nurturer to give Ghoul flying with Helium Squirter. - Tap Femeref Archers to deal 4 damage to Ghoul.
- Have Verne untap Archers with Magewright's Stone.
- Tap Femeref Archers to deal it another 4 damage to Ghoul, which dies. Have Verne discard Emrakul, shuffling his graveyard into his library.
- Block Champion with Emrakul. Champion dies.
- Pass the turn.
- On Verne's own turn, he has to bring back Laquatus's Champion with Sheoldred’s ability. In response, tap two Plains to cast Gilded Light.
- Champion comes into play and Verne has to target himself with its ability, so he loses 6 and dies.
Notably, if you take this approach, you need to make sure that Rottenheart Ghoul dies before Laquatus's Champion does. Simply having both of them die in combat means that they go to the graveyard at the same time before the Ghoul’s trigger resolves — which means that the Champion will get swept away by the Emrakul discard.
“Laquatus's Champion's flavor text reads, ‘Chainer's dark gift to a dark soul,’” Chadwick Bond writes. “I think Verne now believes it is a white elephant gift.”
At least he got another good story out of it, I suppose.
