"You're wearing it under your chin," Boris points out.

"Fine," she says, pulling it up.

"It needs to be covering your nose."

"But this is how I normally wear it!"

"You're wearing it wrong, then," Boris says. "Pull it up over your nose."

Your opponent complies, although more than a little grumbling is involved. You can't help but glance at your watch.

Boris notices you out of the corner of his eye. "It's your turn, right?" he asks.

"Yes."

"You're turn zero, then," he says. "If your opponent removes her face mask again, let me know."

"It's not comfortable this way," Verity complains.

"Neither is talking to you, but here we are," Boris says off-handedly. "I'll need you to finish this turn zero; your next turn will be the first of your five extra turns. If you're not able to determine a winner at the end of that fifth turn, we'll declare this match to be a draw."

At this point, you now regret all that time arguing over games one and two. You normally expect a level of complexity when it comes to your local game store's Unabridged Cube - a collection of one of each card ever printed - but disagreeable opponents are always a wild card.

"I'll just cast a Leafkin Avenger and end my turn," you say.

"We'll move to turn one, then," Boris says.

Verity mumbles something you don't understand, then untaps her permanents and draws a card. Her expression suddenly changes... or at least, you think it suddenly changes. It's hard to tell, now that she's wearing her mask properly.

"Tap seven," she says, "and I'll cast a Scourge of Nel Toth."

You frown. A 6/6 flyer is well beyond your capability to handle right now, and your life total is so low that anything puts you in a precarious position.

"End my turn," Verity says.

"That starts turn two," Boris confirms.

You briefly consider pinging your opponent with your Orcish Bloodpainter in response, but Verity still happens to be sitting on 20 life, and every blocker counts for your side of the board. There's not much you can do, really, but start your turn and hope for the best.

You draw a Dagger Caster, and your expression deflates. Verity seems to pick up on this; she leans back in her chair and stretches.

"I'll need a move from you," Boris says.

"Can I take a moment to think?"

"Yes you can," Boris says. "But you might want to look at the life totals on that scorepad of yours. The real question you should be asking is, can you still win this game?"

It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Verity before the beginning of her next combat phase.

You are at 3 life, with the following cards in play:

• Initiate's Companion
• Orcish Bloodpainter
• Spiteful Sliver
• Centaur Archer
• Wildfire Elemental
• Leafkin Avenger
• Mitotic Slime (with your Wings of Hubris attached)
• 4 Mountains
• 2 Forests

You have the following card in your hand:

• Dagger Caster

You have not yet played a land this turn. You still have a substantial number of cards remaining in your library, but you know neither the identities nor the order of those cards.

Verity is at 20 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:

• Wall of Runes
• Spirit of Malevolence
• Zombie Outlander
• Dimir Informant
• Queen of Ice
• Venomous Hierophant
• Faerie Invaders
• Scourge of Nel Toth
• 4 Islands (all tapped)
• 3 Swamps (all tapped)

If you've got a solution in mind, don't put it in the comments! Help keep this puzzle a mystery to other readers!

Instead, if you think you've got a great solution, you can send your solution to puzzles@gatheringmagic.com with the subject line "Puzzle - Payback Time" by 11:59 P.M. EST on Monday, July 20, 2020. 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 Hyman Rosen, Greg Dreher, Sean Patrick Keatley, Jacob Butcher, Russell Jones, Jonah Comstock, Michael Feldman, and David Arnold.

This puzzle turns out to have a rather straightforward solution. Your main consideration is what to use from your hand, as well as the order of play for these cards. "You need to pump Hobblefiend and Spellgorger Weird," Jacob Butcher writes, "clear the weaker creatures with Pestilent Haze, and then use Traitorous Greed to make an attacker from the best possible defender:

David Arnold, however, points out that an alternative solution exists with Pridemalkin. This leaves your opponent with an additional blocker, but Pridemalkin's ability turns out to be enough to overcome the additional toughness in your way: