It’s only your first game of the Eldritch Moon release party, and you’re already in trouble. Normally you don’t expect that to be the case, what with a friendly opponent and a decent (although underwhelming) deck, but it seems that bad beats have a knack for finding you.

In this case, your bad beat has a name: Archangel Avacyn. You controlled a good portion of the early game before the 4/4 vigilant Legend showed up. After that, however, you had to find a desperate balance between dealing damage and seeing your flying blockers get eaten one by one.

Your opponent, Mahsun, has been quite apologetic about the bomb mythic he opened, which doesn’t make you feel much better. You did draw a nice piece of removal in Bound by Moonsilver, but you had to stick it on Mahsun’s Tangleclaw Werewolf so that it wouldn’t overrun you with its Equestrian Skill.

All in all, you’re not having a very good time. But that’s before it gets worse.

“You’re at five life, right?” Mahsun asks, looking at the card he just drew into an empty hand.

“Yes,” you say after a moment’s pause. “So are you, though.”

“Okay,” Mahsun says, tapping three lands. “Cast Ironwright's Cleansing on your Bound by Moonsilver?”

“ . . . Right.”

“Tap seven lands to transform Tangleclaw Werewolf into Fibrous Entangler?”

“Ugh,” you say. You start counting and stop when you realize that you’re close to going off the charts. “It’s 7/9.”

Mahsun flips through the cards in his graveyard. “I have Delirium,” he says, “so my Paranoid Parish-Blade’s a 4/2 with first strike.”

“Right.”

“I’ll declare an attack with the Paranoid Parish-Blade, Fibrous Entangler, my Faithbearer Paladin, and Archangel Avacyn.”

You sigh. “Not your Runaway Carriage?” you ask.

“No,” Mahsun says, “I’ll hold that back in case I need to attack again next turn.”

With no cards in hand, your options are severely limited. You do have a Clue token, though, and crack it open in response to Mahsun’s attack. That gets you a Scour the Laboratory, which you immediately spend 6 mana to cast. Unfortunately, this gets you only a single piece of removal — Just the Wind — in addition to a Plains and a Hope Against Hope.

“I take it that you’re declaring blockers,” Mahsun observes.

“I don’t have much of a choice,” you say. It strikes you that you do have a choice, of course — you always have a choice. But it’s somewhat critical in this case; you can’t shake the feeling that there’s a way for you to get out of this mess.

At least, you hope so.

It is the beginning of the combat phase on Mahsun’s turn. Survive Mahsun’s turn, then find a way to defeat Mahsun before the end of your next turn.

You are at 5 life, with the following cards in play:

• Fogwalker
• Exultant Cultist
• Drogskol Shieldmate
• Paranoid Parish-Blade
• Nearheath Chaplain
• Stitchwing Skaab
• 4 plains (three tapped)
• 7 islands (five tapped)

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Plains
• Just the Wind
• Hope Against Hope

You do not know the identities of the any of the top cards of your library, but you do know that you have about ten cards remaining in it.

You have the following cards in your graveyard:

• Scour the Laboratory
• Expose Evil
• Stormrider Spirit
• Puncturing Light
• Dawn Gryff
• Ingenious Skaab
• Press for Answers
• Furtive Homunculus

Mahsun is at 5 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:

• Paranoid Parish-Blade (attacking)
• Fibrous Entangler (attacking, with Mahsun’s Equestrian Skill attached)
• Faithbearer Paladin (attacking)
• Archangel Avacyn (attacking)
• Lone Rider
• Swift Spinner
• Runaway Carriage
• 5 plains (four tapped)
• 6 forests (all tapped)

Mahsun has the following cards in his graveyard:

• Ironwright's Cleansing
• Woodcutter's Grit
• Fiend Binder
• Fork in the Road
• Forest
• Hamlet Captain
• Aim High

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 — Hope Springs Eternal” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, July 31, 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 Dominic Chan, Norman Dean, Matt Vorpahl, Hyman Rosen, Ryou Niji, Matthew Harvey, Dom Guido, Sean Dennehy, Bill Murphy, Russell Jones, Aaron Golas, David Solomon, Frankie Punzi, Mitch Winkens, Subrata Sircar, Michael Feldman, and Chadwick Bond.

“What made this puzzle especially tough,” Michael Feldman writes,“was getting past at least two compellingly involved false paths. One path uses a re-equipping of Cathar's Shield to another creature and the -1/-1 mode of Borrowed Malevolence to put Gibbering Fiend in the graveyard, then resurrecting it with Crop Sigil and casting it for an extra 1 point of damage. You could then cast Avacyn's Judgment on Bess normally for 2 damage and passively finish her off in the upkeep phase as above. Unfortunately, even after playing the resurrected Swamp, you're short a single, excruciating mana.

“A more complicated false path,” Michael continues,“involves destroying Mournwillow with Avacyn's Judgment to be resurrected with Crop Sigil and cast for its 2-or-less-power blocking veto ETB ability. With the help of a -1/-1 from Borrowed Malevolence on one of Bess's 3-power creatures, and a delirious Strange Augmentation to keep Gibbering Fiend alive, an all-out attack could be launched that would result in at least 3 damage getting through. Then, of course, the automatic coup de grace from Gibbering Fiend during Bess's upkeep.”

David Solomon realized that there’s a problem with this second route, however: “I'd gone to all the trouble of typing out the solution, only to realize it doesn't work. Bess can pump her Ingenious Skaab in response to Mournwillow, giving her enough blockers to survive!”

So now that we know we can’t break through Bess’s blockers this way, now what?

“There's a solution that doesn't require you to attack at all,” Aaron Golas finally concludes.“You can burn Bess out with Gibbering Fiend and a madness-ed Avacyn's Judgment. But what's your discard outlet, you ask? Why, all you have to do is fill your hand to bursting!”

And given the cards you have in play, it’s not as big a problem to fill your hand, as Dom Guido writes:

“It's worth noting that this solution would not have worked if we hadn't milled a basic land this turn with Crop Sigil,” Chadwick Bond points out.“Even if we had hit another unique card type for delirium, we needed to return this basic land to our hand with Crop Sigil to make our hand big enough to discard the Judgment. This is a good reason to not be afraid to mill yourself with cards like Crop Sigil.”

“Turns out the most reliable discard outlet in the set is the hand size limit,” Matt Vorpahl remarks.“Who knew?”