Locations
"Can I complain about that?" you ask Boris.
Boris shrugs. "Technically he's right," he says. "You're at one win each, we're on turn three of your five extra turns, and your life totals are both still in the double digits. Your opponent is under no obligation to concede to you, and he can try to let this boil down to a draw if that's what he wants."
Nox can barely conceal a smile as he draws his card for the turn.
You're in the fourth and final round of today's Unabridged Cube draft, and you're riding high on a 3-0 record, enough for a shot at first place despite the quality of your deck. The problem, however, is that you've been paired down against Nox, who's sitting at two wins and a draw so far. Nox has a long memory, and he clearly remembers all the times you've stolen a win away from him.
Nox won your first game on the back of a turn-four Thunderbreak Regent, but it took you ages to win the second game - due in part to your opponent's stalling. You called a judge over, and Boris did give Nox a warning for slow play, but the damage was done: You weren't able to get too far into a third game before time was called.
Nox taps five lands and plays the Redwood Treefolk in his hand. "I'll gain one life from the Essence Warden," he says, adjusting his spindown.
"Twelve life," you say.
"Turns out you can count."
Your games have been unpredictable due to the randomness of the Cube having one of each card ever printed, and Nox has been taking clear advantage of that. Nox hasn't been able to break through your defenses because of your Ana Disciple, but at the same time you haven't been able to get past his dearth of big creatures.
Nox pulls his seat back from the table, raising his hands in a mock gesture of defeat. "I don't have any good attacks," he says.
"Yeah," you grumble, "I'll bet you don't."
"I guess I'm passing," Nox says, smiling.
Boris turns to you. "That puts us at turn four," your judge says. "Start your turn."
You reach for the top card of your library, scanning your side of the board as you do so. The Murderous Betrayal you cast last turn might just be your saving grace now, especially since you have the mana to take out two of your opponent's creatures. Bringing Nox down from his current life total is likely to be a problem, though.
Your deck gives you a borderline-useless Quest for the Nihil Stone, which is not what you want to see right now. You stare at the Quest for a while, wondering if you can possibly use it in this situation.
"Tick tock," Nox says.
"Quiet," Boris admonishes him.
"Hey, if I got a warning for slow play, they're not exactly supposed to get all the time in the world to look at their draw."
Boris pauses, and then gives you a firm look. "I'm going to have to ask you to make a move," he says. "We don't have all day."
"Yeah," Nox chuckles. "Do something so that we can end this game. I'd like to see where you land in the rankings."
It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Nox before the end of his next turn.
You are at 17 life, with the following cards in play:
- Ana Disciple
- Loam Dryad (with your Reins of the Vinesteed attached)
- Maulfist Revolutionary
- Rottenheart Ghoul
- Cyclopean Giant
- Village Survivors
- Murderous Betrayal
- Phyrexian Totem
- 4 Swamps
- 3 Forests
You have the following card in your hand:
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.
Nox is at 12 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:
- Essence Warden
- Dawntreader Elk
- Wall of Granite
- Thunderbreak Regent
- Hungry Mist
- Redwood Treefolk
- Shivan Phoenix
- Raking Canopy
- 4 Mountains (all tapped)
- 4 Forests (three 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 - Nothing Doing" by 11:59 P.M. EST on Monday, August 12, 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 Russell Jones, Addison Fox, Hyman Rosen, Chad Salo, David Arnold, and Greg Dreher.
"It's hard to win when your opponent has a huge board and your biggest creature has defender," Greg Dreher writes. "Plus, your bounce spells are significantly less impressive when your opponent has a way to discard a card and win the game immediately. Today, your path to victory requires very specific rules knowledge."
"I think you've used up your rules lawyering quota for the year with this one!" Hyman Rosen remarks. "Here's a précis we're going to need:
- 603.5 - A spell or ability that says you may do something to a target object targets that object even if you choose not to do the thing.
- 613.6 - Continuous effects that grant and remove the same ability are applied in timestamp order.
- 506.4a - An attacking creature that acquires defender remains in combat.
- 113.1a - There's a fine distinction between Ainok Bond-Kin and Herald of Secret Streams. The former grants an ability to other creatures, while the latter simply has an ability of its own. It would be different if the Herald read "Creatures with a +1/+1 counter have 'This creature cannot be blocked.'"
- 303.4f - When an aura is placed on the battlefield other than by being cast, its controller attaches it to any legal permanent it may enchant unless the effect placing it specifies otherwise.
- 702.7c - A creature that acquires first strike after the first strike combat damage step deals its damage in the regular combat damage step.
The result is a solution that's heavily dependent on these rules, but also one that gets the job done. Russell Jones writes:
- Play Void Snare, bouncing Reprobation. (6 lands left.)
- Replay Reprobation, attached to Dirgur Nemesis. It becomes 1/2, and loses defender, megamorph, and first strike (due to the later timestamp than Ainok Bond-Kin). (4 lands left.)
- Play Separatist Voidmage, which triggers.
- The Voidmage's ability to target a creature is mandatory, but actually bouncing it is not; choose to target Brago, King Eternal (which triggers Illusionary Armor and causes that to fall off), but don't bounce it.
- Go to combat and swing with Blade Instructor (3/1), Brago (2/4), and the cowardly Dirgur Nemesis (1/2).
- Mentor triggers on Blade Instructor; target Brago (which you can do with the Illusionary Armor gone and the King down to 2 power) for a +1/+1 counter, which also gives it first strike from Ainok Bond-Kin.
- When Regina gets a chance to block:
- Blade Instructor can be blocked by anything.
- Unblockability is caused by an ability of Herald of Secret Streams alone, not of the creature that actually has the counter. Even though Dirgur Nemesis has no abilities, it still has a +1/+1 counter, and Regina still can't block it.
- Neither can Regina block Brago, of course.
- Brago, unlike any of the other combatants (even one that happens to have a +1/+1 counter in the presence of Ainok Bond-Kin) has first strike and deals its damage first. That's 3 to the dome (to 8 life), and a trigger.
- Choose to flicker Blade Instructor, Reprobation, and Separatist Voidmage, and have Reprobation come back attached to either Skirsdag Supplicant or Noose Constrictor.
- Flickering Blade Instructor serves no purpose other than removing it from combat (in case Regina blocked with Scrounger of Souls for the shot at lifelink damage).
- Separatist Voidmage gets to trigger again. This time you do want to bounce something, namely whichever of the two creatures you didn't stick Reprobation on. With both of those taken care of, Regina has no legal way to discard the card that got bounced, let alone drain your last life.
- During normal combat damage, any blocking creatures that may have been assigned now have nothing to do.
- Dirgur Nemesis now has both defender and first strike, but gaining defender is irrelevant after it's already attacking. The relevant question for first strike is whether the Nemesis had that ability during the *first* combat damage step (it didn't), not whether it has it now, so the Nemesis does assign its damage in the second step.
- Of course, the other thing about Reprobation being gone is that the Nemesis shoots up to 7/6, and deals all that damage straight through (to 1 life).
- End your turn. Regina has no way to get rid of that bounced creature, so Mindstorm Crown triggers from the one card in her hand, pinging her for 1 and a self-inflicted loss.
Russell adds: "The way all those rules have to come together so beautifully (having to use Separatist Voidmage to target something without actually doing anything to it, having Dirgur Nemesis lose first strike but stay unblockable, and later regain the ability but deal damage in the second damage step anyway) - all to one man's benefit - forces us to be extremely suspicious over a potential abuse of the political system. When asked for comment, Brago merely stated 'It's good to be the King.'"
"We may have the King," Hyman muses, "but it's Regina who's going to discover that Uneasy lies the head that wears a Crown!"
