To be fair, you’re surprised that you’ve been able to make progress with CJ telegraphing all of your plays. A few turns ago, you pulled off a well-timed Wrath of God, clearing the table of most of Zhang Li’s better creatures. Zhang Li has recovered quite nicely, though, putting a few flyers on board and slowly reducing your life total.

On your last turn, however, you drew and cast an Arashin Sovereign, which easily put an end to your opponent’s offense. CJ gleefully pointed out that Zhang Li was drawing a land on her turn (which you already knew due to her Wizened Snitches), so you figured that you were going to hold air superiority for at least a little while longer.

What you didn’t expect, however, was the card underneath Zhang Li’s land: Searing Wind!

After Zhang Li plays her land, CJ takes a minute to count your opponent’s mana. “Uh-huh,” he says.“That’s gonna rock your world.”

“Thanks,” you tell him. “That’s a lot of help.”

You draw the Oust on top of your library, hoping to find something good underneath . . .  but as it turns out, your next card is a Forest. It looks like salvation isn’t exactly forthcoming at the moment.

“I guess there’s always next game,” CJ says, as encouraging as always.

You wave a hand in order to shush him, but he may be right: Simply put, Zhang Li’s got too many blockers on the table. You can try to stave off defeat for a while, but all your efforts are likely to be for nothing the moment she casts that Searing Wind of hers.

Then again, you wonder why you’re listening to someone who once activated his Tavern Swindler at 3 life. You’re not about to throw in the towel, just like that.

It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Zhang Li before the start of her next main phase.

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

• Jagged-Scar Archers (with Zhang Li’s Betrayal attached)
• Springjack Knight (with your Horned Helm attached)
• Arashin Sovereign
• 4 forests
• 3 plains

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Prey Upon
• Oust
• Titanic Growth

Due to Zhang Li’s Wizened Snitches, you know that the top card of your library is a Forest. However, you do not know the identities of the any of the next cards of your library.

Zhang Li is at 8 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:

• Sea Scryer
• Stormbound Geist
• Hulking Ogre
• Wizened Snitches
• Kozilek's Channeler (with Zhang Li’s Dragon Wings attached)
• 4 islands
• 4 mountains

The top card of Zhang Li’s library is a Searing Wind. You have no idea as to what other cards she has in her library.

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 — Sovereign Airspace” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, August 21, 2016.We’ll include the best ones in next week’s article along with the next puzzle!

Last Week’s Puzzle

“If by ‘regroup’,” Ryou Niji remarks,“you mean wiping the board almost clean, and somehow get your opponent's lands caught in the wave of destruction, then yes, we can do that.”

Correct solutions to last week’s puzzle were received from Dominic Chan, Hyman Rosen, David Jacobs, Russell Jones, Norman Dean, Matt Vorpahl, Adrian Picar, Victor Munson, Ryou Niji, Subrata Sircar, Alex van der Bie, Bill Murphy, Sigtryggur Óskar Hrafnkelsson, Alfred Hsie, Ira Herniter, Jacob Malin, Chung Jun Ying, Michael Feldman, Matthew Harvey, Kriz Lee, Nicholas Weger, and Chadwick Bond.

“A flying 20/20 indestructible Marit Lage is certainly something that is difficult to deal with,” Mathew Harvey writes,“but not impossible. It can still be bounced, exiled or sacrificed, if we can just find a way.We have no way to bounce the Marit Lage, and no way to exile it. So that leaves getting it sacrificed, which means we need to enchant it with Slow Motion.”

Alex van der Bie notes that there’s a problem with this approach, though: “For that to actually happen, we need to make sure our opponent can't actually pay the upkeep cost. We can steal Jolrael to animate all of his lands and then use the Martyr of Ashes to deal 3 damage to all non-flying creatures, but that gets the order all wrong. You need the Temporary Insanity to steal Jolrael, and that means that you then won't have three Red cards in hand to use the Martyr. And, oh yeah — if we want to use Temporary Insanity on Jolrael, we’ll need to have four cards in our graveyard.

“We are saved by two specific facts: One, Temporary Insanity is an instant. Two, revealing cards for the Martyr is a cost, which means the amount of damage it deals is locked in and we can play the cards in the meantime. So once again, we are saved by the stack.”

With this in mind, Alex’s solution is quite straightforward:

Ryou adds: “This week's unusual puzzle actually features a strategic decision: Since we get back our Crested Craghorn, we can then attack with it and force a trade with Rib Cage Spider by using the Provoke ability. But unless our opponent is lucky enough to draw a land or some other mana producer on his next draw step, we can instead use Slow Motion again to kill the Spider . . .  and then Crested Craghorn could probably begin beating down for the win.

“If the opponent does draw and play a land, and we draw another beater, then maybe we could do the trade then, because the 4/1 and the 1/4 are probably trading sooner or later. Then again, it might be correct to just let Slow Motion tax the opponent, instead of allowing him to draw some removal and making us feel silly.”

Chadwick Bond muses: “This whole thing had me thinking what could have been if, instead of pouring mana into Dark Depths, Quentin had instead tapped Jolrael and attacked with an army of lands. The answer is clear: we would be dead. He could have tapped Sylvan Caryatid, Charcoal Diamond, and a mere single land for mana and produced nine or eleven 3/3 creatures (depending on whether or not he chose to pay off Slow Motion's cost that turn). We only have six blockers, so even if Quentin only attacked with nine lands, he'd still deal a lethal 9 damage to us.”

“Of course,” Chadwick notes,“this would require him to discard two cards (which could have easily been low-importance cards like mana producers) and he would be putting quite a bit on the line. It's hard to say whether this would have been better or worse than the Marit Lage plan, but I also think that bending his deck so much to accommodate Marit Lage in the first place was a mistake. Sometimes you have to know when to go for the sweet play or the smart play.

“Then again, this is the Unabridged Cube, so I guess you can have it both ways.”