Much like some random example from particle physics, Goddard always seems to be in a state of constant acceleration. His deck, for that matter, seems to have litter strategy other than dumping a lot of creatures onto the table and making you figure out what to do with them. This caught you by surprise during your first game, but you were able to recover fast enough to win the second one.

Now you're stuck in a near-stalemate, and you can almost feel Goddard's displeasure through his face mask. You wonder what someone like him is doing in the middle of a Double Masters draft, but then again, it takes all kinds.

Goddard empties his hand by casting a Sanctum Spirit, and then turns his Crusader of Odric sideways.

"What is that, a 9/9?" you ask.

"9/9."

Your expression scrunches up. You might still be at ten life, but eating nine damage in the face of a larger army would be a complete failure to launch at this point.

"Are you blocking, or what?" Goddard asks.

"I'm thinking," you say. "That's what people do when they're not in a hurry."

"Well, think faster."

You shake your head. It's not like you've used up a lot of time in this round so far, so Goddard can wait for you like any normal opponent.

You do have a fair candidate for the chump-block, though. "I'll activate my Mishra's Factory," you say.

"Okay, it's a 2/2. You're blocking with that?" Goddard asks.

"Yes, I'm blocking with the Assembly-Worker," you say, putting it into your graveyard. The Supernatural Stamina in your hand isn't even a consideration: Even with your Factory's ability and your Walking Ballista's counters, the additional +2/+0 won't be enough to kill the Crusader. On top of that, you have an Everflowing Chalice in play, so you can probably spare a couple of lands.

"Turn," Goddard snaps, giving it over to you. You let out a breath and start untapping your permanents.

Unlike your opponent, you prefer to handle your games with a little more finesse. Although that hasn't worked for you all the time, you don't exactly see yourself as a single-minded person who immediately goes for the target. That, and you haven't exactly found yourself with the best card pool of all time, which means that you've had to be a little more cautious than normal today.

You take your draw and add a Surge Node to your hand. At first you think that that's a good thing, and then you realize that the Node only fuels charge counters and not the +1/+1 counters your Walking Ballista needs. Still, you have a little time to figure out what to do with it - Goddard probably won't do an alpha strike anytime soon.

"You finished yet?" Goddard asks.

"It's customary to give someone time to think," you say.

"As long as you don't slow play me," Goddard says.

You glance at the clock. "We've got, like, twenty more minutes. Believe me, they're not going to call time on us."

You're really wondering what Goddard's deal is, now. Maybe he's got some motivation for acting the way he is, or maybe he's trying to rush you into making a mistake. Maybe the pressure's getting to him, and he's just looking for a reason to explode.

Whatever the case, you're now ready to make a move. And if Goddard thinks that this game is following a trajectory that's in his favor, he's got another thought coming.

It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Goddard before the beginning of his next combat phase.

You are at 10 life, with the following cards in play:

• Glaze Fiend
• Dualcaster Mage
• Battle-Rattle Shaman
• Bone Picker
• Walking Ballista (with three +1/+1 counters on it)
• Everflowing Chalice (with three charge counters on it)
• 2 Swamps
• 3 Mountains

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Supernatural Stamina
• Surge Node
• Dismantle

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.

Goddard is at 14 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:

• Gleaming Barrier
• Death-Hood Cobra
• Iron Bully (with a +1/+1 counter on it)
• Crusader of Odric (tapped)
• Sanctum Spirit
• Kozilek's Predator
• 2 0/1 Eldrazi Spawn tokens
• Angel of the Dawn
• 5 Forests (three tapped)
• 2 Plains (one 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 - Going Ballistic" by 11:59 P.M. EST on Monday, August 24, 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 Mike Dartt, Hyman Rosen, Max Bernstein, Sean Patrick Keatley, Russell Jones, Jacob Butcher, and Michael Feldman.

"This is just a matter of getting enough artifacts to power up Glassdust Hulk," Hyman Rosen points out. "The one thing of note is that mana from Grand Architect cannot be used to pay for Myrsmith's triggered ability, since that ability is neither casting an artifact spell nor activating the ability of an artifact."

But we'll let Mike Dartt explain this in more detail, seeing as he's written a whole narrative here:

You hear Mari humming something under her breath.

"What's that?"

"Oh, I didn't realize I was doing that. It's 'Blue', by Eiffel 65. Thanks to the LoadingReadyRun Pre-Prerelease, it comes into my head every time I see Grand Architect."

"That explains why you like this format so much."

She chuckles. "Maybe. But it's also because I get to figure out board states like this one. In fact, I've got your solution."

Despite your Parasitic Strix and Glassdust Hulk taking the kill, and your Sculpting Steel and Grand Architect doing most of the work, you couldn't have taken this without your opponent's Sphinx of the Guildpact. After all, how often does its multicolored nature become relevant?