They've also been giggling, which hasn't been good for your nerves so far.

You suspect that Renata is your opponent today, but the twins tend to think in terms so similar that it doesn't matter if you're facing one or the other. Besides, you have bigger problems: You're barely holding the line against a giant Serra Sphinx right now, and that hasn't stopped your opponent's Relic Runner from taking the occasional bite out of your life total.

Renata suddenly taps two lands and aims a Revoke Existence at your Golem Artisan. You grunt in frustration, realizing that that's going to take out half of your air defenses.

"In response to that," you say, "I'll activate the Artisan three times and pump my Glaze Fiend. That'll make it 3/6, considering that it's still got my Sword of the Meek attached."

The twins giggle again. You get the funny feeling that something worse is coming - a feeling which is confirmed almost immediately when they activate their Apprentice Wizard and drop a Sharuum the Hegemon into play.

"O... kay," you say, watching as Renata flips through her graveyard.

You try to remember what you've put in that graveyard so far. Unfortunately, one thing suddenly comes to mind, and that's the Duplicant you destroyed with your Reclamation Sage. Unfortunately, your opponent has realized the same thing.

"O... kay," you say, watching as Renata lays out the Duplicant on her side of the battlefield. She points at your Silumgar Scavenger and smiles.

The rest of the twins' turn is as you've expected: Renata attacks with her Serra Sphinx and her unblockable Relic Runner, and your Glaze Fiend saves you five damage. It's probably going to be a different story next turn, though, seeing that you no longer have enough creatures to block both of your opponent's massive flyers.

You take your draw with a bit of trepidation, fully expecting your deck to give you something unhelpful. In a way, it does: an Ulvenwald Mysteries is not the removal you were hoping for, much less something that can take out both a Serra Sphinx and a Sharuum, the Hegemon.

The twins giggle again, and this time you don't blame them. They've clearly got the advantage here, and all you have in your corner is a bunch of small creatures and a mind that's gotten you out of some very tough spots in the past.

Unfortunately for them, those little things you have might just be enough to save the day.

It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Renata and Raffaela before the beginning of their next combat phase.

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

• Glaze Fiend (with your Sword of the Meek attached)
• Whisperer of the Wilds
• Woodland Champion
• Eager Construct
• Reclamation Sage
• Defiant Salvager
• 4 Swamps
• 3 Forests

You have the following card in your hand:

• Ulvenwald Mysteries

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.

You have the following relevant card in your graveyard:

• Sylvan Might

Renata and Raffaela are at 13 life and have no cards in their hand. They have the following cards in play:

• Relic Runner (tapped)
• Apprentice Wizard (tapped)
• Chief of the Foundry
• Serra Sphinx (with Renata and Raffaela's Flayer Husk attached)
• Duplicant (exiling your Silumgar Scavenger)
• Sharuum, the Hegemon
• 2 Plains (both tapped)
• 4 Islands (three tapped)
• Swamp (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 - Small Packages" by 11:59 P.M. EST on Monday, August 31, 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, Russell Jones, Jacob Butcher, Franko Ba?ac, Michael Feldman, and Sean Patrick Keatley.

"Walking Ballista always takes me back to when it was in Standard, and all the pinging shenanigans... which is exactly what happens here," Sean Patrick Keatley notes.

Pinging, in fact, is exactly how you want to use Walking Ballista. Unlike most scenarios, however, a lot of your moves here are geared towards loading the Ballista rather than firing it. Even then, you won't be able to take down your opponent with the Ballista alone.

The problem lies in the fact that the straightforward approach doesn't give your Ballista enough ammunition:

• Surge Node starts out with six charge counters. Casting Dismantle on the Surge Node can therefore get Walking Ballista to nine +1/+1 counters.
• Out of those nine +1/+1 counters, you can use five (leaving four) to take down your opponent's Angel of the Dawn and Death-Hood Cobra.
• From there, you can attack with your Bone Picker (3/2) and Glaze Fiend (which would be a 2/3 because of Surge Node). Battle-Rattle Shaman and Supernatural Stamina can then give a couple of +2/+0 bonuses, for a grand total of 9 damage.
• The remaining four +1/+1 counters on Walking Ballista can then deal 4 more damage, for a total of 13. That leaves you... one life short of victory.

One way around the above, of course, is to simply pay and activate Walking Ballista to put an additional +1/+1 counter on it. Unfortunately, this doesn't turn out to be as simple as you might expect: You're one mana short of being able to do that.

With all of the above in mind, you clearly need to find a better way. Jacob Butcher gives an accurate narration of the thought process here, ending in the insight that leads to a solution:

• First thought: Remove Goddard's flying blockers, pump my flyers, attack. Problem: Not enough direct damage for creature removal.
• Second thought: First use Dismantle on Surge Node to pump Walking Ballista. Problem: Goddard still has 1 life left even after taking some direct damage himself.
• Third thought: Dualcaster Mage could give me another copy of Dismantle... (William Shatner / Captain Kirk acting) but... to... what... end?
• Fourth thought: Transfer Surge Node's counters to Walking Ballista *through* Everflowing Chalice. This forgoes 4 damage, but directly produces 3 more direct damage... plus enough extra mana to power Walking Ballista's ability to produce 2 more direct damage... yes!

This solution does leave you with one extra mana floating, but it's effective enough.

"So, it's a little bit messy," Michael Feldman muses. "It seems appropriate that a mess would happen, given Goddard's lack of patience. But he probably wouldn't expect you to be the one making a mess at his expense."