"Okay, Ishmael," you say, playing a Swamp. "I'll attack with my Erg Raiders this turn. Are you killing it?"

Ishmael shakes his head. It's difficult to read his expression through the scarf he's wearing in lieu of a face mask, so you appreciate the gesture. Then again, you're not exactly in an easy situation at the moment, and the lack of visual cues has been a major problem.

"I'll block it again with my Aegis Turtle," Ishmael says. "Your Raiders can stand to live a little longer."

You nod. Unfortunately, the pressure is on you at the moment: You've somehow made the very unwise decision of getting both an Erg Raiders and a Ruin Raider on the battlefield at the same time. This means that you're either taking two damage from one Raider, or losing life (and drawing a card) from the other Raider during each of your end steps. The fact that you're treading water at a mere five life doesn't help matters at all.

"I guess that's my turn, then," you say.

Ishmael nods. "Ruin Raider triggers?" he asks.

"Oh yes," you say. "Ready?"

Ishmael nods again.

You flip over the top card of your library, praying for a land. It's not, but it's close enough: Sentinel's Eyes. You sigh in relief.

"That places you at four life," Ishmael says.

"This Cube is going to be the death of me," you admit.

"What, the Unabridged Cube? This thing with one of each card ever printed?"

"This one, yes."

Ishmael grins. "I know not all that may be coming," he says, "but I'll go to it laughing."

"It's your turn, you know."

Your opponent untaps his lands and points at his Dark Confidant. "My turn," he says. "Ready?"

"Go ahead."

Ishmael flips over the top card of his library, revealing a Robe of Mirrors. Now it's his turn to sigh in relief.

"Ever get the feeling that each of us is just waiting for the other to keel over?" you ask.

Ishmael chuckles and draws his card for the turn. He thinks for a while, and then starts tapping lands. "I'll cast Pursued Whale," he says.

"Could I see that?" you ask. Ishmael slides the card over, and you read it.

"You get a Pirate token," Ishmael notes, "with some... interesting... side effects."

"Okay, so I now have a Red 1/1 creature that can't block and forces my creatures to attack each turn."

Ishmael taps one more Island. "With a Robe of Mirrors on it," he adds.

You raise an eyebrow. "Oooh," you say, thinking of the implications.

Ishmael nods and turns his Puppeteer Clique sideways. You take the three damage almost as an afterthought, going down to a single life point.

"Now that I think about it," Ishmael notes, "I should have blocked and killed your Erg Raiders last turn."

"Why's that?"

"Because then my Massacre Wurm would have finished off the game. Well, to be exact, it would have made you lose two life, after which the Clique would have finished off the game."

"I don't think you have much longer to wait, though," you admit. "I don't think I'll last much longer at one life."

Ishmael passes the turn to you, and you add an Alley Evasion to your hand. You don't exactly have a clear path to victory here, and it looks like your only hope is for his Dark Confidant to be extra-duplicitous on his next turn. That, of course, is if you manage to make it to your opponent's next turn.

Your opponent is probably thinking the same thing, because he's drumming his fingers on the Confidant. "Looking for a way to last the turn?" he asks.

"That did come to mind."

"I'd like to see that," Ishmael says.

"It'll be a whale of a tale, sure enough."

It is the start of your first main phase. Survive your turn and make it to the beginning of Ishmael's upkeep phase.

You are at 1 life, with the following cards in play:

• Erg Raiders
• Toshiro Umezawa
• Ruin Raider
• Stonehorn Dignitary
• Blightcaster
• a 1/1 red Pirate token (with Ishmael's Robe of Mirrors attached)
• 4 Plains
• 6 Swamps

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Alley Evasion
• Sentinel's Eyes

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 cards in your graveyard:

• Courier Griffin
• Waste Away
• Vile Rebirth
• Skymarch Bloodletter
• Sandcrafter Mage
• Noble Templar

Ishmael is at 4 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:

• Aegis Turtle
• Sage's Row Savant
• Dark Confidant (with Ishmael's Sultai Runemark attached)
• Murderous Rider
• Puppeteer Clique (tapped)
• Massacre Wurm (with your Cagemail attached)
• Pursued Whale
• 5 Islands (four tapped)
• 6 Swamps (four 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 - Thar She Blows" by 11:59 P.M. EST on Monday, September 7, 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, Sean Patrick Keatley, David Arnold, and Jacob Butcher.

Quite a few people seem to have been led astray with the cards in this puzzle. "For one," Jacob Butcher writes, "I think Silumgar Scavenger is mostly a red herring:

• There's no way to retrieve it. (Certainly not by killing Duplicant.)
• It has flying, but Duplicant does not copy that.
• It actually reduces Duplicant's base toughness from 4 to 3.

The Duplicant is still an artifact creature, though, so Chief of the Foundry makes it a 3/4. However, it's not exactly a solid flying blocker, and the *only* flyers you have to contend with on your opponent's side of the table are the Serra Sphinx and the Sharuum the Hegemon.

That said, there's another important bit to consider. "We observe that the second ability of Ulvenwald Mysteries triggers when a Clue is sacrificed," Hyman Rosen points out, "not only when a Clue is sacrificed to its own ability. That's key to the solution, since we would not have enough mana otherwise."

Given that you have a ready sacrifice outlet in Defiant Salvager, you're in position to take advantage of both of Ulvenwald Mysteries' abilities. The small group of 1/1 tokens that results isn't just usable as fodder for the Salvager - those tokens also enable a nice combo with Sword of the Meek, as Sean Patrick Keatley writes:

"I typed out the whole solution with all of the Woodland Champion triggers before I realized that it had to go," David Arnold notes. "Then I had to rewrite the whole thing. Very tricky!"