Locations
And to be fair, it’s been a looooooong game. Both of you got off to a very slow start, but that ended up working to your advantage: While the big players mostly sniped at each other for being immediate threats, you and Vijay went under the radar and worked together to eliminate the remnants.
Now, with only the two of you left in the game, Vijay offers you an impromptu salute. All alliances are off, and it’s now every person for themselves.
On his last turn, Vijay actually scored a rather neat win against your second-to-last opponent: With her at one life, Vijay drew and cast a Blood-Toll Harpy, earning a laugh and a quick concession. He then ended his turn by drawing a card due to his status as Monarch.(“It’s good to be the king,” he says.)
At that point, however, Vijay immediately tapped out to cast a Death Wind for nine — removing the monstrous Nessian Asp that you’ve had on the table for more than a few turns. This doesn’t leave you with a lot of creatures on board, and even less that you can use to block his flyers on their next attack.
Fortunately, you’ve been saving up your cards in hand: You’ve been holding onto a Coordinated Assault and a Beast Within for a couple of turns now. On top of that, your draw is a Serum Visions, and casting it gives you an additional Besmirch.
Even better, the Visions shows you the two cards that are sitting on top of your library. You decide to keep both of them, placing a Guttersnipe on top and a Sylvan Bounty underneath; some extra damage and lifegain might make all the difference over the next few turns.
Then you look at the table and realize that the win is waiting for you right there. You still have to go over the finer details, but it looks like you won’t need an additional turn at all.
And that’s just as well, of course. You can’t stay here all night; you both have to pack up and go home sometime.
It is the middle of your first main phase. Defeat Vijay before the end of your turn.
You are at 7 life, with the following cards in play:
- Goblin Tunneler
- Stormchaser Chimera
- Regal Behemoth
- 2 islands (one tapped)
- 7 forests
- 3 mountains
You have a face-up Hired Heist in your command zone, naming Stormchaser Chimera.
You have the following cards in your hand:
- Coordinated Assault
- Beast Within
- Besmirch (drawn via Serum Visions this turn)
The top two cards of your library are Guttersnipe (top card) and Sylvan Bounty (second from top). You otherwise do not know the identities of the any of the next cards of your library. However, you do know that you have exactly four basic lands left in your library somewhere — one Forest and three Mountains.
Vijay is at 11life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:
- Vertigo Spawn
- Omenspeaker (with Vijay’s Kitesail attached)
- Blood-Toll Harpy
- Fleshbag Marauder
- Cloaked Siren
- 7 islands (all tapped)
- 6 swamps (all tapped)
Vijay is currently the Monarch.
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 — Laws of Succession” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, September11, 2016. 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, Dominic Chan, Matthew Harvey, Sean Dennehy, Aaron Golas, Andrew Glenn, Bill Murphy, Ryou Niji, Alfred Hsie, Hyman Rosen, T. Akazor, Subrata Sircar, Kriz Lee, Jordan Fitzgerald, and Michael Feldman.
Curiously, this puzzle has two pairs of correct solutions, with each pair having an approach that deals with each of the twins.
“The key to defeating both of the twins,” Matthew Harvey writes, “is Grenzo's Ruffians. We need it to get through for as much damage as we can, as when it hits one twin the other one will share their pain. So we need to attack each twin with a creature for the Melee ability to make the Ruffians a 4/4. But in order to get through, we will need to remove some blockers. This tells us when we need to cast Sulfurous Blast: after declaring attackers, but before blockers have been declared.”
This, in fact, was the logic behind the most common solution. Alfred Hsie notes that Renata makes a convenient target for the Ruffians in this case:
- Cast Gods Willing on Grenzo's Ruffians, giving it protection from White.
- Attack Renata with Grenzo's Ruffians and Raffaela with Gang of Devils. Melee gives +2/+2 to Grenzo's Ruffians, making it a 4/4.
- Before blockers are declared, cast Sulfurous Blast, dealing 2 damage to each creature and player. This kills the Soldier token and Child of Night. It also kills your Gang of Devils, which takes 2 damage from Sulfurous Blast and 2 damage through Pariah.
- Gang of Devils dies, and deals 1 damage to kill Illusionary Informant, 1 damage to kill Kami of the Crescent Moon, and 1 damage to Renata. Raffaela is now 7 life and Renata is 4 life.
- Since Grenzo's Ruffians has protection from White, it cannot be blocked by Palace Sentinels, Lieutenants of the Guard or Ascended Lawmage, thereby dealing 4 damage to Renata, killing her. Grenzo's Ruffians ability also deals 4 damage to Raffaela, who is now at 3 life.
- On your second main phase, cast Faith's Reward, returning Gang of Devils, Pariah and Ghostly Possession to play. (It does not matter where you place the Pariah or the Possession.)
- Cast Flame Slash on Gang of Devils, killing it again. Gang of Devils deals 3 damage to Raffaela, killing her as well.
However, it’s also possible to direct your efforts towards Raffaela in this way, as Subrata Sircar writes:
- Attack Raffaela with the Ruffians and Renata with the Gang of Devils; the Ruffians get +2/+2.
- Before blockers are declared, cast Sulfurous Blast. Gang of Devils takes 4 damage (2 from Pariah and 2 from the Blast) and dies, as does the Child of Night and the 1/1 Soldier. Use the Devils’ death trigger to deal 2 damage to Garrulous Sycophant (killing it) and 1 damage to Renata. Raffaela is now at 7 life. Renata is at 4 life, while you remain at 6.
- Cast Gods Willing on the Ruffians to give them protection from Green until the end of the turn. Raffaela can no longer block the Ruffians, as all her remaining creatures are Green; the Ruffians connect for 4 damage and their trigger kills Renata, leaving Raffaela at 3 life.
- On your second main phase, cast Faith's Reward to return Pariah, Ghostly Possession and Gang of Devils to play.Put the Pariah on Nessian Asp and Possession on the Netcaster Spider (although it doesn’t matter here).
- Cast Flame Slash on the Gang of Devils. Use their death trigger to deal 3 damage to Raffaela and win the game.
“Since both opponents have potential blockers of two colors,” T. Akazor writes,“it is necessary to remove some of them using Sulfurous Blast. But there are two ways to go about this to ensure that our Ruffians survive: either attack with the Ruffians so that they get bigger and survive the 2 damage by themselves, orplay Gods Willing on Ruffians, granting protection from Red.”
For this alternative approach, Renata was the most convenient target for the Ruffians once again. Kriz Lee writes:
- Cast Gods Willing targeting Grenzo's Ruffians and choosing protection from red.
- Cast Flame Slash on Gang of Devils. When it dies, deal 1 damage to Palace Sentinels and 2 damage to Renata. (Renata 5, Raffaela 9)
- Cast Faith's Reward and return Gang of Devils and Pariah to the battlefield. Attach Pariah to Lieutenant of the Guard.
- Cast Sulfurous Blast. Everything dies except for Garrulous Sycophant, Nessian Asp and Grenzo's Ruffians.(Renata 2, Raffaela 6)
- When the Gang of Devils dies, deal 3 damage to Raffaela (Renata 2, Raffaela 3)
- Attack Renata with Grenzo's Ruffians. As Renata has no remaining blockers, the Ruffians deal 3 to each opponent.
However, Russel Jones finds that Raffaela is just as good a target in this case as well:
- Play Gods Willing on Grenzo's Ruffians, giving it protection from Red. (Who knows why the gods would extend their protection to such blatant heathens, but they are. Also, you get to scry 1 for whatever that'sworth.)
- Play Flame Slash on Gang of Devils, killing it. Put 1 damage onRaffaela's Garrulous Sycophant and 2 damage on Raffaela herself (to 7).
- Play Faith's Reward, bringing back Gang of Devils as well as Pariah(which goes on Raffaela's Nessian Asp).
- Play Sulfurous Blast, and it's like Peter Tomarken in reverse: Raffaela goes to 4! Renata to 4! You stay at 6 because of Pariah. Child of Night, Netcaster Spider, Garrulous Sycophant (because of the 1 damage marked earlier from Gang of Devils), Nessian Asp (because of the double dose of damage courtesy of Pariah),Illusionary Informant, Kami of the Crescent Moon, Ascended Lawmage, theSoldier token, and Gang of Devils all meet the whammy and die.Grenzo's Ruffians has protection from Red and doesn't take any damage.
- Gang of Devils triggers; put 1 damage on each of the twins (to 3) and you could even assign the last point of damage to yourself, just to be equitable. Or you could put a fourth damage on Palace Sentinelsto kill that . . . whatever.
- Swing with Grenzo's Ruffians into Raffaela's clear board. Melee triggers, making them 3/3. Raffaela goes to 0 life and Grenzo's Ruffians triggers, taking Renata to 0 as well.
Notably, all of the solutions above work regardless of whether Renata controls an Illusionary Informant or a Doomed Traveler. That said, there is a gap that’s worth mentioning.
“Raffaela (or whichever twin is being attacked by the Ruffians) has the option to scoop before the combat damage step,” Russell explains, “in which case you won't get the trigger and the other twin won't take anyfurther damage. Who knows if the twins had such an agreement in place before the game started, or what "bribes" they demand for the service — but if they do, there isn’t any avenue to a win that can account for that possibility.”
