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To celebrate the first Battle for Zendikar previews, your local game store broke out some old booster boxes and decided to hold a throwback Zendikar Draft. With visions of enemy-color fetch lands dancing in your head, you couldn’t drop your entrance fee onto the store counter fast enough.
If you hadn’t cast a kicked Into the Roil on Sanger’s Vampire Nighthawk last turn, his attack would probably have killed you. As it stood, however, you ended up with an extra draw from Into the Roil (which put a Wind Zendikon into your hand) and the ability to survive for one more turn. You won’t complain about that, at least.
Sanger then defies your expectations by replaying his Vampire Nighthawk and then following that up with a second Nighthawk! You tap Cunning Sparkmage to kill Sanger’s Surrakar Marauder before his turn runs out, but given your opponent’s creatures on the field, it’ll take a sick top-deck to save you now.
You untap, take your draw, and find a Blazing Torch. That’s not the saving grace you were hoping for, but at least it’s not a land.
You stare at the table for a while, thinking that there’s a win there somewhere. You might be playing the most dangerous game right now, but maybe you can turn it into victory by the skin of your teeth.
It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Sanger before the end of your turn.
- Cunning Sparkmage (with your Goblin War Paint attached)
- Tideforce Elemental
- Shatterskull Giant
- Surrakar Banisher
- 2 Islands
- 2 Mountains
- Quicksand
You have the following cards in your hand:
- Blazing Torch (drawn during your draw step)
- Wind Zendikon
- Giant Scorpion
- Vampire Nighthawk
- Vampire Nighthawk
- Jagwasp Swarm (tapped)
- Crypt Ripper (tapped)
- 6 Swamps (all tapped)
If you think you have a great solution in mind, don’t put it in the comments! Instead, send it to puzzles at gatheringmagic dot com with the subject line “Puzzle — Blood Will Run”. We’ll include the best ones in next week’s article along with the next puzzle!
Last Week’s Puzzle
Correct solutions were received from Russell Jones, Aaron Golas, David Jacobs, Hyman and Martin Rosen, Maarten Wybaillie, Andrew Muravskyi, Quadrangolo Tetra, Chris Cordell, Norman Dean, Miko Losantas, James Parmenter, Shaun Spielman, Ahniwa Ferrari, Matthew Harvey, Paul Blank, Jonathan Kustina, Marc Peretti, Eric Crowe, serksnis2659, Iniui Yuan, Christopher Comellas, Vinny Cavaliere, Stephen Nugent, Adam Eidelsafy, Erin Dixon-Gonzalez, Alex Peltzer, Nicolaas Netherland, Mattias "Slanfan" Berggren, Vik Patel, Heiko Maurus, and Scott Stoops.
“This puzzle was a bit of a tricky one,” Heiko Maurus writes, “because contrary to the usual puzzles, your opponent has a relevant play available during your turn. This makes for a lot more permutations, but in the end, it also leaves our opponent in a bit of a bind.”
The big issue, of course, is Rachel’s Willbreaker. “We can't realistically kill Willbreaker before combat,” Andrew Muravskyi notes, “because it'll take two Blightcaster triggers, and we have only one enchantment ready to be cast. So Rachel is going to steal one of our creatures. However, Nivix Barrier has the target-attacking-creature clause, meaning that we're completely safe before our declare attackers phase and can do whatever we want.”
“The fact that Kothophed, Soul Hoarder and Willbreaker's ability aren't may abilities is key here,” Matthew Harvey adds. “If we can force Rachel to take control of Kothophed, we can finish her off by letting our things die, forcing her to draw cards and lose life.”
Vinny Cavaliere provided a very logical step-by-step solution, which follows below:
Precombat Main Phase
- Tap two Plains to cast Grasp of the Hieromancer on Kothophed, Soul Hoarder.
- Target Tower Geist with Blightcaster's triggered ability, destroying it. When it hits the graveyard, you draw a card and lose 1 life from Kothophed (dropping you to 8).
Combat Phase
- Declare Bonded Construct, Undead Servant, Knight of the Pilgrim's Road, Fleshbag Marauder, and Kothophed, Soul Hoarder (with Grasp of the Hieromancer attached) as attackers.
- Tap Skysnare Spider with Kothophed's newfound ability from Grasp of the Hieromancer.
- Before blockers, Rachel must cast Nivix Barrier, targeting Kothophed, Soul Hoarder with its ability.
Rachel has to target Kothophed, Soul Hoarder or she risks taking 7 damage plus another 3 damage from one of your other creatures if she doesn't block—or another 2 life lost if she does (because of the Touch of Moonglove we have in our hand).
Having stolen Kothophed, Rachel will now have to block as many creatures as possible; she has many options, one being:
- Woodland Bellower blocks Knight of the Pilgrim's Road.
- Willbreaker blocks Undead Servant.
- Nivix Barrier blocks Fleshbag Marauder.
- Bonded Construct remains unblocked.
The above configuration minimizes the amount of damage that Rachel takes from unblocked creatures. Of note is that Knight of the Pilgrim's Road, Undead Servant, and Fleshbag Marauder are essentially interchangeable in this regard.
Before combat damage is dealt:
- Tap a Plains to cast Enshrouding Mist targeting Willbreaker. (Willbreaker needs to stay alive so our opponent retains control of Kothophed throughout this exchange.)
- Tap a Swamp to cast Touch of Moonglove on Fleshbag Marauder to destroy the Nivix Barrier and drain our opponent for 2 life.
Allow combat damage to resolve. The opponent's Willbreaker survives; thus, our Kothophed remains on her side of the battlefield, and its ability will trigger each time a permanent we own hits the graveyard.
In this case, a total of three permanents we own will hit the graveyard (Knight of the Pilgrim's Road, Undead Servant, and Weight of the Underworld), costing Rachel another 3 life. In addition, Rachel takes 2 damage from our Bonded Construct. This leaves our opponent's life total at 1.
Postcombat Main Phase
- Tap three Plains to cast Auramancer targeting the Weight of the Underworld in our graveyard.
- Tap your remaining four Swamps to cast Weight of the Underworld targeting either Auramancer or Bonded Construct, draining our opponent for her last remaining life.
“In this scenario,” Vinny adds, “Blightcaster's ability will also be triggered, so we can potentially have up to three permanents hit the graveyard from our side of the battlefield postcombat.”
Several people noted that you don’t have to attach Grasp of the Hieromancer to Kothophed—in fact, you can attach it to any creature you control that attacks. Giving the Grasp to Bonded Construct was a particular favorite, as it makes the Construct a 3/2 creature and invalidates Rachel’s efforts to minimize unblocked damage.
Furthermore, even if Rachel draws a ton of cards from Kothophed, she never gets to actually use them. “Since she had to tap out in order to play Nivix Barrier,” Russell Jones notes, “none of the cards that exist in Magic Origins can possibly be relevant enough to save her after drawing them, and she loses.”
In the end, it turns out that an alpha strike was key to the solution—assuming that you make the right preparations beforehand. “If we attack with Kothophed,” David Jacobs muses, “the opponent can gain control of him . . . but that's what we want!”
“Drawing cards is considered one of the best things you can do in Magic,” Eric Crowe adds. “Sometimes, though, it just kills you.”
