The Unabridged Cube is a collection of one of every card ever printed. Over the years, it’s given you access to some interesting Sealed pools, oddball draft decks, and mind-bending game states. It even occasionally showcases some cards yet to be printed or released . . . but you try not to think about that too much.

Today, however, the Cube has made that last bit difficult for you: It’s pushed out several Kaladesh cards for your tournament today, likely in anticipation for next week’s prerelease. Nobody’s complaining, though — the Cube has been bottoming out for the last few months, and it’s always nice to take several of the cards for a test drive.

Your opponent this round is Senna, and he's been remarkably scrappy. You won your first game on the back of several big creatures, but he busted out a Baneslayer Angel on your second game to completely t-bone your chances at winning. After taking a couple of hits, you drew a Claustrophobia to lock down the troublesome angel, but the damage was done: Senna’s life total is way out in front now.

On his last turn, Senna drops a Sluggishness on your face-down creature and taps an Intimidator Initiate to crew his Smuggler’s Copter.Then he attacks you with 5 power worth of flyers (six, considering his Infantry Veteran) to bring you one turn away from death. Even worse, his Copter draw gives him a Pentavus, which he plays on his second main phase.

Then again, that face-down creature of yours happens to be a possible way out: It’s the Vesuvan Shapeshifter you drew from your previous turn’s Ribbons of Night. Senna’s Sluggishness won’t stop you from having it copy his Baneslayer Angel[/card . . .  although his 2/7 Aerial Responder might give you some pause.

Your draw for the turn is a [card]Hubris — not exactly something that’ll get you back into pole position. While it might certainly get you a free shot at Senna’s life total, it won’t get rid of any of his auras, or give you any long-term traction.

Then again, after a few minutes’ thought, you think you can see a promising line of play. Rather than slowly claw your way back into the game, why not just go for the risky maneuver and win the whole thing? After all, you might just beat Senna to the winners’ circle.

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

You are at 5 life, with the following cards in play:

• Stern Proctor (with your Oblivion Crown and your Paradise Mantle attached)
• Extruder
• Ovalchase Daredevil
• Galvanic Juggernaut (tapped, with Senna’s Serra's Boon attached)
• a face-down 2/2 creature (Vesuvan Shapeshifter, with Senna’s Sluggishness attached)
• Spawning Pit
• 4 islands
• 4 swamps

You have the following card in your hand:

• Hubris

You do not know the identities of the any of the next cards of your library.

Senna is at 16 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:

• Intimidator Initiate (tapped)
• Infantry Veteran (tapped)
• Aerial Responder (with Senna’s Eland Umbra attached)
• Baneslayer Angel (tapped, with your Claustrophobia attached)
• Pentavus (with five +1/+1 counters on it)
• Smuggler’s Copter (tapped)
• 4 mountains (all tapped)
• 6 plains (five tapped)

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 — Pit Stop” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, September25, 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 Dominic Chan, Russell Jones, Norman Dean, Matthew Harvey, Dom Guido, Hyman Rosen, Alfred Hsie, Subrata Sircar, Maarten Wybaillie, Ryou Niji, Cody Pulvermacher, Aaron Golas, Kriz Lee, Bill Murphy, and Michael Feldman.

Michael Feldman writes: “Solving the puzzle requires realizing that the abilities granted to an equipped creature by Thornbite Staff are separate and do not depend on each other. That means an equipped creature can take advantage of being untapped for creature deaths for its own tapping ability, not just Thornbite Staff's. Another necessary understanding about separate abilities is that Bomb Squad's destruction of a creature with four fuses does not depend on waiting for your upkeep to proliferate the fuses.”

“The first thing we need to realize,” Maarten Wybaillie notes,“is that Bloodfire Dwarf is threatening a lot of deaths. A lot of creatures dying is good with Thornbite Staff. The most efficient way to convert those untap triggers into damage is Bomb Squad. As Bomb Squad is one of the creatures that would die from the Bloodfire Dwarf, we need to find a way to save it.”

Multiple solutions are possible with Bloodfire Dwarf’s ability in mind. In fact, you have enough mana — and enough triggers — to use the Thornbite Staff for direct damage, as Dominic Chan writes:

One variant of the above solution is to use your first activation of Thornbite Staff (while it’s on Bloodfire Dwarf) to deal 1 damage to Dwarven Miner. This allows Bloodfire Dwarf’s ability to kill the Miner and give Bomb Squad an additional untap trigger — which you can then use to ping Minette.

“There are a bunch of other possible solutions here,” Norman Dean points out,“ and this would be more difficult if we didn't have the option of pinging Minette with the Staff directly.”

Russell Jones’ solution, in fact, takes this approach — which has the possibility that you’ll never target Minette with the Staff at all:

Michael Feldman points out that there’s also a more complex solution in the mix, which includes all nonland cards except for Cudgel Troll, and grants Dwarven Berserker the kill:

“The interaction of activating Mutavault,” Norman Dean adds,“then having it be destroyed by Goblin Masons' death trigger (as a Wall) for an additional death trigger/untap is particularly amusing.”