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Nox is not one of your favorite people.
With the Battle for Zendikar expansion fast approaching, your local game store has brought out the Unabridged Cube for another round. For the uninitiated, the Unabridged Cube is a huge collection of cards—one of every Magic: The Gathering card ever printed, in fact—that you use for the occasional Limited-format tournament.
Unfortunately for you, that means that you’re now facing Nox: Nox, who thinks he’s death on two legs. Nox, who makes big noises even if he’s just a boy. Nox, who receives none of your sympathy at all. Nox, who has you under pressure right now.
After you split your first two games, Nox started gunning for you pretty hard. He’s been rocking you with a giant Scavenging Ooze, and even though the Ooze has a Canopy Cover on it, you’ve been able to hold it off with a Coffin Queen–reanimated Fog of Gnats.
Nox pulled off a clever trick on his last turn, though: He attacked with both the Scavenging Ooze and a Beacon Hawk. You blocked the Ooze with your Fog of Gnats as usual, but when the Hawk connected, Nox surprised you by using its ability to untap your Coffin Queen—putting the Gnats into exile as a result.
As he casts a Horncaller's Chant to end his turn, Nox snickers. “Another one bites the dust,” he says. “Do you want to sign that match slip now or do you want to wait till my next attack?”
You don’t reply, thinking that you still have a chance with your next draw. You untap, cross your fingers, and pull . . . a Mountain. Nox laughs as you drop it onto the table.
Looking over your situation, you have to admit that the show won’t go on for much longer: You have no cards in hand, no creatures you can bring back from your graveyard, and nothing that can break through a ground stall.
But Nox is not one of your favorite people. And you’re not going to let him stop you now.
It is the middle of your first main phase. Defeat Nox before the end of your turn.
You are at 3 life with the following cards in play:
- Coffin Queen
- Krark-Clan Stoker (with your Silverskin Armor attached)
- Dross Scorpion
- Firemaw Kavu
- Liquimetal Coating
- 4 Swamps
- 4 Mountains
You have no cards in your hand. You have already played a land for this turn.
You do not know the identities of any of the other cards in your library.
Nox is at 5 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:
- Llanowar Elves (tapped)
- Beacon Hawk (tapped)
- Scavenging Ooze (tapped, with five +1/+1 counters and Nox’s Canopy Cover attached)
- Blessed Orator
- Rhino token
- Rhino token
- 4 Forests (all tapped)
- 3 Plains (all tapped)
You and Nox both have no creature cards in your graveyards, as Nox’s Scavenging Ooze has eaten them all.
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 — Queen’s Gambit”. 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, Justin Niosi, Quadrangolo Tetra, Andrew Muravskyi, Martin Bobovsky, Norman Dean, Sanjay Saith, Jonathan Kustina, Matthew Harvey, Erik Svilich, Nathan Okerlund, Maarten Wybaillie, Aaron Golas, James Parmenter, Cory Askanazi, Erin Dixon-Gonzalez, Cody Pulvermacher, Steve Serksnis, Joeri van der Woude, Travis Brown, Ahniwa Ferrari, Francisco Rodriguez, Cole Wardell, Mark Ravn-Frausing, Chris Cordell, Iniui Yuan, Vik Patel, and Jeff Murray.
Domestication’s ability was the first thing that most people pointed out: “The key thing to remember is that Domestication only gets sacrificed in the end step,” Matthew Harvey writes, “so we can control whatever creature we want until then.”
That left the question of what to do next: Simply put, your situation gives you a lot of options. Erin Dixon-Gonzalez went through multiple possibilities here:
- Bramblesnap is a way to convert non-attacking creatures into more trample damage.
- Merfolk Skyscout can untap a mana dork for 2 more mana during combat (which might be good combo with Eel Umbra).
- Mul Daya Channelers can make black mana, so it's possible to activate the abilities of Pestilence Demon and Nirkana Cutthroat if we Domesticate them.
- Aura Finesse grabs us a land, but Channelers can no longer tap for mana once we draw it. Aura Finesse re-attaching Domestication can give us access to two of our opponent’s creatures, although at different times.
- Wildheart Invoker is expensive, but very powerful with both Aura Gnarlid and Daggerback Basilisk.
- None of the level up abilities are worth using. Bloodrite Invoker is too much of a mana investment to be useful (4 mana for Domestication plus 8 mana for activation).
After looking at several approaches, Cole Wardell noted the following:
The real breakthrough was realizing I needed a lot of mana and dudes to even hope to get enough damage to Joyce's dome through something other than the Gnarlid. Eldrazi Spawn would do both at once, making Bramblesnap huge and fueling Wildheart Invoker. And the only way to make Eldrazi Spawn was by killing a bunch of my creatures after domesticating Pawn of Ulamog.
Problem was that Pawn of Ulamog needed my people to die. I needed to sacrifice everything in the pursuit of power (and toughness). In short, I needed to make a deal with a Demon: Pestilence Demon.
I needed everything nonessential to die if I had any chance of playing Domestication and Aura Finesse, activating Pestilence Demon and pumping something with Invoker. The key was realizing that everything but the Bramblesnap and Invoker were expendable if need be.
A victory via Aura Gnarlid turns out to be the simpler one, as Francisco Rodriguez demonstrates:
First Main Phase
- Tap two Islands and two Forests to cast Domestication targeting Pestilence Demon. (Aura Gnarlid = 3/3.)
- Tap a Forest, and enchant Aura Gnarlid with Spider Umbra. (Aura Gnarlid = 5/5.)
Combat Phase (All During the Declare Attackers Step)
- Declare attackers. Attack with Aura Gnarlid and Merfolk Skyscout. Merfolk Skyscout’s ability triggers. Target your Mul Daya Channelers. (Aura Gnarlid = 5/5.)
- With the Skyscout trigger on the stack, tap Mul Daya Channelers for 2 black mana. Let the Skyscout trigger resolve to untap the Channelers. Then, tap them again for 2 more black mana. Tap Joraga Treespeaker for 2 green mana. (
floating; Aura Gnarlid = 5/5.) - Use 2 black mana to activate Pestilence Demon’s ability ensuring that you hold priority during and after the activations. ( floating; Aura Gnarlid = 5/5.)
- With the Demon’s abilities on the stack, tap an Island and cast Aura Finesse targeting Domestication, moving it to Pawn of Ulamog. ( floating; Aura Gnarlid = 5/5.)
- After you draw your card off the Aura Finesse, let one Demon ability resolve, killing Bramblesnap, triggering the Pawn and giving you one Eldrazi Spawn. Sacrifice the Spawn for 1 colorless mana. Let the second Demon ability on the stack resolve killing, on your side of the board, Joraga Treespeaker, Nest Invader, Daggerback Basilisk, and Pawn of Ulamog. Pawn of Ulamog will trigger, giving you four more Eldrazi Spawn, which you sacrifice. (
floating; Aura Gnarlid = 4/4; opponent’s life = 11.) - Tap your last Island and use to cast Eel Umbra targeting Aura Gnarlid. (
floating; Aura Gnarlid = 6/6; opponent’s life = 11.) - Activate Wildheart Invoker targeting Aura Gnarlid, making it an 11/11 that cannot be blocked by any of your opponent’s creatures and hitting for exactly lethal damage.
Norman Dean notes that Mul Daya Channelers are slightly unreliable in that they may or may not die from the Pestilence Demon’s abilities: “If the next card of your library is a creature, they will be 5/5 when damage is dealt and you don’t gain a Spawn token from them.”
Several alternate solutions involving Bramblesnap exist, and they usually have one thing in common: You’ll need to activate Pestilence Demon three times in order to remove as many of Joyce’s blockers as possible. Russell Jones’s solution outlines this:
- Tap Joraga Treespeaker and two Islands to play Domestication on Pestilence Demon. Aura Gnarlid gets +1/+1 from Domestication and is now 3/3. (Five lands left.)
- Tap the stolen Pestilence Demon to give Bramblesnap +1/+1 (the verbose tap instruction, such as on Bramblesnap, can be done in spite of summoning sickness).
- Play Spider Umbra on Merfolk Skyscout (now 3/4) and Eel Umbra on Bramblesnap (now 3/3). Aura Gnarlid grows to 5/5 from both of these Auras. (Two lands left.)
- Go to combat, and attack with Aura Gnarlid, Bramblesnap, and Merfolk Skyscout. Merfolk Skyscout triggers; choose to untap Mul Daya Channelers (which isn't even tapped yet but is still a legal target).
- In response to the trigger, tap Mul Daya Channelers for because of the Forest on top. Let the trigger untap it; then, tap it for another .
- Activate Pestilence Demon three times (leaving floating—committing suicide with a fourth activation is obviously bad), and respond to them all with Aura Finesse, moving Domestication onto Joyce's Artisan of Kozilek and drawing the Forest. (One land left untapped, plus the floating .)
- Still in response to the Demon’s abilities, tap all available untapped creatures, including the stolen Artisan of Kozilek, to give Bramblesnap +5/+5 and make it 8/8 in all.
- The first damage kills Bloodrite Invoker and nothing else. Pawn of Ulamog triggers, giving Joyce a useless Eldrazi Spawn token.
- The second damage kills Pawn of Ulamog, Joraga Treespeaker, Nest Invader, and Daggerback Basilisk. It may or may not also kill Mul Daya Channelers, but this is irrelevant in any case. It also kills Joyce's first Spawn token if she doesn't sacrifice it for mana immediately, and the Pawn's own death trigger gives her a second token to replace it.
- The third damage kills Knight of Cliffhaven, Nirkana Cutthroat, Guard Gomazoa, and Wildheart Invoker, as well as the second Eldrazi Spawn if Joyce didn't likewise sacrifice it for a useless mana. Joyce is now at 10, and we're at 1.
- Move to declare blockers. Joyce is still facing down a 3/4 flying Merfolk Skyscout, an 8/8 Bramblesnap, and a 5/5 Aura Gnarlid. The only creatures she has left are a tapped Pestilence Demon, a 2/4 flying Makindi Griffin, and a 2/6 Ikiral Outrider, all with 3 damage marked.
- The 2-power creatures certainly can't block the Aura Gnarlid, but they can both be thrown in front of Bramblesnap, or the Griffin can be used to "trade" with the Skyscout (it won't actually trade, because of both totem armor and the end of the game, but still).
- In the former case, it takes 4 damage to finish off an allotment of lethal damage to both blockers, leaving 4 to trample over plus 5 and 3 from the unblocked creatures to drop Joyce to -2.
- In the latter case, Skyscout deals nothing through to the dome, but Bramblesnap only needs to assign 3 before it tramples for 5 damage, combining with the 5 damage from Aura Gnarlid to drop Joyce to 0.
Interestingly enough, the placement of the Spider Umbra and Eel Umbra don’t matter as much with this solution—several solutions placed these Umbras on Wildheart Invoker and/or Aura Gnarlid instead. You can also steal Artisan of Kozilek before stealing Pestilence Demon and have the same outcome.
Martin Bobovsky had an additional observation as well: “I've noticed that if Joyce wasn't such a showoff and just activated her Bloodrite Invoker instead of playing Artisan of Kozilek, this would have brought us to 1 life and her to 16—and she would have won on her next turn!”
