“All right,” Janine says.

“And that’s another land,” you say, playing an Island.

Janine laughs. “That’s what, your twelfth land?”

“Thirteenth, actually. What’s there to say? It’s the Kaladesh prerelease, and my deck obviously likes me.”

“At least that means you’re likely to draw more non-land stuff now.”

“Okay,” you say. “I’ll tap five more mana to cast a Ballista Charger, which’ll give my Weldfast Wingsmith flying. Then I’ll tap my Filigree Familiar to crew my Sky Skiff and attack you with both flyers.”

“Not the Dukhara Peafowl?”

“No,” you admit. “I need it as a blocker. Which of my flyers are you taking?”

“The Skiff, of course,” Janine says. “I’ll have my Consulate Skygate block your Wingsmith. Any tricks?”

“Nope,” you say. “You take two.”

“I’m four life, then,” Janine says. “Are you casting anything else?”

“Cool,” Janine says, untapping her permanents and drawing a card. “I’ll tap four lands and cast Furious Reprisal?”

You look at your creatures in play. “Uhh . . .  on what?” you ask.

“Your Peafowl and the Prakhata Club Security,” Janine says.

“That won’t kill them,” you point out.

“Not yet,” Janine says, smiling.

That gives you a bad feeling. “I’ll . . .  tap my last three lands to activate my Metalspinner's Puzzleknot. I’ll draw a card and go down to nine life.”

“Okay,” Janine says. “Attack with my Terror of the Fairgrounds?”

“Okay, I . . . ”

“Wait — before blockers, I’ll cast Built to Smash to make it an 8/5.”

You glance at the Die Young you drew from the Puzzleknot, cursing the fact that it’s a sorcery. “Okay then,” you say, “I’ll . . . ”

You wince. Combined with the Furious Reprisal, that wipes out all your creatures! Fortunately, you get a free draw from the death of your Filigree Familiar. Unfortunately, that draw turns out to be a very ill-timed Disappearing Act.

Janine smiles again when she sees the expression on your face. “Are you crewing your Ballista Charger in response?” she asks.

You glance at the vehicle sitting off to one side. A blocker would be nice right now, but you’re not sure if you want to trade your biggest sometime-creature with the Terror. Besides, the little voice in your head is telling you to hold back. “It’s 8/5, right?” you ask.

“Yes,” Janine says.

“I’ll take the damage,” you say, getting a surprised look from her. “That’ll still keep me at one life. I just need one turn to come back.”

Janine looks skeptical, but you can see a bit of admiration there. “All right,” she says. “That had better be a good turn, though.”

You untap and draw your card, hoping for a creature. To your surprise, your deck gives you one: Night Market Lookout. You breathe a sigh of relief — you’ve never been more glad to see a 1/1.

“Good draw?” Janine asks.

“Great draw,” you say. “Now here’s what I’ll do . . . ”

It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Janine before the start of her next combat phase.

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

• Sky Skiff
• Ballista Charger
• 6 islands
• 7 swamps

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Night Market Lookout (drawn during your draw step this turn)
• Die Young
• Disappearing Act
• Fortuitous Find

You currently have no energy counters. You do not know the identities of any of the next cards of your library.

You have the following artifact and creature cards in your graveyard:

• Dhund Operative
• Foundry Screecher
• Vedalken Blademaster
• Metalspinner's Puzzleknot
• Filigree Familiar
• Dukhara Peafowl
• Weldfast Wingsmith
• Prakhata Club Security

Janine is at 4 life, has no cards in her hand, and has no energy counters. She has the following cards in play:

• Consulate Skygate
• Terror of the Fairgrounds (tapped)
• Riparian Tiger (with your Aether Meltdown attached)
• 5 mountains (all tapped)
• 4 forests (all 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 — From the Brink” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, October 2, 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, RyouNiji, Russell Jones, Victor Munson, Daniel Green, Jonathan Howell, Hyman Rosen, Aaron Golas, Kriz Lee, Kellen Pastore, and Robert Bartell.

“The first step to solving this puzzle,” Jonathan Howell writes,“is the realization that we have no way of killing the opponent this turn other than combat damage, so we have to find a way to get lethal damage past his blockers. The opponent has two creatures in play, with the ability to make a third blocker. We have five creatures in play, but not enough combined power on board to win without using some effects.”

“It took me a while to see it,” Dominic Chan notes,“but there's an infinite combo in this puzzle. Extruder's ability perfectly aligns with Senna's Pentavus' ability to trade +1/+1 counters for 1/1 artifact tokens. Combined with Galvanic Juggernaut's ability to untap whenever a creature dies and Paradise Mantle's ability, we can form an infinite triangle combo (Illuminati confirmed).

“The only thing is, we need an additional component that benefits from either a death trigger, or an enters-the-battlefield trigger. Lucky for us, Kaladesh brings Ovalchase Daredevil, the perfect gas (pun intended) needed to fuel our pseudo-pump spell in Oblivion Crown.”

“Once you see the combo,” Jonathan continues,“the issue is how to how to execute it so that we have more attackers than the opponent has blockers:

• We know that we have to get Crown back to our hand, so that means we need to use Hubris on Proctor.
• This is nice because we can tap Proctor to re-equip Mantle, bounce Proctor, and recast him to eliminate a blocker.
• We can even sacrifice the Proctor to make half of a 2/2 artifact creature (via Spawning Pit).
• We also know that we need to combo off with Daredevil, so he isn't going to be able to push in any combat damage.
• That leaves us with only three creatures able to attack, and we have to attack with all of them to get one through.

“Now,” Jonathan writes,“we have to figure out how to execute the Pentavus/Crown/Daredevil Combo while still maintaining three attackers:

• We can't use Vesuvan Shapeshifter to get the Pentavus ETB trigger without bouncing and recasting it, and Shapeshifter will die if we just morph and copy Pentavus (since it’ll become a 0/0 creature). The issue then is, how do we get counters onto Shapeshifter?
• Well, we can sacrifice artifacts to Extruder, but we need all the artifacts we have in play except for the Spawning Pit to execute our combo. Just one +1/+1 counter on a copied Pentavus doesn't let us combo off, so we have to make another artifact before we sacrifice the Spawning Pit.
• This is where Stern Proctor comes in, along with the Daredevil we want to sacrifice. This gives us a 2/2 artifact creature, which, along with the Pit, lets us put two +1/+1 counters on our Pentavus copy, allowing us to swing and combo for the win.

The solution therefore runs as follows, according to Daniel Green:

“While copying Baneslayer Angel with Vesuvan Shapeshifter is quite tempting,” Victor Munson writes,“there's just no way to get it big enough to strike for lethal on its own — not that it can get through that Aerial Responder or even a 1/1 flying Pentavite token anyway.

“Given our draw of Hubris, we would still have won had Senna not played the Pentavus. In that case, our play would have involved bouncing Aerial Responder, copying Baneslayer Angel, sacrificing Proctor to untap Juggernaut, and just swinging for the full 16.”

“However,” Victor muses, “we still won even through the Pentavus. The top of the library is truly a cruel mistress sometimes.”