"Uh," you say, glancing at his phone, "You're at eleven life and your opponent's at eight. I think you still have a way to go."

CJ wipes his forehead. "One wrong move and it all goes ka-blooey. Right, Roque?"

"Livin' high hog, mister mack. Sticking it to the rivers in a barrel."

You raise an eyebrow. "Is... your opponent okay?" you ask.

"He just talks like that," CJ says. "You get used to it after a while."

With local stocks of Zendikar Rising delayed, your local game store is holding only a small release party today. Unfortunately, you overslept long enough to miss registration time, so you've had to content yourself with watching CJ's matches. He's not doing as well as you probably want him to, but then again, release tournaments aren't CJ's strong suit.

Roque taps four lands and lays a Blood Beckoning on the table. "Start a game of black and white," he says.

"Two creatures?" CJ asks. "Okay. That's the Nimana Skydancer and the Cleric of Chill Depths."

"Webcam the twins."

"Both of them," CJ notes. "Well, you've got enough mana."

"Tilt 'em," Roque says, and CJ puts two cards from his library into his graveyard.

You give CJ a strange look. "I don't exactly get..."

"Shh," CJ says. "I'm thinking."

"Oooo...kay. Whatever you say."

"If I don't make the right move," CJ says, "I might lose the whole game right here."

"You've got bigger creatures, more life, four cards in hand to his zero... and you're thinking that you might lose this game?"

"Hey, you should have seen it a while ago when he pulled a surprise move on my Guul Draz Mucklord. Besides, stranger things have happened. I play against you and Mari, remember?"

"That just applies to me and Mari," you say. "I'm not sure if it applies to some random guy who you've only met twenty minutes ago."

"Salute unknown, eh," Roque says.

"You said it," CJ agrees.

You rub your temples, trying to will your headache into submission. "Look, it's not too complicated," you tell CJ. "I'm just saying that you have the advantage right now, and that you look good to win this as long as you don't overthink things."

"Half empty land, fire commander."

"You'll end your turn with no attacks?" CJ asks. "Cool."

"Then again," you say, "maybe you really need to think about this a little more than usual. For the sake of my sanity."

Roque has just declared the end of his turn (or at least, that's what CJ says); you may still cast spells or activate abilities in response. Defeat Roque before the beginning of his next combat phase.

You are at 11 life, with the following cards in play:

• Nimana Skydancer
• Blackbloom Rogue
• Nimana Skitter-Sneak
• Zareth San, the Trickster (tapped, with Roque's Bubble Snare attached)
• Sea Gate Colossus (with a +1/+1 counter on it)
• 3 Islands
• 4 Swamps

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Into the Roil
• Subtle Strike
• Mind Drain
• Deadly Alliance

You have not yet played a land this turn. You still have a substantial number of cards remaining in your library, although you know neither the identities nor the order of those cards.

Roque is at 8 life and has no cards in his hand (although he still has a good number of cards remaining in his library). He has the following cards in play:

• Cleric of Chill Depths
• Tazeem Roilmage
• Malakir Blood-Priest
• Risen Riptide
• Nimana Skydancer
• Expedition Diviner
• Skyclave Shadowcat
• 5 Islands (all tapped)
• 4 Swamps (all tapped)

Roque has the following cards in his graveyard:

• Blood Beckoning
• Feed the Swarm

If you've got a solution in mind, don't put it in the comments! Help keep this puzzle a mystery to other readers!

Instead, if you think you've got a great solution, you can send your solution to puzzles@gatheringmagic.com with the subject line "Puzzle - Thieves' Cant" by 11:59 P.M. EST on Monday, October 5, 2020. 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 Hyman Rosen, Sean Patrick Keatley, Michael Feldman, David Arnold, and Jacob Butcher.

Last week's puzzle ran into a correction because of a misreading of Marauding Blight-Priest: It only causes your opponent to lose a single point of life for each instance of lifegain you experience, and is therefore a smaller Epicure of Blood rather than a smaller Defiant Bloodlord. With your opponent at an original total of 11 life, the puzzle has no solutions - but the revised target of 5 life is much more reasonable.

This puzzle's elements otherwise elicited a few responses. "Dauntless Survivor is a great red herring," Michael Feldman remarks. "It's tempting to kill it and use it for Thwart the Grave so that you can get that extra +1/+1 for Taborax. But no - you need the warrior in play as a party member to keep Thwart the Grave's cost down. Besides, Demon's Disciple's ETB ability nets you an extra +1/+1 anyway via an extra death for Taborax's own +1/+1 trigger. But, if you like, you can sacrifice the 'survivor' afterwards for that extra death!

"Gnarlid Colony is also deviously misleading in its own right. Granting trample to multiple creatures makes a mass frontal assault tempting. Alas, on the ground, Violet has too much toughness plus the ability to gain 2 life via Attended Healer, Kor Celebrant, and three untapped Plains. Gnarlid Colony is also a tempting target for Khalni Ambush because it could cause mutual destruction with Merfolk Falconer, but it turns out we need the beast alive for the trample ability, at least for Taborax."

"Instead," Michael notes, "we need to leave Merfolk Falconer barely alive in a Khalni Ambush fight with Guul Draz Mucklord. The one point of trample damage the Falconer protects against is outweighed by the extra +1/+1 Taborax gets from your own creature death and the Marauding Blight-Priest life-drain point from Taborax's lifelink. A dubious celebration of life to be sure, but devilishly entertaining."

Hyman Rosen's solution summarizes these points well. Once you get past the initial analysis and go into the steps involved, your basic plan turns out to be relatively simple: Get enough +1/+1 counters on Taborax to give it lifelink, then roll over your opponent!

"At that point," Jacob Butcher adds, "You can serve Attended Healer all the red herring she can eat."