“Maybe he’s taking our advice and improving.”

Mari gives you a skeptical look. “That’s like saying Mudhole will someday become maindeckable,” she says.

“Have some faith. CJ’s fine as long as he doesn’t have to make a lot of complicated decisions.”

“I know,” Mari says, “but look at it this way: they’re about to call the end of the round. If CJ’s still playing, then that’s a bad sign.”

As it turns out, CJ is indeed still playing — if you could call it that. He’s holding his head in his hands, and probably doing his level best to not get a headache.

“That’s . . .  a crowded board,” you say, sitting down next to him.

“You’re telling me?” CJ groans. “This is Chip, by the way.”

Chip gives you a wave. “I think we’ll finish soon,” he says, “unless your friend finds some answers.”

“So what happened?” Mari asks. “And whose Cataclysmic Gearhulk is that off to the side?”

“Mine,” Chip says. It got exiled by the Fairgrounds Warden after I played it a little too early.”

CJ untaps his lands to start his turn. Then he draws a card — an Aviary Mechanic — and sighs. “That’s another creature, but it’s not gonna help against the flyers.”

Your eyes flick toward the board. “Why does the Master Trinketeer have an Aether Meltdown on it?” you ask.

“Oh, that,” CJ grumbles. “I had this Skywhaler's Shot earlier, you see, and . . . ”

“And I cast the Meltdown on my Trinketeer to stop the shot from going through,” Chip says. “Neat, huh?”

CJ throws his hands up in frustration. “You see what I have to deal with here?”

“Well, that explains why that second one is stuck in your hand.”

While CJ continues to beat himself up over his game, Mari leans over to whisper in your ear. “Do you see it too?” she asks.

You don’t, at first. But it all comes together moments before CJ scoops up his cards and signs the match slip, and it’s enough for you to shake your head at his lack of attention.

Mari catches your eye. “I know,” she says. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

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

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

• Reckless Fireweaver
• Ninth Bridge Patrol
• Workshop Assistant
• Fairgrounds Warden (exiling Chip’s Cataclysmic Gearhulk)
• Fireforger's Puzzleknot
• Renegade Freighter
• Bomat Bazaar Barge (tapped, with Chip’s Malfunction attached)
• Aradara Express
• 6 mountains
• 4 plains

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Aviary Mechanic (drawn during your draw step this turn)
• Skywhaler's Shot

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 cards in your graveyard:

• Eager Construct
• Cogworker's Puzzleknot

Chip is at 9 life, and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:

• Glint-Sleeve Artisan
• Iron League Steed
• 2 Servo tokens
• Master Trinketeer (with Chip’s Aether Meltdown attached)
• Experimental Aviator
• 4 Thopter tokens (two tapped)
• Whirlermaker
• 6 plains (three tapped)
• 5 islands (two tapped)

Chip currently has two energy counters.

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 — Token Resistance” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, October9, 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, Norman Dean, Ryou Niji, Matthew Harvey, Russell Jones, Robert Bartell, Jonathan Howell, Aaron Golas, MrMuffin, Hyman Rosen, Connor Brunsden, Timothy Meadows, Bill Murphy, tetradyne, Alfred Hsie, Joel Roane, SK Kwek, Kriz Lee, and Michael Feldman.

“The obvious solution,” Bill Murphy writes,“is to cast Die Young to kill Terror of the Fairgrounds (the card they named after me), cast Fortuitous Find on Dhund Operative and Filigree Familiar, cast both, crew Ballista Charger and attack, then leave Disappearing Act up with Janine completely dead on board.”

In short, Janine’s sweeper may have cleared your side of the table, but she can’t beat your draws. Even if you don’t win the game this turn, you’re in a great spot to win next turn.

This still raises the question of how you’re expected to win this turn, though. “You only have two potential attackers (Sky Skiff and Ballista Charger),” Aaron Golas points out, “with no hasty creatures to add to the board and no way to remove Janine's two blockers, so you're not doing this with combat damage. So instead, it's time to get trigger-happy!”

“It’s pretty easy to see how to take our opponent all the way from four to zero,” Robert Bartell notes.“We just need to figure out how we can tap Night Market Lookout enough times to get the job done. Checking our board state, we see that the Ballista Charger gives us a free 1 damage whenever it attacks, so that means that only three activations of Night Market Lookout are needed to get the win.

“Checking the other cards we have,” Robert continues, “we quickly see there are no untap effects, so that’s out the door. But a bounce effect and a Raise Dead effect are just what we need to get the job done.”

That just leaves the question of sequencing — and you have to do these in the right order. “We want to use the extra effect (or ‘cost’) of Disappearing Act,” Ryou Niji clarifies, “but what if you have no good target spell? (Stupid targeting system.) Not in this case, though, because the extra bit of Fortuitous Find allows us to find counter fodder.”

According to Owen Cheng, your steps are as follows:

“You can also switch around the above,” Michael Feldman adds,“crewing Sky Skiff redundantly before crewing Ballista Charger, or attacking with Ballista Charger before crewing Sky Skiff redundantly (so that Night Market Lookout gets to deal the final blow).”

Connor Brunsden notes that the puzzle would have had an alternative solution if it weren’t for the mana limitations: “At first, I considered using Fortuitous Find to get back the Dhund Operative and the Puzzleknot, then casting Puzzleknot and usingDisappearing Act to return the Aether Meltdown.I could then recast the Aether Meltdown for two energy counters, thenDie Young to remove one of Janine’s blockers. At that point, I could then use the Lookout to crew the Skiff and the Dhund Operative to crew the [card]Ballista Charger[/card . . .  but there wasn't enough mana to do everything. This would have required fifteen mana, when we only have access to thirteen.”

Perhaps your deck really did like you, considering that it was those thirteen lands that allowed you to make the play. Not fifteen, though — your deck probably doesn’t like you that much.