Locations
Last weekend, your local game store announced that they had just enough Battle for Zendikar booster packs to hold a single Draft event (that is, until the next shipment arrives). You managed to come in as one of the eight lucky participants; now you just have to get past the first round.
On her turn, after attacking with her Silent Skimmer and Shatterskull Recruit, Ravleen played a monstrous 13/13 Endless One, threatening to escalate into the mother of all attacks on her next combat step. You cracked one of your two copies of Hedron Archive, looking for a solution. Unfortunately, Tandem Tactics and Unnatural Aggression aren’t about to help you take down Ravleen’s creatures.
Your next draw step turns out to have a lot more potential though: Aligned Hedron Network is the removal that you were hoping for, even if you still need some additional cards to help you win the game.
After looking at the board for a few minutes, however, you’re forced to revise that opinion. You might be able to seal the deal right now, although it’ll depend on making the right plays.
It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Ravleen before the end of your turn.
You are at 5 life with the following cards in play:
- Blisterpod
- Fortified Rampart
- Stone Haven Medic
- Snapping Gnarlid
- Felidar Cub
- Tajuru Warcaller
- Hedron Archive
- 5 Forests
- 5 Plains
- Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
You have the following cards in your hand:
- Lithomancer's Focus
- Tandem Tactics
- Unnatural Aggression
- Aligned Hedron Network (drawn during your draw step)
- Reclaiming Vines
You have not yet played a land for this turn. You do not know the identities of any of the other cards in your library.
- Silent Skimmer (tapped, with Ravleen’s Hedron Blade attached)
- Skitterskin
- Shatterskull Recruit (tapped, with Ravleen’s Goblin War Paint attached)
- Endless One (with thirteen +1/+1 counters on it)
- Mountain (awakened 0/0 Elemental creature with four +1/+1 counters on it)
- Retreat to Hagra
- 6 Swamps (all tapped)
- 6 Mountains (all tapped)
- Mortuary Mire (tapped)
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 — Inherit the Earth”. 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, desprez.n, Norman Dean, Andrew Muravskyi, Miko Losantas, Aaron Golas, Jonathan Kustina, Seth Keller, Erin Dixon-Gonzalez, Sanjay Saith, James Parmenter, Steve Serksnis, Jeff Proksch, Matthew Harvey, Bradley Fenstermaker, Luke Owens, Sam Phipps, Maarten Wybaillie, Brian Langley, Hyman Rosen, Matteo Mazzola, Iniui Yuan, Vik Patel, Quadrangolo Tetra, Luke Simpkins, and J. Josiah Jacobs.
There were a lot of good analyses for this one. “First off,” Miko Losantas writes, “given that he has an active Stone Haven Medic and untapped Plains, he effectively has 9 life instead of 8.”
Iniui Yuan then looks at the board situation further:
Note that the only flyers we have access to are awakened lands with Halimar Tidecaller on the field. This also means that Coastal Discovery is a red herring: It just costs too much to bring onto the field (we need to cast Clutch of Currents on Halimar Tidecaller, cast Halimar Tidecaller from hand, and then cast awakened Coastal Discovery), and we cannot possibly benefit from menace.
Sam Phipps wrote a rather nice summary of what needs to be done, complete with section titles:
Get the Flying Beef
: Pay the awaken cost of Clutch of Currents, targeting Halimar Tidecaller and an Island (because we like islands), and we love Halimar Tidecallers. This makes us a hasted 3/3 Elemental land that actually is a 4/3 with the +1/+0 buff from the Ruination Guide (as our Elemental lacks a color).
: Cast Halimar Tidecaller, returning Clutch of Currents and generating a “menace” Ally trigger off Firemantle Mage. We now have a hasted 4/3 flying Elemental with menace.
(Sacrificing our Eldrazi Scion to pay for this): Cast Sure Strike, targeting our Elemental. We now have a hasted 7/3 flying Elemental with first strike and menace.- Play Evolving Wilds and generate a landfall trigger off Retreat to Valakut, targeting our Elemental, making it a hasted 9/3 flying Elemental with first strike and menace.
Thin the Blocking Crowd
- : Cast Clutch of Currents on Giant Mantis, sending it back to our opponent’s hand.
- Sacrifice Evolving Wilds for a landfall trigger off Retreat to Valakut, targeting Pilgrim's Eye, preventing it from blocking.
- Attack with our 9/3 flying Elemental with first strike and menace for the win. (The Shadow Glider is unable to find any friends to double-block our Elemental.)
Notably, of course, you can disable any two of Chester’s flying and/or reach blockers in this way. For the record, the majority of solvers chose to awaken the Blighted Gorge for some reason. But these are minor details.
“The important things to remember here,” Seth Keller points out, “are to make sure you awaken your land on the first casting of Clutch of Currents; otherwise, it won't gain menace when you trigger rally with the Tidecaller. Also, you have to make use of both of Retreat to Valakut's abilities or else you either won't connect at all (since you didn't stop enough of his blockers) or won't deal enough (since the land will only have 7 power.)”
“Chester could also use From Beyond to tutor up the more thematically-appropriate Not of This World to preserve one of his blockers,” Aaron Golas adds.
Surprisingly, Erin Dixon-Gonzalez has some firsthand experience here: “The solution to this puzzle was pretty obvious to me, mostly since I was completely destroyed by almost the exact same interaction in the prerelease! Halimar Tidecaller with Clutch of Currents and rally is pretty brutal in Limited.”
Finally, for anyone who offered to buy CJ a drink, it’s very much appreciated. (I’m sure that each of us probably could have used one at some point during our Magic-playing careers.)
