You blink. You have this weird feeling that you’ve been in this situation before, some sensation of déjà vu that you can’t quite explain. Fortunately, you at least remember that you’re in the middle of a game. After all, the Unabridged Cube — your local game store’s collection of one of each card ever printed — tends to be unforgiving to players who forget.

“Sorry,” you say. “Have I taken my draw yet?”

“Not yet.”

Your game with Jigen has been quite close. Both of you are playing somewhat substandard decks, but your opponent has a little more lifegain and a lot more creatures. Last turn, however, Jigen kicked off a sequence of moves that left you more than a few blockers down and looking at a game loss.

First, your opponent used a Pressure Point to tap down your Spitebellows. Then he attacked with a single Citadel Castellan, which should have rung some alarm bells. When you threw three blockers in front of it (just in case he had a Predator's Strike in hand), a Might of Oaks completely disassembled your plans and allowed the Castellan to survive, to boot. Jigen dropped an Emissary of Hope into play almost as an afterthought.

You pick up the top card of your deck and add it to your hand: Vanquish the Weak. That’ll let you get rid of a potential blocker, especially with Jigen tapped out and at six life . . .  but that still raises the question of what to do about his seven other creatures.

You stare at the table for a while, pondering the cards in your hand and going over more than a few possible moves. Maybe there’s a way you can win the game this turn, and maybe not. You just need to figure out how . . . 

You blink. You have this weird feeling that you’ve been in this situation before, some sensation of déjà vu that you can’t quite explain. Fortunately, you at least remember that you’re in the middle of a game. After all, the Unabridged Cube — your local game store’s collection of one of each card ever printed — tends to be unforgiving to players who forget.

“Sorry,” you say. “Have I taken my draw yet?”

“Not yet.”

Your game with Jigen has been quite close. Both of you are playing somewhat substandard decks, but your opponent has a little more lifegain and a lot more creatures. Last turn, however, Jigen kicked off a sequence of moves that left you more than a few blockers down and looking at a game loss.

First, your opponent used a Pressure Point to tap down your Spitebellows. Then he attacked with a single Citadel Castellan, which should have rung some alarm bells. When you threw three blockers in front of it (just in case he had an Awaken the Bear in hand), a Might of Oaks completely disassembled your plans and allowed the Castellan to survive, to boot. Jigen dropped an Emissary of Hope into play almost as an afterthought.

You pick up the top card of your deck and add it to your hand: Viashino Bladescout. That’ll give you an additional creature and a one-time advantage in combat . . .  but it might not be enough to stave off a massive creature rush next turn.

You stare at the table for a while, pondering the cards in your hand and going over more than a few possible moves. Maybe there’s a way you can win the game this turn, and maybe not. You just need to figure out how . . . 

You blink. You have this weird feeling that you’ve been in this situation before, some sensation of déjà vu that you can’t quite explain. Fortunately, you at least remember that you’re in the middle of a game. After all, the Unabridged Cube — your local game store’s collection of one of each card ever printed — tends to be unforgiving to players who forget.

“Sorry,” you say. “Have I taken my draw yet?”

“Not yet.”

Your game with Jigen has been quite close. Both of you are playing somewhat substandard decks, but your opponent has a little more lifegain and a lot more creatures. Last turn, however, Jigen kicked off a sequence of moves that left you more than a few blockers down and looking at a game loss.

First, your opponent used a Pressure Point to tap down your Spitebellows. Then he attacked with a single Citadel Castellan, which should have rung some alarm bells. When you threw three blockers in front of it (just in case he had a Crash the Ramparts in hand), a Might of Oaks completely disassembled your plans and allowed the Castellan to survive, to boot. Jigen dropped an Emissary of Hope into play almost as an afterthought.

You pick up the top card of your deck and add it to your hand: Malicious Intent. That’ll allow you to disable one of Jigen’s creatures this turn, but you’re not sure if it’s impactful enough to let you deal some combat damage to the face.

You stare at the table for a while, pondering the cards in your hand and going over more than a few possible moves. Maybe there’s a way you can win the game this turn, and maybe not. You just need to figure out how . . . 

“Are you all right?” Jigen asks.

You look up. “What did you say?”

“I said, are you all right? You seem distracted.”

You look at your cards. “Fine,” you say. “I’m just fine. Let’s play on.”

It is the middle of your draw step. The card that you draw this turn can be one of three different possibilities. For each of these three possible scenarios, defeat Jigen before the beginning of his next combat phase.

Your board state and your other card in hand both remain the same for each scenario. The only difference is the card that you draw for the turn.

You are at 3 life, with the following cards in play:

• Rampaging Ferocidon
• Warchanter of Mogis
• Hammerfist Giant
• Spitebellows
• 3 Swamps
• 5 Mountains

You have the following card in your hand:

• Hijack

The card that you draw this turn will be exactly one of the following:

• Vanquish the Weak
• Viashino Bladescout
• Malicious Intent

You have not yet played a land this turn. You do not know the identities or order of any of the cards remaining in your library.

Jigen is at 6 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:

• Hornet Nest
• Kiln Walker
• Guardians of Meletis
• Emissary of Hope
• Citadel Castellan
• Ravenous Daggertooth
• Loxodon Partisan
• Pine Walker
• Sacred Armory
• 5 Forests (all tapped)
• 4 Plains (all tapped)

If you think you’ve got a great solution in mind (partial or complete), don’t put it in the comments! Instead, send it to puzzles@gatheringmagic.com with the subject line “Puzzle — Variations on a Theme 2” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, November 5, 2017. We’ll include the best ones in next week’s article along with the next puzzle!

Last Week’s Puzzle

“We should really not be surprised when our opponent worries about her life total more than the creatures on the board,” Ryou Niji writes.“Being at 3 life is a precarious situation given the Crypt Ghast and Ghost Council of Orzhova on our side of the battlefield. In fact, without the life gain she would have been dead on board: Skulking Ghost (sacrificed to Ghost Council and returned to our hand with Kami of Empty Graves) would combine with Nikko-Onna as Extort fuel, and the Ghost Council's ETB ability would act as the final point of damage! The extra 3 life makes a big difference, though, as now we only have 5 points of direct damage even counting the two actual spells in our hand.”

“Since we start on the main phase of our turn,” Ali Nassar adds, “a quick assessment shows that the maximum life loss Ghost Council of Orzhova can cause is 1.The most life loss Extort can cause would be 4 — accounting for the two spells in our hand, plus Nikko-Onna and the target of Kami of Empty Graves’s trigger.

“This means we must resort to combat damage. Our opponent has more creatures then us, so we can't easily force that extra damage. We must resort to other means, and what we find out is that we won't be extorting four times.”

“Unfortunately,” Allen Smith notes, “getting in with at least one attacker seems unlikely, given Janine's plethora of blockers. She's even got the skies covered, with her three fliers. That said, it's possible to clear a path with some combination of Fell the Mighty and Outbreak — the only trick is making sure we don't kill our own flier in the process!”

“Crypt Ghast is on the field, so each Swamp taps for ,” Ali observes, and the rest of his solution goes as follows:

“Janine made one crucial mistake somewhere along the line,” Addison Fox adds, “which was letting us untap with Crypt Ghast in play. Almost doubling our mana and giving us a source of noncombat damage in Extort is the most straightforward way we can win.

“That said, CJ's not wrong,” Addison muses.“The theme of his deck is pretty sweet. It's a shame Abyssal Gatekeeper isn't a Spirit or it would make the deck for sure.”