Locations
"One more turn, then," you say, trying to suppress a smile.
"And to think that I was happy to cast that Pitiless Horde on my third turn," Ashok remarks. "I should have seen that Pacifism coming."
The Unabridged Cube is apparently in fine form today, allowing you to come up with interesting solutions for strange dilemmas. In this case, it's allowed you to stall your opponent hard: With his Pitiless Horde causing him to lose 2 life every turn, Ashok has spent most of this game struggling to get past your defenses.
"Don't start celebrating just yet," Ashok says. "You're down to 2 life too, and I might just draw my Volcanic Hammer."
You shrug. Because the Cube contains one of each card ever printed, losing the game at the point where you're about to win is always a possibility. A twinge of nervousness hits you, but it passes quickly; you've gotten used to it a long time ago.
You watch as Ashok takes his draw, and then you watch as his expression changes. That gets the churning feeling in the pit of your stomach.
"You drew the Hammer, didn't you?" you ask.
"No," Ashok says, tapping some lands and laying a Nemesis Mask on the table. "This might be enough to take the game, though."
You remain silent as Ashok equips the Mask to his now 9/9 Dread Slag, then sends his entire team into the red zone. "That's everything," he says, "except for the Pitiless Horde."
"Of course," you say.
"Of course."
You swallow. "I see you're not holding back," you say.
"If I'm going to be losing next turn," Ashok chuckles, "I might as well make it your problem and let you figure out how to survive."
"Fair enough."
Fortunately, you have options. Ashok, for example, doesn't know that both of the cards in your hand are instants - although the Reclaim might take you a bit of work to use. All you need to do is make sure you don't take two or more damage this turn, and technically his Pitiless Horde will do the rest.
That said, there are more than a few things that are easier said than done, and this may be one of them. You glance at the board again, and start putting your mind to work.
It is the combat phase on Ashok's turn. Survive Ashok's turn.
Ashok has declared his attack and assigned all of his available creatures as attackers. You may still cast spells or activate abilities before you declare blockers.
You are at 2 life, with the following cards in play:
- Heart Warden
- Crossbow Infantry (with your Elephant Guide and Ashok's Torture attached)
- Shinen of Stars' Light
- Destructor Dragon
- Thornwatch Scarecrow
- 4 Forest
- 2 Plains
- Heart of Yavimaya
You have the following cards in your hand:
You have not yet played a land this turn. You still have a significant number of cards remaining in your library, but you know neither the identities nor the order of those cards.
You have the following cards in your graveyard:
Ashok is at 2 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:
- Fire Juggler (attacking)
- Pitiless Horde (with your Pacifism attached)
- Gravebane Zombie (attacking)
- Sawtooth Ogre (attacking)
- Skyraker Giant (attacking, with Ashok's Aspect of Gorgon attached)
- Dread Slag (attacking, with Ashok's Nemesis Mask attached)
- 3 Swamp (two tapped)
- 5 Mountain (four 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 - Masked Motives" by 11:59 P.M. EST on Monday, November 5, 2018. 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 Addison Fox, Russell Jones, Michael Reluzco, Hyman Rosen, Paul Gersberg, Marco Majoor, Julian from Germany, Ryou Niji, Deryck Dunn, Sean Patrick Keatley, Chris Billard, zzo38, Greg Dreher, Otto Salmenkivi, and David Arnold.
A lot of people wrote in to point out that there's an easy solution to this puzzle, and we'll have Otto Salmenkivi do the honors here:
- Tap an Island for
and cast Essence Flux targeting your Netherborn Phalanx. Upon re-entering the battlefield, it will cause Octavia to lose 7 life, one for each of her creatures on the battlefield. Olivia is now at 6 life. - Go to combat and attack with your Havengul Skaab, and return your Netherborn Phalanx back to your hand.
- Cast your Netherborn Phalanx from your hand during your second main phase, tapping the rest of your untapped lands for mana. Once again, The Phalanx will cause loss of life for Octavia - even if she chump-blocked your Skaab, she can only lose maximum of one creature this way. Octavia loses at least 6 life, and that will be fatal and will win you the game.
"It's important not to attack with any of your other creatures," Otto adds, "so that you don't let Olivia lose more creatures by using them to block."
"It's typical of CJ," Ryou Niji sighs."He doesn't see the way to cut his opponent's life in half even when it's staring him in the face, so of course he doesn't notice anything when he draws another way to do the same."
"While CJ has walked into the same trap as the Horror deck in the Community Super League and made a horror-ible mistake," Addison Fox writes, "we can salvage this game in a couple different ways. Octavia has plenty of ground-pounders, but only one flying blocker in their Crafty Cutpurse which currently has reach."
The Crafty Cutpurse, for that matter, is the critical bit in the solution that nets you style points. Marco Majoor explains this further:
- Cast Essence Flux on Faceless Butcher.
- Rishadan Brigand returns to the battlefield.
- Sacrifice Ichor Wellspring to Rishadan Brigand's ETB ability. Draw a card and place a +1/+1 counter on Chasm Skulker.
- Have Faceless Butcher exile the Crafty Cutpurse.
- Attack with Thrummingbird, Dross Hopper, and Havengul Skaab. Have Havengul Skaab return Faceless Butcher to our hand.
- Crafty Cutpurse returns to the battlefield and its ETB ability triggers, but does nothing (yet).
- Sacrifice Havengul Skaab to Dross Hopper.
- Assume that Dross Hopper is blocked (as that's the most difficult path for us).
- Tap a Swamp for mana and sacrifice it to Horror of Horrors to keep Dross Hopper alive (since we need it for later). Rishadan Brigand survives due to Favorable Winds.
- Tap an Island for mana and use
to activate Dimir Cluestone's second ability. Draw a card and place a +1/+1 counter on Chasm Skulker. - Thrummingbird deals 1 combat damage to our opponent (who goes to 12 life). Proliferate a +1/+1 counter onto Chasm Skulker.
- Postcombat, sacrifice the Chasm Skulker to Dross Hopper. Because of Crafty Cutpurse's ability earlier, our opponent creates four 1/1 Squid tokens.
- Cast Faceless Butcher, exiling the Netherborn Phalanx.
- Sacrifice Faceless Butcher to Dross Hopper. Netherborn Phalanx returns - because our opponent has twelve creatures, Phalanx causes them to lose 12 life (and go to 0 life).
Even if Octavia chooses to block Thrummingbird instead of Dross Hopper, things still play out the same way: Octavia takes two combat damage from Dross Hopper, and gets one less Squid token for a loss of 11 life. The only difference is that you don't have to use Horror of Horrors to make sure the Hopper survives!
It's also worth noting that Faceless Butcher can also be used in conjunction with the easier solution. You could, for example, cast Essence Flux on the Butcher to exile Netherborn Phalanx, bounce the Butcher with Havengul Skaab to free the Phalanx, then recast and sacrifice the Butcher to Dross Hopper to "blink" the Phalanx one more time. After all, if some of the great paperback writers can be believed, a little horror can apparently go a long way...
