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After twenty solid minutes’ worth of sparring, your Battle for Zendikar Booster Draft match against Ikeno isn’t going so well. You’ve had the advantage for most of your current game, curving out for the first few turns and forcing Ikeno to make unfavorable blocks. But after you hit a sizeable pocket of land, your offensive slowed down . . . and your opponent has been quick to stabilize the board.
With some confidence at his impending win, Ikeno put all his cards on the table last turn. First, he attacked with his Void Winnower and Eldrazi Skyspawner, daring you to block with the Bane of Bala Ged that you had just summoned. Instead, you chose to chump-block the Winnower with a Valakut Predator, and you took 2 damage from the flying Eldrazi Drone.
Then, Ikeno added two more creatures to the board. He tapped five lands to summon an Oracle of Dust and sacrificed two Eldrazi Scion tokens to bring back a Deathless Behemoth from his graveyard. Finally, just to reduce your chances of a comeback, he cracked an Evolving Wilds to trigger his Retreat to Coralhelm and untap his Void Winnower.
Your draw, on the other hand, is a lot less spectacular: Forest. But with an almost full grip of cards, you feel that you’re ready to challenge the status quo. And at this point, it’ll be all too sweet to burst your opponent’s bubble.
It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Ikeno before the end of your turn.
You are at 7 life with the following cards in play:
You have the following cards in your hand:
- Forest (drawn during your draw step)
- Outnumber
- Call the Scions
- Unnatural Aggression
- Infuse with the Elements
- Tajuru Beastmaster
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.
- Salvage Drone
- Eldrazi Skyspawner (tapped)
- Dominator Drone
- Oracle of Dust
- Deathless Behemoth
- Void Winnower
- Retreat to Coralhelm
- 5 Islands (three of which are tapped)
- 7 Swamps (three of which are tapped)
Ikeno currently has no cards in his exile zone.
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 — Challenge the Pack”. 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, Sanjay Saith, Scott Stoops, David Jacobs, Miko Losantas, Tomáš Surýnek, Norman Dean, Quadrangolo Tetra, Aaron Golas, Adrien Baumann, Rian Zuberi, Sarah Worthing, Seth Keller, Joshua Chuah, Iniui Yuan, Sebastian de Villa, Sam Krause, Derek Carlson, James Parmenter, Jamie Keller, Hyman Rosen, Jack Hash, Nick Fera, Vik Patel, Ilkka Manner, Charles Davis, Matthew Harvey, and Andrew Muravskyi.
Unfortunately for your store’s “Villagers” deck, there are a lot of ways you can win this game, due in no small part to your single Festering Newt (as well as your many removal options). We’ll just be detailing the most popular solutions here, but there are many variants.
“A thing to remember with this puzzle,” Matthew Harvey writes, “is that even though they don't say it, quite a few creatures on the field now have the Human creature type, thanks to the wonders of errata. So that means they will all be affected by sacrificing Crown of Suspicion if it is placed on a Human.”
Both Miko Losantas and Hyman Rosen sent in some handy lists of updated creature types, so we’ll crib from those. The current types of all creatures in this puzzle are:
- Folk of An-Havva: Human
- Loyal Sentry: Human Soldier
- Norwood Archers: Elf Archer
- Foot Soldiers: Human Soldier
- Village Survivors: Human
- Cackling Witch: Human Spellshaper
- Plague Witch: Elf Spellshaper
- Bogbrew Witch: Human Wizard
- Festering Newt: Salamander
Most people latched onto the Festering Newt’s interaction with Bubbling Cauldron pretty quickly. Interestingly enough, the most common solution pointed out that everything can be done during your turn. Adrien Baumann demonstrates:
- Do nothing at end of turn.
- Draw whatever. It doesn't matter; I just want to bully that Newt.
- Play the Festering Newt. (1 mana used; 8 remaining.)
- Play Undying Evil targeting the Newt. (2 mana used; 7 remaining.)
- Play Wretched Banquet, targeting the Newt. You have to do it first—once it comes back with a +1/+1 counter, you can't target it with Wretched Banquet anymore. (3 mana used; 6 remaining.)
- Newt dies. Target Foot Soldiers for the -4/-4 treatment. Opponent has four creatures left.
- Newt comes back with a +1/+1 counter.
- Use the Bubbling Cauldron to sacrifice the Newt (poor little guy). Opponent loses 4 life from the Cauldron effect, dropping to 1. (4 mana used; 5 remaining.)
- Newt dies. Target Norwood Archers for the -4/-4 treatment. Opponent has three creatures left.
- Play Crown of Suspicion on opponent's Folk of An-Havva. They die. Opponent is down to 2 creatures. (6 mana used; 3 remaining.)
- Attack with your three witches (1/1, 1/1, 1/3). Opponent can block only two of them and must take 1 damage.
- Do the witch dance of victory around the Cauldron. (“Don’t forget to cackle loudly,” Miko Losantas adds.)
Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper Halloween without clearing your opponent’s board completely. Another alternative involves doing just that by putting resources into casting Dead Drop. Rian Zuberi writes:
- At the end of Wendy’s turn, discard Undying Evil to either Cackling Witch or Plague Witch, targeting whatever you feel like targeting.
- During your first main phase, cast Crown of Suspicion on Bogbrew Witch. This leaves us with 7 mana.
- Sacrifice Crown of Suspicion. This kills Folk of An-Havva, Loyal Sentry, and Cackling Witch. Wendy now has a 4/3 Foot Soldiers, a 6/4 Village Survivors, and a 3/3 Norwood Archers left. We now have a 3/2 Bogbrew Witch and a 1/1 Plague Witch.
- Cast Festering Newt. This leaves us with 6 mana.
- Sacrifice Festering Newt to Bubbling Cauldron for 1, killing Village Survivors and forcing Wendy to lose 4 life. Wendy is now at 1 life. This leaves us with 5 mana.
- Tap all 5 mana to cast Dead Drop, exiling Crown of Suspicion, Cackling Witch, Festering Newt, Skeletal Scrying, and Undying Evil. Wendy is forced to sacrifice Norwood Archers and Foot Soldiers.
- Attack with the Bogbrew Witch for 3 damage. Plague Witch can chill in the background and have a snack from the Wretched Banquet I have at hand.
This raises another question: What’s the highest amount of damage you can deal to your opponent in this case? Aaron Golas’s solution, which is a variant of the previous one, brings Wendy to -7 life:
- On Wendy's end step, pay
to cast Undying Evil targeting Cackling Witch. - Pay , tap Plague Witch, and discard Wretched Banquet to give Cackling Witch -1/-1. It dies and returns to the battlefield as a 2/2.
- Move to your turn. Untap and draw a card.
- Pay
to cast Crown of Suspicion targeting Bogbrew Witch, Foot Soldiers, or Village Survivors; then, sacrifice it to give all Humans +2/-1. Cackling Witch becomes 4/1; Bogbrew Witch becomes 3/2; Foot Soldiers becomes 4/3; Village Survivors becomes 6/4; Folk of An-Havva and Loyal Sentry both die. - Pay to cast Festering Newt.
- Pay , tap Bubbling Cauldron, and sacrifice Festering Newt to drain Wendy for 4 life. When Festering Newt dies, it gives any one of Wendy's remaining creatures -4/-4, killing that creature. You go to 18, and Wendy goes to 1.
- You now have five untapped lands and five cards in your graveyard (Skeletal Scrying, Undying Evil, Wretched Banquet, Crown of Suspicion, Festering Newt)—just enough to cast Dead Drop with delve. Wendy sacrifices her final two creatures.
- Attack with Cackling Witch, Plague Witch, and Bogbrew Witch for 8 total damage, putting Wendy to a very dead -7 life.
On the other side of the spectrum, several people submitted what is probably the simplest solution for this puzzle. David Jacob’s description is below:
- At end of opponent's turn, discard Crown of Suspicion to Plague Witch to kill Loyal Sentry.
- On your turn:
- Cast Festering Newt. Sacrifice it to Bubbling Cauldron to put the opponent to 1. When it dies, it gives Norwood Archers -4/-4 and kills it.
- Cast Wretched Banquet on Folk of An-Havva.
- Attack with all three creatures into the opponent's two blockers.
Some people agreed that Witches were quite viable as a theme deck, although the build probably needed some changes. “It would be a lot easier,” David writes, “if the deck had more copies of Festering Newt or Bubbling Cauldron.”
Nick Fera, however, reserves some criticism for your opponent. “What kind of deck is Wendy playing? Bad Humans? If you made a Constructed deck and the Folk of An-Havva are in it, you are either an idiot or a genius.” (The Folk of An-Havva themselves were unavailable for comment.)
