You glare at your opponent on the other side of the table, and Freddie returns the favor. One of you is coming in dead last in today’s Unabridged Cube tournament, and you’d rather not be that person. The problem is that, despite the Cube having one of each card ever printed, it’s somehow given you nothing but useless components for your deck.

Well . . .  almost useless. You have to admit that the Pentagram of the Ages has done an admirable job of keeping you alive, even if it’s expensive to activate. And even if your Thermopod isn’t large enough to win you the game, it’s at least large enough to make Freddie think twice about attacking, so there’s that.

After some aggressive plays on your part, you’re proud to say that you’ve managed to get Freddie down to a mere two life. However, Freddie has some interesting resources at his disposal, and he’s been slowly poking you closer and closer to defeat.

On his turn, Freddie first drops a Firebrand Archer onto the battlefield. Then he casts the last card in his hand — a Grave Peril — triggering the Archer for 1 damage to your head. You pause, wondering if you should activate your Pentagram in response, but something stays your hand. “I’ll go to four life,” you say.

Freddie reaches for his Ghoulsteed, and then changes his mind at the last second. “No attacks,” he says.

“I expected that,” you reply.

Freddie nods, and places a hand on his Anaba Shaman before hesitating again. “I don’t know what you’re thinking,” he says, “but I can wait one more turn. I just hope you don’t have a Shock in your deck.”

You don’t, but you do have a Firebolt in there somewhere. You quickly untap your lands and draw a card, hoping for a two-damage spell. Unfortunately your luck isn’t quite as good as that: All you get is a Traitorous Blood.

Freddie relaxes once he sees the expression on your face. “So,” he says, “It’s not a Shock?”

“No it’s not,” you say, looking at the board. You really don’t want to lose this game, but you obviously no longer have the chance to dig for a Shock, or a Firebolt, or whatever. That means that you have to work with whatever you have on the table right now. But how do you turn this pile of trash into a win?

It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Freddie before the beginning of his next turn.

You are at 4 life, with the following cards in play:

• Keeper of the Flame
• Smoldering Efreet
• Scuttlemutt
• Thermopod
• Pentagram of the Ages
• 2 Mountains
• 3 Plains
• Slayers' Stronghold

You have the following card in your hand:

• Traitorous Blood

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.

Freddie is at 2 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:

• Firebrand Archer
• Wall of Fire
• Cackling Imp (with Freddie’s Phyrexian Boon and your Cessation attached)
• Anaba Shaman
• Brood Keeper
• Ghoulsteed
• Grave Peril
• 3 Swamps (two tapped)
• 3 Mountains (two tapped)
• Leechridden Swamp

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 — Ounce of Prevention” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, November19, 2017. 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 Russell Jones, Norman Dean, Aaron Golas, Addison Fox, Tara Timmons, Allen Smith, Matthew Harvey, Sean Dennehy, ??, Hyman Rosen, Subrata Sircar, ericxu, Ryou Niji, Greg Dreher, Christian Hilbert, Ian Hemming, Argon Gruber, Panard, Chris Billard, and David Arnold.

“For too long,” Sean Dennehy announces, “Goblins have been a powerful tribe with sudden explosive capabilities. Today, we show why Merfolk are never to be trifled with.”

“Ariel shouldn't be that surprised that Mari's about to win,” Allen Smith notes.“Mari can already get Vodalian War Machine up to 16 power by the end of the turn just with the permanents on board, and Surestrike Trident can convert power to direct damage. In fact, since Ariel knows we have Summon the School, she should know she's already dead.”

Allen points out that you don’t even need to cast High Tide to win this game, as you can see below:

“This works because both Merrow Commerce and Vodalian War Machine refer to ‘Merfolk’, and not necessarily ‘Merfolk creatures’,” Allen adds.“Since Merrow Commerce is a ‘Tribal Enchantment – Merfolk’, it can be tapped for Vodalian War Machine's ability, and it can untap itself at the beginning of your end step.”

The other interesting bit is that you can both pump Vodalian War Machine and activate the ability granted by Surestrike Trident during your end step. This is because you get priority once this step begins, and any instant-speed activations are fair game.(Note that Vodalian War Machine’s bonus won’t disappear until you move from your end step to your cleanup step.)

But how far can you go in terms of overkill if you use High Tide? Christian Hilbert notes that you can deal a total of 37 damage:

This solution has one interesting aspect: “It should be fine to do that last part on Ariel's upkeep as well,” Tara Timmons writes, “but we don't want to let her live to her draw step, just in case something even crazier than what we've just done happens. I’m not quite sure how I feel about destroying Ariel with a merfolk deck, though.”

“I will admit,” Norman Dean adds, “having a bunch of merfolk operating a Rube Goldberg device that shoots a giant trident at someone does seem like a pretty awesome way to win a game of Magic!”