Locations
deck comes with a very simple game plan, which is to put a lot of mana-producers on the table, play a handfulof huge creatures, and let the opponent worry about taking large chunks of damage.
Unfortunately, CJ’s opponent came into their match with a deck involving significant amounts of lifegain and some completely absurd rares. Vita kicked off the festivities with a turn-one Jaddi Offshoot, an Archangel of Thune, and a bunch of Outlast creatures — ending their first game before CJ could even blink. She kept a dubious hand at the start of their second game, however, which allowed CJ to eventually dominate the table with two Durkwood Baloths and a Corpsejack Menace.
Just when CJ thought that the game was in the bag, though, Vita used Evolving Wilds to pull an Island from her deck, then cast Supreme Verdict to clear the table. CJ recovered nicely with a Mer-Ek Nightblade and a Jugan, the Rising Star . . . but Vita quickly muzzled them with two consecutive copies of Guard Duty.
By the time you CJ finishes describing all this to you, he has his head in his hands. “You have no idea how much my head hurts right now,” he complains.
“She’s down to just four life,” you tell him. “You just need to hang on a little longer.”
“I think my only chance just got swept away along with that Supreme Verdict. And she hasn’t even played her other rares yet.”
Vita, however, has other ideas. She draws and casts a Lead the Stampede on her turn, putting two creature cards in her hand. The first is an Ainok Bond-Kin . . . and the second is an Avacyn, Angel of Hope!
CJ throws his hands in the air. “Of course you have an 8/8 indestructible flyer!” he yells.
“Calm down,” you say, watching Vita cast the Ainok Bond-Kin and pass the turn. “At least she doesn’t have enough mana to cast the Avacyn yet.”
“So I’ve got one more turn before she makes this game impossible to win,” CJ grumbles. “No pressure at all. I’ll break my Mind Stone to draw a card.”
You watch as CJ adds a Hunt the Weak to his hand from the Mind Stone. Then he untaps, puts Nantuko Shaman into play (which draws him a Nature's Claim), then gets an additional Grisly Spectacle on his draw step.
“That’s not bad,” you point out.
“Yeah,” CJ says,“but none of them are going to help against the Avacyn. And she’s got so much lifegain that it looks like I’m going to raise her life total no matter what I do. I wish Mari were here — she’d be able to find a way out of this.”
As much as you sympathize with CJ, you have to admit that he’s in a really tight spot right now. You’re tempted to suggest that perhaps he should just pack up his cards and go home — second place isn’t too bad a result, after all.
Then again, Vita’s at a mere four life, and that puts CJ close to the win himself. But what can he possibly do before he falls to a swarm of angels and lifegain?
It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Vita before the beginning of her next combat phase.
You are at 7 life, with the following cards in play:
- 2 Overgrown Battlements
- Nantuko Shaman
- Mer-Ek Nightblade (with a +1/+1 counter on it, and Vita’s Guard Duty attached)
- Jugan, the Rising Star (with Vita’s Guard Duty attached)
- 2 Swamps
- 4 Forests
- Golgari Rot Farm
You have the following cards in your hand:
You have not yet played a land this turn. You have 17 cards remaining in your library, although you do not know the identities or order of any of these cards.
Vita is at 4 life. She has the following cards in play:
- Serra Ascendant
- Ainok Bond-Kin
- Sultai Flayer
- Archangel of Thune
- 3 Forests (one tapped)
- 5 Plains (three tapped)
- Island (tapped)
Vita has the following card in her hand:
Vita has 17 cards remaining in her library.
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 — Wing and a Prayer” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, November26, 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 Aaron Golas, Allen Smith, Russell Jones, Ryou Niji, Addison Fox, Ian Hemming, ??, Tara Timmons, Michael Shoemaker, Sean Rowe, and Chris Billard.
Last week’s puzzle turned out trickier than expected. However, the likely finishing blow was obvious from the start: “The aim,” Ian Hemming notes, “is to use Keeper of the Flame to Shock Freddie without getting drained/burned in response.”
“The thing that makes this one tricky,” Allen Smith writes, “is that Freddie has a lot of options available to him. Cackling Imp, Leechridden Swamp, and Anaba Shaman all give him the ability to ding us for one, giving Freddie a lot of control over our life total (and for that matter, his own).”
“It would be a grave mistake to ignore the amount of resources our opponent commands,” Ryou Niji adds.“With Cackling Imp, Anaba Shaman (which, fortunately, doesn't kill anything on the board except Firebrand Archer), and Leechridden Swamp, our opponent can easily kill us if we let our guard down. This means that, although Keeper of the Flame is an obvious win condition, it takes precise plays to kill the opponent before they kill us.”
“The key thing to do here,” Allen concludes, “is to remove those options from Freddie. Then we can make some decisions on our own, based on how the dust settles.”
Michael Shoemaker’s solution goes as follows:
- Activate the Scuttlemutt's color-changing ability to make the Cackling Imp a non-black creature.
- Phyrexian Boon’s “bonus” becomes -1/-2, and the Cackling Imp dies. Our opponent may or may not make us lose 1 life by activating the Cackling Imp before it dies. We will have 3 or 4 life at this point.
- When the Cackling Imp goes to the graveyard, the Cessation returns to our hand.
- Tap two Plains and the Slayers' Stronghold to cast the Cessation on the Brood Keeper. This creates a 2/2 flying Dragon token.
- This triggers Grave Peril and destroys the token. Our opponent will have to decide whether or not to activate the Leechridden Swamp at this time, as they won't get another chance (not enough Black permanents). We will have 2, 3 or 4 life at this point, depending on our opponent's choices.
- Sacrifice the Scuttlemutt to the Thermopod for
. - Tap one Mountain, one Plains and use the floating to cast Traitorous Blood on the Anaba Shaman.
- The opponent may or may not decide to deal a point of damage to us in response. Gain control of the Anaba Shaman and untap it.
- We will have 1, 2, 3 or 4 life at this point.
- If we have 4 life: Activate our stolen Anaba Shaman with from the last Mountain. Deal one point of damage to ourselves. Sacrifice the Smoldering Efreet to Thermopod, dealing 2 more points of damage to ourselves and giving us floating. We now have 1 life and can activate the Keeper of the Flame to deal 2 damage to our opponent and win.
- If we have 3 life: Sacrifice the Smoldering Efreet to Thermopod, dealing 2 points of damage to ourselves and giving us floating. We have 1 life and can activate the Keeper of the Flame to deal 2 damage to our opponent and win.
- If we have 2 life: Activate our stolen Anaba Shaman with the last Mountain. Deal one point of damage to ourselves. Sacrifice the Anaba Shaman for . We have 1 life and can activate the Keeper of the Flame to deal 2 damage to our opponent and win.
- If we have 1 life: Activate the Keeper of the Flame with {R} from the last Mountain to deal 2 damage to our opponent and win.
It’s worth noting that Freddie can also activate the Anaba Shaman to deal 1 damage to any creature, but this doesn’t affect the solution in any way. (It does prevent you from stealing his Firebrand Archer and putting it to good use, though.)
One other move available to Freddie involves pinging himself with either the Anaba Shaman and/or the Cackling Imp. “However,” Addison Fox writes, “Freddie cannot use his two targeted forms of life loss to drop himself to 1 life and get around Keeper of the Flame. If he tries, we can just activate Anaba Shaman and target him directly!”
Curiously, there’s an alternative solution here that takes advantage of the fact that you can hold priority. Sean Rowe notes that you can do the following:
- Tap Scuttlemutt to turn Ghoulsteed Green (or Blue, or White, or Red… whichever non-black color you choose).
- Cast Traitorous Blood (tapping Mountain, Mountain, and Slayers' Stronghold) targeting Cackling Imp. This leads to a divergence point:
If our opponent responds and taps Imp to ping us for 1, then taps their Leechridden Swamp to ping us for another 1, putting us to 2:
- We tap the Imp targeting ourselves. Assuming this resolves, it puts us to 1 life.
- We use our Keeper of the Flame to ping the opponent for 2.
- Our opponent could ping us with Anaba Shaman at any time. If they choose to do this, we simply tap Plains, Plains, Plains, and sacrifice Imp to Thermopod to activate Pentagram of the Ages and prevent the damage.
If our opponent responds and taps Imp to ping us for 1, but does not tap the Leechridden Swamp:
- Before our opponent gets priority, we sacrifice the Imp to Thermopod. This means that our opponent only has one Black permanent in play and can no longer activate Leechridden Swamp.
- We sacrifice Smoldering Efreet to Thermopod (we now have floating), causing its death trigger to go on the stack. Resolving it puts us to 1 life.
- We use our Keeper of the Flame to ping the opponent for 2.
- Our opponent could ping us with Anaba Shaman at any time. If they choose to do this, we simply tap Plains, Plains, Plains, and sacrifice Imp to Thermopod to activate Pentagram of the Ages and prevent the damage.
If our opponent does not respond:
- We tap the imp targeting ourselves and, while holding priority, sacrifice the Imp to Thermopod for the same reason listed above.
- We sacrifice Smoldering Efreet to Thermopod (we now have floating) causing its death trigger to go on the stack. Resolving it puts us to 1 life.
- We use our Keeper of the Flame to ping the opponent for 2.
- Our opponent could ping us with Anaba Shaman at any time. If they choose to do this, we simply tap Plains, Plains, Plains, and sacrifice Imp to Thermopod to activate Pentagram of the Ages and prevent the damage.
While you certainly have the means to drop yourself to 1 life and activate the Keeper of the Flame, it’s ironic that Freddie does as well. Forcing Freddie to make those choices before you have to is the key to closing this one out — an ounce of prevention for your pound of cure.
