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Octavia fidgets with her silver necklace, and that gets your attention. Over the course of your last few games, you’ve discovered that that’s one of her “tells”—a subtle indicator of her current thoughts. In this case, those thoughts happen to be along the lines of, “I think I may have done something wrong, but I can’t figure out what it is.”
You and the elegant Octavia have been in stalemate for a while now. You have to admit she has a slight advantage: Octavia sacrificed all of her Forests to a Primeval Force a couple of turns ago, and you can’t take it down without losing half of your army. However, you do have more than a few blockers, and you’ve been able to hold off the Force while looking for a more permanent solution.
Otherwise, you’ve had convenient answers to a lot of your opponent’s other cards. Octavia’s Jungle Weaver can’t quite make it past your Headless Skaab, and her Wight of Precinct Six isn’t yet big enough to overcome the Djinn of Infinite Deceits you played last turn. Even her Plague Spitter hasn’t been able to wear down your life total, mostly because you have a Kitsune Palliator working to keep you alive.
Perhaps that’s what got Octavia to play an Infernal Contract last turn, after which she played all four of the cards she drew: a fifth Swamp followed by a Quirion Ranger and a Thrashing Wumpus followed by a Serene Remembrance that shuffled several cards back into her library. It’s the Wumpus that worries you—if Octavia manages to untap with the walking Pestilence on her next turn, she’ll easily be able to overwhelm your Palliator (and, incidentally, kill you) with mass damage.
You untap, take your draw, and find a Sky Hussar waiting on top of your library. It’s the only card in your hand, so it’s not much . . . but you also have Octavia’s “tell” to work with. She’s definitely suspects that she’s done something wrong. But is it something that you can exploit?
It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Octavia this turn.
You are at 3 life with the following cards in play:
- Grixis Illusionist
- True Believer
- Kitsune Palliator
- Courtly Provocateur
- Headless Skaab
- Djinn of Infinite Deceits
- Hot Soup
- 4 Plains
- 4 Islands
You have only one card in your hand:
You have not yet played a land this turn. You do not know the identity of any of the cards that are currently on top of your library.
You currently have the following creature cards in your graveyard:
Octavia is at 12 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:
- Quirion Ranger
- Wight of Precinct Six
- Plague Spitter
- Corpse Augur (with Tiger Claws attached)
- Thrashing Wumpus
- Primeval Force (tapped)
- Jungle Weaver
- 5 Swamps (all tapped)
- Gaea's Cradle (tapped)
Octavia currently has the following creature cards in her graveyard:
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 — The Art of the Lie”. 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, Aki Vainio, Matthew Harvey, Thorbjørn Louring Koch, Tomáš Surýnek, Quadrangolo Tetra, Aaron Golas, Andrew Muravskyi, Sebastian de Villa, Norman Dean, Chadwick Bond, Charles Davis, Michael DeGrave, Hyman Rosen, Jonathan Kustina, Vik Patel, Akshaya Srivastava, SK K, Maarten Wybaillie, and David J Robinson.
“The only way to win against Choi,” SK K points out, “is to remove enough blockers and punch in with enough creatures to kill him in one shot. So there are two things to do: Remove creatures and get creatures to hit."
First Step: Identify What Removal We Have
- The only removal we have on the field and in our hand are Frostling and Mutant's Prey.
- Frostling only deals 1 damage.
- Mutant's Prey is conditional and needs a creature with a +1/+1 counter. In our current board state, we only have Arcbound Hybrid as valid target, but we can make any of our creatures a valid target by sacrificing Ashnod's Transmogrant. By sacrificing Ashnod's Transmogrant, we can also enable the modular trigger on Arcbound Hybrid if the Arcbound Hybrid dies.
Second Step: Choose the Creature(s) to Punch Through
- Frostling is a 1/1. Its power is too low, and it will probably be used as removal.
- Arcbound Hybrid is currently a 2/2 vanilla with no evasive ability.
- Raven's Run Dragoon evades half of Choi’s blockers, and its power is decent at 3/3.
- Fangren Firstborn’s ability is awesome for a big swing, but despite its power at 5 after its attack, it doesn't have trample and it is very unlikely to deal damage to the opponent once blockers are declared.
- Rakeclaw Gargantuan’s current power is 0. Even with a +1/+1 counter, its power is still 0 due to Pin to the Earth.
- So Raven's Run Dragoon is the most suitable creature to deal damage to Choi with its evasive ability and decent power at 3.
Now we have identified the removal and creatures; it appears we want to create a situation to allow Raven's Run Dragoon to attack unblocked.
- To do this, we must remove Dream Fighter and Scion of Glaciers, which are both blue and able to block Raven's Run Dragoon. Then, we need to give Raven's Run Dragoon enough +1/+1 counters to make it big enough to kill Choi in a single attack.
Most solvers quickly came to the same conclusions, with the most popular solution involving the use of Feral Contest to divert Scion of Glaciers’s attention. Charles Davis writes:
Precombat Main Phase
- Sacrifice Frostling to deal 1 damage to Dream Fighter. We need to get rid of Choi’s blue 1/1 that would otherwise phase one of our attackers out.
- Tap and sacrifice Ashnod's Transmogrant to place a +1/+1 counter on Raven's Run Dragoon and turn it into an artifact. It is now a 4/4.
- Pay
for Feral Contest to put a counter on Arcbound Hybrid and force Scion of Glaciers to block it this turn. Arcbound Hybrid is now a modular 3/3.
Combat Phase
(We need to be mindful of the lifelink on the Escaped Null. When blocking, it can potentially bring Choi out of lethal range.)
- Attacking with Fangren Firstborn places a +1/+1 counter on all attacking creatures, so attack with the Fangren Firstborn (5/3), Arcbound Hybrid (4/4), and finally the Raven's Run Dragoon (5/5).
- Choi must block the Arcbound Hybrid with his Scion of Glaciers.
- The Raven's Run Dragoon is effectively unblockable because the only nonblack creature Choi can block it with—Scion of Glaciers—is tied up blocking the Arcbound Hybrid.
- Choi can also block with his Brood of Cockroaches, and we can assume Choi will block the Fangren Firstborn with the Escaped Null to survive (or perhaps double-block the Arcbound Hybrid, in which case the lifelink won’t matter).
- Before damage, pay to cast Mutant's Prey and have the Arcbound Hybrid fight the Brood of Cockroaches. They deal 4 damage each and kill each other.
- Thanks to modular on the Arcbound Hybrid, we can now move four +1/+1 counters onto another artifact: our unblocked Raven's Run Dragoon. The Raven's Run Dragoon is now a 9/9 creature.
- Oh, but what about the Escaped Null’s lifelink? We have plenty of mana to pay
for Rakeclaw Gargantuan’s activated ability and give our Fangren Firstborn first strike. This means Choi does not gain any life because the Escaped Null is hit before it can deal any damage. - Raven's Run Dragoon goes unblocked and deals Choi 9 combat damage to finish him off.
Russell Jones notes an interesting variant toward the end of this solution, which completely ignores the Escaped Null:
- Pay for Rakeclaw Gargantuan's ability to give your 9/9 Raven's Run Dragoon first strike.
- Let first strike damage be dealt. Raven's Run Dragoon is the only creature that does anything in the first damage step, and it sends all 9 to the dome (to 0). This is before Escaped Null can deal any lifelink damage, so Choi can't count on that to be saved, even if it blocked Fangren Firstborn.
Russell Jones, Chadwick Bond and Vik Patel also identified a second direction, which uses Rustspore Ram to help clear the way. Vik’s solution was the simplest among these, but all solutions were notable in that Brood of Cockroaches played an interesting role:
During Our First Main Phase
- Sacrifice Frostling to deal 1 damage to Escaped Null.
- Play Remember the Fallen to fetch Frostling and Rustspore Ram.
- Play Rustspore Ram and have it destroy Grafted Wargear. This will cause Choi to sacrifice Brood of Cockroaches.
- Play Frostling and sacrifice it to kill Escaped Null.
- Play Mutant's Prey to have Arcbound Hybrid fight and kill Dream Fighter.
- Sacrifice Ashnod's Transmogrant to give Raven's Run Dragoon a +1/+1 counter.
During Our Attack Phase
- Attack with Arcbound Hybrid, Raven's Run Dragoon, and Fangren Firstborn. Because Fangren Firstborn is attacking, each of them gain a +1/+1 counter.
- Choi now only has one blocker (Scion of Glaciers), so no matter how he blocks, our creatures will deal at least 8 damage.
During Our End Step
- Brood of Cockroaches forces Choi to lose his last 1 life as it returns to his hand.
Then again, you don’t necessarily need to put Rustspore Ram into play in order to score a win by Cockroaches. Several people found a solution that bridges the alternatives above, of which Norman Dean writes:
- Sacrifice your Frostling to deal 1 damage to Choi's Dream Fighter.
- Activate your Ashnod's Transmogrant to put a +1/+1 counter on the Raven's Run Dragoon and turn it into an artifact. (It’s now a 4/4 creature.)
- Tap the Gruul Turf and two Forests to cast Feral Contest, requiring Choi's Scion of Glaciers to block our Fangren Firstborn.
- Declare Arcbound Hybrid, Fangren Firstborn, and Raven's Run Dragoon as attackers. The Firstborn's ability triggers, making Hybrid a 3/3, Firstborn a 5/3, and the Dragoon a 5/5.
- Before blockers are declared, cast Mutant's Prey to have the Arcbound Hybrid fight Choi's Brood of Cockroaches. Both will die. Since the Dragoon is an artifact due to the Transmogrant, you may use the Hybrid's modular ability to move its counters to the Dragoon. Dragoon is now an 8/8 creature.
- Choi's Scion must block the Firstborn, and his Escaped Null may not block the Dragoon. If he blocks the Firstborn with the Null, tap a Mountain and activate Rakeclaw Gargantuan's ability to give the Firstborn first strike, killing the Null before it can deal lifelink damage.
- The Dragoon deals 8 damage, bringing Choi's life total to 1.
- At the beginning of the end step, Choi loses 1 life as the Cockroaches come back. They always come back.
