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You’re playing against Gunnar in the last game of your Ice Age Block Draft, and your board state is a sensitive one at the moment. Your life totals are low enough that a single mistake can cost either of you the game, and you’ve both been playing very slowly and carefully—glacially even.
At the beginning of Gunnar’s upkeep, your draw from the Bestial Fury gives you a very timely card: Lava Burst! With Gunnar at a mere 6 life, you’re guaranteed to have the game sewn up on your next turn.
Unfortunately, that’s when Gunnar pulls something out of his sleeve: He draws and casts Surging Might on his Zombie Musher, which ripples into a second Surging Might on his Gorilla Berserkers. Then, Gunnar sends his four best creatures into the red zone, threatening to end the game before you can burn him to death!
You’re going to have to change your plan on the fly now, and you’ll need to do it quickly. But what do you do exactly?
It is the beginning of the combat phase on Gunnar’s turn. Survive Gunnar’s turn so that you can defeat him before the end of your next turn.
Gunnar has declared his attack and assigned four of his creatures as attackers. You may still cast spells or activate abilities before you declare blockers.
You are at 4 life with the following cards in play:
- Phyrexian War Beast
- Phyrexian War Beast (tapped, with your Bestial Fury attached)
- Orcish Bloodpainter
- Blinking Spirit (with your Armor of Faith attached)
- Darien, King of Kjeldor
- Hematite Talisman
- 3 Mountains (two tapped)
- 3 Plains (one tapped)
- Snow-Covered Mountain
- Snow-Covered Forest
You have the following cards in your hand:
Gunnar is at 6 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:
- Fyndhorn Elves
- Lim-Dul's Cohort
- Phobian Phantasm (attacking)
- Zombie Musher (attacking, with Surging Might attached)
- Deadly Insect (attacking)
- Gorilla Berserkers (attacking, with Surging Might attached)
- 3 Swamps (two tapped)
- 4 Forests (two tapped)
- Snow-Covered Island
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 — Lava’s Labors Lost”. 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, Mark Denker, Aaron Golas, Sanjay Saith, Andrew Muravskyi, Chadwick Bond, Norman Dean, Jonathan Kustina, Eric Fox, Bill Murphy, Andrew Taylor, Philip Marschall, Bud Coulson, Sebastian De Villa, Quadrangolo Tetra, Bohdan Yarema, Adam Hinton, Kevin Karneboge, Evelyn Kokemoor, and Aaron Fine. I believe a shout out to the MTGDailyNews Twitter feed is in order as well!
“The first thing to do,” Andrew Taylor writes, “is to check what is actually useful for copying. There is no semblance of haste anywhere, so Gigantoplasm needs to copy a critter with a good activated or triggered ability, none of which are on our side of the field. Copying Sanctum Gargoyle would only bring back Chimeric Staff, which is useless the turn it enters the battlefield. Solemn Simulacrum wouldn't do enough for the turn, and Salvage Titan's abilities are worthless for cloning. So that leaves Sydri, Galvanic Genius.”
Now that you can potentially have your own Galvanic Genius, however, there’s the question of exactly what to do with her. “Sydri opens us up to having five attacking creatures and up to five more copy targets,” Andrew continues. “Sword of Kaldra can't equip if it's a creature, so it won't be a good target. The Goblin Boom Keg would be decent, but the Spine of Ish Sah would be golden.”
“I laughed pretty hard when I saw the Spine of Ish Sah loop,” Evelyn Kokemoor writes, and in fact, this turned out to be the heart of the puzzle. Assuming you can get Sydri on your side (in a certain fashion), you effectively have access to the Spine’s enters-the-battlefield ability. But what’s important is that you also have access to the Spine’s goes-to-the-graveyard ability, as we see in Norman Dean’s solution below:
- Tap two Swamps and cast Nameless Inversion, targeting Sydri, Galvanic Genius. When she dies, have Lazav, Dimir Mastermind become a copy of her. (Note that Tally can respond by having Sydri animate one of her artifacts. This won't matter—in fact, it could theoretically save us the trouble of doing this later . . . )
- Tap two Islands and use "Sydri's" first ability to animate Tally's Spine of Ish Sah and Goblin Boom Keg.
- Thanks to the Incubator's cost reduction, the Gigantoplasm in your hand only costs
. Tap the Sol Ring and an Island to cast Gigantoplasm and have it enter the battlefield as a copy of Spine of Ish Sah. (Note that your copy will not be a creature without additional help!) Use the Spine’s enters-the-battlefield trigger to kill one of Tally's Sanctum Gargoyles. Your Cairn Wanderer now has flying (since Tally has a Sanctum Gargoyle in her graveyard). - Tap an Island and use "Sydri's" ability to animate your Gigantoplasm-Spine.
- Use the Gigantoplasm's ability to turn itself into a 0/0. It dies, but it returns to your hand thanks to the Spine's second ability.
- Repeat step three, using the floating mana from Sol Ring and a fifth Island to kill Tally's other Gargoyle.
- Tap your last Island and repeat steps four and five to bring the Gigantoplasm back to your hand.
- Tap your third Swamp and the Reflecting Pool to recast Gigantoplasm as a copy of Goblin Boom Keg.
- Tap the Temple of Deceit and use "Sydri's" ability to animate the Gigantoplasm-Keg.
- Turn the Gigantoplasm-Keg into a 0/0 creature. It dies for good this time. Have its 3 damage go directly to Tally, who goes down to 5.
- Tap "Sydri" to give Mothdust Changeling flying until end of turn.
- Attack with the Cairn Wanderer and the Mothdust Changeling in the air for 5. Tally no longer has any flying blockers and therefore loses.
Most correct solutions picked up on the interaction of Gigantoplasm and Spine while missing the fact that you need to animate the Gigantoplasm after it copies the Spine. This is because the “creature-ness” of an animated noncreature artifact is not a copiable value. From the Comprehensive Rules:
Example: Chimeric Staff is an artifact that reads “
: Chimeric Staff becomes an X/X artifact creature until end of turn.” Clone is a creature that reads, “You may have Clone enter the battlefield as a copy of any creature on the battlefield.” After a Staff has become a 5/5 artifact creature, a Clone enters the battlefield as a copy of it. The Clone is an artifact, not a 5/5 artifact creature. (The copy has the Staff’s ability, however, and will become a creature if that ability is activated.)
Fortunately, you can simply have Sydri (or at least Lazav wearing the identity of Sydri) turn the noncreature Gigantoplasm into a creature—it just costs you a little more mana to do so.
Finally, more than a few people observed that Tally left one of her lands untapped for a reason—she can activate Sydri to turn one of her noncreature artifacts into a surprise blocker. However, this won’t matter because she doesn’t gain an additional flying creature this way . . . and if she animates her Spine or her Boom Keg, that move actually helps you win!
