Danielle sits up. "I guess you're doing it this turn, then," she says.

"I don't have much of a choice," you say, eyeing the tapped Pontiff of Blight on her side of the table. "All those Extort triggers are going to eat me alive once I let you untap."

Danielle glances at her board. "That's if my blockers don't eat the Tiger alive themselves."

You draw your card for the turn. "Claws of Gix," you say, playing it.

"Okay, my Blind Creeper's back to a 3/3."

"I'll attack with my Stocking Tiger."

Danielle raises an eyebrow. "You sure?" she asks.

"Yeah, I know it's a risk."

"You definitely aren't bluffing anything," she points out. "You can probably sacrifice that Tiger to your Claws, but I don't see why you'd attack me if that's what you're expecting to happen."

You fold your arms. "Yeah," you say disinterestedly.

"That's a really cruel thing you're doing. I should start doing that."

"And maybe mention it to your friends."

Danielle shakes her head. "Meera wasn't joking when she said you were tricky."

"Um... I never said I was."

"Uh huh. Tell that to the game you won against her. The rest of the girls probably think so too."

"So," you say, "are you blocking?"

"Heck yes, I'm blocking," she says. "I'll just throw my... Dread Slaver and Blind Creeper at it. That'll be a 3/5 and a 3/3 against your 6/6."

"Sure."

"Before combat damage," Danielle says, "I'll cast Rush of Vitality on Dread Slaver. I'll tap the rest of my lands to pay for three Extort triggers, so that puts me at 13 life."

"And that makes your Dread Slaver a 4/5 with lifelink and indestructible," you say.

"More than enough to kill your Stocking Tiger," Danielle says.

"In response, I'll tap and sacrifice my Dive Bomber to take out your Blind Creeper, because it's a 2/2 now."

Danielle pauses for a while, and then slaps her forehead. "That wasn't a bluff!" she cries. "How didn't I see that?"

"I wasn't intending for it to be a bluff," you say. "My Dive Bomber was on the table the whole time."

"You just wanted me to use up what I had in my hand, didn't you?"

"Sort of," you admit. "Getting rid of both your Blind Creeper and the Viscerid Armor attached to it was a nice bonus."

"I really don't like this cube," Danielle says.

"The Unabridged Cube has its moments," you say. "You kind of expect these things when you're dealing with one of each card ever printed."

"So, wait," Danielle notes. "That leaves you with a 6/6 Tiger and me with a 4/5 Slaver."

"That's indestructible, so at least you get to keep it."

Danielle sighs. "Okay, fine," she says. "That's one trample damage. With the lifelink, that leaves me at 16 life. I guess you can finally open that stupid pack."

"Don't mind if I do," you say gleefully, cracking open the Throne of Eldraine booster you've had tucked under the Stocking Tiger for a long time now. You thumb through its contents, realizing once again that it's hard to hold fifteen cards in your hand all at the same time.

"That had better be a really good pack," Danielle says.

"It'll have to do, I think."

It is the start of your postcombat main phase; you have already completed your combat phase this turn. Defeat Danielle before the beginning of her next combat phase.

You are at 7 life, with the following cards in play:

• Trained Pronghorn
• Thornscape Familiar
• Viridian Joiner
• Thalia, Heretic Cathar
• Conclave Cavalier (with your Holy Strength attached)
• Stocking Tiger (tapped, currently 6/6 with trample and 4 damage marked)
• Claws of Gix
• 6 Forests
• 5 Plains

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Silverflame Squire
• Brimstone Trebuchet
• Golden Egg
• Rosethorn Acolyte
• Crystal Slipper
• Reave Soul
• Bartered Cow
• Corridor Monitor
• Insatiable Appetite
• Fling
• Syr Elenora, the Discerning
• Revenge of Ravens
• Shepherd of the Flock
• Torbran, Thane of Red Fell
• Island

You have not yet played a land this turn. You still have a substantial number of cards remaining in your library, but you know neither the identities nor the order of those cards.

Danielle is at 16 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:

• Hired Poisoner
• Wall of Tears
• Aether Figment (tapped, with two +1/+1 counters on it)
• Updraft Elemental
• Storm Fleet Spy
• Fortress Crab
• Dread Slaver (currently 4/5 with lifelink and indestructible, and 5 damage marked)
• Pontiff of Blight (tapped)
• 5 Islands (tapped)
• 5 Swamps (tapped)
• Morphic Pool (tapped)

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 - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" by 11:59 P.M. EST on Monday, December 23, 2019. 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 Sean Patrick Keatley, Russell Jones, Jack Hlavka, Eric Fletcher, Jacob Butcher, David Arnold, Jonah Comstock, Max Bernstein, Allen Smith, Greg Dreher, Addison Fox, and Hyman Rosen.

"The trick to this puzzle," Allen Smith writes, "is realizing that there is no way to guarantee a specific creature gets through unblocked. Leo has blockers with reach or flying in both colors, so giving a flier protection from Green or Red still means they can be blocked. As such, we'll have to just accept that blocks will happen.

"The upside is that Leo only has five blockers (since Kavu Aggressor can't block), and we can produce six attackers, thanks to Embodiment of Insight. The trick is making sure we can deal lethal with each of those attackers; for most of our creatures, that's easy, but making the Beacon Hawk lethal is the tricky one."

"I realized quickly that the Thespian's Stage would be key," Jack Hlavka notes. "Copying the Cathedral of War does nothing without any real evasion, so it must be the Barbarian Ring we should target. To get any damage out of it requires it to be untapped twice, which can only be accomplished by making it a creature and getting two Beacon Hawk triggers."

"So with a little help from their pet bird," Jonah Comstock writes, "our troupe (troop?) of actors is going to do a really good impression of a barbarian horde - good enough to take Leo down":

"It took me a while to figure out how to get the seventh card for threshold," Jacob Butcher writes. "But apparently Thespian's Stage is a revolving one, as it taps and untaps so much!"