You give him a stern look. "I have a right to be here, you know. Just because you're stuck in this game with me doesn't mean that I should shut down everything and concede."

"No, I mean you really shouldn't be here with that cold of yours," Tommy repeats. "You've been blowing your nose into that supply of tissue paper for the last fifteen minutes!"

"Oh," you say. "Sorry."

"Seriously. Go back to bed and get some rest."

"I didn't want to miss the last Unabridged Cube draft before the store closes for the holidays."

"It's still going to have one of each card ever printed when you get back," Tommy says. "This is our last game anyway. Let's get this finished."

You sneeze again. This time, you can't help but think that this is no way to end your year.

You and Tommy are clearly stalemated. On his side, Tommy has some solid forces: a 5/5 flyer in the form of a Dearly Departed, a vigilant Hundred-Handed One, and a Hired Poisoner to stop the rest of your ground attacks. On your side, however, you have a lot of utility: a Penumbra Spider, a Spirit en-Kor and a Daybreak Ranger that can head off your opponent's flyers; and an Honored Hydra and Temur Sabertooth that have been playing great defense themselves.

Tommy taps a couple of lands and plays a Wall of Omens, shaking his head.

"As if you didn't already have a lot of blockers there," you say.

"It could be worse," Tommy says, drawing a card from the Wall. "I might have drawn the Plains I need for the Hundred-Handed One to go monstrous."

You sniffle. "That would be bad," you say.

"We could always just call it a draw," Tommy says, playing a Spreading Plague. "That way I don't have to worry about catching whatever it is that you have."

"I didn't think I had anything until this morning," you admit.

"Yeah, whatever you say," Tommy muses. "It's your turn."

You fully expect to draw something that will break this game wide open (and perhaps allow you to go home and crawl back into bed as soon as possible). Awkwardly, however, your deck merely decides to give you another Forest.

"Rats," you say out loud.

Tommy's face sags. "You mean we're going to be here for another fifteen minutes? Maybe we really should just call it a draw."

You glance at the cards on the table, wondering if there's any way out of this situation. Or better yet, maybe there's a win on the board that you're just not seeing past the runny nose and the sinus pain.

It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Tommy before the beginning of his next combat phase.

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

• Strangleroot Geist
• Daybreak Ranger
• Court Street Denizen (with your Elephant Guide attached)
• Devout Witness
• Spirit en-Kor
• Penumbra Spider
• Temur Sabertooth
• Honored Hydra
• 4 Forest
• 3 Plains

You have the following card in your hand:

• Forest

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.

Tommy is at 7 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:

• Hired Poisoner
• Wall of Omens
• Carrier Thrall
• Skyhunter Prowler
• Vulturous Aven
• Hundred-Handed One
• Grandmother Sengir
• Dearly Departed
• Spreading Plague
• 2 Plains (both tapped)
• 5 Swamp (all tapped)

If you think you've got 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 - I Wish I Were in Madagascar" by 11:59 P.M. EST on Monday, December 31, 2018. We'll... ah... wait a second...

As it turns out, Sean's on vacation for a couple of weeks! (No, he's not in Madagascar.) While the next couple of puzzle articles will still go up every Thursday as scheduled, their solutions will be placed on hold until Sean gets back.

Our submission dates still apply, so if you want your solution for a puzzle to be considered, you'll still have to send it in by its respective deadline. We'll update these puzzles as soon as possible once Sean returns to regular writing duties!

Last Week's Puzzle

Correct solutions to last week's puzzle were received from Russell Jones, Addison Fox, Matt Bocek, Bob Fusco, Rob Nadeau, Ryou Niji, Thomas Harris, Alexander Breuers, Max Bernstein, John Butler, Hyman Rosen, Greg Dreher, Michael Feldman, Frederick Remolana, and Chris Billard.

"This puzzle has a number of unusual restrictions," Addison Fox writes."In these cases, it is often valuable to work backward to find a solution.

"The first and most important restriction is that, since it is our second main phase, we need to deal 16 points of damage through noncombat sources. This restriction implies two additional conditions:

• First, we need either a 16-power creature and one Red mana for Gravitic Punch, or an 8-power creature and two Red mana to cast Gravitic Punch and jumpstart it.
• This in turn leads us to check to see if it's possible to get a creature that large... which, luckily, we can do.

"So I need to get 16 damage across in my second main," John Butler writes."I have some dudes, I have some spells, and I have Gravitic Punch. I can jump-start Gravitic Punch, so I need an 8 power creature, which I don't have. But I have Pack's Favor, so what I need is a 5-power creature... which I don't have either, but I think I can make one. More importantly, though, this means I need Green and Red mana."

"Soldevi Adnate could potentially net us as much as 8 mana if we untap," Matt Bocek notes, "but it's clear that this is an issue of getting the right mana rather than getting enough mana. Luckily, we've drawn some tools to make this possible."

This all comes to a head in Alexander Breuers' solution. Interestingly enough, you have to use a lot of the cards you just pulled from your Guilds of Ravnica pack:

"You have a lot of cards in your hand to discard for the jump-start activation," Alexander adds, so that should probably be the least of your worries.

This solution has one minor variant - instead of having Tidewater Minion untap the Boros Guildgate, you can skip playing the Guildgate and untap your Urban Utopia-enchanted land instead.

"This was a fun one," Rob Nadeau writes."So much of the solution comes from pieces in your hand that you wouldn't initially think you'd be able to cast. And thank you so much to Meera for putting that Arcane Melee into play. We couldn't have won without it."

"In the end," Max Bernstein notes, "Meera got her wish. She did get to see what was in the pack! Too bad it cost her the game."