Locations
Unfortunately for you, your last game is running long. You and your opponent, Sharon, have drawn and played almost all the lands in your decks. In addition, it’s Sharon who has the advantage: She has bigger creatures and more instant-speed tricks, and she’s spent the last few turns whittling down your creature base.
Finally, Sharon makes her move. On her turn, she drops a Malfunction on your Foundry Assembler, crews her Irontread Crusher, and attacks with all the creatures she can spare. You block what creatures you can (and even succeed in taking down a couple of them), but you’re forced to chump her two 6/6 creatures and let her Augmenting Automaton through, which she then pumps for 5 damage. You activate your Implement of Examination in a bid to look for removal, but your draws turn out to be a Fragmentize and a Consulate Dreadnought.
On her second main phase, Sharon’s only move is to use the last of her mana to cast a Hinterland Drake. “I’ll end my turn,” she announces. “Are you doing anything in response?”
“Are you activating your Consulate Turret?”
You nod. “I’ll tap the Turret and spend all of my three energy counters for two damage to you. What’s your life total now?”
“11 life,” Sharon says, confidently.
You start your turn, drawing the Aether Tradewinds (which would have been nice during Sharon’s last attack). You’re definitely not in a good spot: you only have three cards left in your library, you’re down to only a couple of creatures — one of which your opponent has tapped down — and Sharon’s life total is still in the double digits.
You really want to end this tournament outside the zero-match-wins bracket, but it looks like you have your work cut out for you this time. That said, you do want to salvage a little dignity from this situation, and so you’ll have to give this a shot.
It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Sharon before the beginning of her next combat phase.
You are at 3 life, with the following cards in play:
- Restoration Specialist (with your Inventor's Goggles attached)
- Foundry Assembler (tapped, with Sharon’s Malfunction attached)
- Implement of Combustion
- Prophetic Prism
- Consulate Turret
- 7 Plains
- 2 Islands
- 7 Mountains
You have the following cards in your hand:
- Consulate Dreadnought
- Fragmentize
- Aether Tradewinds (drawn during your draw step this turn)
You currently have no energy counters.
You have a total of 3 cards remaining in your library. You know the identity of its top card, but otherwise do not know the identities or order of the remaining cards:
You have the following artifact and enchantment cards in your graveyard:
- Glassblower's Puzzleknot
- Implement of Examination
- Bomat Bazaar Barge
- Prizefighter Construct
- Watchful Automaton
- Caught in the Brights
Sharon is at 11 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:
Sharon currently has no energy counters.
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 — Consular Affairs” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, January 22, 2017. We’ll include the best ones in next week’s article along with the next puzzle!
Last Week’s Puzzle
“There's an awful lot of distracting information in this one that doesn't end up mattering,” Addison Fox muses.“What does end up mattering a lot is that Ernesto has one mode of interaction in spite of having just tapped out: their Kami of Ancient Law has a manaless activation, so they're definitely looking to disrupt our plans with it. Luckily, we have a pretty resilient board — two four-toughness creatures and a six-toughness creature means that a lot of our stuff will live through a Slagstorm for 3, but we still need to be pretty cagey to pull this one out.”
“Kami of Ancient Law makes this particularly tricky to navigate,” Allen Smith notes, “as they have three enchantments of ours that our opponent can target (and even two of their own) . . . and they could pull the trigger at any moment. That said, only two of the targets actually matter, since we can respond by using Broken Fall if our opponent tries to target it.”
The solution isn’t easy, but Michael Feldman gives a good rundown of the possibilities in his submission:
- Activate Broken Fall.
- You can regenerate anything you like, although it might be more interesting to regenerate Mer-Ek Nightblade or Kami of Ancient Law.
- Because returning Broken Fall to your hand is a cost, Ernesto cannot prevent its return by activating Kami of Ancient Law in response.
- Now or at any time before Kami of Ancient Law dies (or the game ends, if you regenerate it), Ernesto might nonetheless sacrifice the Kami to destroy any other enchantment in play.
- Cast Hunting Moa, tapping two Forests (four left) to pay its
cost (reduced from 
by Seal of the Guildpact). - When Hunting Moa enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on Quicksmith Genius (now 4/3).
- If Ernesto doesn’t destroy Impact Tremors in response, the Tremors deals him 1 damage, putting him at 7 life.
- Equip Brawler's Plate to Quicksmith Genius (now 6/5 with trample), tapping your remaining four Forests to pay the
cost. - Cast Slagstorm, tapping two Mountains (two left) to pay its
cost (reduced from by Seal of the Guildpact). - Choose to deal 3 damage to each creature.
- Ernesto's only surviving untapped creature is Wall of Omens.
- Your surviving untapped creatures are Junktroller, Quicksmith Genius, and Hangarback Walker.
- All other creatures have 3 toughness or less and are dealt lethal damage. If one of them was targeted for regeneration, it regenerates and taps. All other creatures die.
- When Hunting Moa leaves the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on Wall of Omens (now 1/5 with 3 damage on it).
- Attack with Quicksmith Genius (6/5 with trample and 3 damage on it) and Hangarback Walker (4/4 with 3 damage on it).
- Ernesto's only potential blocker is Wall of Omens (1/5 with 3 damage on it).
- If Ernesto lets both creatures through, they deal a total of 10 damage, which is more than enough to defeat him.
- If Ernesto blocks Quicksmith Genius, you can assign 2 lethal damage to Wall of Omens and have it trample for 4 damage to Ernesto, while Hangarback Walker deals 4 damage to Ernesto as well, for a total of 8 damage — enough to defeat him.
- If Ernesto blocks Hangarback Walker, Quicksmith Genius deals 6 damage to Ernesto (who is now at 2 life if he destroyed Impact Tremors before it triggered, or at 1 life if he didn't).At the same time, Wall of Omens deals 1 damage to Hangarback Walker, which is enough to kill it. When Hangarback Walker dies, you create four Thopter tokens. Quicksmith Genius triggers four times, but you can ignore all of these.
- If Ernesto has not destroyed Impact Tremors at this point, it deals 1 damage to him per Thopter entering the battlefield, for 4 total damage. This brings him to -3 life for the overkill.
- The only way Ernesto can survive the combat phase is thus to block Hangarback Walker and sacrifice Kami of Ancient Law to destroy Impact Tremors before the Walker dies. In this case, Pia's Revolution remains (¡Viva!) and returns Hangarback Walker to your hand . . . unless Ernesto has the Revolution deal him 3 damage and force him to lose.
- If Ernesto is still alive, cast Hangarback Walker with X = 0.
- In response, tap Junktroller to put Slagstorm on the bottom of your library.
- Hangarback Walker enters as a 0/0 creature, triggering Quicksmith Genius but dying before it resolves, which triggers Pia's Revolution.
- When Pia's Revolution resolves, Hangarback Walker returns to your hand unless Ernesto takes 3 damage and loses.
- Assuming that Ernesto refuses to take lethal damage, Quicksmith Genius then resolves: Choose to discard Broken Fall and draw the next card from your deck.
- Recast Hangarback Walker with X = 0.
- Hangarback Walker enters and dies as a 0/0 creature, triggering Quicksmith Genius and Pia's Revolution in the same order as above.
- Ernesto must again allow Pia's Revolution to returnHangarback Walker to your hand, or take 3 damage and lose.
- If Ernesto stays in the game, Quicksmith Genius resolves: Discard the card you just drew and draw the next card from your deck.
- Repeat this sequence exactly until a game-winner pops up (e.g. Lightning Strike), or until you draw your last card:Slagstorm.
- Recast Slagstorm, tapping your last two Mountains to pay for the cost (reduced from by Seal of the Guildpact).
- Choose to deal 3 damage to each player.
- You are reduced to 2 life and Ernesto is reduced to less than 0 . . . and this time he has no alternatives.
“With Kami of Ancient Law active,” Michael concludes, “you need to solve the puzzle allowing for the possibilities of being without either Impact Tremors or Pia's Revolution. And the complexity doesn't end there: You also need to engage in a combat scenario where Ernesto has multiple blocking choices. Altogether, this puzzle is one contingency after another.
“However, focusing on one basic two-part question can cut to the heart of the puzzle: How do you trigger either of your trigger-able enchantments? It turns out this has one answer: make sure Hangarback Walker dies. And to do that, we need to attack Ernesto in such a fashion that he will be defeated if he doesn't block Hangarback Walker . . . and we need make sure that the block will also be successfully fatal to the Walker.”
Notably, this solution has some minor variants:
- If Ernesto doesn’t destroy Impact Tremors in response to your casting of Hunting Moa, you can win the game by putting the Moa’s dying +1/+1 counter on Quicksmith Genius (making it a 7/6 creature with trample).
- For that matter, Hunting Moa’s initial +1/+1 counter can be placed on either Quicksmith Genius or Hangarback Walker. If you put this counter on the Walker, though, then your Broken Fall needs to regenerate Mer-Ek Nightblade. This gives Wall of Omens deathtouch when you put the Moa’s dying +1/+1 counter on it, and allows it to kill your Hangarback Walker in combat.
- If Ernesto destroys Impact Tremors, you could use Junktroller to put it on the bottom of your library instead of Slagstorm. Once you draw and cast it, you can then continually recast Hangarback Walker with X = 0 to seal the win.
“Of course,” Allen remarks, “depending on how long it takes Ernesto to figure out what you're doing, he might just elect to finish it sooner by taking three lethal damage from Pia's Revolution instead.”
