“So how are the twins?”

You’re playing the final match of your Battle for Zendikar Booster Draft, and Cécile has obviously been using the tournament as an excuse to blow off some steam. You’re not sure if that has anything to do with her babysitting job, but, well . . . it most likely does.

That said, your Inverter of Truth might also have something to do with Cécile’s not-so-good mood. You played the 6/6 flyer a few turns ago, and it’s since taken all of her efforts to keep from losing to it. She’s thrown several flyers in its way, conceded large chunks of her life total, and is now teetering on the brink of defeat.

Once Cécile draws her next card, however, she brightens up considerably. You find out why when she plays it: Eldrazi Displacer!

“Pay 3 and blink your Inverter,” she says.

As you exile all the cards in your library and shuffle your graveyard into a new library, you suddenly realize what she’s doing. You only have enough open mana to cast the Altar's Reap in your hand, but you have to time it just right.

“Pay another 3,” Cécile says, “and blink your Inverter again.”

“In response,” you say, “I’ll cast Altar's Reap, sacrificing my Territorial Baloth—the one that has your Tightening Coils attached. I draw two cards.”

“Okay.”

“That puts Altar's Reap and Territorial Baloth in my graveyard,” you add with a sigh of relief. “So Inverter of Truth blinks in, we resolve its ability, and I get the Baloth and the Altar's Reap back in my library.”

You wince, fighting the urge to curse. “I forgot about the Drone,” you admit.

“For my last play,” Cécile says, “I’ll tap my awakened Island to cast my last card in hand—Clutch of Currents—on your Inverter of Truth.”

You stare at the remains of your board for a couple of seconds. “That . . . was thorough,” you eventually say.

“To be fair,” Cécile says, “I was wondering why you didn’t just sacrifice your Inverter to Altar's Reap in response.”

Now you curse. There are times that make you question exactly how you manage to win games, and this is one of them.

Cécile gives you a concerned look. “Do you want to take it back?” she asks.

You sigh, leaf through the cards in your hand, and start your untap step. “No, it’s okay,” you tell her. “I’ll just have to figure a way out of this mess.”

It is the start of your upkeep phase. Defeat Cécile this turn without losing the game.

You are at 15 life with the following cards in play:

• Blisterpod
• Sky Scourer
• Pilgrim's Eye
• Tajuru Stalwart (with three +1/+1 counters on it)
• Harvester Troll (with two +1/+1 counters on it)
• Kozilek's Translator
• 4 Swamps
• 5 Forests
• Mortuary Mire
• Timber Gorge

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Elemental Uprising (drawn via Altar's Reap)
• Hagra Sharpshooter
• Inverter of Truth
• Turn Against (drawn via Altar's Reap)

You do not have any cards in your library or graveyard, and you will lose the game in your draw step if you don’t do something about your current situation.

Cécile is at 3 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:

• Stone Haven Medic
• Wall of Resurgence
• Ancient Crab
• Cultivator Drone (tapped)
• Eldrazi Displacer
• Drowner of Hope
• 4 Plains (all tapped)
• 5 Islands (all tapped; one Island is a base 0/0 Elemental creature with three +1/+1 counters on it)
• 2 Wastes (both tapped)
• Sandstone Bridge (tapped)

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 — Downside Up”. 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, Norman Dean, Aaron Golas, Andrew Muravskyi, Etienne Brosse, George Leung, Chadwick Bond, Caleb Davis, Ryan Hartmann, Jonathan Kustina, James Parmenter, Luciano Robino, Andrew McLaren, David Foodym, Mason Shurman, Tim Reinholz, Bob Wilson, Subrata Sircar, Glenn Vanluchene, Quadrangolo Tetra, Miko Losantas, Sanjay Saith, Cody Pulvermacher, Ryou Niji, Bastiaan Brier, Matthew Harvey, David Solomon, and Jack Guan.

“In order to cast Howl of the Horde,” Andrew McLaren writes, “we need to have Living Lore deal combat damage to something and live to tell the tale (at least for a moment). We have two potential options to copy with Howl of the Horde: Brute Strength and Turn to Frog.

“Turn to Frog can't actually help us push any damage through because none of our creatures natively have evasion that gets around all of Mustaba's blockers. This means our choice for tripling up lies with Brute Strength.

“There is a wrinkle though: Damage is dealt all at once. So by the time you get to cast Howl of the Horde into Brute Strength, the buff in stats won't actually mean anything since damage has already been dealt.

“But we have Kor Bladewhirl on the battlefield. If we can trigger rally, we give our entire team first strike. Unfortunately, the wrinkle still applies since we don't get to pick and choose who gets first strike—all of our creatures will still deal their combat damage at the same time (albeit before our opponent’s creatures, but still at the same time nonetheless).

“However, we have an ace up our sleeve—or a frog in this case.”

With all this in mind, the solution becomes straightforward. Etienne Brosse’s solution goes as follows:

“Whatever blocks Living Lore is irrelevant,” Luciano Robino writes. “The worst-case scenario is that it is blocked by Abzan Kin-Guard (with lifelink) or Plated Crusher (it's huge). In the former, Living Lore will kill the Abzan Kin-Guard before the life-gain. In the latter, Living Lore will be sacrificed before the Plated Crusher kills it.”

The Abzan Kin-Guard’s lifelink is also a factor in deciding whom you attack with. “It would be a grave mistake to also attack with Kor Bladewhirl,” Ryou Niji points out, “because it can be blocked by Abzan Kin-Guard, and then we cannot prevent the opponent gaining 3 life from normal combat damage (without messing up our plan). I initially assumed the way to win was an all-out attack, and it took me a while to realize that the solution is simply not to attack with the Bladewhirl at all!”

“Mustaba really should have pressed his advantage while he had the chance,” Chadwick Bond adds. “He could have been beating down with Malakir Familiar, Abzan Kin-Guard, or Alpine Grizzly all this time and putting us under more pressure while still leaving back good blockers. Even if he suspected we had combat tricks, he had enough creatures on the board that he could afford to trade his creatures for our tricks. And if he could have forced us to lose even one of our creatures or one of our cards in hand, this solution would not be possible, or at least not foolproof.”

Instead, as Russell Jones notes, “Your Frog tramples over him for 9 damage, enough to make Mustaba croak. Ribbit indeed.”