Locations
“Look familiar?” you ask.
“Seance,” he says. “From Modern Masters 2017.”
“Surprised?”
“No,” he says, giving you back the card. “We’re playing the Unabridged Cube, after all. It’s got one of each card ever printed, so it should have a few previews every now and then. Besides, I’m more curious about why you’re playing it.”
“I just thought I’d give it a spin,” you say. “I’ll pass the turn now.”
Ryan glances at your untapped lands. “You’re not going to re-cast your Windscouter?” he asks.
“No, I think I’ll need the mana during your turn.”
“Suit yourself,” Ryan says, untapping his cards. “Move to my upkeep. Seance triggers?”
“Yeah. I’ll exile my Pearl Dragon and put a Pearl Dragon token into play. Simic Fluxmage evolves, too.”
“Cool. I’ll tap four to pay echo for my Lightning Dragon.”
“I’ll tap five to cast Ulrich of the Krallenhorde,” Ryan says. “I’ll give Lightning Dragon the +4/+4 bonus.”
“Okay.”
“That Expendable Troops is a Human Soldier, right?” Ryan asks.
“Yeah,” you say. “Oracle text. The Windscouter’s also a Human Scout.”
“But Seance doesn’t give haste, as far as I can tell.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Then I’ll declare my attack,” Ryan says. “Any responses?”
“I’ll tap 2 mana and activate Captain of the Mists to tap your Lightning Dragon.”
“I’ll attack with just my Elven Riders, then,” Ryan says. “With Furor of the Bitten and Orcish Oriflamme, it’s a 6/5 creature. Are you blocking with your Pearl Dragon token?”
“Yup. But before combat damage, I’ll tap 2 mana and activate Simic Fluxmage, moving its +1/+1 counter to the Dragon and making it a 5/5 flyer.”
Ryan chuckles. “Very clever,” he admits, dropping his cards — both Elven Riders and Furor of the Bitten — into his graveyard. “I didn’t see that for some reason.”
You find it hard to disguise your smile. “Any other moves?”
“Nope. I’ll pass the turn.”
“Stuffy Doll pings you in response,” you say, “so you’re now at 10 life.” You take a minute to read Ulrich’s rules text (both front and back), then start untapping your cards.
“Don’t forget your Seance trigger,” Ryan says.
“Not much chance of that,” you tell him. You leaf through the creature cards in your graveyard, wondering which will give you the best advantage this turn.
It is the beginning of your upkeep phase, and you’re about to put your Seance’s ability on the stack. Defeat Ryan before the beginning of his next combat phase.
You are at 6 life, with the following cards in play:
- Expendable Troops
- Simic Fluxmage
- Captain of the Mists
- Stuffy Doll (with Ryan as its chosen player)
- Seance
- 5 Plains
- 4 Islands
- Prairie Stream
You have the following cards in your hand:
You are currently in the process of putting your Seance’s triggered ability on the stack, which means that you first need to choose a target creature card in your graveyard. (You may or may not choose to exile a creature card for its ability this turn.)
You do not know the identities or order of any of the remaining cards in your library.
You have the following creature cards in your graveyard:
Ryan is at 10 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:
- Sylvan Caryatid
- Might Weaver
- Valakut Invoker
- Centaur Archer
- Lightning Dragon (tapped)
- Ulrich of the Krallenhorde
- Orcish Oriflamme
- 5 Mountains (four tapped)
- 5 Forests (all tapped)
Ryan has the following creature cards in his graveyard:
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 — The Other Side” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, March 12, 2017. 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 Aaron Golas, Russell Jones, Paul Seitz, Matthew Harvey, Greg Dreher, Ryou Niji, Subrata Sircar, Addison Fox, Miguel Garcia, Dominic Chan, Hyman Rosen, and Luke Paulsen.
Subrata Sircar kicks off this solution with several observations:
- We don’t have to worry about Increasing Vengeance because it can only target an instant or sorcery its caster controls, and Shinobu has no cards right now.
- We cannot attack with the Orc Sureshot because Contaminated Bond plus the Goblin Fireslinger will kill us, so we have to figure out how to force through at least 5 damage without it, or gain some life.
- However, we only need four damage if the Fledgling Djinn is around, because it will deal one damage at the beginning of our opponent’s upkeep. In addition, the Foul Imp forces her to lose 2 life if we can get it to leave and come back.
“If we had infinite mana,” Ryou Niji continues, “we could simply use Walker of Secret Ways to return itself to our hand and recast it to generate infinite Orc Sureshot triggers, killing all blockers and allowing us to attack for exactly lethal. Unfortunately, we are actually pretty short on mana, so we have to find a more efficient way to generate ETB triggers — which Ninjutsu can provide.”
Ninjutsu, for that matter, is a really strange ability. “First,” Hyman Rosen writes, “the comprehensive rules for Ninjutsu (702.48c)say that a swapped-in creature ‘is put onto the battlefield unblocked.’ That makes it eligible to be swapped out through further Ninjutsu.
“Second, we see that there is an End of Combat step (511) after combat damage is dealt, where players get priority. At this point, creatures are still designated as ‘attacking’, ‘blocking’, ‘blocked’, and ‘unblocked’. Thus we can still activate Ninjutsu during this step!”
Putting all this together, we have Miguel Garcia’s solution:
- Tap Driver of the Dead with Fatestitcher.
- Sacrifice Fatestitcher to Dimir House Guard’s ability.
- Unearth Fatestitcher, using Orc Sureshot’s trigger to snipe the Fireslinger (paying
). - Tap Fledgling Djinn with Fatestitcher.
- Attack with your three remaining creatures(not Orc Sureshot). Shinobu only has two untapped creatures (Barbarian Outcast and Shivan Zombie) with which to block.
- A: If Skullsnatcher is unblocked, return Walker of Secret Ways to your hand with its ability (paying
). Sacrifice Dimir House Guard to its own ability. - B: If Dimir House Guard is unblocked, use Walker of Secret Ways’ ability to return both Skullsnatcher and Walker of Secret Ways to your hand. Then ninjutsu Skullsnatcher to replace Dimir House Guard (paying ).
- C: If Walker of Secret Ways is unblocked, use Walker of Secret Ways’ ability to return Skullsnatcher to your hand. Then ninjutsu Skullsnatcher to replace Walker of Secret Ways (paying ). Sacrifice Dimir House Guard to its own ability.
- In the last two instances, Skullsnatcher triggers Orc Sureshot and gives Foul Imp -1/-1.
- Go to combat damage. Skullsnatcher deals 2 damage to Shinobu and uses its ability to exile Goblin Fireslinger and Corpse Hauler from her graveyard.
- After that ability resolves but before passing priority, cast Dark Ritual.
- At this point, as Ryou Niji writes, “Let the ninja-ing begin:
- Pay to ninjutsu Walker of Secret Ways for Skullsnatcher.
- Pay to ninjutsu Skullsnatcher for Walker of Secret Ways.
- Pay another and another to repeat the process.
- The net result is four Orc Sureshot triggers. Stack them so that they first kill Foul Imp, then Driver of the Dead.
- When Driver of the Dead dies, the opponent has to return a creature card with its ability, and the only legal target is Foul Imp. That means she loses 2 life and is at 1.
- Pass the turn. The ability of Fledgling Djinn means that the opponent is dead before she can draw a card.
Note that in Miguel’s (b) and (c) scenarios, you only need three more Orc Sureshot triggers (as Foul Imp will already have received one -1/-1 effect so far). “At this point,” Russell Jones adds, “you still have enough mana to taunt Shinobu by tagging out one more time, giving Fledgling Djinn -1/-1 but oh-so-cruelly keeping it alive. Honestly, you'd finish it off if you had the chance, but you just don't have any more of that pesky ‘mana’ stuff available!”
Further, if Dimir House Guard gets blocked, you really want to sacrifice it to itself — otherwise it’ll kill the Shivan Zombie and give Shinobu an alternative target for Driver of the Dead’s triggered ability!
“This was a complicated one!” Luke Paulsen remarks.“Ninjutsu was definitely conserved. Actually, we ended up with fewer Ninjas in play than we started with, so maybe we need a Second Law of Ninjutsu.”
