Locations
"Oracle text?" you ask.
"Oracle text."
You nod. That's another interesting fact to consider, and it explains why there's a Goblin Tinkerer in the 'Inventors' deck you're playing at the moment. Rather than being the one from Duel Decks: Elves vs Inventors, it's apparently something that Claire put together from a bunch of cards lying around her house.
"I'll pay 
mana and tap my Vedalken Anatomist to kill one of your Thopter tokens," Claire says.
"That must have been some card pool you got," you say. For her part, Claire's playing her 40-card deck from her Unabridged Cube draft, and she's been outmatching you easily.
"I know, right? If you'd have told me I'd be playing Homarid and Contagion Clasp in the same deck one day, I'd have said you were crazy."
"It's got one of each card ever printed," you explain. "I don't know how the store puts it together, and the decks get really weird sometimes."
"I can see that," Claire says. "I should be feeling sorry for you, though. I haven't yet refined that deck you're playing."
"No, no, that's okay," you say, glancing at your cards. You suddenly realize something, and stare at the Sage of Lat-Nam on your side of the table.
"This is from Dominaria," you say, surprised.
"It is?" Claire asks, picking up the Sage. "It is!" she says.
"How did you get your hands on a Sage of Lat-Nam that hasn't been released yet?"
"I don't know," Claire admits. "But I'll ask my dad. He probably has connections or something."
Dominaria or not, at least your next move is clear. "I'll tap that Sage and sacrifice the Thopter token," you say, shoving it off to the side underneath your dice bag. You draw a Filigree Crawler, and sigh.
"How are you triggering Faces of the Past?" Claire asks.
You check the enchantment on one corner of your board. "I'll untap all Thopters," you say. "I still need my last Thopter to play defense against your Jetting Glasskite."
Claire obliges, attacking with the very same Glasskite and a Hungry Spriggan. You activate your Master Transmuter and switch out your Razorgrass Screen with a Yotian Soldier, which throws itself in front of the trampling Spriggan. "That'll kill the Soldier, but I'll take zero trample damage," you say.
"I should have seen that one coming," Claire remarks.
"Ah, it could be worse," you say. "If it weren't for that Dampening Pulse of yours, I'd have activated my Demolition Stomper to block. My turn?"
"Just a second," Claire says, dropping a Hornet Queen onto the table and looking for some advertisement cards to represent the new Insect tokens. "Okay, now it's your turn."
Fortunately, your next draw doesn't disappoint: a Steel Overseer might be exactly what you're looking for. But Claire's in a very dominant position right now: she has multiple fliers on the table, you've just lost your last Thopter token, and her Grazing Gladehart has left her at a massive -- practically unreachable -- life total.
The tiny voice at the back of your mind wonders if there's a way you can eke out a victory here. Perhaps there is, and perhaps not . . .  but finding out probably won't be easy.
It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Claire before the beginning of her next combat phase.
You are at 4 life, with the following cards in play:
- Etherium Sculptor
- Sage of Lat-Nam
- Goblin Tinkerer
- Thopter Engineer
- Whirler Virtuoso
- Foundry Inspector
- Master Transmuter
- Glassblower's Puzzleknot
- Faces of the Past
- Demolition Stomper
- 5 Islands
- 3 Mountains
You have the following cards in your hand:
You currently have no energy counters.
You have not yet played a land this turn. You're aware that you have a significant number of cards remaining in your library, although you do not know the identities or order of any of those cards.
Claire is at 21 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:
- Fog Bank
- Hungry Spriggan (tapped)
- Vedalken Anatomist (tapped)
- Femeref Archers
- Grazing Gladehart
- Okina Nightwatch
- Jetting Glasskite (tapped)
- Hornet Queen
- 4 Insect tokens (each a 1/1 Green creature with flying and deathtouch)
- Dampening Pulse
- 5 Forests (all tapped)
- 5 Islands (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@gatheringmagic.com with the subject line "Puzzle -- Ghost in the Machine" by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, April 15, 2018. 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 Addison Fox, Greg Dreher, and Ryou Niji.
jas0n's probably not the first person to forget that Tightening Coils removes flying, and leaves a gaping hole in his defenses. "Forgetting that your opponent can have evasive creatures is a mistake we've all made," Addison Fox writes. "It's about as common as the old 'Wait, that has Reach?' at every prerelease. It's not a mistake jas0n will live to remember this game, since we can give anything flying and our hand is set up to make that creature fair-to-middlin' large."
"You'll be able to get part of the way to victory when you attack with flying creatures," Greg Dreher notes, "and Vampirism will help increase your damage. But the rest of the work will have to be done by Zulaport Cutthroat. Since losing creatures goes against what you need to be doing in combat, timing is important."
Addison's and Greg's solutions were quite close to each other, with the sole difference involving the use of Festering Goblin. Greg's solution goes as follows:
- Tap five Swamps and two Islands for mana.
- Tap and sacrifice Flight Spellbomb to give Zulaport Cutthroat flying. Spend
to draw a card off its trigger. - Spend
, discard the drawn card, and tap Skirk Ridge Exhumer to create a Festering Goblin token. - Spend to activate Magical Hacker's ability, targeting the Festering Goblin token. Its ability now gives +1/+1 to a creature when it dies.
- Spend and cast Vampirism, targeting Zulaport Cutthroat. Festering Goblin dies and gives +1/+1 to Zulaport Cutthroat. Jason goes to 13, and you go to 7.
- Spend and equip True-Faith Censer to Zulaport Cutthroat.
- Attack with Zulaport Cutthroat and Leering Gargoyle.
- jas0n takes 8 damage from Zulaport Cutthroat (1/1, +2/+1 from True-Faith Censer, +1/+1 from Festering Goblin, +4/+4 from Vampirism = 8/7) and 1 damage from Leering Gargoyle (2/2, -1/-1 from Vampirism = 1/1). He goes to 4.
- Post-combat, tap Island and Dimir Aqueduct for mana.
- Spend to activate Magical Hacker's ability, targeting Aspect of Gorgon. Skirk Ridge Exhumer now has negative toughness and goes to the graveyard as a state-based action. jas0n goes to 3 and you go to 8.
- Tap Grapeshot Catapult to deal 1 damage to the 1/1 Leering Gargoyle, which dies. jas0n goes to 2 and you go to 9.
- Spend and sacrifice Grapeshot Catapult to cast Culling the Weak. jas0n goes to 1 and you go to 10. You get .
- Spend to equip True-Faith Censer to your 0/1 Magical Hacker.
- Spend to activate Magical Hacker's ability, targeting True-Faith Censer. Magical Hacker now has 0 toughness and goes to the graveyard as a state-based action. jas0n goes to 0.
Addison's solution, on the other hand, notes that you don't have to hack the Festering Goblin. Instead, you can hack True-Faith Censer, then use the extra mana from Culling the Weak to remove multiple creatures:
- Load up our Zulaport Cutthroat:
- Crack the Flight Spellbomb to give Zulaport Cutthroat flying (paying to draw a card).
- Equip True-Faith Censer to the Cutthroat.
- Cast Vampirism on the Cutthroat.
- Attack with both our fliers. The now-7/6 Cutthroat and now-1/1 Gargoyle knock jas0n down to 6, which is coincidentally the number of creatures we can control this turn.
- On our second main phase, tap the Skirk Ridge Exhumer and discard our unknown card (let's say it's our splashed Iona) and make a 1/1 Festering Goblin. The 1/1 immediately dies to Vampirism, giving our Grapeshot Catapult -1/-1 and draining jas0n to 5.
- Tap the Catapult to ping the now-1/1 Gargoyle to death, draining jas0n to 4.
- Sacrifice the Catapult to Culling the Weak, draining jas0n to 3 and going back up to 7 mana.
- Spend to equip True-Faith Censer to the Magical Hacker.
- At this point it becomes important that we still have available. Spend both to hack two permanents with Magical Hacker:
- Aspect of Gorgon, killing Skirk Ridge Exhumer by giving it -1/-3 (draining to 2).
- True-Faith Censer, killing Magical Hacker and draining to 1.
- We have 3 mana remaining, which is enough to equip the Censer to Cutthroat again. Because we have no other creatures, Vampirism can't save it and it joins the rest in peaceful oblivion, draining for the final point.
That said, it turns out that you don't necessarily need to cast Culling the Weak at all. "Even though we are looking to sacrifice creatures and Culling the Weak should be a bargain," Ryou Niji writes, "it turns out to be more expensive. The thing is, we have what is essentially ': sacrifice a creature', so casting Culling the Weak adds up to ', Sacrifice a creature: Add ' at a time when you cannot use this effectively at all."
Ryou's solution is an interesting one that involves not giving True-Faith Censer to its most obvious wielder:
- Pay to activate Magical Hacker twice, hacking Skirk Ridge Exhumer and Leering Gargoyle.
- Pay , tap Skirk Ridge Exhumer, and discard Culling the Weak to make a Festering Goblin token, except it has the hacked text with "+1/+1" instead of "-1/-1".
- Pay to equip True-Faith Censer to Leering Gargoyle. It becomes a 3/3.
- Pay to cast Vampirism on Zulaport Cutthroat. The Festering Goblin token dies to the -1/-1 effect, and all your other creatures live. Zulaport Cutthroat becomes a 5/5.
- With the death trigger, give Leering Gargoyle +1/+1. This cancels with the -1/-1 from Vampirism, so it goes back to being a 3/3.
- Zulaport Cutthroat triggers to drain the opponent for 1; the opponent is down to 13 and we are up to 7.
- Tap and sacrifice Flight Spellbomb to give Zulaport Cutthroat flying.
- Attack with Zulaport Cutthroat and Leering Gargoyle. Both fly, so the opponent can't block.
- Before damage is dealt, tap the hacked vigilant Gargoyle to give itself +2/-2. It becomes a 5/1.
- Our attackers deal 10 damage to the opponent (down to 3).
- Post-combat, tap Grapeshot Catapult to deal 1 damage to Leering Gargoyle, killing it. Zulaport Cutthroat drains the opponent down to 2.
- Pay to activate Magical Hacker to hack Aspect of Gorgon. It now gives -1/-3 instead of +1/+3, killing Skirk Ridge Exhumer on the spot. Zulaport Cutthroat drains the opponent down to 1.
- Pay to activate the ability of Magical Hacker to hack Vampirism. It now gives -1/-1 for each creature other than Zulaport Cutthroat, which kills it and drains the opponent for a final point of life - down to 0.
"We never get to find out what we would have drawn on jas0n's upkeep," Addison muses, "but I don't mind that much."
gg, ty.
