You count the creatures on Desiree’s side of the table. “You’ve got seven creatures left, so the Lost Order’s an 8/8, yes.”

“You’ve got something, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” you say, tapping a plains and fishing out a Smite from your hand. “It’s not much, but it’s enough.”

Desiree sighs, putting the Bloodthrone Vampire into her graveyard. She grabs a pen and scribbles some new numbers on her notepad. “Vampire Envoy still hits for 1 damage, though,” she says. “And counting the one life I gained when it attacked, I’m now at 21. You’ve got a steep hill to climb.”

In hindsight, drafting and playing a Mono-White deck from the Unabridged Cube may not have been the best idea. The Cube contains one of each card ever printed, so you had to settle for some really mediocre cards at times. Desiree, on the other hand, pulled something from the unreleased Amonkhet set: Her Nest of Scarabs now sits comfortably on her side of the table, fitting in quite well with her Wither and Infect cards.

“Okay,” Desiree says, seemingly coming to a decision. “I’ll tap 7 mana and cast Supreme Exemplar. It’ll exile my Soul Snuffers.”

You frown, mostly because a 10/10 flyer will easily take the wind out of your sails. Somehow, having a 1/4 Vampire nibbling at your life total doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

“That was the last card in my hand, so I guess that’s it for me this turn,” Desiree says.

You stare at the Gaze of Justice in your hand for a while, wondering if using it is worth the specter of starting your opponent’s next turn with three tapped creatures. Then your draw step gives you a Faith Unbroken, and instantly you smile.

“I’d say you just drew more removal,” Desiree concludes.

“You don’t know the half of it,” you say, going over the creatures you have in play. “Could I borrow that notepad of yours? This might take a while.”

It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Desiree before the beginning of her next combat phase.

You are at 8 life, with the following cards in play:

• Sigiled Paladin
• Resilient Wanderer (with a -1/-1 counter on it)
• Nearheath Chaplain (with a -1/-1 counter on it, and your Conviction attached)
• Lost Order of Jarkeld (with your Vorrac Battlehorns attached)
• 9 Plains

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Gaze of Justice
• Faith Unbroken

You have not yet played a land this turn. You do not know the identities or order of any of the remaining cards in your library.

Desiree is at 21 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:

• Flensermite
• Mistform Wall (with a -1/-1 counter on it)
• Vampire Envoy (tapped)
• Moonglove Winnower (with a -1/-1 counter on it)
• Smoldering Butcher
• Supreme Exemplar (exiling Desiree’s Soul Snuffers)
• Nest of Scarabs
• 4 Islands (three tapped)
• 5 Swamps (four 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 — Counting the Lost” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, April 16, 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 Russell Jones, Paul Seitz, Aaron Golas, Allen Smith, Ryou Niji, Greg Dreher, Bill Murphy, and Addison Fox.

“Erwin is effectively at 8 life, with Bottle Gnomes in reserve,” Greg Dreher writes, “so the key to this puzzle is counting to eight. Master Thief and Lowland Tracker are an easy 5 damage. But Viridian Longbow only deals 2 at most, so the remaining 3 damage must come from Smash to Smithereens. But how do you give Erwin an artifact he can't sacrifice?”

Most solutions, in fact, weren’t too far off on this logic. However, the question of how to use Smash to Smithereens defeated quite a few people. This was likely because the two most obvious targets were problematic:

“There are so many red herrings in this puzzle,” Ryou Niji observes, “that I did not realize for a long while that Free-for-All is not a red herring. Sure, most of the creatures currently under it do not do anything for us this turn . . .  but what if we reset it?”

Bill Murphy’s solution notes that, while you know that you need to have Lowland Tracker provoke the Bellowing Fiend, you’ll also need to get rid of most of the artifacts on the table as well:

“I guess the Longbow was actually traitorous,” Allen Smith writes.“It caused us harm, so we had to Smash it to Smithereens. Meanwhile, Master Thief lived up to their name and stole this game for us!”