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“So you have to go?”
“Yes,” she says. “My makeup won’t last more than an hour or two. And it’s a set piece; if I arrive too late, the photographers won’t be happy.”
“Does that mean that you’re conceding?” you ask.
Octavia smiles. “Not just yet,” she says.
“Well, you can’t blame me for trying.”
You almost didn’t recognize Octavia when she sat across the table from you. She looks like an older version of herself right now, dressed as what you can probably imagine is the stereotypical 1960s American housewife. She did mention that she was in a Mothers’ Day-themed shoot for a photography class, so it’s entirely possible that that’s her exact role.
Costume or no costume, however, she’s clearly dominating your Amonkhet draft. Octavia somehow ended up the only Zombie-oriented drafter at your table, and has been winning game after game with a liberty of mummies (as well as other undead).
You managed to survive Octavia’s early-game onslaught, and you’ve now settled into a late-game stalemate. However, she has the clear advantage in your standoff: On Octavia’s last turn, she cast a Festering Mummy and embalmed her Unwavering Initiate, triggering her Bontu's Monument and Wayward Servant to continue your slow march to zero life.
Fortunately, the Naga Oracle you played on your previous turn was a huge help, putting three nonland cards on top of your library: Galestrike, Desert Cerodon, and Bloodrage Brawler, in that order. They’re not much, but they’re certainly better than the remaining lands in your deck.
“Do you need more time, dear?” Octavia asks, jolting you from your thoughts.
“What? Oh, sorry. I just need a couple more minutes.”
Octavia looks doubtful. “You’re at four life,” she points out, “and you don’t have a lot of creatures. Even if you have a way to deal with my flyer, I would just need one good creature spell to finish the game.”
“That’s assuming that you get to your turn,” you answer, untapping your lands and drawing your Galestrike.
Octavia raises an eyebrow. “You mean that you’re going to win this turn?” she asks.
“I’m thinking about it,” you say, smiling.
It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Octavia before the beginning of her next combat phase.
You are at 4 life, with the following cards in play:
- Bloodlust Inciter
- Battlefield Scavenger
- Vizier of Tumbling Sands
- Naga Oracle
- Drake Haven
- 6 Islands
- 5 Mountains
You have the following card in your hand:
You have not yet played a land this turn. You have the following cards on top of your library:
- Desert Cerodon (topmost card)
- Bloodrage Brawler (second from top)
Octavia is at 6 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:
- Festering Mummy
- 2 Miasmic Mummy
- Wayward Servant
- Sparring Mummy
- Unwavering Initiate token
- Oketra's Attendant token (tapped)
- Bontu's Monument
- 5 Plains (three tapped)
- 5 Swamps (three 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 — Mummy Dearest” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, May 14, 2017. We’ll include the best ones in next week’s article along with the next puzzle!
Last Week’s Puzzle
“We have 11 mana,” Addison Fox writes, “two of it potentially Black thanks to the Gift of Paradise on our forest. If we had just one more mana, we could Cut something for no reason and Ribbons for X=8 for the win. Unfortunately, we can't do that.”
“If you could get Cut // Ribbons into your graveyard at no cost, winning would be trivial,” Greg Dreher adds. “But getting it there by casting Cut leaves you one mana short. So the remaining damage needs to come from combat.”
There are multiple solutions to this puzzle, but all of them follow a similar approach: Make something unblockable with Pathmaker Initiate. Exactly which creature you target with the Initiate’s ability is another matter altogether. However, the most common submitted solution had a not-so-obvious target: the Pathmaker Initiate itself!
As Martin Krawies writes:
- Tap Pathmaker Initiate to make itself unblockable (as its power is 2).
- Tap Mountain/Forest/Forest to cast Spidery Grasp on our Pathmaker Initiate. It untaps and gets +2/+4. (Power: 4)
- Tap Mountain/Forest/Forest to cast Cartouche of Strength on our Pathmaker Initiate. Choose not to fight anything. (Power: 5)
- Go to combat, boost Pathmaker Initiate with Hazoret's Favor. It gets +2/+0 but will but sacrificed at end of turn. (Power: 7)
- Attack with Pathmaker Initiate and Trueheart Twins, exerting the Twins to boost our team. Pathmaker Initiate and Trueheart Twins each get +1/+0. (Power: 8)
- Trueheart Twins will get blocked, but the Pathmaker Initiate can’t be blocked. Khaled takes 8 damage from it and loses.
Notably, this approach doesn’t use Cut // Ribbons at all. Enrique Cordero points out that you can take a similar approach with Trueheart Twins, although you’d need both sides of the split card:
- For
cast Cut on Angel of Sanctions, killing it and returning Defiant Greatmaw to the battlefield. - When Defiant Greatmaw comes back to the battlefield put the two -1/-1 counters on Trueheart Twins.
- Tap Pathmaker Initiate to make the Trueheart Twins unblockable (as they are 2/2 now).
- Attack with Trueheart Twins, which puts Khaled at 6 life.
- Tapping the enchanted forest for
, cast Ribbons with the rest of your mana (7) for lethal life loss.
Subrata Sircar, however, notes that you have enough power bonuses on the table to allow you to win with Trueheart Twins without casting Cut // Ribbons:
- Pay
for Cartouche of Strength on the Trueheart Twins; when it enters the battlefield, have the 5/5 Twins fight the Angel. Thanks to Soul-Scar Mage, the Angel dies but puts three -1/-1 counters on the Twins. - When the Angel dies, the Defiant Greatmaw returns to play and triggers.
- Respond to the trigger by tapping the Pathmaker Initiate to make the 2/2 Twins unblockable until the end of the turn.
- When the Greatmaw’s trigger resolves, put the -1/-1 counters on itself. When you do, the Greatmaw’s second ability triggers, and you remove a -1/-1 counter from the Twins.
- Enter combat; Hazoret's Favor triggers. Give the Twins +2/+0 until the end of the turn.
- Swing with the 5/3 unblockable Twins. Exert the Twins when you do; they become 6/3 and still remain unblockable.
- Pay for Spidery Grasp on the Twins; they untap and become 8/7. Khaled takes 8 for the win.
But why use Trueheart Twins or Pathmaker Initiate? For style points, Robert Jackson considers that you can win with an angry hippo instead:
- Tap in order to cast Cut, targeting the Angel of Sanctions. This will return our Defiant Greatmaw to the battlefield. When it enters the battlefield, put the two -1/-1 counters on the Greatmaw itself.
- Now that the Greatmaw is a 2-power creature, tap the Pathmaker Initiate targeting the Greatmaw to make it unblockable.
- At the beginning of combat, Hazoret's Favor triggers, giving our Greatmaw haste and +2/+0.
- Declare an attack with the Greatmaw only, dealing 4 unblockable damage.
- In our second main phase, tap our Gift of Paradise Forest for the required two Black mana, then tap four mana of any color for X=4, casting Ribbons from our graveyard and finishing off our opponent with 4 life loss, ending the game.
Finally, Blake Briscoe finds that you can go for the win using an unblockable Initiate's Companion, although you’ll need to get the sequence right:
- Tap Forest (with Gift of Paradise) for and tap Grasping Dunes for three mana total. Cast Spidery Grasp on Initiate's Companion. (Companion is now a 5/5.)
- Tap two Forests and a Mountain and cast Cartouche of Strength targeting Initiate's Companion (now a 6/6).
- Have the Companion fight the Unwavering Initiate token, which will deal 4 damage to your Initiate's Companion because of Cartouche of Zeal.
- The fighting damage is dealt to your Companion in the form of four -1/-1 counters due to Soul-Scar Mage's ability. (Companion is now a 2/2.)
- Use Pathmaker Initiate to make Initiate's Companion unblockable.
- Begin combat. Trigger Hazoret's Favor on the Companion to make it a 4/2.
- Attack with the Companion and Trueheart Twins, exerting the Twins to give all creatures +1/+0. (Companion is now a 5/2.) Deal 5 damage to the opponent because Initiate's Companion can't be blocked.
- When the Companion deals damage to the opponent, its ability triggers to untap your Forest with Gift of Paradise.
- Tap two Mountains for and cast Cut (on any creature).
- Tap your Forest with Gift of Paradise for , and tap your remaining three lands to cast Ribbons, making your opponent lose his last 3 life.
“Sure, you could have just tacked on Cartouche of Strength precombat, declined the fight, and had enough through combat damage alone, or even used Cut to bring back Defiant Greatmaw giving you the freedom to pick a different target for Pathmaker Initiate,” Russell Jones writes.“But why not take the overkill when it's there? If only Chandra played a bigger role in the Amonkhet story (or if Jaya Ballard was on the plane at all), they'd wholeheartedly agree.”
