The good news is that your opponent, Fah, is at a mere one life. The bad news is that she’s been incredibly lucky so far, frustrating each and every one of your efforts to defeat her. If it’s not her wall of blockers that’s causing you problems, it’s her lifegain effects; and if she’s not her lifegain effects, it’s her damage prevention abilities.

Even worse is the fact that Fah has been able to hold on long enough to build an army of creatures. You’re still at a high enough life total that you’re not too worried about an alpha strike, but if you don’t finish this game soon, then Fah’s going to wear you down over the course of several turns. And that’s assuming that your head judge doesn’t decide to call your match a draw.

That said, you do have a couple of cards in hand that might prove useful. You just have to wait for Fah to declare the end of her . . . 

“Tap four mana to cast Mental Agony?”

You look up. “What?” you ask.

“I cast Mental Agony on you,” Fah says. “It makes you discard both of the cards in your hand.”

“Oh,” you say. “Uh . . .  that’s not good.”

Fah waits patiently for your response.

“I guess I’ll tap two plains and activate my Peace of Mind twice, pitching both of them.”

“Okay,” Fah says. “You gain six life total, then lose two life from Mental Agony . . .  so you’re now eleven life?”

You glance at your score pad. “Yeah,” you finally say. “Eleven life.”

“I’ll end my turn,” Fah says.

You sigh; so much for that plan. You untap your permanents and draw a card, hoping for something good that’ll make up for your loss. Unfortunately, all you get is a Sejiri Steppe — which won’t help you much against Fah’s horde of creatures.

You tap the table in thought. Fah’s practically hanging by a thread at one life, and you wish you had a pair of scissors handy.

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

You are at 11 life, with the following cards in play:

• Shinewend (with a +1/+1 counter on it)
• Torch Fiend
• Forgeborn Oreads (with your Fiery Mantle attached)
• A face-down 2/2 creature (Lumithread Field)
• Ruby Medallion
• Peace of Mind
• 4 Mountains
• 4 Plains

You have the following card in your hand:

• Sejiri Steppe

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.

Fah is at 1 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:

• Blood Artist (with Fah’s Holy Strength attached)
• Auriok Champion
• Noble Vestige
• Armor Thrull (with Fah’s Cobbled Wings attached)
• Kor Sky Climber
• Drana's Chosen
• Brave the Sands
• 4 Plains (three tapped)
• 4 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 — Too Close to the Flame” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, May 28, 2017. We’ll include the best ones in next week’s article along with the next puzzle!

Last Week’s Puzzle

“The board here is frankly a mess,” Addison Fox writes. “Slither Blade is unblockable, but at 0/1, that doesn't matter too much. We could use Supernatural Stamina and Scribe of the Mindful to get it up to 4/1, but that leaves us a point shy, and no other creatures can get in to deal the last point.”

“Wiley also has a creature with reach and a creature with flying, so our one flier is not likely to get through,” Allen Smith adds.“Even if we bounce both of them (using Scribe of the Mindful to re-buy our Winds of Rebuke) and pump, we're only getting through for four damage, so clearly we need some non-combat damage. The only source we have of that is Trespasser's Curse, so that means we need to find a way for our opponent to get more creatures. The only way to do that is with Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons, but only if we give her back.”

“Magic: the Gathering card design has largely moved to making triggered abilities optional,” Greg Dreher continues.“For example, Festering Goblin has to give a creature -1/-1 when it dies — even if the only targets are your own creatures —but Amonkhet's Festering Mummy makes giving out its -1/-1 counter optional. But there are still some non-optional triggered abilities, and they will force Wiley to lose.”

“To make all that happen, though,” Jonah Comstock writes, “we have to be very smart about how we play our cards:

Note that instead of targeting Giant Spider with Winds of Rebuke, you may instead choose to bounce Dune Beetle, Bitterblade Warrior, Defiant Greatmaw, or even the Cartouche of Strength — any of these would produce the same result.

“The funny thing is,” Dominic Chan adds, “if this game was down to the wire and we had drawn most of our library, we still would have won since all this happens before Lay Claim's cycling ability resolves . . .  so we wouldn't have drawn a card yet.”

Rather than cycle Lay Claim to kill Miasmic Mummy, however, there’s also the possibility of sending the Mummy into combat. Alex Jagrowski explains:

When Miasmic Mummy dies due to combat damage at this point, it then triggers the Supernatural Stamina / Miasmic Mummy / Archfiend of Ifnir / Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons / Trespasser's Curse interaction.

Curiously, you can also win via a single attack from Hapatra herself, which follows a similar approach. Ryou Niji demonstrates:

At this point, the opponent discards a card and begins the interaction that leads to the Trespasser's Curse win.

Because Supernatural Stamina is an instant, Aaron Golas and Subrata Sircar both observe that you could actually attack with both Miasmic Mummy and Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons:

Finally, Enrique Cordero follows a similar logic and notes that you can also use your 0/1 Slither Blade:

“It is said that Cleopatra committed suicide via an asp bite,” Aaron muses. “We've managed to recreate the story here, as the snakes summoned by Hapatra spell death for their master!”