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Six Feet Under

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“So I lose my Howling Banshee along with the rest of my graveyard?” you ask Alan, your judge for today’s tournament.

Burn Away’s second ability triggers when its targeted creature dies,” Alan says, “so that creature will be in your graveyard when all of those cards get exiled.”

“I’ll choose not to use Pawn of Ulamog’s ability, then,” you sigh. Perhaps you should have used your Endless Obedience when you had the chance.

As you slide a good number of your cards into your exile zone, you notice that Noxis grinning at you. He doesn’t say a word, but that single gesture already speaks volumes.

“Now if you would only cast a creature,” you tell him.

Nox’s grin gets wider. “And play into your Grave Peril?” he taunts. “Yeah, keep dreaming.”

It’s no secret that Nox has it out for you after your last three wins against him, but after splitting the first two games of your Unabridged Cube match, you’ve frustrated each other with a very uneasy stalemate. Still, when you’re dealing with one of each card ever printed, anything can happen: You were pretty sure that you had the game when you cast a Howling Banshee and gave it a Murderer's Axe on your last turn, but Nox simply drew a Burn Away and, well . . .  burned it away.

“You’ve still got one more card from that Abzan Beastmaster of yours,” you point out.

“Yeah,” Nox says, “and you’re not gonna like it.”

“Try me.”

Nox smiles and plays a Blighted Gorge to the table. As much as you hate to admit it, he’s right: With the Ramunap Excavator on his side of the board, he can activate the Gorge for 2 damage to you and replay it on each of his turns. At the very least, that explains why he’s playing the Hour of Devastation preview card.

“I did say that you weren’t gonna like it,” Nox says, still smiling.

You untap your cards, praying for something that can give you a breakthrough, and fast. You get a Banisher Priest, which makes you wonder what the removal can do for your combat prospects at this point.

You gesture for Alan to come over. “I’ve got a question,” you whisper.

“Sure.”

“Can I tap Eldrazi Spawn tokens to help convoke a spell, then also sacrifice them for some colorless mana to cast that same spell?”

Alan scratches his head. “Nope,” he says. “It’s an old ruling: You need to activate mana abilities before you pay any costs. So you’d need to either sacrifice your Spawn tokens for mana, or you’d need to keep them around to tap for Convoke, but not both.”

“Thanks,” you say, nodding.

“Then again,” Alan says, “I’m not sure why you’d want to do that. Does it have something to do with this game?”

“I’ll let you know if I can make it work,” you say, glancing at Nox.

It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Nox before the beginning of his next combat phase.

You are at 5 life, with the following cards in play:

You have the following cards in your hand:

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

You currently have no cards in your graveyard, as these were all exiled by Nox’s Burn Away.

Nox is at 9 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:

Nox has no creature cards in his graveyard — these were all exiled by a Harvest Pyre earlier in the game.

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 — Six Feet Under” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, July 2, 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, Allen Smith, Ryou Niji, Dominic Chan, Josh Tutt, zzo38, and Mike Ryan.

“Things look pretty bad for us,” Allen Smith writes.“Karma is gearing up to do a whopping seven damage to us (don't forget the Underground Sea), and even if we somehow survive that, it seems like it will be quite difficult to attack into Xian's board.

“If we can ever get to a point where we have seven or more life and six or more Black mana, though, we can win on the spot with Crypt Rats. If we can survive the Karma trigger with most of our life total intact, Vicious Hunger and Onulet should be able to help us out, supplemented by Tanglebloom.”

“This is a puzzle where you need to work backwards,” Dominic Chan continues. “Our ultimate goal is to activate Crypt Rats' ability to deal 6 damage.

  • For that, we need bbbbbb and 7 life.
  • bbbbbb is easy enough to get with Black Lotus, Blood Pet, and Dark Ritual, but 7 life is a bit tougher.
  • We're currently on 3 life, and can get to 5 life with Tanglebloom. If we can cast Vicious Hunger and destroy our Onulet, we can gain another 4 life to get to 9, which gives us some leeway to take 2 damage from Karma and have two Swamps.
  • So we need to sacrifice five Swamps before Karma's ability resolves.

Following that outline, we have Josh Tutt’s solution:

On our opponent’s end step:

  1. Tap Soldevi Sage, sacrificing two Swamps (we now have five left, including Underground Sea). Draw three cards, and discard the Phantom Warrior.
  2. Pay u to tap Tanglebloom, increasing our life total to 4.
  3. Tap Blighted Shaman, sacrificing a Swamp (we now have four left), giving any creature +1/+1.

Move to our turn. At the beginning of our upkeep phase:

  1. The ability of our opponent’s Karma triggers and goes onto the stack.
  2. In response, tap two Swamps, adding bb to our mana pool.
  3. Tap Soldevi Sage again, sacrificing those two tapped Swamps to draw three cards. Discard one of the unknown cards and keep the Swamp we drew. We now have two swamps left in play (one basic Swamp, and the Underground Sea).
  4. Pay bto activate Tanglebloom again. Our life total is now 5.
  5. Resolve the Karma’s ability, which deals 2 damage to us. Our life total is now 3.

Move to our First Main Phase:

  1. Play the basic Swamp in our hand, tap it for b, and cast Dark Ritual, adding bbb to our mana pool.
  2. Tap the rest of our lands for uuub.
  3. Pay uuu to cast Onulet.
  4. Pay bb to cast Vicious Hunger, targeting Onulet and gaining us 2 life. When Onulet dies, we gain 2 more life. Our life total is now 7.
  5. Sacrifice the Black Lotus and Blood Pet for bbbb, then use that and the remaining bb in our mana pool to activate Crypt Rats for X=6. Everything dies except for our opponent’s Pegasus Charger (which can be regenerated). But our life total goes to 1, and our opponent goes down to 0.

A second solution also exists, and this one takes advantage of the fact that you can play around with Crypt Rats’ ability. “Even after I was convinced that there was no way I could activate Crypt Rats for 6,” Ryou Niji writes, “I kept searching for a solution not involving combat damage. The key, as it turns out, is to activate Crypt Rats for 2 and 4:

On our opponent’s end step:

  1. Pay u and tap Tanglebloom to gain 1 life. We are at 4.
  2. Tap Soldevi Sage and sacrifice two tapped basic Swamps (four basic Swamps left) to draw three cards, and discard Onulet.
  3. Tap Blighted Shaman and sacrifice a tapped basic Swamp (three left) to give anything +1/+1.
  4. Pay bb and 2 life (we are at 2 life) and sacrifice a tapped basic Swamp (two left) to activate Strands of Night, returning Onulet to the battlefield.

At the beginning of our upkeep:

  1. Karma triggers. In response:
    • Tap our swamps (including Underground Sea) and sacrifice Blood Pet for bbbb.
    • Pay u and tap Tanglebloom to gain 1 life. We are at 3 life.
    • Tap Soldevi Sage and sacrifice the last two basic Swamps to draw three cards, and discard a non-Swamp card. (Hopefully, we don't draw something funny.)
    • Tap Blighted Shaman and sacrifice Onulet to give Crypt Rats +2/+2. We are at 5 life after Onulet's trigger.
    • Pay bb and 2 life (we are at 3 life) and sacrifice Underground Sea to activate Strands of Night, returning Onulet to the battlefield.
    • Pay bb to activate Crypt Rats, dealing 2 damage to everything, killing a lot of things — but notably not Crypt Rats itself, which is currently a 3/3. We are at 1 life, before Onulet triggers and puts us back to 3. Our opponent is at 4 life.
    • Our opponent probably sacrifices Resistance Fighter to fog Crypt Rats, since otherwise she is dead to any removal.
    • The Karma trigger finally resolves . . .  and deals us a whole lot of 0 damage, since we have sacrificed all our swamps.

Draw for the turn, and go to our main phase:

  1. Play the Swamp we drew from Soldevi Sage.
  2. Tap the Swamp, cast Dark Ritual and sacrifice Black Lotus to bring our mana to bbbbbb.
  3. Pay bb to cast Vicious Hunger targeting Serra Angel. We gain 2 life, going to 5 life (as well as killing the Angel).
  4. Pay bbbb to activate Crypt Rats again, dropping us to 1 and our opponent to 0.

Finally, zzo38’s solution gives a variant where you don’t have to activate Strands of Night on Xian’s turn:

During opponent's end step:

  1. Tap Island for u. Activate Tanglebloom to gain 1 life; you now have 4 life.
  2. Activate Soldevi Sage, sacrificing two Swamps, discarding Phantom Warrior.
  3. Activate Blighted Shaman, sacrificing one Swamp, targeting Spined Wurm (or any creature).

At the beginning of your upkeep:

  1. Karma's trigger is placed on the stack. In response:
    • Tap a Swamp for b.
    • Activate Soldevi Sage, sacrificing two Swamps, discarding the fifth card of your library.
    • Activate Blighted Shaman, sacrificing the tapped Swamp, targeting Crypt Rats.
    • Activate Crypt Rats for b. Opponent now has 5 life, and you have 3; many creatures are destroyed.
    • Karma's trigger resolves. You lose 1 life, so now you have 2 life remaining.

During your precombat main phase:

  1. Sacrifice Blood Pet for b. Cast Dark Ritual for bbb.
  2. Tap and sacrifice Black Lotus for a total of bbbbbb.
  3. Play the Swamp and tap it for mana, for a total of bbbbbbb.
  4. Cast Vicious Hunger on Sage Aven. You now have 4 life.
  5. Tap two Islands and and Underground Sea for uuu. Cast Onulet.
  6. Activate Crypt Rats for bbb.
    • In response to itself, activate Crypt Rats for bb.
    • Onulet dies; its trigger is placed on stack. Opponent has 3 life and you have 2 life.
    • Onulet's trigger resolves; now you have 4 life.
    • Resolve the Crypt Rats’ first activation. Now you have 1 life and your opponent has 0 life.

“Normally I would think to reverse Karma by drawing Magical Hack,” zzo38 writes, “but we don't have it here. Or maybe we do and it is the fifth card of our library, which would be okay to discard otherwise.”


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