You glance at the seat next to you, which your friend Mari has claimed. She’s staring intently at the board, probably trying to figure out how badly you’re likely to lose in the next thirty seconds.

That said, you’re at one of the 3-0 tables in your local game store’s Hour of Devastation release party, so it’s not as though you’re going home empty-handed. Your deck has performed well until recently: It decided to flood you with land for most of your third and final game, even with multiple cycling cards and a Hazoret's Monument.

Your opponent, Sheryl, is down to a reasonable 5 life. However, she also has bigger creatures, and you’re trying to figure out how to survive her latest attack at the moment.

“This is Mari,” you explain. “She does this sort of thing whenever her matches end early.”

Mari takes the time to stretch her arms, not saying a word.

“So, darling,” Sheryl says, returning to the game at hand. “You’re blocking my Rampaging Hippo with both your Heart-Piercer Manticore and your Sinuous Striker?”

“Yes,” you say. “I’m also blocking your Initiate's Companion with my Sand Strangler — the one with the -1/-1 counter. And I’m throwing my Proven Combatant in front of your Tenacious Hunter as well.”

“You’re not blocking with your Thresher Lizard or Seer of the Last Tomorrow?” Sheryl asks. “And you’re letting my Bone Picker go unblocked?”

“My Lizard and Seer are both staying out of this,” you say. “I don’t have any flyers anyway, so that Bone Picker is getting through.”

Sheryl suddenly gives you a vicious smile. “Then, darling,” she says, “you’re killed. I’ll tap a Swamp to cycle the Lurching Rotbeast in my hand. My Ruthless Sniper triggers, and I’ll pay one mana for its ability.”

“Okay . . . ”

Mari’s expression is unreadable, so you soldier on. “I’ll tap three and cast Supreme Will for its second mode,” you say.

Sheryl sighs. “No more goodbyes, then. So what do you have, darling?”

You leaf through the top four cards of your library. Fortunately, getting land-flooded means that most of your remaining deck is made up of business spells.

You put an Ominous Sphinx, Bloodwater Entity, and Cartouche of Knowledge at the bottom of your library, and slip the fourth card into your hand. You only have four untapped lands left at this point, but that should be enough for what you’re about to do.

“I’ll pay four mana and cycle Deem Worthy,” you say. “That’s two damage to your Bone Picker, so it’ll die before combat damage.” You draw a card from the effect, adding a Tragic Lesson to your hand.

Sheryl looks annoyed. “That’s no fun,” she says, putting the Bone Picker into her graveyard and drawing a card from her Rotbeast.

“If you don’t have any more plays,” you say, “we’ll resolve combat damage. I’ll take one trample damage from the Hippo and go down to three life. The Manticore, Striker, Strangler and Combatant all die . . .  as does your Initiate's Companion.”

“Good,” Sheryl says. “On my second main phase, I’ll cast my Crook of Condemnation, then activate it to exile all of the cards from our graveyards. That’ll be all for now, darling.”

You wince — that effectively neuters your plans for your next turn. Now you’re in a situation where you might not have enough blockers for Sheryl’s next attack!

You untap your permanents and draw a card, praying for a creature. Surprisingly enough, you get one: Vizier of Tumbling Sands.

Sheryl glares at you. “Can your friend not do that at me?” she asks. “It’s unnerving.”

You give her a puzzled expression, then glance over at Mari. She’s wearing the widest grin on her face, having seen exactly what’s in your hand.

“You might want to dial it down a little,” you whisper to her.

“Oh, sorry,” Mari says. “I didn’t think I was being obvious. So . . .  are you going to finish this, or what?”

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

You are at 3 life, with the following cards in play:

• Seer of the Last Tomorrow
• Thresher Lizard
• Hazoret's Monument
• 7 Islands
• 5 Mountains
• Desert of the Fervent

You have the following cards in your hand:

• Vizier of Tumbling Sands
• Tragic Lesson

You have not yet played a land this turn. You have a total of eleven cards remaining in your library: Eight cards of unknown identity, followed by an Ominous Sphinx, a Bloodwater Entity, and then a Cartouche of Knowledge.

You currently have no cards in your graveyard.

Sheryl is at 5 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:

• Ruthless Sniper
• Naga Vitalist
• Feral Prowler
• Moaning Wall
• Hooded Brawler (tapped)
• Tenacious Hunter
• Rampaging Hippo (tapped)
• 6 Swamps (three tapped)
• 5 Forests (two tapped)

Sheryl has 15 cards remaining in her library, and has no cards in her graveyard.

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 — There is No Tomorrow” by 11:59 P.M. EST on Sunday, July 23, 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 Norman Dean, Russell Jones, Martin Krawies, Paul Seitz, Aaron Golas, Ryou Niji, Allen Smith, Subrata Sircar, Rob Salisbury, Greg Dreher, Juan Nenna, Michael Shoemaker, Matthew Harvey, Alex Laliberté-Mercier and Sacha Marois-Richard, Kim T.L, Michael Dixon, Beau Woodcock, Jonathan Whitefield, Bill Murphy, Mike Ryan, and Hyman Rosen.

“This was an interesting position,” Matthew Harvey writes.“I originally sat there thinking what would be best to have the Mirage Mirror become. At first I was thinking that it could become a second Rhonas's Monument, but — oh, wait — the Monument is Legendary. Then I thought about having it become a couple things, to get bonuses from two things at different times, but the Mirror loses the copy ability once it transforms.”

“The puzzle had a very straightforward solution,” Greg Dreher adds, “at least until I noticed that Mirage Mirror doesn't have the ‘and gains this ability’ wording seen on cards like Thespian's Stage and Mizzium Transreliquat.”

This doesn’t mean that the Mirror can’t copy multiple items — but it does mean that once one of its “copy” abilities resolves on this board, it won’t be able to copy anything else for the turn. As you can imagine, this was a bit of a problem.

“There are actually a lot of tricks we can pull off with Mirage Mirror here,” Ryou Niji explains,“but we may as well simply make it a flier. The last time I checked, Saving Grace doesn't allow Trueheart Duelist to block fliers.”

This makes for a remarkably easy solution. Beau Woodcock writes:

It’s worth noting that your opponent’s Oketra's Attendant token is a Zombie, which means that it starts out as a 4/4 creature due to Lord of the Accursed’s ability. It is therefore necessary to shrink it back down to a 3/3 using Grasping Dunes, in order to get a total of 4 damage through.

That said, the Lord of the Accursed does have a certain relevance to the puzzle. “I figured that Lord of the Accursed was most likely my key to victory,” Kim T.L writes, “so I just need to figure out how to get it online.”

Alex Laliberté-Mercier and Sacha Marois-Richard submitted a joint solution that covers this variant:

If there was any occasion where triple chocolate ice cream would be well-deserved, it would be this one. Mmm . . .  triple chocolate.