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But for Me, It Was Tuesday

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“I guess I concede,” CJ says.

Fireblast
“Are you sure?”

CJ gives you a withering look. “I survived about 30 damage coming in my direction last turn, only to wind up taking a Fireblast to the dome,” he says. “So yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

You watch as he scoops up his cards and then sneak a quick glance at your opponent. Ulazgor the Cruel quickly pretends to adjust his glasses, but there’s no mistaking the smile on his face.

“It looks like it’s just you and me now,” Mari says.

It’s clear you’re losing your Archenemy game. Having found a Plots That Span Centuries on his previous turn, Ulazgor sets no fewer than three new schemes into motion during his main phase. Poor CJ just happened to be the first target of his alpha strike, which got him down to 1 life—fair game for a hard-cast Fireblast during your shared upkeep.

After you and Mari take your draws, you immediately enter a whispered conversation. “Please tell me you have removal,” you tell her. “Like a Damnation. Or a blowtorch.”

Mari flashes the Grim Affliction in her hand. “This’ll have to do,” she says. “What did you draw?”

“An Island.”

“Great. Just great.”

“Are you quite done yet?” Ulazgor asks, still smirking. “I’d rather not let you guys suffer for much longer.”

Grim Affliction
“You really ought to wait for the adults to finish talking first . . . Willy,” Mari says.

“That’s Ulazgor the Cruel! I picked a name, and you’ve got to stick to it!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mari says, waving him off.

“So what’s the plan?” you ask.

Mari shrugs. “The way I see it, we need to get rid of those schemes first. Otherwise, we’re not going to have much of a chance at breaking his defenses. Who knows? Maybe his next scheme’s going to be a lot more forgiving.”

“Or maybe it’ll be a whole lot worse.”

“I like your optimism,” Mari says, “I really do. Now, tell me what you think of this plan . . . ”

It is the start of your first main phase. Force Willy Ulazgor the Cruel to abandon all three of his ongoing schemes this turn.

You’re playing the Archenemy variant, which means that you and Mari share a turn: You both untap your permanents during your team’s untap step, declare all of your attackers at once during your team’s combat step, and so forth. You know what cards are in each other’s hand, and you may coordinate your actions based on this knowledge. You and Mari are considered to be individual players, but not opponents—your only opponent here is Ulazgor.

You are at 14 life with the following cards in play:

Seht's Tiger

You have the following cards in your hand:

Mari is at 17 life with the following cards in play:

Mari has the following cards in her hand:

Neither of you has played a land this turn. Neither of you knows the identity of any of the cards that are currently on top of your libraries.

Neither of you currently has any creature cards in your graveyards, due to an Embrace My Diabolical Vision that Ulazgor set into motion a few turns ago.

Ulazgor the Cruel is at 36 life and has no cards in his hand. He has the following cards in play:

Krenko, Mob Boss

Ulazgor currently has the following ongoing schemes in motion, due to a Plots That Span Centuries on his previous turn:

If you think you have a great solution in mind, don’t put it in the comments! Instead, send it to puzzles at gatheringmagic dot com with the subject line “Puzzle — But For Me, It Was Tuesday”. We’ll include the best ones in next week’s article along with the next puzzle!

Last Week’s Puzzle

Last week’s puzzle turned out to be a massive stumper. Correct solutions were received from Russell Jones, Sanjay Saith, Tomáš Surýnek, Chadwick Bond, RN G, Andrew Muravskyi, Aaron Golas, and Hyman Rosen.

“Octavia's life is at a lofty 12,” Andrew Muravskyi writes, “and we have three ways of reducing it:”

  • Combat damage (Only creatures equipped with Hot Soup can deal it though. Of course, we technically can steal Jungle Weaver, but then we'll be out of Djinn activations and unable to attack with it.)
  • Pestilence-like effects (Plague Spitter and Thrashing Wumpus)
  • Blowing up Corpse Augur. Octavia won't really have a choice because True Believer makes its controller an illegal target, and donating it to her would be our plan because our graveyard is pretty stocked.

This leaves the question of exactly how to kill Corpse Augur. The most comprehensive solution, surprisingly enough, involves Hot Soup. Russell Jones’s solution elaborates:

That said, Hot Soup also has a more direct use: getting one of your creatures through unblocked. In this case, the Courtly Provocateur is critical in getting enough damage to kill the Corpse Augur, as Sanjay Saith writes:

Interestingly enough, you can also ignore Hot Soup completely. This frees up enough mana for you to activate Thrashing Wumpus without having to use Quirion Ranger to bounce one of your lands. Chadwick Bond’s solution follows the lines of thought above, but with the following variations:

“Octavia's mistake,” Chadwick concludes, “was in casting Thrashing Wumpus too soon. If she had waited, we would have had no way to win this turn. Then she would have had enough mana to cast the Wumpus and activate it three times to kill us on her next turn.”


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