Locations
You and Azrul are getting one last league match done before the year ends, with decks cobbled together from your local game store’s odds and ends. Over the last month, you’ve put together a rather respectable deck with flyers and control elements. Unfortunately, Azrul has a deck with a lot of removal and some nasty creatures, and right now, he has the upper hand.
The bad news is that Azrul picked up a Necrologia on his last draw step, which he then used to add four cards to his hand. You cast a quick Peek before your opponent’s end step wrapped up, and you found out why he was smiling: All four cards in Azrul’s hand are direct-damage spells . . . and you’re looking like a mighty fine target.
Fortunately for you, you have a couple of serviceable draws coming. They’re not quite the Counterspells you were hoping for, but removal is better than nothing at this point. And with a bit of luck, maybe you can stop the fireworks before they go off!
It is the start of your first main phase. Defeat Azrul before the end of your turn.
You are at 2 life with the following cards in play:
- Aven Riftwatcher (with one vanishing counter on it)
- Clone (copying Azrul’s Volcanic Dragon)
- Brago, King Eternal
- Heavy Infantry (with Azrul’s Torment attached)
- Runed Halo (naming Lightning Bolt)
- Angelic Shield
- 3 Plains
- 3 Islands
You have the following cards in your hand:
- Valorous Stance
- Parallax Wave (drawn during your draw step)
You have not yet played a land this turn. You do not know the identity of any of the cards that are currently on top of your library.
- Typhoid Rats
- Skulking Fugitive
- Vulshok Refugee
- Mindslicer (with Accorder's Shield attached)
- Volcanic Dragon
- 3 Swamps (all tapped)
- 3 Mountains (two tapped)
Azrul has the following cards in his hand:
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 — Burn, Baby, Burn”. 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, Scott Stoops, Norman Dean, Sanjay Saith, Aaron Golas, Andrew Muravskyi, Jonathan Kustina, Quadrangolo Tetra, Chadwick Bond, Kyle Wyatt, Evelyn Kokemoor, Marc Desnoyers, Tim Broman, and Vincent B.
The immediate observation here is that it’s your postcombat main phase, so you’re definitely not attacking for the win in this case. In any event, the first thing you want to do is assess the board. Aaron Golas writes:
Your potential means of gaining life are:
- 2 or 4 life from Spike Feeder, but those counters might be of use elsewhere
- 2 life from Highland Game if you can kill it
- 4 life from Sultai Flayer for each tough-enough creature that dies
- 1 life from Dismal Backwater if you can spare a land drop
- ? life from Rush of Battle and Savage Punch if you control a Warrior
Your potential means of damaging Coalhauler Swine are:
- 1 damage from Barrage of Boulders
- 3 damage from liberating Emilia's Thunder Dragon
- 3 or 5 damage from Bring Low
- ? damage from Savage Punch
The final wildcard is Goblin Arsonist. If it dies, it could ping anything, including you or her Swine. From there, it's just a question of balancing the budget with your mana.
The most common solution by far involved a straightforward approach. Tim Broman’s analysis on this one was interesting:
The only way we can gain more than 7 life is by using Rush of Battle and Savage Punch for a lifelinked fight. Sultai Flayer won't work since Coalhauler Swine's ability will resolve before Sultai Flayer's ability (and trying to find a line where anything with toughness 4 or greater dies before the Swine is not realistic).
Our lifelink options are Rush of Battle and Savage Punch with either Krumar Bond-Kin (not castable, and morphing and unmorphing is too expensive) or Snowhorn Rider. Using Snowhorn Rider will mean casting Snowhorn Rider, Rush of Battle, Sultai Banner, and Savage Punch in the right order as well as playing Mountain. It turns out we have exactly enough mana to do that:
- Play Mountain from your hand.
- Tap Sacellum Godspeaker for
, revealing Krumar Bond-Kin, Snowhorn Rider, and Thousand Winds. Play Sultai Banner. - Play Snowhorn Rider using Banner, Mountain, and four Forests.
- Play Rush of Battle using four Plains.
- (For style points, give your Snowhorn Riders +1/+1 with Ghost Warden.)
- Play Savage Punch, using your last Forest and the Mox Pearl, targeting Snowhorn Rider and Coalhauler Swine. Snowhorn Rider is now a 9/8 (or 10/9 if you used Ghost Warden) with lifelink, so you will gain enough life to survive the Coalhauler Swine trigger while Emilia will die to it.
Quadrangolo Tetra notes that a second solution exists, although you’ll need to manage both your damage-dealing output and your life-gain to get through:
As long as we move a +1/+1 counter onto Coalhauler Swine, it'll both survive 4 damage from a Savage Punch and take 5 from a Bring Low, which will be enough damage to kill Emilia in the process. Sultai Flayer has to trigger at least twice for us to survive 9 damage of the Swine's retaliation, so we need to kill off two of our creatures with 4 or more toughness:
- Play Mountain.
- Tap out, and add
to our mana pool. - Activate Sacellum Godspeaker, revealing Krumar Bond-Kin, Snowhorn Rider, and Thousand Winds, adding to our mana pool, for a total of .
- Spend to move a +1/+1 counter from Spike Feeder to Coalhauler Swine (now 5/5).
- Spend to cast Sultai Flayer.
- Remove a +1/+1 counter from Spike Feeder to gain 2 life (up to 5 life). Spike Feeder dies.
- Activate Ghost Warden, targeting Stocking Tiger (now 4/4).
- Spend to cast Savage Punch (with ferocious), targeting Sacellum Godspeaker (now 4/4) and Coalhauler Swine (still 5/5). Sacellum Godspeaker dies. Coalhauler Swine has 4 damage marked on it.
- Both Sultai Flayer and Coalhauler Swine trigger. (Sultai Flayer triggers first but resolves last, due to APNAP order and how the stack works).
- Coalhauler Swine's trigger resolves, dealing 4 damage to us (down to 1 life) and 4 damage to Emilia (down to 5 life).
- Sultai Flayer's trigger resolves, and we gain 4 life (up to 5 life).
- Spend and discard any card other than Bring Low to activate Devout Witness targeting Stocking Tiger. Stocking Tiger dies.
- Sultai Flayer triggers, and we gain 4 life (up to 9 life).
- Spend to cast Bring Low (for 5 damage) on Coalhauler Swine.
- Coalhauler Swine dies and triggers, dealing 5 damage to us (down to 4 life) and 5 damage to Emilia (down to 0 life).
Finally, there’s the matter of the trapped Thunder Dragon. The problem with destroying the Oblivion Ring to release it is twofold: First, you need to gain some life to survive its 3 damage. Second, bringing the Thunder Dragon back onto the battlefield will kill Emilia’s Goblin Arsonist—and if it targets the Coalhauler Swine, that extra 1 damage may just mess up your plans.
That said, Evelyn Kokemoor’s solution does involve releasing the Thunder Dragon—but cleverly deals with the Arsonist’s ability by moving it to a point where its damage doesn’t matter:
- Pull both +1/+1 counters from Spike Feeder to gain 4 life (going to 7 life).
- Tap Sacellum Godspeaker for , revealing Krumar Bond-Kin, Snowhorn Rider, and Thousand Winds. Tap the Mox for the last mana to cast Sultai Flayer.
- Tap two Forests to cast Savage Punch between Sultai Flayer and Coalhauler Swine. It's important that we not have ferocious active when we do this. Coalhauler Swine will survive, but Sultai Flayer will not. After the triggered abilities resolve, we'll have 8 life and Emilia will have 6 life.
- Play the Mountain.
- Pass the turn. All of the damage on Coalhauler Swine wears off.
- During Emilia's upkeep, tap three Forests and the Mountain to cast Bring Low on Coalhauler Swine, bringing us to 5 life and Emilia to 3 life.
- Still during Emilia's upkeep, tap two Plains and discard a card to activate Devout Witness, destroying Oblivion Ring and returning Thunder Dragon to the battlefield.
- Thunder Dragon's triggered ability deals 3 damage to each other creature, including Coalhauler Swine and Goblin Arsonist. Goblin Arsonist dies, but there isn't anything useful to target with its ability before the Coalhauler Swine’s damage finishes Emilia off.
While this last solution doesn’t quite play within the rules (as you’re supposed to win before the start of Emilia’s next turn)—it does get the job done, and it gives your opponent an unwelcome surprise on top of that.
