Sphinx's Revelation #8: Whose Destiny?
Hey puzzlers, glad to see you made it back! The theme of this week's article is Enchantments. As always, the solution to last week's puzzle, Classic Mode, scroll to the bottom.
Your opponent is Chris. You two are playing an Urza's Destiny only constructed game. Chris has assembled a powerful board of flying creatures alongside some animated enchantments and is on the verge of winning. You just started your first main phase and put an Island into play. Defeat Chris before the end of your turn without losing!
The Puzzle
Opponent: Chris
Chris is at 19 life and hellbent, with no relevant cards in his graveyard. On board he has:
- Voice of Reason
- Voice of Duty
- Tethered Griffin
- Covetous Dragon
- Opalescence
- Aether Sting
- Repercussion
- Caltrops
- Jasmine Seer
- Three Plains
- Three Mountain
You
You are at 12 life, in your first main phase, and you just played an Island. On board you have:
- Aura Thief
- Bubbling Beebles
- Elvish Piper
- Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
- Thran Golem
- Goblin Festival
- Yavimaya Enchantress
- Three Island
- Five Forest
the following cards in hand:
and the following relevant cards in your graveyard:
Goodluck!
Post any solutions you come up with in the comments section and be sure to check back soon for the next puzzle! Remember you can reach Jordan via Twitter, @adjunctmagician and email, urzaspuzzlebox@gmail.com.
Sphinx's Revelation #7 Solution
This was my intended solution to last week's puzzle, which actually uses two turns:
- Tap Ebon Stronghold for B. It bounces back to our hand. B+Tap: Activate Abyssal Hunter to tap Archangel and do one damage to it.
- Attack with Mischievous Poltergeist. Opponent takes 1 damage (at 12 life).
- Pay one life to regenerate Mischievous Poltergeist. Activate Pestilence by tapping one Swamp for B. It bounces to our hand. Repeat that process five more times. In total, we pay 6 life and take 6 damage and our opponent takes 6 damage. All on board creatures die except the opponent's Standing Troops. Gravebane Zombie gets placed on top of our library. We are at 3 life and the opponent is at 6 life.
- Use our two land drops (thanks to Storm Cauldron) to replay one Swamp and the Ebon Stronghold in our hand. Pay one life to regenerate Mischievous Poltergeist. Activate Pestilence by tapping one Swamp for B. It bounces to our hand. In total, we’ve paid 1 life and taken 1 damage, and we are at 1 life. Our opponent has taken 1 damage, and they are at 5 life. Now the opponents board is empty and we still have the Mischievous Poltergeist.
- Tap+Sacrifice Dwarven Ruins to cast Final Fortune at our end of turn. Opponent gains 2 life, going to 8 total.
- During the upkeep of our second turn, sacrifice Ebon Stronghold and Dwarven Ruins, tap one mountain, and sacrifice Mischievous Poltergeist to activate Necrosavant and return it to the battlefield. It gains haste due to Fervor.
- Draw Gravebane Zombie. Play the two swamp in our hand. Cast Gravebane Zombie. It gains haste.
- Attack with our two creatures for 8 damage.
and while convoluted and correct, there is a simpler solution proposed by Zach Murphy which allows a win on this exact turn. There was a bit of a disagreement on whether using Final Fortune to gain an extra turn went against the parameters of the puzzle, and in fact there are ways to win in one (or two) turns. I think both are valid.
Finally there was one more contribution by jj4th which optimizes damage against different life totals than in the original puzzle.
Thank you everyone for the fantastic contributions and helping all of us understand these better.