Congratulations to Remus, the forth puzzle competition’s winner. Remus will be the first winner to receive prizes: a draft set of RGD. He was only 2 points short of a perfect score over all 5 puzzles. Pretty impressive.
This week’s puzzle deals with players that are somewhat less impressive. They are so bad, in fact, that they cannot even manage the game state properly. Even “Bad Beat” Phil would be appalled. If you’re looking to win yourself an RGD draft set (or two for a perfect score), this is the week to start, as the fifth puzzle competition begins. All competitors are welcome, just send me your solutions each week via PM by Monday at midnight. Good luck, and enjoy!
Solution to last week’s puzzle.
1. Plateau
2. Scryb Sprites (Alpha) –> Flying Men (Arabian Nights)
3. Lightning Helix
4. Copy Artifact Mishra’s Factory
5. All Hallow’s Eve or Endless Scream
6. Necrite, with the Christopher Rush art.
7. Piracy Charm: part of the both the Charm cycle in Planar Chaos (Dawn Charm, Piracy Charm, Midnight Charm, Fury Charm, Evolution Charm) and the cycle of cards that were "Planeshifted" versions of Timeshifted cards in Time Spiral (Fa’adiyah Seer, Malach of the Dawn, Piracy Charm, Dunerider Outlaw, Prodigal Pyromancer)
8. Kobolds of Kher Keep is strictly better since it is specifically mentioned on another card to get a bonus.
9. You were playing an Online Vanguard game; your opponent using Platinum Angel
10. Scorched Ruins
11. The Ice deck (it is the 2nd rarest.)
12. Sol Grail. It is an anagram of "gorillas."
13. All Hallow’s Eve, which went back to being a sorcery.
14. Ornithopter + Chaoslace, Phyrexian Walker + Prismatic Lace, naming Red, Kobolds of Kher Keep + Ashnod’s Transmogrant
15. With a Helm of Awakening and a Mycosynth Lattice in play, use a Forest to play Tin Street Hooligan. Sure, you spent that G as if it were R, but it was still G.
16. Whitemane Lion, Forgotten Ancient, Spike Weaver, Fungal Behemoth
This Week’s Scores
Kudos to RobRoy for coming up with the only perfect score this week.
Remus – 17
lordgort – 4
microStyles – 14
Vyolynce – 11
wchaug – 10
lord atog – 19
timetoeatfood – 15
CaptainNapalm – 11
NotTheOne – 17
RobRoy – 20
ghweiss – 16
Saradin – 14
caliban17 – 15
IceOnGrass – 10
Final Scores (potential maximum: 59 plus bonus points)
Remus – 57
lord atog – 52
RobRoy – 43
NotTheOne – 42
ghweiss – 41
noctifer – 39
ahandsumguy – 35
Gabrosin – 34
Saradin – 34
wchaug – 31
timetoeatfood – 30
Vyolynce – 30
IceOnGrass – 29
LoneGoat – 29
massive – 29
CaptainNapalm – 26
Zebedee18 – 25
PeteBDawg – 21
microStyles – 19
dataspot – 16
affinitommy – 15
Batadon – 15
caliban17 – 15
Jayr – 15
kcostell – 15
lynxcat – 15
mouser – 15
TheOneEye – 14
Erf – 14
Caveat – 10
carrolln – 8
Magnetotelluric – 7
lordgort – 4
cdman79 – 3
Le1hargy – 1
This Week’s Puzzle (20 points total)
Contest 5, Week 1 of 5.
Difficulty: 3/5
Remember: do NOT post solutions to the forums. PM me (jefftill) the answers. To be scored, solutions are due this Monday at midnight.
You were judging at your very first major event – GP: Columbus (a Legacy tournament) – and you were excited to get your first call of “Judge!” You walked over to the raised hand and asked what the problem was. “Newton just cast Flight on his Sea Serpent and says he can attack me now, even though I don’t have any Islands,” said Goofus. “So what?” asked Newton. “My Sea Serpent doesn’t need you to have any Islands, he can fly right over to attack!” You smiled and chuckled as you began to answer the question, but before any words left your mouth, you caught a view of the game out of the corner of your eye. Your smile faded and a wave of sheer panic came over you as you looked at all of the cards on the table. “For the love of Richard Garfield, how could this have happened?” you wondered to yourself.
The players both agreed that last turn Goofus drew his card, then put a charge counter on his Darksteel Reactor, and then passed the turn, and did nothing else. This turn, Newton drew a card (Flight) and in his main phase cast it on his Sea Serpent. Neither remembered exactly what happened before then. This is what you saw:
Newton (infinite life):
4 Forest (one with 2 +1/+1 counters)
Island (tapped)
2 Mountain
Call of the Herd (tapped)
Engineered Plague (naming Forest)
Grafted Skullcap
Jalum Grifter
Merfolk Looter
Mistform Ultimus
Sea Serpent (enchanted with Flight)
Hand: (none)
Goofus (7 life):
4 Underground River
Gemstone Mine (no counters)
Ascendant Evincar
Bog Serpent (with 3 charge counters)
Clone (copying Mistform Ultimus)
Copy Enchantment (copying Engineered Plague, naming Serpent)
Crovax, Ascendant Hero
Darksteel Reactor (23 charge counters)
Land Equilibrium
Naked Singularity (2 age counters)
Voice of Reason (enchanted with Unstable Mutation)
Hand:
4 Clone
Skullclamp
3 Vesuvan Doppelganger
Cards in other zones may have helped in bringing about the current game state, but they are currently irrelevant.
Identify all of Newton’s and Goofus’s errors. Each correctly identified error is worth one point, and any non-errors (things that may not necessarily be errors) that you mention are worth -1 point. Assume that each player owns all of the cards he currently controls. There may be multiple errors with any one card. List them all. Please number your answers.
Good luck!