Hello everybody! It’s Wednesday, and that means it’s time for another edition of Mind Twists! First and foremost, I must apologize for my first puzzle last week, "Angry Eldrazi." It That Betrays prevents the board state from being actually solvable because your opponent can get back your Pitchstone Wall, giving him an eleventh permanent to sacrifice to your annihilator triggers. If it were a different Eldrazi, such as Spawnsire of Ulamog (which, now that I think of it, makes more sense given the board state), the puzzle would be solvable. Sorry!
Congratulations to Tim Reinholz, the winner of the "One Last Trade" raffle. Check your inbox!
Here are this week’s puzzles:
Puzzle #1: Exalted Not Optional
It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon, and you’re doing some spellslinging with a friend of yours over lunch. Your deck is mostly a mashup of recent cards, while your friend is playing his "Counter-Exalted" deck. He gets out an early Silent Arbiter and then quickly suits it up with a Protective Bubble. He then sets up his Fog Bank, preventing any of your creatures from getting through! You finally find an Inferno Titan to take out the Fog Bank, but the Silent Arbiter has been eating at your life total for some time now and you find yourself on your last turn.
You have:
- In play: Sublime Archangel, Inferno Titan, Quirion Dryad (with 6 +1/+1 counters), Mortarpod (unequipped), three Plains, two Rupture Spire, two Mountain, two Rootbound Crag, all untapped.
- In hand: Fiend Hunter (drawn for the turn), Journey to Nowhere, Restoration Angel, Desert Twister.
- In graveyard: Nothing relevant.
Your opponent has:
- In play: Silent Arbiter (enchanted by Protective Bubble and tapped), Archangel of Strife (both players have chosen war), lands (all tapped).
- Your opponent has no castable spells in hand or graveyard.
It is your precombat main phase. You are at one life, and your opponent is at 20. Win this turn!
Winner will receive a signed Quirion Dryad!
Puzzle #2: Cephalid Nightmare
It’s the night before the Magic: The Gathering Commander World Championship, and you are up late registering your deck. Between your double- and triple-check of your 99 different cards, you set your alarm for the next morning, giving yourself just enough time to get ready and go to the venue. Between checking Reveillark and Sun Titan, you find yourself very sleepy…
It’s the deciding game between you and your nemesis, Jerk Face, and you find yourself taking a mulligan. And another mulligan. And two more, until you are down to three cards. You play Plains, tap it, cast Nomads en-Kor, and pass the turn. Your opponent, playing a blisteringly fast Rhys the Redeemed combo deck, leads with Forest and Concordant Crossroads. You draw your next card, and it is Cephalid Illusionist! You slam down your Island, tap your two lands, and cast Cephalid Illusionist. You then flip your entire deck onto the table and spread it out for your opponent to see.
"Will you concede?" you ask.
"You don’t even have a combo in there," Jerk Face points out. "Take a look at your graveyard."
As you look down, you gasp in horror! Where is the Reveillark? Where are Kiki-Jiki and Deceiver Exarch? And why on earth is the general Chromium?
BEEP BEEP BEEP!
The deafening sound of your alarm alerts you to your true situation— you are dreaming about the upcoming event! You try to wake up, but you find that you can’t!
"Mwahahaha!" Jerk Face laughs violently. "I slipped a little something into your drink last night. If you can’t defeat me here, you will never wake up and I will be the champion!"
You can’t let him get away with this! Figure out how to defeat Dream Jerk Face with the cards you have available!
You have:
- In play: Nomads en-Kor, Cephalid Illusionist, Narcomoeba, Plains (tapped), Island (tapped).
- In hand: Nothing!
- In library: Also nothing!
- In graveyard: Lotus Bloom, Cabal Therapy, Silent Departure, Vampiric Tutor, Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor, Chainer’s Edict, Momentary Blink, Phantasmal Image, Snapcaster Mage, Shaman en-Kor, Warrior en-Kor, Sculpting Steel, Essence Harvest, Runic Repetition, Auramancer, Solitary Confinement, Words of Wind, Dread Return, Faith’s Reward, Archaeomancer, Grasp of Phantoms, Sever the Bloodline, Phyrexian Metamorph, Time Warp, Dralnu, Lich Lord, Karmic Guide, Sun Titan, Sutured Ghoul, Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter, Army of the Damned, Increasing Confusion, Plains, Island.
- Your general, Chromium, has not yet been cast.
Your opponent has:
- In play: Forest (tapped), Concordant Crossroads.
- Assume your opponent has no "free" spells that he can play and no relevant cards in hand or in graveyard.
It is your precombat main phase. Both players are at 40 life. Win before giving your opponent another turn!
Winner will receive a signed Faith’s Reward!
Solutions
Puzzles: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/24514-Mind-Twists-6.html
That’s all for this week! Questions, comments, or suggestions for puzzles are always welcome; just email me at [email protected]. I hope you enjoyed this week’s puzzles, and I’ll see you next week!
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