Welcome to this week’s edition of StarCityGames.com very own puzzle column, Mind Twists! This week we have another two puzzles to test your mettle along with solutions to last week’s puzzles. Our winners this week are Oliver Beaumont ("Wheeeeee!") and Myles Schaller ("Guild Wars"), who will receive a signed Conflux and Liege of the Pit, respectively. Congratulations, and check your inboxes!
Here are this week’s puzzles:
Puzzle #1: Through the Fog
You’re playing a drawn out game of M13 Limited. You have a pretty good board position, with Liliana of the Dark Realms sitting behind a Duty-Bound Dead. You’ve been using the Swamps obtained by Liliana’s +1 to fuel your Rummaging Goblin, but your opponent found an Unsummon to halt that for now. You just resolved a Staff of Nin. Your opponent only controls an awkward Fog Bank, unable to put any pressure on Liliana. On your opponent’s turn, he untaps, draws his card, and hesitates a moment. His face turns from shock to disbelief to sheer joy as he pumps his fist, exclaims loudly, and slams Jace, Memory Adept on the table. He mills out ten cards from your library, leaving you with just three cards remaining. You are at 20 life, but unless you can finish off your opponent soon, you will deck yourself.
You untap and draw for your turn: Fervor from the Staff of Nin and Spiked Baloth for the normal draw step. You have a great deal of resources available, but can you win before you run out of cards?
You have:
- In play: 5 Mountains, 2 Swamps, 1 Forest, Staff of Nin, Liliana of the Dark Realms on 6 loyalty counters, Duty-Bound Dead.
- In hand: Fervor, Spiked Baloth, Prey Upon, Bloodhunter Bat, Titanic Growth, Mogg Flunkies, Rummaging Goblin, Public Execution.
- In graveyard: Firewing Phoenix, Veilborn Ghoul. All other cards are irrelevant.
- In library: Swamp.
- You are at 20 life.
Your opponent has:
- In play: 3 Islands (tapped), 2 Forests (tapped), Jace, Memory Adept at 4 loyalty counters, Fog Bank.
- In hand: Nothing!
- In graveyard: Nothing relevant.
- On his next turn, your opponent will draw Mind Sculpt.
- Your opponent is at 11 life.
Win before you are forced to draw from an empty library!
Winner of this puzzle’s raffle will receive a signed Fervor!
Puzzle #2: Oh the Bitter Shame and Sorrow
This week’s second puzzle was generously contributed by reader (and previous raffle winner) Greg Dreher. It’s a pretty intense one!
Your opponent has been stalling your attacks with various tap and Fog effects while his Invisible Stalker has been stealing your life and mocking the removal spells in your hand. Your army of Cat tokens was supposed to overwhelm your opponent easily this turn, but you weren’t expecting your opponent to send you on this Path to Sorrow.
It’s the last thing you ever expected to happen. One of the worst cards in the history of Magic, and you have to deal with its effects.
During the beginning of combat step, your opponent did the following:
1. Activated Alchemist’s Refuge.
2. Cast Donate, giving you Sorrow’s Path.
3. Activated Icy Manipulator to tap Sorrow’s Path.
It’s your beginning of combat step. The ability triggered by Sorrow’s Path being tapped is on the stack. Win this turn or face the sorrow of losing to Sorrow’s Path.
Opponent (27 life):
- In hand: Nothing.
- In play: 4 Island, 2 Forest, Alchemist’s Refuge (all tapped), Invisible Stalker enchanted with Spectral Flight, Icy Manipulator (all tapped).
- Graveyard: Donate, nothing else relevant.
You (4 life):
- Lands: Sorrow’s Path (tapped); Bayou, Scrubland[/author]“][author name="Scrubland"]Scrubland[/author], Savannah, Temple Garden, 2 Forest, 2 Plains (untapped).
- Creatures: 8 2/2 Cat tokens, Fungusaur (2 +1/+1 counters), Leonin Shikari, Puresteel Paladin, Plague Spitter, Trophy Hunter, and Kemba, Kha Regent equipped with Lightning Greaves, Livewire Lash, Kitesail, and Bonesplitter.
- Other permanents: Doubling Season, Concordant Crossroads.
- In hand: Path to Exile, Hideous End, Hunger of the Howlpack.
- Your library includes sufficient Plains, Swamps, and Forests.
- All creatures save for the Cat tokens have 1 damage marked on them (from Plague Spitter).
Win before losing to Sorrow’s Path!
Winner of this puzzles raffle will receive (wait for it…) a signed Sorrow’s Path!
Solutions to Last Week’s Puzzles
Puzzles: http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/24604-Mind-Twists-8.html
One final thing before we conclude—I’d like to start collecting feedback to help me create future puzzles. This week’s feedback question is: which puzzle has been your favorite Mind Twist so far and why? Let me know in the comments!
That’s all of this week. I hope you enjoyed this edition of Mind Twists! If that wasn’t enough for you, you can bet that I’ll be back next Wednesday with another pair of puzzles. As always, send any questions, comments, puzzle submissions, etc. to [email protected]. Have a great week, and I’ll see you all on Wednesday!
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