Locations
The bad news is that your deck has been fighting you for most of this game: You’ve only drawn a handful of creatures, and your land count isn’t in great shape. This is not good, particularly seeing as you’re playing with the Unabridged Cube—a collection of one of each card ever printed—and it has any number of cards that can break the game wide open.
The good news is that your opponent seems to be . . . well . . . insane. Despite having played more than a few creatures on her side of the table, Pinkie has barely been attacking with them. You picked off some of the nastier-looking ones with your removal, but Pinkie’s game plan has remained elusive.
All that changed, however, when Pinkie dropped a Hedron Crab—and suddenly, the presence of all her land-searching cards made sense. With your decent removal used up, however, Pinkie was all too happy to let the Crab do its work.
Pinkie’s Forced Fruition threatened to make things a lot worse, but fortunately, you had the Void Snare to bounce it (and draw a lot of cards in the process). You then cast a Brain in a Jar—wondering at how a Shadows over Innistrad preview card managed to make it into the Cube—and passed the turn, discarding down to seven business spells.
Surprisingly, Pinkie doesn’t recast her Forced Fruition. Instead, she has her Cryptoplasm copy her Hedron Crab, casts Rites of Spring to pitch both cards in her hand for two lands, and plays both of them to mill you for twelve! You’re still alive, mind you, but with three cards remaining in your library, you’re not going to be in this game for much longer.
Fortunately, you have a full grip of cards with which to work, although there’s still the question of how to use them. Still, a mind is a terrible thing to waste . . .
Pinkie has just declared the end of her turn; you may still cast spells or activate abilities in response. Defeat Pinkie before the start of her next turn.
You are at 18 life with the following cards in play:
- Retromancer
- Tidewater Minion
- Brain in a Jar
- 4 Islands (two tapped)
- 3 Mountains (one tapped)
You have the following cards in your hand:
You do not know the identity of any of the cards that are currently on top of your library. (Well, that’s not entirely true—you do know what’s left in your library, but it’s all useless at this point.)
You have no instant cards in your graveyard.
Pinkie is at 17 life and has no cards in her hand. She has the following cards in play:
- Hedron Crab
- Wall of Tears
- Cryptoplasm (currently copying Hedron Crab)
- Nantuko Disciple
- Oracle of Mul Daya
- Ondu Giant
- 6 Forests (one tapped)
- 5 Islands (one tapped)
The top card of Pinkie’s library is a Rampant Growth.
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 — Medulla Oblongata”. 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, Ryou Niji, Andrew Muravskyi, George Leung, Dorian Sinclair, Tom Kellett, Shaun Penrod, James Parmenter, Ryan Colvin, Aaron Golas, Andrew McLaren, Etienne Brosse, Hyman Rosen, Cody Pulvermacher, Christopher Castellon, Tim Reinholz, Kriz Lee, Bohdan Yarema, Jamie Keller, Matthew Harvey, David Foodym, Subrata Sircar, Bill Murphy, David Solomon, Sanjay Saith, Quadrangolo Tetra, Bastiaan Brier, Luciano Robino, Nate Burgess, and Tim Hermann.
For his part, David Foodym sums up this situation quite well: “CJ should probably stay away from the Unabridged Cube in the future and stick to something more his speed. Not only does he have the win on board, he's managed to assemble an infinite combo to win through an alternate win condition, in Draft, and he doesn't notice!”
“At only 3 life to Harvey's 19,” Tom Kellett goes, “no cards in hand, and an underwhelming combat presence, we're in a very tight spot. However, we have one opening: Seedcradle Witch, which can untap creatures indefinitely given enough mana, and two creatures (Karametra's Acolyte and Wirewood Channeler) that each can tap for large amounts of mana. This gives us the makings of an engine that can win us the game, but it will take some effort to set up.
“We have a devotion to green of four for Karametra's Acolyte and a total of two Elves on the board to fuel Wirewood Channeler. If we try to use this setup to run an engine with Seedcradle Witch, we can only tap our two mana generators for a total of 
—not enough to untap both of them with Seedcradle Witch and keep the engine going. We'll need to increase the mana output of our creatures to make this work.
“We have two methods available to increase the mana generated by our creatures: We can get the Obstinate Baloth exiled by Harvey's Brain Maggot onto the board, increasing our devotion to green (and therefore the Acolyte's mana production) by 2. We can also remove our own Journey to Nowhere, returning Harvey's Taurean Mauler to the battlefield; as a changeling, it counts toward the total number of Elves on the field for Wirewood Channeler. Ultimately, we're going to need to do both, and both steps will require the use of our Nullmage Advocate.”
George Leung’s solution therefore goes as follows:
- Tap Nullmage Advocate to activate its ability, returning Needlebite Trap and Darkness to Harvey's hand and destroying Brain Maggot, which returns Obstinate Baloth to our hand.
- Tap Oreskos Sun Guide and sacrifice Blazing Torch to deal 2 damage to Serum Raker, which dies. Serum Raker’s triggered ability causes me and Harvey to each discard a card. I discard Obstinate Baloth, which allows me to put it onto the battlefield instead of the graveyard. I gain 4 life when Obstinate Baloth hits the battlefield, bringing my life total to 7. Whatever Harvey discards is not relevant.
- Tap Karametra's Acolyte to add to my mana pool.
- Tap Wirewood Channeler to add to my mana pool.
- Spend to activate Seedcradle Witch's ability targeting Nullmage Advocate, giving it +3/+3 and untapping it.
- Tap Nullmage Advocate to return Brain Maggot and Serum Raker to Harvey's hand and destroy my Journey to Nowhere. When Journey to Nowhere leaves the battlefield, it returns Taurean Mauler to the battlefield.
- Use to activate Seedcradle Witch's ability targeting Karametra's Acolyte, giving it +3/+3 until end of turn and untapping it.
- Tap the untapped Plains to add to my mana pool.
- Tap Karametra's Acolyte to add to my mana pool.
- Spend to activate Seedcradle Witch's ability targeting Wirewood Channeler, giving it +3/+3 until end of turn and untapping it.
- Tap Wirewood Channeler to add to my mana pool. ( remaining.)
- Use to activate Seedcradle Witch's ability targeting Karametra's Acolyte, giving it +3/+3 until end of turn and untapping it. ( remaining.)
- Repeat steps 9 through 12 to add as much and to my mana pool as I wish, as each cycle of alternately untapping-then-tapping Wirewood Channeler and Karametra's Acolyte nets me 1 additional mana of either color.
- Pay to activate Seedcradle Witch's ability targeting Oreskos Sun Guide, giving it +3/+3 until end of turn and untapping it. Oreskos Sun Guide's inspired ability triggers, and I gain 2 life.
- Tap Oreskos Sun Guide to activate Field Surgeon’s ability, targeting any creature.
- Repeat steps 14 and 15 as many times as I wish, gaining 2 life each time Oreskos Sun Guide untaps. Then pass priority back to Harvey, who ends his turn.
- At the beginning of my upkeep, Test of Endurance's ability triggers and checks to see if I have 50 or more life, which I do, so I win the game!
You can’t gain infinite life, of course—tournament rules dictate that you have to stop somewhere. But a billion life or so will work just as well as 50 for Test of Endurance.
Notably, it’s safe for you to return Needlebite Trap to Harvey’s hand since you’ll be at 7 life by the time Harvey can cast it, and he’ll only be able to use it once. That said, you can avoid returning Needlebite Trap entirely, as Aaron Golas demonstrates:
- Tap Oreskos Sun Guide and sacrifice Blazing Torch to deal 2 damage to Serum Raker, killing it. Serum Raker's death trigger goes on the stack.
- In response, tap Nullmage Advocate to return Serum Raker and Darkness to Harvey's hand, destroying Brain Maggot.
- When Brain Maggot dies, Obstinate Baloth returns to your hand.
- Serum Raker's ability resolves: Harvey discards a card, and you put Obstinate Baloth onto the battlefield. You gain 4 life, going to 7.
- The second time you activate Nullmage Advocate, you can then return Brain Maggot and whatever card Harvey discarded to Serum Raker. (Interestingly enough, this means that Harvey could indeed have discarded the Serum Raker to its own ability.)
Curiously, a strange quirk in the Advocate’s ability allows you to win via combat damage, as per Subrata Sircar’s solution. “The key is not giving Harvey his Darkness at any point,” Subrata writes, “or Needlebite Trap while we have 5 or less life.”
- At the end of Harvey’s turn, use Field Surgeon to tap Oreskos Sun Guide. Then, use Seedcradle Witch to untap the Guide, gaining 2 life. Then, use Field Surgeon’s ability to tap Oreskos Sun Guide again.
- During your untap step, untapping Oreskos Sun Guide gains you 2 more life to go to 7.
- During your main phase, tap Oreskos Sun Guide and sacrifice Blazing Torch to kill Brain Maggot, putting it in Harvey’s graveyard and returning Obstinate Baloth to your hand.
- Cast Obstinate Baloth with three Forests and a Plains, leaving three Plains untapped. You gain 4 life and go to 11.
- Tap Karametra's Acolyte for .
- Tap Nullmage Advocate to destroy Pit Trap, targeting Needlebite Trap and Brain Maggot in Harvey’s graveyard. Respond by using one Plains and to activate Seedcradle Witch, untapping the Advocate. Once that resolves, with the Advocate’s original ability still on the stack, tap the Advocate again to destroy Journey to Nowhere, targeting Needlebite Trap and Brain Maggot in Harvey’s graveyard.
- The last Advocate ability resolves, destroying Journey to Nowhere and returning Needlebite Trap and Brain Maggot. (Harvey can now cast Needlebite Trap at any point, but this won’t matter.) The second Advocate ability then resolves and destroys Pit Trap—even though two of its original targets are gone, it still resolves against its third target.
- Now that there is a third Elf in play (Taurean Mauler), we can tap the Channeler for (to go with the from our two remaining Plains and from earlier). Use that 8 mana to untap both Acolyte and Channeler.
- Tap both the Acolyte and Channeler for ; use 8 of that mana to untap them both. Go through this loop as often as you like, using the extra mana to repeatedly untap the Guide after tapping it with the Surgeon (infinite life). Then, use the extra mana to give each creature +3/+3 repeatedly until each creature you control is untapped and has at least 30 power.
- Enter combat, and attack with all six creatures. Harvey can block five of them with Nekusar, the Mindrazer, Faceless Butcher, Psychic Membrane, Vodalian Zombie, and Taurean Mauler (and gain 5 life from Needlebite Trap), but he will be run over by the single unblocked creature.
This does have one hitch, though: “Any solution involving combat damage would not work absolutely perfectly,” Ryou Niji concludes, “because we have no evasive creatures—so we would probably have to allow Psychic Membrane to block something. If Harvey top-decks removal, we could fail to win this turn. If the stars align for him, Harvey may even untap, cast Ancestral Recall, combo off from there, mill us out, and end the game with a flashed-back Ancestral Recall targeting us. It is the Unabridged Cube, after all.”
