Also an easyish challenge: using only cards from the bfz block, gain an an arbitrarily large number of gideon's emblems in one turn.

I got one: 1 Eldrazi Displacer, 2 Emeria Shepherds, 3 Retreat to Coralhelm, 1 Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, 1 Wall of Resurgance, and 1 Sifter of Skulls, plus at least 2 lands that have been awoken, one of which is a plains.

Ult Gideon, putting him in gy. Sac Wall using Ayli (cost 1 total) triggering Sifter. Use Displacer to flicker the awoken plains, triggering the 3 Retreats and 2 Shepherds (cost 3C total). Shepherds return Gideon and Wall, having Wall make the plains a creature again. Use the Retreats to untap the other awoken land 3 times, floating mana between each untap. This should give you 3 mana plus the scion token from Sifter which is enough to cover the cost of the whole sequence, enabling an arbitrary number of repetitions. Bonus for massive life gain with Ayli, too.

I was thinking 2 embodiement of insight , a sheperd, a displacer, 3 coralhelm, a plains and gideon.

animate a plains and a land that can make colorless with the two embodiements, then flicker the plain with the mana from the retreats.
Totally missed that you could fit in some sifters of skulls for mana, oops.

Ah, nice! I forgot about the Embodiment creeps. Got stuck on using Wall which takes 4 mana to do.

I wanted to come up with a puzzle using Altered Ego and Shepherd, thinking that if Ego copied an awoken plains, it would etb as a 0/0 plains elemental and immediately die, setting up shenanigans with Shepherd and any Retreat card. But Ego doesn't copy the modified state of the land - it just etb as a regular plains.

@ Hello World:
I love how many solutions you came up with


I should've made the conditions a bit more stringent, I did not give enough thought to the scenario. Great solutions

The ones I was looking for were either of these :


The card in hand is unbridled growth. Tap , enchant the island, make , sac unbridled growth

You can now draw into either of the following :

Oath of ajani, or another unbridled growth that draws you into said oath

or

Renegade Rallier IF you have an oath of ajani in the yard.

or

if you have 3 flipped duskwatch recruiter as beaters, you can just play unbridled growth, draw and play another growth, into , cast angel of invention





The renegade rallier scenario is actually exactly what happened in a game today for me

You decided to try out a janky, spell heavy Brain in a Jar build and right off the bat, you can tell its gonna be one of those games... you mull to 3 on the draw before hitting a 2-lander and your opponent is playing Izzet mill. 5 turns later and its his eot. He just tapped out for big Chandra, cycling his hand and Tutilaging all but 2 card of your library. You have a single creature in play that you played on your 2nd turn and an untapped Brain that you played on T4 and activated once. You only have 4 lands down (1 Hissing Quagmire, 2 Islands and a Hinterland Harbor) and 2 cards in hand. Your opponent has no blockers but he's at a comfortable 16 life. Can you pull an epic comeback?

At this point, I sit back, smirk knowingly, nod and chuckle to myself. Then, I lay my cards down on the table, stand up and flip that table for all I'm worth, cursing everyone who ever played a game of magic!

For bonus points, I would also storm out of the hall, barely containing my tears while trying to seem like a badass in my trenchcoat and trilby!

I think my turn 2 longtusk cub backed by that delirium spell that gives 3 +1/+1 counters and 2 highspire infusions might just be enough.

If it isn't eot is too late for prized amalgam so it's going to be tricky.
maybe brain for 3 casts an eldrich evolution for a 3 mana and a 2 mana creature( but then how do I haste?)

You nailed the "epic" part...



You'd need a total of 6 energy in addition to the 2 Infusions and Might Beyond Reason. 2/2 + 3 (MBR), + 6 (2xInfusion) + 2 (4 energy from 2xInfusion) = 13/13. Tack on +2 from hitting twice with the Cub (which would explain the 4 damage the opp had already taken) and you are at 15/15. So I guess you could assume that you'd cast a spell that gave you some energy on turn 3 and then you'd have a valid answer. Not the one I was looking for, tho (not to mention, really odd cards to see in a spell-heavy Brain in a Jar deck).

Vague hint:
Everything I've mentioned about the deck and scenario are relevant to the solution.

Hmm... no other ideas? Ok,

I want to say it's something to do with sylvan advocate + swell of growth but i can't quite figure the extra 6 damage will come from (4 from advocate, 4 from land, 2 from swell) Am i barking up the wrong tree?

if you have winding constrictor and played the brain on t4, and activated it once, you could have played a 2 mana spell with it that turn.

So with Lead by Example on t4, that constrictor is a 4/5. You would have had 1 open mana that turn still... but i'm unsure what you did with it. let's say you played an implement of ferocity
If you tap 1 land the artifact now can play a 4 cmc spell. If you have a land in hand (swamp) to activate the quagmire; you can now activate it and cast Lifecrafter's gift from the brain

4/5 + 4/4; then 6/7 + 6/6... still not enough lol.

Am I close ?

say you got the 4/5 constrictor , you have ANOTHER constrictor in hand

you play it, and activate brain, casting Part the Waterveil, and you activate your implement to make first constrictor 7/8, swing for 7
next turn you draw your last card which is a swamp, you activate quagmire and hit for 2+2+7 = easy lethal.

that correct ?

Yeah. Tho, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a way to make something like that work. Even in our limited card pool there are so many possible interactions that it's really hard to weave a scenario with just one solution that isn't blatantly obvious (ie. where every card in hand/board/and library are all strictly defined).


You definitely cracked the hint. Constrictor was integral to my envisioned solution. Your solution almost works - the only problem is Implement. A. it wasn't part of the defined board state and B. with only 2 cards in your library you wouldn't be able to take 2 turns + crack the Implement. But I am certain you could work out a valid solution around this idea.

I wasn't originally thinking in terms of +1/+1 counters and Snek, but now that you've brought it up, I think my intended solution could conceivably do >80 damage in one turn. One last hint:

you can on his eot to go up to 4 counters on jar with a constrictor in play, then play dramatic reversal to untap brain, then go up to 6 counters cast rise from the tides and there you go !

Doesn't my double constrictor counter plan work even without the implement however?
4 damage ( from the activation on t4 which put 2 counters on constrictor), cast part the waterveil
draw into lifecrafters gift, attack for 15 ?

That was it!

My original idea was Diabolic Tutor and Rise in hand, tap Brain to Tutor for Reversal, cast Reversal, and then Rise. With it being a "spell heavy" deck that had been milled, you could count on a good 20+ instant/sorc spells in deck, all of which would be in GY when Rise is cast so we could say at least 19 tokens hit the table. Then you take your turn and draw the last card in your deck. For added epicness, that card happens to be Nissa, which you minus to give all your creeps +2/+2 and then swing for mad damage.

You decide to play some 2HG so you grab your janky Abzan landfall deck and check to see which friends are online. Sadly, you don't actually HAVE any friends so its the lottery for you. The game starts and, satisfied that your opening hand is solid, you peek at your p's hand. Ooooh! Looks like he's playing Naya Never Draws Land - Ultra Timmy Delux edition! He has a Forest, a Stone Quarry, and a lot of 5CC+ cards. Lucky you, you hit the jackpot.

So several turns later you've done what you can to control the board and stay alive, but its not easy, going against 4C walkers and Izzet Burn. Your P has done a fantastic job of discarding his lowest CC cards (aside from a single Explosive Vegetation that he somehow had the sense to keep) while waiting for his 3rd land. You have a Tireless Tracker (no counters yet), a clue token, Retreat to Hagra and (don't laugh) Retreat to Kazandu in play with 3 tapped land (Forest, Isolated Chapel, Swamp) and 2 untapped (Sunpetal Grove and another Forest). Your only card in hand is a Renegade Rallier and your grave has Languish (saved you from the Thermo-Alchemistic doom), Anguished Unmaking (bye bye, Jace, Unraveller of Secrets), Grapple with the Past, Nissa, Vital Force, Plains, Reclamation Sage, and an Evolving Wilds. Your retreat cards have done a bit of work, keeping you alive (barely) and chipping the opponents down to 20 life, but the walkers guy has Ajani AND Tamiyo out and ready to ult, as well as a 6/6 Woodland Wanderer and 2 tokens from Oath of Gideon. Izzet Guy played into your Languish, but he just revealed a Fall of the Titans off of Pieces of the Puzzle so you know you just have one more turn. At the end of their turn you crack your clue and draw a Forest. Looking grim.

At the start of your turn your partner finally draws his 3rd land - too bad the only card in his hand that cost <7 is that Vegetation.... You look at your draw. Interesting... You think for a bit, crunch the numbers... Oh, so close - if only, oh! Wait! It IS possible! You could win this turn, provided...

...provided what? What could you possibly have drawn to turn this game around and win from nowhere?

Notes:
Your deck is a janky landfall deck in Abzan. You aren't running any pump spells, hasty 5/5s or reanimators and your curve tops out at 6 mana. The opponents have no untapped mana or non-land permanents aside from the ones listed. Likewise, neither you, nor your partner have any nonland permanents other than the ones already listed.

I'm guessing you have to be triggering revolt for renegade rallier to bring back a 2cc card (something that can make tracker unblockable ?) from your ally's yard, him having a fetchland and you having a constrictor to play to add double counters on the tracker, but I can't get to 20 just yet
Or maybe you trigger the rallier so your opponent can cast his explosive veggies this turn whilst you can still et through the blockers (but then you said he discarded his lowest cmc, but i guess he didn't discard land ^^) ?

It's pretty sweet you are way better at this than i am

dp

I've got a fun little one - how would it be possible to mill your opponent out by turn 4 in Duels? (no multiple hits from tutelage required!)

I don't think Rallier can retrieve cards from your partner's GY. At least, not in Duels. The bit about your pard dropping his lowest CC cards was just for humor - I've def played games with randoms that have done stuff like that. Keep a hand full of lard and then sit there waiting for land while dropping the cards that they are most likely to ever have enough mana to cast during their discard phase so that they can hold on to their beloved Timmy-bombs instead. It makes me slightly bonkers.



Heh, the sky's the limit when you are a Telepath, eh? Especially when you get to cherry-pick your opponent's top decks.

One solution would be(on the draw): T1, you play forest and put Unbridled Growth on it. T2 you play Island and put Unbridled Growth on it. T3 you play Tutilage. By this time your opponent has played his own Tutilage as well and by T4 has milled 2 of your Take Inventorys, so on T4, when you play Talent of the Telepath it has Spell Mastery. Now, at this point your hand should have 3 cards (7 to start + 4 draws - 4 lands, 2 Growths, Tutilage, and Talent). Your deck should have 60 - 13 = 47 cards. Your opponent is a zombie who hasn't done anything aside from play the one Tutilage so his deck has 100 - 12 (7 start + 3 draws + the 2 cards your Tutilage milled on your draw step this turn) = 88 cards. Your Talent hits HIS Talent and Pore over the Pages and takes his lib to 81 cards. You play Pore milling 6 with Tutilage and discarding another Take Inventory and then play the Talent on him, hitting the other 2 Pore Over the Pages. At this point he has 68 cards left. You float 2 mana and then play both Pores, milling him 12 with Tutilage and untapping all 4 lands. Then you play your last Take Inventory with the floating mana, drawing 4 and milling him 8. He's at 48 cards now. Next you cast your 2nd Talent with the 4 untapped lands (41), and hit HIS other Talent and one of his Take Inventories. You Take Inventory for 5 cards (38), and then Talent (31) and hit Collective Defiance. You have drawn 18 cards (3 Pores + 2 Take Inventory), cast 2 spells from hand and discarded 3 cards so your library should still have 29 cards and your hand should have 16 cards so Collective Defiance hits for a whopping 32 cards. Milling him to 0. Presumably you could even cast one more Take Inventory from his deck and crack both of your Unbridled Growths to mill an extra 14 cards and increase your hand size to 23 before casting Defiance so this line actually has the capacity to mill a total of 130 cards (double Defiance could do more but would deck yourself in the process).

So, counter-challenge: mill BOTH heads in a 2hg on turn 4 (on the play!) with the caveat that neither opponent is playing and also assuming that Tutilage never mills more than 2 cards per card drawn. I can only think of one way to do it.