This week I thought I'd try a different puzzle format than the last two. Those puzzles allowed you access to any card in the format; this puzzle gives you a specific board state. Using the resources you're given, you must eke out a win.

Challenge

Win the game this turn.

Difficulty Levels

Level 1 (Moderate)

You have 7 life. In play you have a Blind Zealot, a Mortis Dogs equipped with Strider Harness, a Shrine of Boundless Growth with 7 charge counters, and your Viridian Harvest enchanting it. You also have one Plains, one Forest, and two Swamps. In hand, you have Gut Shot, Karn Liberated, Noxious Revival, and Phyrexian Metamorph.

Your opponent has 5 life. He has in play an Alpha Tyrranax, a Caustic Hound equipped with Batterskull, a tapped Fangren Marauder, and a Soul Conduit. He also has three Forests and three Mountains untapped. They have no cards in hand. Neither you nor your opponent have any cards in your graveyards.

Level 2 (Hard)

Instead of Noxious Revival, your hand contains Surgical Extraction.

Level 3 (Insane)

Blind Zealot was given protection from artifacts by an Apostleâs Blessing earlier this turn, which is now in your graveyard.

Level 4 (Gibbering Madness)

Blind Zealot has a -1/-1 counter.

Assumptions

The opponent might activate Soul Conduit at any point in time. However, he will always gain life with Fangren Marauder and will never return Batterskull to his hand.

Send your solutions to nex342+puzzle@gmail.com with the subject line âPuzzle â Critical to Winâ and Iâll include the best ones in next weekâs article, along with the next puzzle!

Good luck!

Solution to Last Weekâs Puzzle

A shout-out goes to Steve Guillerm for being the first person to send me a solution to the highest-level challenge at the time the puzzle was posted (Level 4, deal 10 billion damage turn two). However, even before Steve sent me that, Jarvis Yu sent me the following solution, which manages to hit 10 billion turn one, something I hadnât managed to do myself:

Brian Keongâs solution, below, also used Knowledge Pool to deal 10 billion damage turn one; but Brian managed to do it without using Shape Anew at all.