Iâm very fond of this weekâs puzzle; itâs the quintessential cast-a-huge-monster-very-quickly challenge, since itâs using the hugest monster there is.

Challenge

Hard-cast Emrakul, the Aeons Torn turn one on the play, using only cards from the current (Zendikar/Scars of Mirrodin/M11/M12) Standard environment. âHard-castâ means casting it from your hand by paying its mana cost (for example, reducing the cost with Semblance Anvil is allowed, but completely circumventing it with Djinn of Wishes is not).

Assumptions

You have perfect luck; for example, even after you shuffle your library, itâs ordered how you want. You may not assume anything about your opponentâs hand or library, except that he wonât play any spells.

Difficulty Levels

For each level, you must also meet the previous levelâs restrictions.

Level 1 (Easy) You may use any card in Zendikar/Scars of Mirrodin/M11/M12 Standard. Banned cards (Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic) are allowed. Level 2 (Moderate) You may not use Knowledge Pool. Level 3 (Hard) You may not use Semblance Anvil. Level 4 (Insane) You may not use Pyromancer Ascension.

Send your solutions to nex342+puzzle@gmail.com with the subject line âPuzzle â Emrakul's On Firstâ 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

I received two interesting and different solutions to last weekâs puzzle, both of which are different from the solution I found. I want to post all three solutions, but posting them in full would take up too much space. Instead, Iâll only post the puzzles up until they get infinite colorless mana and infinite cards in hand. Once that happens, colored mana can be accessed via the various âX of Ramosâ cards, and the various Avatars can be activated as follows:

Hereâs the first solution I received, by Bryan Hockey:

Now we can go infinite by discarding cards and sacrificing Saprolings to the altar.

Jarvis Yu and Tristal found the following solution:

Now we have infinite mana by swapping Junk Divers, which gets us infinite cards with Eye of Ramos and Stroke of Genius.

Finally, hereâs my solution:

As before, we can use the Junk Divers to get infinite mana and Stroke of Genius to translate that into infinite cards.