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Step right up all you spell casters & begin your journey with us to see if you have what it takes to become a true Magic: The Gathering wizard. Let us explore together these wonderful brain teasers that came from the mind of another pretty fair MTG persona in his own right, Mark Rosewater with his Magic The Puzzling creation.

I'm posting this first one from the beginning of his book, so that the first ones we will start with will be easy for us to solve so we can get your feet wet before we jump into the deep end!

I will post the Puzzle in a jpg file so you can see it here, but I'll post the answer in a zipped jpg file for you to download so you don't have the puzzle spoiled by accidentally viewing it before you have a chance to solve it.

Post your thoughts on what you thought of the puzzle & how the cards were played to solve it.

So, faster than Samantha Stevens can twitch her beautiful nose, here we go. Good luck to all!

The first puzzle for us to solve is called "INCOMING!"

Here are a list of the cards, (minus the lands) in the puzzle so you can read the text and any activation or abilities that the cards can generate:

Craw Giant
Rod of Ruin
Ashnod's Altar
Flying Carpet
Wild Growth


Ayesha Tanaka
Apprentice Wizard
Prodigal Sorcerer
Soldevi Machinist
Samite Healer
Birds of Paradise
Llanowar Elves
Fyndhorn Elves
Tinder Wall
Ley Druid
Pradesh Gypsies
Fyndhorn Brownie
Scavenger Folk
Aladdin
Grapeshot Catapult


Pssst...no peeking at the answer!

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1.Sac the Tinder Wall. Mana pool: RR
2.Tap the Fyndhorn Elves, Llanowar Elves and Birds of Paradise. Mana pool: RRGGG
3.Tap Ley Druid to untap the Island.
4.Tap Island. Mana pool: URRGGG
5.Use Apprentice Wizard 's ability. Mana pool: 3RRGGG
6.Use Aladdin 's ability to gain control over Ashnod's Altar. Mana pool: 2GGG
7.Sac Soldevi Machinist to Ashnod's Altar. Mana pool: 4GGG
8.Use Pradesh Gypsies to give Craw Giant -2/-0 (now a 4/4) Mana pool: 3GG
9.Use Fyndhorn Brownie to untap Pradesh Gypsies. Mana pool: 1G
10.Use Pradesh Gypsies to give Craw Giant -2/-0 (now a 2/4) Mana pool: 0
11.Tap Samite Healer to prevent one of the damage from the Craw Giant.
12.Sac Prodigal Sorcerer and Scavenger Folk to Ashnod's Altar to prevent them blocking. Mana pool: 4 (EDIT: Or,you know, ping Colin with Tim )
13.Let Ayesha Tanaka and Grapeshot Catapult block. Craw Giant will become a 4/6 and no damage will be let through.

It won't be pretty but you'll live.

First puzzle and it still took me a good while (and probably got a non-optimal solution) Time to check my answers I love this kind of thing!

One thing to check is that you solve the puzzle using the OLD rules. lol

Yeah, you're going to have to point out the error as I am (blissfully? ) ignorant of all the old rules.

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Is it the trampling I'm mistaken about?

I don't know if you made an error, I was just speaking generally. In fact your solution is close to the actual one.

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In the actual solution you take one point of damage.

Huggybaby wrote:One thing to check is that you solve the puzzle using the OLD rules. lol

With old rules, you mean pre-M10 Rules or pre-6th Edition rules?

This is pre 6th edition rules. I mean OLD School!

does anyone have a rulebook to it? I started playing in 2007

I have an original Beta rule book somewhere, which incidentally had a picture of the original Bog Wraith on it. I also have 4th edition & up in some books & the small booklet that used to come with the game.

Are these coming from the book or from the Duelist? I have the book at home, but I never had a chance to try the ones from the Duelist.

These are from Rosewaters' book. I have most of The Duelist magazines & I will probably do those ones as well, along with other content from them & other CCG magazines I have collected over the years.

Deep Magic for $5.00, brand new, includes shipping:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Deep-Magic-Advanced ... dZViewItem

Still looking for the George Baxter analysis scans...