We Try to Solve Expert Level Magic the Gathering Puzzles 

Threw in a quick like immediately after the mitochondria

Well damn I was just about to comment on how funny I thought all 3 of these things are. And then I saw this at the top of the comments 😂 at least I know I’m among friends here lol

These guys are geniuses of goofy comedy and I love it!

Yeah they do such a good job

Nerd. - Nerd

The Duels of the Planeswalker games did iirc. I recall playing stuff like that and having a great time.

I was just thinking lately I'd love to see more single player content in Arena and this is just the thing! Other digital card games have sets of challenges/puzzles and they do a good job at teaching stuff like complicsted rules interactions and new mechanics, I really think Arena is missing out by not having any real story content with its vast lore OR any little puzzles.

didn't they have that at one point? I remember that being a thing in the colour challenges...

It’s crazy because YuGiOh World Championship video games have challenges like this and they actually helped me a TON for strategizing and prioritizing. I’m kind of a noob at MTG (only been playing for 2 or so years), but my (tweaked) Urza, Chief Artificer commander deck has been holding its own very strongly because of my past YuGiOh practice.

Not sure why we ever dropped the challenges. Even the 360 had them.

I'd assume Jamin is better at these puzzles that Thoralf & Andrea :) they require a specific skill set that conventional pro players don't have

​@@CardmarketMagicI wanna See IT anyway

It honestly would just be fun to see them try. But regardless, I'm all for more puzzles with Yamin too

​@@CardmarketMagicwhat?! pro players have to look for lines of play all the time. If you miss the turn that gives you the win it gives your opponent the chance to run away with the game.

They used to include them on the Duels of the Planeswalker games and to an extent some of the tutorials include these but think they did away with them

It was my favorite part of the PS3 games as well. I smiled soo big when I saw this video's title!

mtg2013! good ass game

I was just about to post something similar!

They said expert level, they aren't onto the Thoralf level yet

There are puzzles, it's called color challenges. Before you say they aren't puzzles, both decks are pre-stacked and the "AI" you play against will always react the same way to the same play, i.e. there are set solutions to them.

@@sysmonitor yes intended for beginners but they are indeed puzzles. However, I was thinking more of the lines of puzzles for intermediate or advanced players like how they have puzzles for hearthstone and like this. Yours are puzzles, but some of us skip through those and try something more difficult.

@@BRboi777 the duels of the planeswalkers games had puzzles exactly like this

Yes we should have gone through the exact details more thoroughly, but what you don't see is how long it took us to solve the puzzle 😅 we were exhausted by then

Thanks for clarifying! I was also confused until I realized Dralnu is a replacement effect, not a triggered ability.

Thanks for clearing this up! I was confused trying to apply APNAP and was thinking that they were wrong but I totally missed that Dralnu was a replacement effect!

​@IBenin16I What does APNAP stand for?

@@jaydenzanner9173 Active Player, Non-Active Player. It's used to remember the order of priority - the player who is taking their turn (Active Player) gets priority first, then passes to the non-active player.

I think the correct answer includes pumping a Shade once, it would make it a 4/4 with a -1/-1 counter and 2 damage taken, allowing to deal 3 damage for a total attack for 8

J: scar ashling C: pay 1 life, float all 6 mana, activate ashling once J: pass to combat this puts the impetus on carl to activate ashling more, letting jamin react favorably and save his creatures, or waste the mana and die in combat

I think if he does then Jamin can force the mana to be spent that phase which should allow a kill. If Jamin baits with the scar in main phase and Carl activates once and lets the stack resolve, then Jamin can pass priority to go to beginning of combat step which should force a response from Carl. Once Carl puts a third activation on the stack, then Jamin can peel 1 counter off of Carnifex Demon to make the Ashling just kill itself and save the two dread shades. Stack 1: Scar, Ashling Activation floating 4 red Resolves, Ashling is a 2/2 Resolves, ashling is a 1/1 Jamin passes to go to combat Carl needs to respond so he doesn't lose in combat Stack 2: Ashling Activation, 2 red floating Resolves, Ashling is a 2/2 Jamin passes to go to combat Carl needs to respond so he doesn't lose in combat Stack 3: Ashling Activation, Carnifex Demon Activation Resolves, carnifex is a 5/5, Shades are 2/2s, Ashling is a 1/1 Resolves, ashling deals 1 to all, Carl to 8, Jamin to 2, Ashling dies as it is a 1/1, all of Jamin's creatures live as 5/5s and 2/2s

jamin would go to combat, forcing carl to spend all that mana to try to blow the board up, but jamin can then respond by putting just one -1/-1 counter on it and then attack for lethal

No matter what Carl does then there is a way to get lethal damage through a combination of: if he pumps thrice for 1 life, you just -1/-1 once and sometimes pump your shade to make it survive the blast if he pumps twice for 1 life, you just ignore it and attack for lethal (shade pumping is a lethal threat) if he pumps once for 1 life, you counteract it with a -1/-1 and go to next step to force him to spend more life if he wants to pump more always initiating lethal threat by casting -1/-1 or pumping the carnifex once to force him to react or lose the game

That's a good idea! :)

I think The Duelist also had puzzles. Written by Mark Rosewater if I remember correctly. Sadly don´t own those anymore or could have send the boys a few old school puzzles.

It's coming soon 😎 I only wear my hat for the most important business reasons

@@CardmarketMagic And solving Magic problems isn't important business?

Was wondering that too, makes sense

Biggest miss of the video, had to stop watching after that, invalidates the whole concept of the video...

@@Licw-Luxus how is that a miss? the comment just said he realized it wasn't a miss.

But he had to use the ability immediately, because of the Scar on the stack, if Carl didn't activate all the activations at once there, then the shades would always survive. Ergo, the extra damage taken from tapping wrongly was a mistake, and the real solution here would have been to save one of the shades by buffing them

@@TrulySilentLie saving a shade by buffing it is useless because that implies taking 3 damage to your life points when you only have 3.

I'm happy you enjoyed it :) it was a lot of fun! Don't hesitate to suggest anything else you'd like to see

You can take your time to walk through the puzzle again ;) it doesn't show it in the video but we literally spent hours on that puzzle 😅

The black player can pass to combat to allow mana to drain.

I'm happy you enjoyed it :) we will definitely be doing more. It was a lot of fun to make

We cut out about 10-15 minutes of thinking for that one. That puzzle was incredibly difficult :)