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Ahoy, puzzle fans. After the well-received paragraph puzzle from a couple weeks ago, I thought I'd present another class puzzle archetype, fitted to Magic: the 3x3. In a 3x3 puzzle you are be presented with nine words. Your job is to group the words into three sets of three, each of which are connected by another word. For example, if you the saw the words Dragon, Furnace, and Laccolith among the nine, you might group them together for all being Whelps. After you make this grouping, you once again group the three new words to get the final answer. Simple, right? Now win those RGD draft sets!
Solution to last week's puzzle.
Alas, Bad Beat Phil earned a reprieve last week, and you were unable to do him in with your collections of blades. While I might normally consider revisiting the puzzle, the Buffalo Sabres' recent poor performance in their Stanley Cup bid has put me off writing about swords for the time being. Here is roughly the solution I had in mind. There are actually two flaws in step 4. I'll leave figuring out the errors as an exercise to the reader.
1. Tap two Mountains to play Flowstone Blade on Haazda Shield Mate and kill it.
2. Tap two Plains, an Island, two Swamps and two Mountains to play Bladewing the Risen, getting back Tarox Bladewing and Bladewing's Thrall.
3. Attack with Tarox and Deftblade Elite, provoking Order of the White Shield.
4. Tap the Swamp and two Mountains to cast Viashino Bladescout and give Deftblade Elite First strike. The Elite will kill the Order during the first strike step and Tarox is free to kill Phil in the normal damage step. Tarox's 4 damage will get through the 1 Phil can prevent with Shield of Ages.
If Phil plays the Boros Fury-Shield on Tarox during declare blockers, respond by tapping the Island to use ninjutsu, bouncing Tarox and putting in Mistblade Shinobi.
If Phil plays the Boros Fury-Shield on Tarox during combat damage, sacrifice it to the Riteknife.
Current Scores (potential maximum: 14 plus bonus points)
ahandsumguy — 15
Remus — 15
Erf — 14
Gabrosin — 14
IceOnGrass — 14
LoneGoat — 14
massive — 14
noctifer — 14
TheOneEye — 14
carrolln — 8
lord atog — 8
RobRoy — 8
PeteBDawg — 6
wchaug — 6
Vyolynce — 4
cdman79 — 3
dataspot — 1
Le1hargy — 1
This Week's Puzzle (15 points total)
Contest 4, Week 3 of 5.
Difficulty: 3/5
Remember: do NOT post solutions to the forums. PM me (jefftill) the answers. To be scored, solutions are due Monday at midnight.
All the words below are joined by being part of one- or two-word Magic Card names. The word I provide may be the beginning or the end of the name of the card. It may also be part of a card name that is a single compound word. For example, if I gave you the word Storm, it could be for Storm Elemental, Dragonstorm, or Cinder Storm, but not Desert Sandstorm or Eye of the Storm.
To score points, show me all the grouping used to arrive at the final answer. Points will only be awarded for completely correct answers.
3x3 (5 points)
Bolt
Desperate
Dread
Earth
Mind
Shadow
Sonic
Spell
Warrior's
3x3x3 (10 points)
This is the same concept as a 3x3, except you need to go one level deeper, first making nine sets of three, then three sets of three, then one set of three, to get the final answer.
Aurora
Barbed
Brimstone
Bubble
Chromatic
Clockwork
Cloud
Cruel
Energy
Enigma
Entropic
Flash
Fungal
Gate
Goblin
Grim
Life
Nim
Orim's
Plain
Searing
Sliver
Stone
Surgeon
Thrull
Urborg
Void
Good luck!
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