Prismatic Protection
Eugene T. Dudley vs. Heather "The Hurt" Harris
You can't win.
Win? Who cares about winning? On the verge of yet another humiliating defeat — this time at the hands of Heather "The Hurt" Harris — Eugene T. Dudley, the world's worst Magic player, hasn't even been thinking about victory. He's been thinking about protection — no silly, protection from colors. In fact, his latest losing deck was constructed with only one goal in mind: to give one of his creatures protection from all five colors.
Heather's done her part to make sure Eugene doesn't have a prayer of winning, putting the hurt on him with a Shivan Dragon. Eugene could try and hold off the Dragon for a few more turns, but what's the point? Heather's up over 40 life and Eugene has, well, a Wood Elemental. However, he's pretty sure that he finally has all the cards he needs to execute his plan. The question is "Which creature will it be?"
Figure out which one of Eugene's creatures can gain protection from all five colors this turn, and how to do it.
Keep in mind the following
- It is the beginning of your main phase. Your life is irrelevant. Your graveyard is irrelevant. You will be assim— er, never mind.
- The Flickering Ward on the Wood Elemental is giving protection from green.
- The Wood Elemental is 1/1. How lame.
- You must give one of Eugene's creatures protection from black, blue, green, red and white. You do not need to give the creature protection from purple.
- A creature with protection from a color cannot be targeted by spells or effects of that color.
- If a creature gains protection from a color, any enchantments of that color on the creature are immediately buried.
- If you're wondering how Eugene got Ihsan's Shade into play, you're clearly not spending enough time on actually solving the puzzle.
The board
Hover a card to enlarge it, or click through to Scryfall.
The answer ran a month later, in InQuest #37 (May 1998).