Solutions without their puzzle

Pump the Atog

Solution printed in InQuest #26, June 1997, page 47. Read the scanned page →

Answer: The red Atog. Here's how…

1. During your upkeep, sacrifice the Lion's Eye Diamond for three black mana and drop your hand in the graveyard — put the Tetravus on top.
2. Use two black mana from the Diamond to cast Shallow Grave (the card on the Elkin Bottle) and retrieve the Tetravus from the graveyard (formerly in your hand).
3. Split off the three artifact tokens on the Tetravus into play as separate 1/1 flyers (you now have four 1/1 creatures in total).
4. Use the remaining black mana from the Lion's Eye Diamond to make the Mishra's Factory a 2/2 artifact creature.
5. Move to draw phase and draw the Energy Tap.
6. Tap the Tropical Island, cast Energy Tap from your hand and tap the Spectral Guardian.
7. Use the four generic mana from the Spectral Guardian (compliments of the Energy Tap) and have the Amber Prison tap the Cursed Totem.
8. Tap your remaining five lands to create a 1/1 artifact token with The Hive.
9. The red Atog eats all 14 artifacts in play: Mishra's Factory, Cursed Totem, Armageddon Clock, Elkin Bottle, Tetravus and three tetravite tokens, Amber Prison, The Hive and a giant wasp token, Standing Stones, Soldevi Steam Beast (Red Ward does not prevent sacrifice), Righteous Avengers (artifact creature with Ashnod's Transmogrant).
10. Atog ends up 29/30.

Socrates Gambit

Solution printed in InQuest #33, January 1998, page 63. Read the scanned page →

1. During your upkeep, add a second counter to the Consuming Ferocity.
2. Draw Final Fortune during your draw phase, putting the other two cards back on top of your library.
3. Play Scorched Ruins, sacrificing Urza's Mine and Timberline Ridge.
4. Tap all of your lands for mana. (2 black, 3 green, 2 red, 5 colorless mana in pool.)
5. Sacrifice the Gauntlets of Chaos to give your opponent a Poison Snake and to take Mesa Pegasus token. (2 black, 3 green, 2 red in pool.)
6. Sacrifice the Triangle of War, targeting your Marsh Viper and your opponent's new Poison Snake. Use the Jade Monolith to take the damage from both creatures. (3 poison counters.) (1 green, 2 red in pool.)
7. Tap the Marsh Viper to do 1 point of damage to yourself. (5 poison counters.)
8. Cast the Ashnod's Transmogrant. (2 red in pool.)
9. Cast the Final Fortune.
10. During your upkeep add a third counter to the Consuming Ferocity. The Pit Scorpion does five points of damage to you and is buried. (5 poison counters.)
11. Draw the Goblin Tinkerer during your draw phase.
12. Tap the Marsh Viper to do a point of damage to yourself. (8 poison counters.)
13. Cast the Goblin Tinkerer and cast Instill Energy on the Tinkerer.
14. Use the Ashnod's Transmogrant to turn the Marsh Viper into an artifact creature.
15. Tap the Goblin Tinkerer to destroy the Marsh Viper. Use the Jade Monolith to redirect the damage from the Tinkerer to yourself. (10 poison counters.)

Have a Heart

Solution printed in InQuest #36, April 1998, page 59. Read the scanned page →

1. During your upkeep, spend two mana to activate the Soldevi Digger, putting the Heart of Bogardan on the bottom of your library.
2. Tap two Islands and activate the Flooded Shoreline to return the Urborg Stalker and the tapped Islands to your hand.
3. Tap two Islands and activate the Flooded Shoreline to return the Ertai's Familiar and the tapped Islands to your hand. Because the Familiar left play, the top three cards of your library go to the graveyard.
4. Spend three mana to cast Corpse Dance, bringing the Tolarian Serpent into play.
5. Pay for the Tolarian Serpent by putting the top seven cards of your library into your graveyard.
6. Process the Black Vise. You now have nine cards in your hand, so you take five damage. Spend two mana and activate the Bone Mask to prevent the damage, removing the top five cards of your library from the game.
7. One card remains in your library, the Heart of Bogardan. Proceed to your draw phase and draw the Heart of Bogardan.
8. Bobby kills you with a Lightning Bolt and takes off with Lula, his new valentine. Better luck next time, Eugene.

Token Mania

Solution printed in InQuest #39, July 1998, page 63. Read the scanned page →

1. Untap the Bottomless Vault.
2. Tap the Tradewind Rider and two token creatures to return the Takklemaggot to Turkey's hand. (You have 21 creatures in play.)
3. Tap the Bottomless Vault for five black mana and the two Urza's Towers for six colorless mana. Cast Carrion and sacrifice the Sliver Queen. (27 creatures.)
4. Activate the Bösium Strip.
5. Cast Carrion from your graveyard and sacrifice the Phelddagrif. (30 creatures.)
6. Pay the Tombstone Stairwell's upkeep. (32 creatures.)
7. Draw the Mountain and put it into play.
8. Tap all but one of your lands (the Forest or Outpost) for 14 mana. (Sacrifice the Dwarven Hold for two red mana.)
9. Cast Sarcomancy to create a 2/2 Zombie. (33 creatures.)
10. Cast Lab Rats to create a Rat token. (34 creatures.)
11. Using the still-active Bösium Strip, cast Lab Rats to create another Rat. (35 creatures.)
12. Activate the Spike Breeder to create a 1/1 green token. (36 creatures.)
13. Sacrifice the Prism token for red mana. (35 creatures.)
14. Cast Mogg Infestation on yourself. (70 creatures, all tokens.)
15. Use the still-active Bösium strip to cast Mogg Infestation again, giving a whopping total of 140 token creatures.

Control Freak

Solution printed in InQuest #43, November 1998, page 87. Read the scanned page →

Eugene, being the freak that he is, was trying to take control of all his opponent's creatures. Here's how he did it:

1. Tap the Ventifact Bottle and all but two of your lands. (6 blue, 2 green, 7 colorless in mana pool.)
2. Tap the Willow Satyr to steal Starke of Rath.
3. Cast Venom on the Shivan Dragon. (6 blue, 6 colorless.)
4. Tap the Rootwater Matriarch to take control of the Shivan Dragon.
5. Cast Abduction on the White Knight to take control of it. All blue spells cost two less thanks to the double Sapphire Medallions. (4 blue, 6 colorless.)
6. Cast Magnetic Web and tap it to put a Magnet counter on the Scragnoth. (4 blue, 3 colorless.)
7. Cast Legerdemain to trade the Magnetic Web for the Phyrexian Hulk. (2 blue, 3 colorless.)
8. Activate the Magus of the Unseen to untap and take control of the Magnetic Web. (3 colorless.)
9. Tap the Magnetic Web to put a Magnet counter on the Phyrexian Hulk. (2 colorless.)
10. Attack with the Phyrexian Hulk. Mikey must block with the Scragnoth. The Phyrexian Hulk kills the Scragnoth.
11. Oops! We forgot an extra Forest! At this point, you should be able to spend the remaining mana and tap the Coffin Queen to take control of the Scragnoth, but because your mana pool is drained at the beginning of your attack, the puzzle is short one mana. Last month's prize went to the closest solution and the person responsible for the mistake has been flogged.

Green With Envy

Solution printed in InQuest #49, May 1999, page 74. Read the scanned page →

In an effort to get into the St. Patrick's Day spirit, Eugene was trying to turn all of his permanents green. Here's how you do it:

1. Tap the Mana Vault, two Forests and two Islands. (2 blue, 2 green and 3 colorless mana in pool.)
2. Untap the Mana Vault with the Voltaic Key. (2 blue, 2 green, 2 colorless.)
3. Tap the Mana Vault for mana. (2 blue, 2 green, 5 colorless.)
4. Cast Karn. (2 blue, 2 green.)
5. Activate Karn's special ability three times to turn Alchor's Tomb, Voltaic Key and Mana Vault into creatures. (1 green.)
6. Tap the Gaea's Cradle for seven green mana. (8 green.)
7. Cast Verdant Touch to turn Gaea's Cradle into a creature, paying for the buyback. (3 green.)
8. Untap Gaea's Cradle with Seeker of Skybreak. Tap the Cradle for eight green mana. (11 green.)
9. Cast Lifelace to turn one of your Forests green. (10 green.)
10. Activate Alchor's Tomb to turn your other Forest green. (8 green.)
11. Cast Verdant Touch with buyback to turn one of your Islands into a creature. (3 green.)
12. Cast Verdant Touch to turn your other Island into a creature. (1 green.)
13. Cast Sylvan Paradise, targeting all creatures you control—that's every permanent you have except the two Forests, and you already turned them green. Whew. Now Eugene can have a happy St. Patty's day. (Too bad it's April, though.)

Mana Mayhem

Solution printed in InQuest #52, August 1999, page 80. Read the scanned page →

In an effort to one-up his foe, Charlie "Cheez Whiz" Clark, Eugene was trying to generate as much mana as possible. Here's the best way to do it:

1. Tap all lands for mana. All lands return to your hand. (9 mana in pool.)
2. Play the City Of Traitors and tap it for mana. (11 mana in pool.)
3. Use the Storm Cauldron's ability to play the City Of Traitors again and tap it for mana. (13 mana in pool.)
4. Tap the Skyshroud Ranger to put the City Of Traitors into play and tap it for mana. (15 mana in pool.)
5. Tap the Priest Of Titania for three mana. (18 mana in pool.)
6. Cast the Citanul Hierophant. (14 mana in pool.)
7. Tap the Elven Riders, Weatherseed Elf, Skirge Familiar and Carthodian for mana. (18 mana in pool.)
8. Use the Skirge Familiar's ability to discard the three islands, four forests, City Of Traitors, Phyrexian Tower, Culling The Weak, Early Harvest, Overgrowth and Peregrine Drake for mana. (31 mana in pool.)
9. Use Ashnod's Transmogrant to sacrifice the Carthodian. (36 mana in pool.)
10. Use Ashnod's Transmogrant to sacrifice the Citanul Hierophants, Elven Riders, Priest Of Titania, Skirge Familiar, Skyshroud Ranger and Weatherseed Elf for two mana each. (48 mana in pool.)
11. Die horribly from mana burn.

Monkey Business

Solution printed in InQuest #58, February 2000, page 64. Read the scanned page →

Through monkeying around, Eugene was trying to get as many monkeys into play as possible. Here's the best he could come up with:

1. At the end of your opponent's turn, tap the Vine Trellis and the Skull Of Ramos. (1 black, 1 green in mana pool.)
2. Activate the Bog Witch, discarding the Nether Spirit to add BBB to your pool. (3 black, 1 green.)
3. Cast the Simian Grunts. Sacrifice the Monkey Cage and put three ape tokens into play. (1 black.)
4. You take a point of mana burn, and your turn begins.
5. Untap all your lands.
6. During your upkeep, return the Nether Spirit from your graveyard to play.
7. During your main phase, tap all your lands and the Vine Trellis for mana. (10 green, 2 black in pool.)
8. Cast Bifurcate on your Bog Witch to search your deck for another Bog Witch and bring it into play. (8 green.)
9. Cast the Uktabi Orangutan, destroying the Junk Diver. Return the Monkey Cage to your hand. (5 green.)
10. Cast the Monkey Cage.
11. Sacrifice the two Bog Witches and the Nether Spirit to bring the Delraich into play.
12. Sacrifice the Monkey Cage and put seven ape tokens into play.
13. You've now got a total of 13 monkeys in play—10 from the Monkey Cage, the Gorilla Warrior, the Simian Grunts and the Uktabi Orangutan. That's more than a barrel full!

Life's a Beach…

Solution printed in InQuest Gamer #65, September 2000, page 74. Read the scanned page →

1. Draw the island. Play it.
2. Use the Seal Of Removal to return Lin Sivvi to Nester's hand.
3. Activate the Scandalmonger to make him discard Lin Sivvi.
4. Play Infiltrate on the Bone Dancer.
5. Attack with the Bone Dancer. Lin Sivvi enters play on your side.
6. Use Show And Tell to get Conspiracy into play. Choose "rebels."
7. Use Lin Sivvi's ability to put Nicol Bolas on the bottom of your library.
8. Activate the Harvest Mage, discarding Submerge.
9. Activate the Divining Witch, discarding the Apprentice Necromancer, name "Nicol Bolas." Draw your entire library until you get to him.
10. Use the Mercadian Lift to play Nicol Bolas.
11. Play Squee, Goblin Nabob. You have three legends in play and have shown Nester your entire deck.