Good morning everyone!

Here's the next installment of highlights so-far from the Great Designer Search.

Previously posted:

1. "Proto Puzzles"

These puzzles below are from the second round of submissions and are "Uncommon". By definition, Uncommon puzzles aren’t super difficult to solve, don’t have a long series of actions, and don’t have corner case rules interactions. 

BUT, unlike the Proto Puzzles that came before it, they are fully developed and contain some options that the solver must evaluate before finding the winning line.

The uncommon puzzles we received were extraordinarily strong. We had to review them multiple times to make sure we were grading them correctly.  Here are a few of our favourites!

This first one from Carlos Oliveros not only offers a lot of lines between spells, Planeswalker activations, and equip costs - it also gave our template a bit of a makeover. Can you figure it out?

Solution:

1.  Cast Pollenbright Druid, using its ETB trigger to proliferate your Zombie Army, Ajani’s Pridemate and Angrath, Captain of Chaos. 

2. Equip Captain’s Hook to Pollenbright Druid

3. Equip Captain's Hook to your Zombie Army, causing Pollenbright Druid to die and Cruel Celebrant to trigger, bringing the opponent to 10 and growing Ajani's Pridemate up to 5/5.

4. Attack with everything (5/5 Pridemate, 1/2 Celebrant, 6/4 Zombie Army). Due to menace, only one creature can be blocked, and the opponent will take a minimum of 6 to go to 4. (If they block the Celebrant, they take 11 and lose.)

5. Equip the Captain’s Hook on Ajani’s Pridemate, causing the Zombie Army to die and triggering Cruel Celebrant to take the opponent to 3.

6. -2 Angrath, Captain of Chaos triggering Cruel Celebrant to take the opponent to 2.

7. Use your final two mana to equip Captain's Hook off the Pridemate to the new Army, then off the Army to Cruel Celebrant, to trigger Celebrant two more times for lethal.

Sweet!

We also liked this submission from Justice Geddes because it has a relatively straight-forward solution, but forces you to jump through a few game-rules modifiers before you get there:

Solution:

1. Cast Finale of Glory for X=5 (tapping everything and enjoying Primal Amulet's cost reduction), putting a charge counter on Primal Amulet.

2. Go to your end step. Wilderness Reclamation lets you untap all your lands.

3. Sacrifice Emergence Zone.

4. Cast Band Together to have two Knights destroy Shalai. Put a fourth counter on Primal Amulet, transforming it into Primal Wellspring.

5. Cast Ghalta with your final two Green lands. It only costs two because of your five knights.

6. Cast Thud, targeting the opponent and sacrificing Ghalta. Primal Wellspring copies it and your opponent takes 24!

In addition to people competing to become a new designer with us, there were also lots of people who submitted puzzles “Just for Fun”. You can still submit these now - and for every ten puzzles we receive, we'll draw a prize from some of the sealed MTG product we've got that's in need of a new home! 

We've just started sharing these on Twitter and will continue to do so throughout the summer.  Submit yours here!

The "Rare" difficulty third round of the Great Designer Search is just wrapping up now - check back soon to see who's made it into the Top 4!