Caleb Durward

Seems pretty straightforward. Float four mana, use one for [[Slaughter Pact]], activate [[Wishclaw Talisman]] for [[Dark Ritual]], cast [[Pulverize]], double [[Dark Ritual]] into [[Ad Nauseam]] with a land drop and a mana floating. This doesn’t beat [[Mindbreak Trap]], but hey you can’t beat everything.

Jordan Karim

Nice and easy to start off right? At least we can practice careful sequencing! I think that we can be unbothered by [[Mindbreak Trap]] due to the sharp decline in play the card has seen across the boards of Initiative decks. Our turn needs to start with [[Slaughter Pact]] destroying the opposing [[Thalia, Guardian of Thraben]] (let’s use a [[Lotus Petal]] that will shortly be destroyed to do this). From there, we can sacrifice the other [[Lotus Petal]], float from our lands, and cast [[Pulverize]]. With the [[Dark Ritual]] making the requisite five mana and [[Ad Nauseam]] in hand, we are on our way to a clean combo!

Bryant Cook

I would begin by casting [[Slaughter Pact]] on the [[Thalia, Guardian of Thraben]] paying the tax by sacrificing a [[Lotus Petal]]. After that spell has resolved, I would sacrifice the other [Lotus Petal]], tap both lands, and then cast [[Pulverize]].

This is where decisions come into play. You do have a [[Wishclaw Talisman]] on the battlefield. That said, these Initiative decks do play [[Aven Mindcensor]] in the sideboard — which is more common than [[Mindbreak Trap]] at this point in time. By activating your artifact, you’re putting yourself in a potential spot to get blown out of the water when you don’t need to do so. Let the [[Wishclaw Talisman]] be destroyed by [[Pulverize]].

With the three floating mana you could try to have a miracle [[Brainstorm]] to find both mana and an answer to [[Mindbreak Trap]] or you can just cast [[Dark Ritual]] into [[Ad Nauseam]]. You can’t afford to play around everything — in this case, that’s [[Mindbreak Trap]]. I would just pray to Keranos that our reveals are good.

Alex McKinley

Start by using [[Slaughter Pact]] to kill [[Thalia, Guardian of Thraben]], tapping [[Plateau]]. Then, activate [[Wishclaw Talisman]] using [[Underground Sea]] to find another [[Dark Ritual]]. Float off the two copies of [[Lotus Petal]]. Then cast [[Pulverize]], both copies of [[Dark Ritual]] and then [[Ad Nauseam]] floating .

Alex Poling

I would start with tapping [[Plateau]] for [[Slaughter Pact]] on [[Thalia, Guardian of Thraben]]. From here I would activate [[Wishclaw Talisman]] to get another copy of [[Dark Ritual]] and float the mana off of [[Lotus Petal]] and then [[Pulverize]] the [[Chalice of the Void]] and the [[Lotus Petal]]. With the mana floating I would cast [[Dark Ritual]] into [[Ad Nauseam]] and a land drop available.

Grant Johnson

Tap [[Badlands]] to cast [[Slaughter Pact]] on the [[Thalia, Guardian of Thraben]]. You can then float mana off the [[Plateau]] and sacrifice your two lands to cast [[Pulverize]]. You’re going to want to hold priority and use the floating mana to activate the [[Wishclaw Talisman]] as well as sacrificing the copies of [[Lotus Petal]] for . [[Wishclaw Talisman]] will grab you another [[Dark Ritual]] so that you can pray to the [[Ad Nauseam]] gods.

Caleb Scherer

In this scenario, while we do have the answers to both problem permanents in the form of [[Pulverize]] and [[Slaughter Pact]], we must sequence a fair amount of our plan before casting [[Pulverize]] as it also destroys our copies of [[Lotus Petal]] and [[Wishclaw Talisman]]. Thus, my sequence here would be first to tap our [[Plateau]] to cast [[Slaughter Pact]] on the [[Thalia, Guardian of Thraben]] to minimize the mana we must spend on her tax. Then, sacrifice both copies of [[Lotus Petal]] for and use one of the mana to activate [[Wishclaw Talisman]] to find another [[Dark Ritual]]. After this we can then tap our [[Badlands]] for and sacrifice both lands to cast [[Pulverize]] destroying the [[Chalice of the Void]] (and the [[Wishclaw Talisman]] in case of the highly unlikely scenario we end up having to pass the turn). We now have floating, so we can cast both copies of [[Dark Ritual]] and then [[Ad Nauseam]] with floating at 16 life which has an extremely high likelihood of winning that turn. This line does lose to the hated [[Mindbreak Trap]], but does beat all of their other commonly played instant speed hate and interaction.

Caleb Durward

Interesting! The lack of a maindeck [[Tendrils of Agony]] is being felt here. I’m not keen on just passing since they have a fresh seven with a deck full of hate cards, and we have some mana and Storm count to work with. With the floating mana, land drop, [[Dark Ritual]], and [[Chrome Mox]] imprint on [[Ad Nauseam]], we have a whopping eight mana. Unfortunately, [[Wishclaw Talisman]] into [[Burning Wish]] into [[Tendrils of Agony]] requires nine mana. You could get [[Galvanic Relay]] instead for 10 cards, which sounds great! Except, again, the opponent has a turn to play out their hate cards and depending on what those are even ten cards might not be enough. They can even use your [[Wishclaw Talisman]] to tutor if they whiffed.

I like making eight mana, activating [[Wishclaw Talisman]] for [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], and activating the other [[Wishclaw Talisman]] for [[Echo of Eons]]. You get a fresh seven with two mana floating, which might not get there but you do have a lethal Storm count.

Jordan Karim

Sometimes puzzles look complicated and are complicated. Sometimes they’re simple and look simple. In this particular case, we have a complicated looking puzzle that ends up being quite simple. With multiple lines that could work out, they all involve levels of chance. [[Echo of Eons]] and [[Ad Nauseam]] are the lines here but one is way too convoluted and provides our opponent with two copies of [[Wishclaw Talisman]]. [[Ad Nauseam]] need to be the line we take — even with our life at seven! We have a land drop to make and will have a [[Lotus Petal]] and [[Chrome Mox]] to start. With our [[Wishclaw Talisman]] pair, there are several outs to making our line lethal. Let’s hope they can be found!

Bryant Cook

[[Dark Ritual]] into [[Ad Nauseam]]. We have three mana sources between the land drop, [[Chrome Mox]], and [[Lotus Petal]]. Do you really think some convoluted line to get both [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] and [[Echo of Eons]] out the main deck with less mana sources available will be more successful?

Alex McKinley

If only we had a maindeck [[Tendrils of Agony]]! I am a big believer in not letting the opponent lock us out of the game by letting them untap into many cards. Passing the turn would likely involve casting the main deck [[Echo of Eons]], or hoping to draw a mana to be able to [[Silence]] the opponent in their upkeep and then find [[Burning Wish]] to cast [[Peer into the Abyss]]. Those seem like worse odds than just casting [[Ad Nauseam]] now.

Alex Poling

If there was a [[Tendrils of Agony]] in the main deck we do have the win here, but unfortunately we do not. I would [[Ad Nauseam]] here and cast the [[Dark Ritual]] off the [[Scrubland]]. This still leaves [[Lotus Petal]], [[Chrome Mox]], and a land drop to work with. We don’t need that much more mana and a [[Burning Wish]] to win here.

Grant Johnson

Play [[Bloodstained Mire]] and grab really any land. Play [[Lotus Petal]] and play [[Chrome Mox]] imprinting your [[Ad Nauseam]]. With the [[Dark Ritual]] we have eight total mana where we could fetch a [[Burning Wish]] and then cast it grabbing [[Galvanic Relay]]. This will be a huge pile and we shouldn’t be dead on the opponent’s crack back. An alternative line is to keep the [[Dark Ritual]] in hand and play both copies of [[Wishclaw Talisman]] and pass the turn. This opens up [[Peer into the Abyss]] for the following turn if they don’t jam [[Archon of Emeria]].

Caleb Scherer

Since they will have access to nine cards during their turn, the likelihood they have multiple hate pieces for us is decently high. Thus, I would not want to set up and pass the turn despite having the ability to play multiple [[Wishclaw Talisman]]s. For going off this turn, I would want to use [[Ad Nauseam]] by casting it off of tapping our lands and using [[Dark Ritual]] (plus being careful to not play the [[Bloodstained Mire]]). This lets us still keep our land drop and already have tutoring capabilities in hand making [[Ad Nauseam]] much more likely to win even with the [[Echo of Eons]] still in our deck.

Caleb Durward

I go for it. Our position doesn’t improve next turn (our [[Underground Sea]] is almost certainly getting hit by [[Wasteland]]) and indeed might get worse if the opponent finds more interaction. The good news is, we can beat this face-up [[Spell Pierce]] and a [[Daze]] as well, though I don’t see a line where we 100 percent beat [[Force of Will]] or double [[Daze]]. Also, since we’re light on permanent sources of mana, I don’t see a way for us to profitably go for it and also try again next turn, at which point we almost certainly lose since we’ll be [[Brainstorm]] locked for two turns and the [[Delver of Secrets]] beats alone get us to four.

You can use [[Wishclaw Talisman]] here and probably win, but I think the [[Burning Wish]] line gives the opponent more room for error by letting us bait with [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]]. I would start by putting both copies of [[Wishclaw Talisman]] back and casting [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]]. If they [[Daze]] or [[Spell Pierce]] here, we can run out the [[Chrome Mox]] (imprint [[Ad Nauseam]]), cast the extra [[Lotus Petal]], sacrifice it for [[Silence]] (answering [[Force of Will]]), sacrifice other [[Lotus Petal]] for [[Rite of Flame]], play the second copy of [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], and [[Burning Wish]] for a lethal [[Tendrils of Agony]].

If they don’t [[Spell Pierce]] the [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], I would follow up with [[Chrome Mox]]. If they [[Daze]] or [[Spell Pierce]] here, we simply let it get countered and they lose, since we can cast [[Lotus Petal]] into [[Silence]] and [[Lotus Petal]] into [[Rite of Flame]]. When [[Chrome Mox]] resolves it can pay for [[Daze]] on [[Lotus Petal]]. More likely, however, they [[Spell Pierce]] the [[Silence]] and then if they still have a [[Force of Will]] and a card to pitch, they’ll simply get to win the game.

There’s a line where you keep a [[Wishclaw Talisman]] in hand after the [[Brainstorm]] instead of [[Silence]], generate four mana if they don’t interrupt us, and cast a [[Wishclaw Talisman]] with two mana floating. At this point, the floating extra mana could entice them to [[Force of Will]] instead of [[Spell Pierce]] perhaps? If they do that you can cast [[Burning Wish]], using [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] to pay for [[Spell Pierce]], and go for a lethal [[Tendrils of Agony]]. I don’t think this line is very likely, however, unless your opponent is new to Legacy and simply doesn’t think of using [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] mana to pay for soft counters. If they [[Spell Pierce]] the [[Wishclaw Talisman]] or the [[Rite of Flame]] then you’re in the same spot of losing to [[Force of Will]].

Jordan Karim

While we do know about the [[Spell Pierce]] in hand, there is a possibility of further interaction being held up for us. [[Silence]] is looking particularly nice to draw that interaction out. Seeing as our [[Underground Sea]] is going to end up in our graveyard thanks to [[Wasteland]], just passing the turn does not feel like a solid strategy. I like putting back both cards than cannot Imprint under the [[Chrome Mox]] — [[Wishclaw Talisman]]. From there, we want to put [[Silence]] on the stack. To do so around [[Spell Pierce]] begins by casting [[Lotus Petal]], [[Chrome Mox]] (Imprinting the [[Ad Nauseam]]), and [[Rite of Flame]]. [[Silence]] needs to hit the stack now. If our opponent chooses to [[Spell Pierce]], we can cast the copies of [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] and the [[Burning Wish]] into our favorite army-in-a-can, [[Empty the Warrens]]!

Bryant Cook

Yikes! Things are not looking good. I believe we need to put back the pair of [[Wishclaw Talisman]], play [[Chrome Mox]] (Imprint: [[Ad Nauseam]]), play [[Lotus Petal]], and then cast [[Rite of Flame]]. Now that we can pay for [[Spell Pierce]], let’s cast [[Silence]]. Depending on how they interact, with [[Daze]] or [[Spell Pierce]] determines the rest of the game. You could try to [[Echo of Eons]] or just take a very large [[Galvanic Relay]] with a pair of [[Wishclaw Talisman]] in it.

Alex McKinley

Unfortunately, this [[Brainstorm]] did not hit more lands, and the opponent’s [[Wasteland]] is going to put us in the dirt if we try to pass the turn. With three cards, the best the opponent can have is [[Force of Will]] and a [[Daze]]. This means that one piece of protection, [[Silence]], and a lot of mana will get there. I would put back both copies of [[Wishclaw Talisman]], then cast all of the initial mana sources, [[Silence]], and then [[Burning Wish]] for [[Empty the Warrens]] or [[Tendrils of Agony]] if they [[Force of Will]] the [[Silence]]

Alex Poling

I would start by putting back both copies of [[Wishclaw Talisman]]. I think we are forced to continue combo-ing from here because we are under the pressure of [[Delver of Secrets]], our only land is going to get destroyed from [[Wasteland]], and we are [[Brainstorm]] locked. From here, I would play out both copies of [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], [[Lotus Petal]], and [[Chrome Mox]] imprinting [[Ad Nauseam]]. I would then cast the [[Silence]] off a [[Lotus Petal]]. I expect this to get countered by [[Spell Pierce]]. I would then cast [[Rite of Flame]] and [[Burning Wish]], sacrificing one [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]]. If it resolves I can cast [[Empty the Warrens]]. If it doesn’t, then I still have [[Wishclaw Talisman]] on top with [[Lotus Petal]], [[Chrome Mox]], and [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] in play to try and win over a few turns.

Grant Johnson

I think in this spot we lean on letting a [[Silence]] getting stopped by [[Spell Pierce]] and we set up for a following turn. We likely put back [[Ad Nauseam]] under the second copy of [[Wishclaw Talisman]] with the [[Brainstorm]]. Patience is a virtue in these spots when you aren’t looking down the barrel of an 8/8 [[Murktide Regent]]. Use all the turns UR Delver gives you to your advantage.

Caleb Scherer

Here, I would start by putting back both [[Wishclaw Talisman]] and [[Ad Nauseam]] for the [[Brainstorm]]. Then, I would cast the [[Lotus Petal]] followed by the [[Chrome Mox]] imprinting [Rite of Flame]]. I would attempt to cast both copies of [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]]. If at any point they crack their [[Scalding Tarn]], I would respond with [[Silence]] as they will not be able to cast [[Spell Pierce]] at that point, so then their only likely options to stop it would be to cast [[Force of Will]] or [[Force of Negation]], which if they cast would then mean we can just [[Burning Wish]] for [[Tendrils of Agony]] and win (if they [[Force of Will]] as they would be at 18 life and Storm at nine where we also have the mana to pay for [[Spell Pierce]]) or for [[Empty the Warrens]] (if they use [[Force of Negation]]).

If they do not crack their [[Scalding Tarn]] by this point though, I would then lead on [[Burning Wish]]. If they then crack their [[Scalding Tarn]] in response, I would then cast the [[Silence]] in response forcing a similar action as above. If [[Silence]] resolves we can go with an [[Empty the Warrens]] line for 16 goblins, which should be enough given we are at 13 life and if they counter it we can just grab [[Tendrils of Agony]] as the situation then is just as the one above as well.

In the worst case if they do not respond to our [[Burning Wish]], we can then get [[Echo of Eons]] and then attempt to cast [[Silence]] making them use a non [[Spell Pierce]] counterspell a we can pay for it at all points with our second [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] and finally we can hope to try again by casting [[Echo of Eons]] with a mana floating and they are tapped out.