Magic Sort! Level 864 Guide: How to Clear the Hard Stage

To beat Level 864 in Magic Sort!, merge matching surface colors into partially filled mixed tubes before using your two empty reserve slots. The puzzle locks you into a tight board state where four-unit test tubes hide essential colors beneath mixed stacks. If you fill both reserve slots with mismatched single units early, the board locks and forces a restart.

Opening Moves: Freeing a Third Sorting Lane

The stage starts with only two empty vials. Your immediate goal is converting one pre-filled mixed container into an entirely empty third tube. Having three empty spaces gives you the transfer buffer required to rearrange deeper layers.

Follow this sequence from the opening layout:

Merge matching surface segments: Scan the top layer of every tube. Pour matching surface colors onto one another whenever the destination container has space available.
Prioritize shallow reveals: Target tubes where pouring off the top unit immediately reveals a color that matches another exposed surface.
Keep reserve tubes clean: Avoid dropping isolated single-unit colors into a clean reserve slot unless an immediate follow-up move consolidates more of that same color into the slot.
Drain one mixed vial completely: Concentrate transfers on the container holding the most accessible color layers until it is entirely empty.

Mid-Stage Excavation: Clearing Buried Base Layers

Once you have three working transfer spaces, excavate the colors trapped at the bottom of the columns. Moving units without an exit route causes color stranding, where a newly transferred layer traps an essential color underneath.

Stage Phase	Core Objective	Risk Level	Transfer Rule
Opening	Clear matching surface liquid	High	Pour matching tops together to keep reserve tubes open.
Excavation	Expose buried base colors	Critical	Use empty tubes as pass-throughs, not permanent storage.
Assembly	Lock full four-unit single-color tubes	Medium	Fill a tube to four units completely to seal it from play.
Endgame	Drain remaining isolated units	Low	Pour residual segments into their completed matching vials.

When digging for a base layer, transfer the blocking top liquid into a reserve tube, pour the exposed target color to its matching stack, and immediately return the displaced surface liquid if an open destination is available. Never stack an unrelated color on top of a staging color in your temporary tube.

Move Locks and Staging Traps to Avoid

Most failures on Level 864 stem from inefficient space allocation rather than a lack of valid moves:

The Split Color Trap: Never scatter four units of a single color across three different tubes. Keep colors grouped in no more than two containers to preserve overhead capacity for other transfers.
Premature Tube Dedication: Do not designate an empty tube for a specific color unless you can immediately assemble two or three units of that color inside it.
Blind Transfers: Check the color directly underneath a top layer before lifting it. If the move does not expose an immediately usable color or empty out a vial, leave it in place.

Final Color Consolidation

Finish the puzzle by resolving colors one by one:

Lock the closest stack: Find the color that already has three units grouped together. Pour the fourth unit to seal that vial permanently and remove that color from active routing.
Target dominant base colors: Direct subsequent moves toward whichever color sits at the bottom of the highest number of mixed columns. Completing that color clears anchors across multiple tubes at once.
Route residual liquids: Pour the final isolated segments into their designated single-color vials until all containers are fully sorted.