60 to 100: Jeskai Splinter Twin
Splinter Twin by Goran Josic
Somehow, Splinter Twin Has Returned . . .
Hello! Welcome to the first (modern day) installment of 60 to 100, a series where we convert beloved decks from 60-card formats to Commander.
It's finally happened! After eight long years, Splinter Twin has been unbanned in Modern. Many players, myself included, are flooding Magic Online leagues to test their updated version of Modern Twin. But I must admit, I am skeptical that the best deck in Modern from eight years ago will be able to stand up against newer cards, especially cards from the Modern Horizons sets. To prepare myself for that potential crushing reality, I'm cooking up a Splinter Twin deck for Commander.
In Modern, Izzet () versions of the Splinter Twin deck are the most common. However, Jeskai() versions of the deck also saw play and put up very strong tournament performances during Splinter Twin's original reign. In this article, we're going to focus on Jeskai Twin. If you're interested in Izzet Twin, Matt Morgan wrote an installment of this series on Izzet Twin in Commander over on EDHREC six years ago! He really beat me to the punch on that one.
With the introductions out of the way, let's look at Modern Jeskai Twin and see how we can port it over to Commander.
What is the Splinter Twin Combo?
All you need to do to win a game with Splinter Twin is enchant a creature that can untap another creature when it enters, like Deceiver Exarch, and that isn't summoning sick. You tap the creature that Splinter Twin enchanted to make a token copy of itself. That copy enters, you target the original creature with the untap trigger, you tap it again, and repeat the process. This produces an infinite number of hasty creatures to attack your opponents with. According to the Magic: The Gathering rules, you must declare a number of said hasty creatures you make before going to combat (assuming your opponent doesn't concede immediately). I usually go with a clean 1,000,000.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker also works alongside any of the creatures with an untap trigger. Jeskai Twin adding white gives us access to Restoration Angel, which combos with Kiki-Jiki but not with Splinter Twin. Restoration Angel exiles and returns a creature when it enters. Because he has haste, blinking him effectively untaps Kiki-Jiki and allows you to make infinite hasty Angels.
Now that we know how the combo works, let's pick a commander for the deck and get started.
Choosing a Commander
Unfortunately for us, there is no commander that does much to enable our combo. This is likely a net positive for the format. Every Spike, including me, would likely be terrorizing your Commander tables with it otherwise. I've chosen Aragorn, King of Gondor because he allows you to draw extra cards by making you the monarch, is very difficult to block in combat, and can gain a little bit of life to help you survive longer games should you wind up in one.
Additional Combo Pieces
Zealous Conscripts provides a similar effect to Deceiver Exarch and Pestermite with the added bonus of being able to steal your opponents' permanents. This effect can come up when facing stax pieces that interfere with the combo. Five mana is a fair bit more than three when you're trying to put out all of the pieces in one turn, which is likely why this card didn't make it into Twin decks of old. In Commander, we need all the additional copies of cards that we can get.
In the years since the Splinter Twin ban, a couple new cards that work with the combo have been released. Corridor Monitor is a creature with an "untap target creature" enters trigger that only costs . It doesn't have flash or haste, so you will have to protect it for a turn cycle in order to execute the combo.
Fear of Missing Out interacts with Splinter Twin differently than the other combo pieces: rather than creating infinite hasty tokens and killing your opponents in one combat step, Fear of Missing Out takes an infinite number of combat steps by generating a new copy of itself during each additional combat phase, provided you have Delirium.
These three, along with all previously mentioned combo pieces, will be included in the deck. All together, that's two copy enablers and six untap creatures. In a 100-card deck, that isn't actually that many. We need to find them somehow. How do we do that? A lot of tutors.
Tutors
The main reason I wanted to add white to the deck is the plethora of enchantment tutors it gives us access to. Enlightened Tutor and Moon-Blessed Cleric can fetch either half of the combo in Splinter Twin, Corridor Monitor, and Fear of Missing Out. Open the Armory and Heliod's Pilgrim both search for Splinter Twin.
Imperial Recruiter is another card that can find either half of the combo by searching for Deceiver Exarch, Pestermite, Fear of Missing Out, or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Recruiter of the Guard does nearly the same, but it cannot search for Deceiver Exarch or Fear of Missing Out as they are simply too tough.
This deck also makes excellent use of transmute cards. Muddle the Mixture can search for Corridor Monitor, Fear of Missing Out, or Open the Armory. Drift of Phantasms can find Deceiver Exarch and Pestermite as well as Moon-Blessed Cleric or Heliod's Pilgrim. That's right, we have tutors for our tutors.
Interaction
Counterspells are meant to be used proactively in this deck. That means, generally speaking, you should be using them to protect your combo rather than stop opposing threats. Your opponent's Ghalta, Primal Hunger will not stop you from comboing off, so who cares? Let them resolve it. The deck's suite of counterspells reflects this. The deck plays cheap counterspells that are meant to stop your opponents' interaction. If this deck is competing against decks of a similar power level, I am anticipating a pretty big battle being fought with Splinter Twin on the stack.
Because we often won't care about about opposing threats, the deck includes a number of modal removal spells that can be used to take care of a problematic permanent or provide some sort of protections for the combo. For example, Destroy Evil can pick off a large creature but it can also take care of problematic enchantments, like Propaganda or Ghostly Prison, that interfere with our win condition. Valorous Stance offers defense against opposing removal spells while also being one.
Protection
The best way to win a war on the stack is by not allowing it to start. Teferi, Time Raveler, Silence, and Grand Abolisher stop opposing interaction proactively. Having one of them on the turn you go for the combo practically ensures that you will win the game. Be careful when you play your Teferi, Time Raveler, though. He can be quite the double-edged sword if you deploy him too long before you go for the win as it restricts opponents' ability to interact with each other.
Draw
Cantrips are only kind of card draw. Casting a cantrip is card-neutral: you play one card and get one back. The benefit you receive is card selection. That's what this deck is after more than anything. I want to look at two or three cards, pick the best one (usually a combo piece), and throw the rest somewhere else. The goal is to sculpt your hand to be both pieces of one of the combos and a couple interactive spells. A card like Brainstorm lets you do just that. Sadly, there aren't many cantrips that let you see as many cards as Ponder, Preordain, and Brainstorm. This is where the bigger draw spells come in.
Our bigger draw spells serve a similar function to the cantrips. With certain powerful exceptions, like Treasure Cruise and Lórien Revealed, the other draw spells want to look at a bunch of cards and pick out the good ones. Brainsurge in particular has really impressed me. I've been trying it in nearly every blue deck since the release of Modern Horizons 3. Three mana to look at four cards is really powerful.
Recursion
I would very much describe this deck as "all in." You either win with the Splinter Twin combo or you don't win at all. Therefore, we need recursion options for the inevitable games where the first win attempt is thwarted. Argivian Find and Hall of Heliod's Generosity provide means of fishing a fallen Splinter Twin out of the graveyard. Recommission brings the majority of our creature's needed for the combo back into play for just two mana, while also being fetchable by Muddle the Mixture.
The Manabase
The Murders at Karlov Manor surveil lands are my favorite cards released in 2024 and they do not disappoint here. This deck wants a lot of card selection and this cycle of lands turns all nine of the deck's fetch lands into free card selection. I have all but stopped including Triomes in my decks because I would always rather have one of these.
The rest of our manabase is fairly standard. Fetches, shocks, various dual lands that enter untapped, and some basics to protect against Blood Moon, Back to Basics, and the like. I would like to highlight one final bit of utility that I've sneaked into the mana base. Arena of Glory giving combo enablers, like Corridor Monitor and Fear of Missing Out, haste circumvents the need to play them and wait a turn to execute the combo.
