One of the most satisfying ways to win in Magic: The Gathering is by dropping a combo onto the table. One set of classic combos in the Modern format revolves around Splinter Twin, a card powerful enough to have been banned for eight years.
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Splinter Twin is versatile enough to be played in several color combinations, and almost always generates value, but it’s most popular in Izzet (red/blue) decks. Whether you’re looking to build your own Splinter Twin deck or just need to know how they work and how to counter them, you’ve come to the right place.
Sample Decklist
Splinter Twin decks are combo-focused, but in order to get consistent results you need to include ways to find your combo pieces, as well as ways to protect them.
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Creatures (15) |
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Deceiver Exarch (4) |
Pestermite (2) |
Snapcaster Mage (4) |
Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student // Tamiyo, Seasoned Scholar (1) |
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Thudertrap Trainer (4) |
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Instants (16) |
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Counterspell (2) |
Flame of Anor (3) |
Flare of Denial (4) |
Lightning Bolt (4) |
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Sink into Stupor // Soporific Springs (2) |
Spell Pierce (1) |
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Sorceries (7) |
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Expressive Iteration (1) |
Lórien Revealed (2) |
Preordain (4) |
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Enchantments (4) |
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Splinter Twin (4) |
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Lands (18) |
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Arid Mesa (4) |
Flooded Strand (2) |
Island (2) |
Mountain (2) |
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Scalding Tarn (4) |
Steam Vents (2) |
Thundering Falls (2) |
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Sideboard (15) |
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Consign to Memory (2) |
Force of Negation (2) |
Harninger of the Seas (2) |
Meltdown (2) |
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Mystical Dispute (1) |
Pyroclasm (2) |
Spell Snare (2) |
Stern Scolding (2) |
Key Cards
Splinter Twin
The deck’s namesake card, Splinter Twin, is a Modern classic. It’s an Aura that you place on a creature to give that creature the ability to tap and duplicate itself. The duplicate has haste, and needs to be exiled at the end of the turn, but retains the name, types, and all abilities of the enchanted creature.
Splinter Twin is a useful toolbox card because it allows you to duplicate abilities that trigger when a creature enters, attack, and block without risking your key creature, and generally squeeze value out of your board state. But its most important function is as a combo piece.
When used on a creature with the ability to untap itself, Splinter Twin creates an infinite creature combo, allowing you to overwhelm your opponent with hundreds of creatures that didn’t exist a turn earlier. Several creatures work in this combo in Modern, allowing you to build several variations on the theme.
Deceiver Exarch
Deceiver Exarch is the most common creature to target for a Splinter Twin combo. For three mana (two generic and one blue), it’s a 1/4 with flash that taps an opponent’s permanent or untaps one of yours when it enters.
Deceiver Exarch competes with two other common combo pieces: Pestermite, a 2/1 flying Faerie with the same cost and a slightly more flexible tap/untap ability, and Fear of Missing Out, a 2/3 red Nightmare that untaps a creature when it attacks for the first time each turn and only costs two mana.
Flying may seem beneficial, but evasion doesn’t matter as much when you have dozens of attackers that your opponent can’t block. And Fear of Missing Out can be used to build a mono-red Splinter Twin deck, but without flash it has to stick around longer, giving your opponent more opportunity to remove it. Both creatures also die to Lightning Bolt, which Deceiver Exarch laughs at.
Snapcaster Mage
Snapcaster Mage adds utility to your instants and sorceries, allowing you to recast them from your graveyard. This allows you to reuse Counterspells, Lightning Bolts, and other control or removal cards from your graveyard without having to search for them.
Due to its utility, Snapcaster Mage is also an excellent target for a spare copy of Splinter Twin. Enchanting it with Splinter Twin while Preordain, Expressive Iteration, and Flame of Anor are in your graveyard will allow you to dig for your missing combo pieces, and use Lórien Revealed to draw instead of just to find an Island.
Splinter Twin Deck Strategy
Like all combo decks, the main focus of Splinter Twin decks is to get all the combo pieces into place, demonstrate the combo, and win by either concession or repeating the combo until you reduce your opponent’s life to zero.
The sample decklist has no mana acceleration, but it doesn’t need any: The mana curve maxes out at four, for Splinter Twin, which will ideally win you the game as soon as it resolves. It also contains only eight mana-producing lands (ten with Sink into Stupor // Soporific Springs), but twelve ways to search for the lands you need and thin the deck in the process.
Lórien Revealed allows you to draw three cards at sorcery-speed for five mana, making it the most expensive card in the deck and a poor mana investment unless the game has gotten really drawn-out. Use the islandcycling ability to discard it and find an Island to replace it, preferably at the end of your opponent’s turn.
If your opening hand contains four mana-producing lands, Splinter Twin, and Deceiver Exarch, congratulations! All you need to do is survive until turn four. Otherwise, use your fetch lands and Lórien Revealed to search for the lands you need while thinning your deck, making it more likely that you’ll draw cards you need instead of excess lands.
Thundertrap Trainer, Expressive Iteration, and Preordain all allow you to dig for the missing combo pieces you need. Thundertrap trainer has the additional benefit of flexibility: Like Snapcaster Mage, it’s a good target for a spare Splinter Twin, allowing you to tap and dig through your top four cards for a combo piece or response to a problematic spell.
Even without Splinter Twin, Snapcaster Mage, and Thundertrap Trainer are excellent sacrifices for Flare of Denial, a three-mana Counterspell that can be cast for free if you sacrifice a nontoken blue creature. It’s a good counter to hang onto until you’re tapped out, when your opponent may try to sneak in their combo pieces or removal.
Other Options
Splinter Twin can combo with Fear of Missing Out, either as a replacement for Deceiver Exarch and Pestermite or as the key combo piece in a mono-red Splinter Twin deck. While this could result in a faster deck, it loses access to all of blue’s control elements.
Fear of Missing Out is also limited by the fact that only one copy can attack at a time since the untap ability will be used on the original, enchanted copy. A single indestructible blocker stops the entire strategy, and the requirement to have delirium.
Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student is a one-drop that can block flying creatures safely with her three toughness, creates a Clue token for instant draw later, and flips to a solid counter against mirror matches: her first loyalty ability makes your opponent’s army of Deceiver Exarchs into 0/4 creatures that can’t kill you through combat damage.
A second copy in the deck or in the sideboard is a good idea if you expect to encounter other Splinter Twin decks, in order to give you an advantage.
Mishra’s Bauble is a fundamental cantrip: for zero mana you get to look at your opponent’s next card and draw one yourself. Each copy is like having one fewer cards in your deck, making it more likely that you’ll draw the cards you need every turn. It can also help trigger delirium if you’re running Fear of Missing Out.
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