Kellan, the Fae-Blooded | Art by Omar Rayyan

Is Splinter Twin Really the Best?

Welcome to Too-Specific Top 10, where if there isn’t a category to rank our pet card at the top of, we’ll just make one up! (Did you know that Combat Celebrant and Port Razer are the only Boros creatures that combo with both Splinter Twin and Helm of the Host?)

So, you can play a tutor in the command zone now.

I wonder what the most broken thing you can do with it is...?

Seeing Kellan, the Fae-Blooded for the first time is actually kind of an interesting litmus test of Commander players. For the players who like lower power nonsense, they're most likely to think of regularly "too-good" Equipment like Sword of Feast and Famine and Blackblade Reforged. While there's no doubt that making your double striking commander an 11/11 is pretty good, however, there's still a lot more powerful things you can do with this. Mid-powered players that have been around for a while, then, probably thought of what I personally think the designer thought of when they were making Kellan: Sunforger.

Since the beginning days of EDH, Sunforger toolbox decks have been a thing. The ability to tutor answers out of your deck at instant speed is very powerful, even with it costing five mana a pop and being restricted to sorcery speed if you want to do it more than once per turn. Still, any control deck out there would be ecstatic to be guaranteed an answer a turn that just so happened to be perfect for the situation at hand. Add to that that Kellan has double strike and Sunforger gives +4/+0, and you've also got a great means to finish out games while you consistently remove everyone's problems.

For the players who enjoy an ounce of spice and salt each in their lives, however, there was really only one answer when it came to what to do with Kellan. Even folks that have only been around the Magic community for a small time have probably seen the words "Free Twin" on a forum or two, in reference to it being banned in Modern. But even if you haven't, or you have and still aren't aware of what these nostalgic Spikes are on about, then it's still not hard to find a few reasons why Splinter Twin is powerful just by reading the card. Let's skip all that, though, and just take a look at the 86 entries for Twin on Commander Spellbook.

Put simply, any creature or interaction which can untap the original creature you make with Splinter Twin creates some sort of infinite loop, many of which outright win the game. My personal favorite is Splinter Twin and Goblin Sharpshooter, which does need an initial 1/1 for your first copy of Sharpshooter to kill that then untaps both the original and the copy, but after which will just kill the newest copy of Sharpshooter to untap both pairs again forever, letting you deal infinite damage to any amount of targets.

The most popular with the masses, as you can see, is a different combination: Zealous Conscripts is a bit pricier than Goblin Sharpshooter at five mana, but doesn't require a 1/1 to be on the board and doesn't have to worry about summoning sickness as it has haste. This means if you find yourself flush with mana, you can tap nine, put down a Conscripts, throw a Twin on it, and tap to make a copy. The copy then "gains control" of the original copy, untapping it so you can make another copy, which untaps it to make another, and... Well, you get it.

As I constantly have to battle in the Reddit comments, however, most popular does not mean mean most powerful.

If you have access to white, as we do with Kellan, the Fae-Blooded, then Village Bell-Ringer is both the most powerful combination with Splinter Twin and also the most straightforward. When you're done flashing in Bell-Ringer at the end of your opponent's turn, you can enchant it with Twin, and make a copy, which untaps all creatures you control. Rinse, repeat, swing in for 7,777,777 damage during combat.

I do have to ask, though. Have we indeed hit the top? Is there anything better?

Top 10 Boros Two-Card Combos Utilizing an Equipment or Aura

To find out, let's take a look at all the best two-card combos you can search up half of with Kellan, the Fae-Blooded. To figure out if they're better than Splinter Twin, however, we'll need to look at what those combos actually do.

For instance, Umbral Mantle can be searched up with Kellan, and goes infinite with everything from Metalworker to Crackdown Construct, making the creature it's attached to huge in the process. Unlike Splinter Twin, however, it doesn't actually win the game when it combos off, instead just making infinite mana. With us trying to beat Twin, though, that's not gonna be good enough. Instead, let's lay out what things would actually make it possible to be equal to or better than Twin:

Criteria: Equipment or Auras that have a two-card combo within the Boros color identity that results in you either winning the game, drawing infinite cards, or otherwise making you win the game or all opponents lose the game. As is tradition, all results are ordered by EDHREC score, although in this case only that of the equipment or aura.

Some people will probably disagree with me on drawing your whole deck being as powerful as winning the game outright, but when the rubber meets the road, it is more of a deck-building restriction than an actual difficulty to translate infinite card draw to a win. With that in mind, then, let's take a look at what we can find!

10. Breath of Fury

(10,125 Inclusions, 1% of 1,448,781 Decks)

Right off the bat, we hit one that looks to be a contender, but isn't quite there. Breath of Fury has almost as long a combo page as [/el]Splinter Twin[/el] itself, a ton of which are two-card combos:

Top 10 Boros Cards That Combo With Breath of Fury

Helm of the Host: 102,121 Inclusions
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker: 65,202
Loyal Apprentice: 51,699
Legion Warboss: 30,929
Goblin Rabblemaster: 18,764
Rionya, Fire Dancer: 16,100
Splinter Twin: 12,102
Determined Iteration: 11,766
Urabrask's Forge: 11,444
Valduk, Keeper of the Flame: 5,875

Unfortunately, as you'll note if you look at number seven on this list, Breath of Fury isn't so much a good replacement for Splinter Twin as it is further redundancy for it. There are several cards on this list that look good enough to go deep on without feeling like you're sub-optimizing your list with cards that are only there for the combo. I also like how many of them are Goblins (or make Goblins) for Skirk Prospector reasons. At the end of the day, however, there's just not enough here to build a deck around that isn't going to end up as a Splinter Twin list anyhow by the time you're done playtesting.

The reason why? Simply put, Breath of Fury's "combat damage to a player" restriction. It's simply worse than Splinter Twin's freedom to tap and create tokens whenever you want, even with both combos ultimately relying on combat. Where it does shine in a Kellan deck, though? It's an Aura that combos with another Aura, both of which are tutorable with Kellan!

That is worth exploring, even if it's going to cost you 14 mana to get down on the table and get going, along with needing two creatures in play. Any of which can be removed to get you two-for-one'd, not to mention you need to be able to get your creatures through for damage to a player the whole way through the combo, not to mention that it's going to cost you six mana to tutor for both halves of the combo before you even start playing down Auras on creatures you hopefully already have.

You know what? Maybe this isn't worth exploring.

9. Blazing Sunsteel

(10,125 Inclusions, 1% of 1,448,781 Decks)

At first glance, I was really excited by the dual options of Blazing Sunsteel and Guilty Conscience. Both can be searched up for by Kellan, both have less mana pips to deal with than any Splinter Twin combo, and both also have multiple creatures that they can combo off with. Even better, Stuffy Doll is a 0/1 artifact creature, meaning that just about every tutor in Boros can go find it.

The only problem? The very card that makes this combo exciting is the very card that doesn't quite work. Stuffy Doll may be the original that made all of the Blazing Sunsteels, Brash Taunters, and Ill-Tempered Loners happen, but it sadly was made in the days where Wizards still wasn't designing around multiplayer. I myself fell for this, building an entire deck around this combo thinking I'd cracked the code before realizing that the "better" version of the combo would only kill one player, not the table.

It does all still work with Brash Taunter, but that cuts your odds of drawing into your combo by 50%, and also makes several tutors rather irrelevant. I am convinced that if we do ever get an artifact version of Brash Taunter that has both the indestructibility and the ability to take out every player, then we'll have something here that might just be able to compete with Splinter Twin, at least in a Kellan deck. Until then, this just doesn't quite hit the mark, although I do like that there are two cards that can do your combo, which adds some much needed resiliency.

8. Splinter Twin

(12,102 Inclusions, 1% of 1,372,845 Decks)

I hesitated to include Splinter Twin in the top ten, but there were still a couple things that made it probably the best option that I wanted to make sure were well understood. The first is just how deep Splinter Twin goes:

Top 10 Boros Cards That Combo With Splinter Twin

To be clear here, this probably isn't even an all-inclusive list, by all odds there are probably at least a couple other cards that don't see a lot of play that technically could go infinite with Splinter Twin. That is the deceptive strength here for a Turbo-Twin Kellan deck, however: Most of the cards at the top end of this list are decent threats on their own, so if your Splinter Twin gets removed you can just follow the straight aggro plan. Combine that with the sheer number of them you can include to try to draw into them, and you have a deck that you can more or less devote entirely to ramping as fast as you can to get a combo down, making for a deck that will kill on turn two or three if no one can stop you, all with a combo that can win through Rule of Law effects.

Even better, however, is what I noted in our intro today: Two of these cards combo with more than just Splinter Twin. Combat Celebrant and Port Razer also go infinite with Helm of the Host, meaning you have a backup plan besides just aggro if your Splinter Twin gets countered.

In short, this is probably the best version of the deck (which is not to say that my build is the most optimized). It's quick, it's still got some disruption, and it's a lot more resilient than most decks looking to turbo out a combo, with their commander or otherwise. This is the deck that we're looking to see if we can beat with anything else on this list.

7. The Reaver Cleaver

(33,830 Inclusions, 3% of 995,716 Decks)

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that The Reaver Cleaver is it. Don't get me wrong, it does show some promise, for one reason and one reason only: A Kellan equipped with Reaver Cleaver is a force to be reckoned with, at any table. With all of the fast mana available in red, it's very possible that you'd be able to get down a Kellan and a Cleaver on turn two, to untap, equip, and swing in for six Treasure. That's going to put you ahead of most tables, even if it doesn't win you the game outright.

Unfortunately, with only two decent cards available in Boros that can tutor for Aggravated Assault, and even less that can get you a six mana Hellkite Charger, I hesitate to pull the trigger on this combination. Drowning in mana and dealing combat damage is all well and good when it comes to the average Commander table, but it just isn't enough to make a splash in cEDH.

What I do think this particular combination is, however, is maybe one of the more interesting high-powered Equipment brews out there. Both The Reaver Cleaver and Sword of Feast and Famine can easily go infinite with Assault or Hellkite, and anytime someone removes your commander (or you just have a better target on board already), you can simply tutor for the next crazy Equipment that's going to keep you getting seventeen extra mana a turn. It will probably get a little old over time, but if you're reading through this article patiently waiting for me to stop talking about cEDH, then well... here is probably your best out.

6. Gift of Immortality

(34,979 Inclusions, 3% of 1,372,845 Decks)

If you are looking to make folks miserable, though, then there is hardly a better combination to do so than Bearer of the Heavens and Gift of Immortality. Then again, most tables that aren't looking at the kind of ramp-and-win all at the same time power that cEDH decks have would probably just scoop once this happened. As for cEDH, though? This is too slow, too easy to nuke from orbit by removing one card, and too possible to win through as a soft lock, even once you get it in play.

5. Grafted Exoskeleton

(40,849 Inclusions, 1% of 3,029,159 Decks)

There fortunately aren't too many copies of Heartless Hidetsugu effects around, so between that and this combo costing significantly more than the best Splinter Twin versions, this one isn't really on the list. There is some redundancy to be had with Curse of Bloodletting, but that's even more expensive. This one is sitting solidly on the shelf, despite its greater popularity.

4. Blade of Selves

(42,671 Inclusions, 1% of 3,029,159 Decks)

I've done a couple of these combo lists now, courtesy of Commander Spellbook, and something I've come to realize as I've done them is that the combos at the top are rarely there because they're good combos. Instead, they're combos that are made out of popular inclusions. Such is the case when it comes to Blade of Selves and Blightsteel Colossus. Most brewers probably aren't even aware they're adding a combo, or don't think of it as such if they are aware of it. Instead, they're just adding two solid cards.

There is more of an argument to be made when it comes to Blade of Selves and Éomer, Marshal of Rohan, however. Where Blightsteel Colossus is just a generically good late-game beater or early-game recursion target, Éomer takes a specific deck to really get going, and has every feel of a powerful combo spinning wildly out of control as you get three triggers each combat step to create more combat steps.

Is it more powerful than Splinter Twin, though? I think not. While it does cost one less pip to get going, Éomer still has the same cost, only is harder to find than most Splinter Twin targets while being only a single target in the deck. Combine that with Blade of Selves equip cost being generically expensive, and this one is kind of fun, but not going to win any contests.

3. Sword of Feast and Famine

(73,784 Inclusions, 2% of 3,029,159 Decks)

With a return to comboing off with Aggravated Assault and Hellkite Tyrant, it's Sword of Feast and Famine! To keep it brief, since we've covered a lot of this territory already, both of these combo pieces are hard to find and too expensive.

With that said, Sword of Feast and Famine itself is a great tool for a deck whose commander can search it up in the midgame. Giving your double strike commander +2/+2, evasion, protection is good enough, allowing you to swing in for eight commander damage a turn. Combine that with the minor plus of having that player discard a card, and the major plus of you getting all your lands untapped, and this can be a great resource to push you through to the other side, especially if you found the space for a mana-hungry Sunforger package.

2. Sword of Hearth and Home

(81,562 Inclusions, 3% of 3,029,159 Decks)

In the same Sword form, then, these options are terrible as a finishing combo. Too expensive, too hard, blah, blah, blah.

While protection from white is probably a tiny bit better than protection from black, however, I'm not blown away by Sword of Hearth and Home from the perspective of a value piece in a cEDH pod, or even a high-powered one. If we had a bunch of creatures that cared about enter the battlefield effects, that would be one thing, but this is not worth including for the odd Dockside Extortionist trigger that may or may not be on the table. In the same vein, there are cheaper ways to go grab a basic, even just in the Equipment world.

1. Helm of the Host

(102,121 Inclusions, 3% of 3,029,159 Decks)

We haven't talked about it much in our exploration here today, but one of the things you have to ask when making any cEDH deck is "why would I play this over an existing strategy?" In this arena, there are two standouts when it comes to the turf Kellan is trying to occupy: Koll, the Forgemaster, and Godo, Bandit Warlord.

Koll seems like the more relevant option here, as it's a Boros commander that cares about Equipment. In reality, however, I don't think there's actually that much overlap. Koll wants to find a cheap, effective Equipment like Skullclamp or Sai of the Shinobi, then equip them to cheap or ritual creatures like Memnite or Dockside Extortionist to go either infinite or a lot to win the game via drawing your whole deck or a sac outlet that will just kill the table. It's not looking for a specific two-card combo, it's a whole amalgamation of a deck full of synergies and combos that you're looking to draw or combo into.

As for Godo, it feels a lot more similar. The whole conceit of the deck is that you have a combo in the command zone already, and you just need to race to get it out and hopefully defend it before the table can stop you. Whether you're going the turbo route or not, that's more or less the same game plan as Kellan: You can search for half your combo with your commander, and it's a deep enough option that you should fairly easily draw or tutor into the other half of it, all you need is the mana to get it all out on the battlefield quickly.

So, first off, the easy math. How much do our viable combos cost, compared to Godo's infamous "can you count to 11?"

Splinter Twin: Two mana to find Twin with Kellan, the Fae-Blooded, three to get the most efficient versions of the combo, and four for Twin itself. More problematic are the colored pips along the way, which are a massive four of the total nine mana. Still, this is the bar to beat for a reason, nine mana is very doable.
Guilty Conscience: This gets more expensive with Blazing Sunsteel, but if you ignore how hard it is to find Brash Taunter, this is by far the most efficient of the combos we've found, with two mana to get Conscience, five to cast Taunter, and one to put Conscience on it. That totals out to just three pips out of the total of eight mana.
Helm of the Host: Way more expensive but with even less pips, Helm of the Host combos with seven different creatures in Boros, two of which also combo with Twin, making this a great redundancy piece and possibly a better tutor if you have more colorless mana. The most ideal version of this only needs two colored pips, one for Kellan, the Fae-Blooded and another for Combat Celebrant, with the full price of the combo coming out to fifteen. That's a high bar, but if you've gotten to late game or gotten infinite mana with one of the Monoliths, it's very doable.
Elemental Mastery: Check the honorable mentions for this bad boy, but I'll give you a preview. Total pips - three. Total cost - eight.

So, three out of four of these combos cost less mana, and you get access to the best splash color in Magic. Seems like a deal, right?

Unfortunately, every deal comes with a tradeoff, and the tradeoff here is that half of your combo is always something you'll have to search for when it comes to Kellan, the Fae-Blooded. I do think that Helm of the Host is excellent backup territory for all breeds of Kellan Twin decks, but there is still a serious question here on whether or not the extra complexity and redundancy can make for a better deck than just the straight "you get to eleven mana and you win the game" that Godo provides.

Honorable Mentions

I mentioned it, and I do like it, a lot! There's no question that Elemental Mastery is not on the same plane as Splinter Twin when it comes to how broken it is with hordes of cards, but what makes this one perhaps a contender is how good the specific cards are. First off, both Sunstrike Legionnaire and Midnight Guard also combo with Splinter Twin, so there's no reason that you can't overlap. Second off, Sunstrike Legionnaire is cheaper to get down at two mana, and is still searchable with everything short of Enlightened Tutor. In other words, it is very possible to run with Elemental Mastery and Sunstrike Legionnaire as your main game plan, and use Splinter Twin as your backup. The one less pip/one less mana may not seem like much, but it could be an absolute game changer if you have a hand that's capable of going to get Legionnaire.

This means we can take our earlier blueprint from our "Oops, All Ramp" version of Splinter Twin and Helm of the Host, and swap out the Helm of the Host package for Elemental Mastery to become a more streamlined, efficient version:

It will definitely still take some testing to find out if this light Stax, high combo brew can be competitive, but I do think the kernel is there. If you've got input on the brew, or have already made something better, let me know in the comments!

Lastly, we've talked about combos to the point that my editor can't believe I'm bringing something new up, but... there is another path available here.

Shifting Shadow allows for a unique ~~Polymorph~~ Transmogrify brew that allows you to play a mostly creatureless deck to go and grab a huge threat and put it directly onto the battlefield. After a bit of research, I was unable to find an outright win in the Boros color identity (although Platinum Angel and Final Fortune comes close), so I started to go even heavier in the Stax direction. With Sunforger to toolbox and/or go for the win with Final Fortune and Angel's Grace, the up-front threat of laying down a Void Winnower or a Nullstone Gargoyle can hopefully become serious enough Stax to delay the game for the win.

And if you don't have enough mana to go nuts with Sunforger to control the game on top of all your Stax effects? Well then there's your third creature, Hellkite Tyrant. If you think Stax on its own doesn't take enough wind out of the sails, just wait until you follow it up with stealing everyone else's mana rocks and very possibly winning the game outright.

As for how you keep Shifting Shadow under control? With Tithe searchable with Sunforger, and seven fetchlands in the deck, you'll have no trouble at all finding Mistveil Plains to put things on the bottom.

Nuts and Bolts

There always seems to be a bit of interest in how these lists are made (this seems like a good time to stress once again that they are based on EDHREC score, NOT my personal opinion…), and people are often surprised that I’m not using any special data or .json from EDHREC, but rather just muddling my way through with some Scryfall knowledge! For your enjoyment/research, here is this week’s Scryfall search.

What Do You Think?

No reason to beat around the bush on this one, I don't think.

And finally, what is your favorite target for Kellan to go fetch to try and win the game? Have you tried out a cEDH brew of this new Boros commander? Do you think Elemental Mastery might indeed be better as a backup or primary option to Twin than Helm of the Host?

Let us know in the comments, and we'll see you at the two-part table that I only have the left half of. The other part's coming any minute now, I swear.

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