Reality Fracture is, in many ways, a love letter to Magic’s entire 33-year history. At a time when Universes Beyond is making many players miss the game’s own lore, all the callbacks here are more than welcome. This reverence is more than just skin deep, too, as seen with Divining Duelist: a new MTG common that lets you pull off classic Splinter Twin combo lines in Limited.
The Divining Duelist x Splinter Twin MTG Combo
Divining Duelist was revealed during yesterday’s Limited-focused WeeklyMTG stream, and on the surface it looks like a Limited role player and nothing else. Since it can untap a creature when it enters play, however, it serves as a combo piece with the infamous
Splinter Twin
Splinter Twin
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature has "{T}: Create a token that's a copy of this creature, except it has haste. Exile that token at the beginning of the next end step."
. Simply enchant Duelist with Twin, tap it to make a Hasty copy, and you can untap the original to make an infinite board of Hasty 3/2s.
Splinter Twin combos are nothing new, of course, with variants including
Pestermite
Pestermite
Flash
Flying
When this creature enters, you may tap or untap target permanent.
and
Deceiver Exarch
Deceiver Exarch
Flash (You may cast this spell any time you could cast an instant.)
When this creature enters, choose one —
• Untap target permanent you control.
• Tap target permanent an opponent controls.
dominating Modern back in the format’s heyday. What’s notable about this version of the combo, however, is that you can pull it off in Reality Fracture Limited.
While Wizards typically tries to steer clear of play patterns like this in Limited, this time it’s actively leaning into it. During WeeklyMTG, Yoni Skolnik, Lead Set Designer for Reality Fracture, noted that they included the combo deliberately to celebrate Splinter Twin’s major role in Magic history.
Though this sounds like a risky play at first, this combo won’t come up often in most Limited pods. Divining Duelist is common and therefore easily accessible, but Splinter Twin is a Special Guest that shows up in only 1 of every 55 Play Boosters. The actual pull rate is far lower, too, since Splinter Twin is only one of 10 options in the slot.
For this reason, the Divining Duelist/Splinter Twin combo should be a fun throwback without warping Limited around it. That said, with how many packs players are opening at Prerelease, you could very well win, or lose, your local event to this combo.
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