MTG Players Discover Standard "Splinter Twin" Combo Variant With Star Trek's Gray and Adira

While MTG Star Trek isn’t available to play online yet, players have already been testing and tinkering with a wide array of new infinite combos. One of the most exciting of these involves The Naked Time The Naked Time (As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I — Search your library for a basic Mountain card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle.
II — Whenever a creature you control enters this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on it and it gains haste until end of turn.
III — Sacrifice a land. and Krenko, Mob Boss Krenko, Mob Boss {T}: Create X 1/1 red Goblin creature tokens, where X is the number of Goblins you control. , which can create infinite Hasty Goblins alongside Agatha’s Soul Cauldron Agatha’s Soul Cauldron You may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to activate abilities of creatures you control.
Creatures you control with +1/+1 counters on them have all activated abilities of all creature cards exiled with Agatha's Soul Cauldron.
{T}: Exile target card from a graveyard. When a creature card is exiled this way, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control. , but there may be an even better combo waiting in the wings.

MTG Star Trek has yet another red near-infinite combo that shows some competitive promise. Emulating something similar to the old two-card 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." combos, you may now need to kill your opponent’s Fear of Missing Out Fear of Missing Out When this creature enters, discard a card, then draw a card.
Delirium — Whenever this creature attacks for the first time each turn, if there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard, untap target creature. After this phase, there is an additional combat phase. on sight.

MTG Star Trek Gray and Adira, Forever Joined Combo

Showcased by Twitter user triskdkphl, it turns out Star Trek’s new Gray and Adira, Forever Joined Gray and Adira, Forever Joined At the beginning of combat on your turn, if you've cast a noncreature spell this turn, create a token that's a copy of target creature you control, except it isn't legendary. It gains haste until end of turn. Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step. creates a rather simple two-card infinite combo with Fear of Missing Out Fear of Missing Out When this creature enters, discard a card, then draw a card.
Delirium — Whenever this creature attacks for the first time each turn, if there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard, untap target creature. After this phase, there is an additional combat phase. . Once you have Delirium, a Gray and Adira, Forever Joined trigger will create near-infinite creatures and near-infinite combats.

To start the combo, simply cast a noncreature spell before combat so Gray and Adira will trigger. Create a copy of Fear of Missing Out with Haste and attack with it. Its trigger should resolve, untapping any creature you control and creating an extra combat.

Since Gray and Adira triggers at the beginning of each combat, you get to create another Fear of Missing Out token, which will once again trigger, untapping your other token. This creates a loop, resulting in near-infinite combats and near-infinite creature tokens.

Notably, because Fear of Missing Out loots on entry, this combo isn’t technically infinite, since you’ll eventually run out of cards to draw. That said, so long as you have at least 20ish cards in your library, this combo should easily be lethal.

Really, compared to most combos that appear in a new MTG set, this Gray and Adira, Forever Joined combo is pretty easy to execute. The combo only requires two cards alongside a noncreature spell, the two cards are in the same color, and Fear of Missing Out is quite strong on its own.

Between setting up aggressive attacks, filtering your hand, and occasionally drawing a card, Fear of Missing Out is just a solid MTG card. Setting up the noncreature spell condition for Gray and Adira is also extremely easy, since one-mana removal like Burst Lightning Burst Lightning Kicker {4} (You may pay an additional {4} as you cast this spell.)
Burst Lightning deals 2 damage to any target. If this spell was kicked, it deals 4 damage instead. easily does the trick.

So, this combo could have some serious competitive legs, but honestly I’m not sure it’s good enough to seriously impact the Standard metagame. As triskdkphl explains, while this combo is quite easy to set up, these cards are trying to accomplish different goals.

Competitive Viability

As strong as Fear of Missing Out is, the game plan it encourages isn’t really what a combo deck typically wants. Combo decks encourage players to spend a lot of time sculpting their hand with cards like Stock Up Stock Up Look at the top five cards of your library. Put two of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order. , waiting for the perfect opportunity to go off.

Fear of Missing Out instead supports an aggressive game plan and works best when you’re Hellbent and your graveyard is full. You can slow-roll this creature to some success since FOMO doesn’t need Haste to pull off the combo, but the card will basically never replace itself if you keep your hand full.

Gray and Adira, Forever Joined can be difficult to get value with in competitive MTG, too. For four mana, a 2/3 body is extremely fragile and practically begs an opponent to remove it with some spell or another. You also need to cast a noncreature spell for Gray and Adira to trigger, so pulling this off on curve turn four is impossible without some ramp.

You could use this combo as a top end to more aggressive strategies, punishing Standard’s noninteractive strategies like Mono-Green Landfall. In a noninteractive metagame, this Gray and Adira combo could be a strong strategy, while removal-heavy metagames could use it as a sideboard option.

On the plus side, even if Gray and Adira, Forever Joined isn’t a serious Standard contender, this combo could easily sneakily close a game in Commander. Here, any creature that triggers an extra combat during the combat step, like Bloodthirster Bloodthirster Flying, trample
Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, untap it. After this phase, there is an additional combat phase.
This creature can't attack a player it has already attacked this turn. or Port Razer Port Razer Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, untap each creature you control. After this phase, there is an additional combat phase.
This creature can't attack a player it has already attacked this turn. , goes infinite with Gray and Adira. Notably, this creature doesn’t care about the Legend Rule, so copying cards like Raphael, Tag Team Tough Raphael, Tag Team Tough Menace (This creature can't be blocked except by two or more creatures.)
Whenever Raphael deals combat damage to a player for the first time each turn, untap all attacking creatures. After this combat phase, there is an additional combat phase. is also totally viable.

Honestly, though, the fact that this combo is even worth considering for serious play puts it far ahead of most new Standard combos that come out in MTG sets. While I’m a bit dubious about its competitive potential, as many others are, this does seem like a fantastic gimmick to pull at a Weekly Standard event.

If you’re winning a lot with it, this combo could even be the real deal. It will be interesting to see what MTG players do with this new Splinter Twin-esque Star Trek combo.

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