My atempt at making an hybrid Kiki-Chord/Blue Moon deck.
The idea of the deck comes from a card some friend showed me: Battered Golem, which is kind of a lame card by itself, but has the ability to go infinie whith Splinter Twin, without any comittment to blue mana (which is quite rare as I figured out...).
As a UR Twin player, this awakened my interest, and I wanted do see if there was a non-blue deck that could play the combo. Since there are very few good modern-playable value creatures in red that could be abused with twin effects, green seemed a good choice as a second color with many great ETB effects (and also since Boros Twin already exists and doesn't need the Golem).
Anyways, the only true-twinable cards in a gruul shell are Battered Golem and Zealous Conscripts (obviously a better card, but really slow in comparison).
That being said, we need some ways to get our combo. Since you can go-off with only two creatures, Chord of Calling seems obvious as a 4-of. This allows us to play some creature hosers, which is also nice (just like Kiki-Chord lists).
The rest of the deck is mainly built with value creatures (on which we can decently attach a splinter twin, just like Snapcaster Mage or Vendilion Clique in UR versions). Keep in mind that we can get'em at instant speed whith Chord...
This includes:
Zealous Conscripts: Combo + able to steal
Planeswalkers
, Ghost Quarters, artifacts to sac with PKN, beat with a Goyf/Tasigur... It only has 3 toughness so quite sensitive to Bolts though.
Eternal Witness: reccurs everything we need. This + Splinter Twin + Ghost Quarter seems insane.
Loaming Shaman: Eternal Witness-like, but is better at beating the opponent and can act as a GY-hoser.
Reclamation Sage: good vs a lot of threats including Splinter Twin, Spellskite, all affinity deck, Spreading Seas, O-ring type effects, almost all tron cards, Daybreak Coronet and its likes...
Pia and Kiran Nalaar: strong midrange card, doesn't work with Kiki (since it's legendary), but putting a Twin on it allows two flying uncolored tokens per turn. The card also helps against Lingering Souls, removals, Etched Champion... which is nice.
Spellskite: because it's good vs Infect, Twin, decent vs burn and zoo, and is a pseudo-infinite removal counter with a Twin on it. The coopies can also be sac with PKN or detap Golem (but since it's a better twin target this is almost purely theoretical...)
Kitchen Finks: because lifegain. And finks is really good on its own vs removals and aggro decks.
Other creatures:
Birds of Paradise for mana acceleration/activating abilities when stealing a permanent with conscripts/fix the mana when running Blood Moon.
Scavenging Ooze: because it's generally big enough to represent a threat, grave-hate is relevant (Tasigurs/Goyfs/Snapcasters), so is life-gain.
Burning-Tree Emissary
: for fixing under moon, acceleration for the beatdown plan and because t1 Birds, t2 Emissary into any 2/3 drop, t3 chord for Golem EOT, t4 Twin seems reaaaaaally cute. Replaced with
Wall of Roots
, which acts similarly
Dryad Arbor: because with so much fetches + Chords, it can be relevant (liliana, surprise blocker, etc...). Not really good with Moon though.
I love the idea to run both Blood Moon and Choke in the same deck. Moon doesn't hurt the combo (since it's mono-red) + it's a kill on it's own vs a number of decks, especially game one.
Choke is awesome against blue-based decks (twin "mirror", actual blue-moon, merfolk, etc...). Run Lightning Bolt x4 because we play red.
The SB should allow us to morph either in full mana-denial (4 moons or 4 chokes), or in a more classic midrange with a oops-I-win wincon.
Note that I never played the deck, it's more like a deck-building exercise. However, I intend to try to get the missing pieces to eventually play it.
So, if you have any ideas how to improve it or if you have some experience on this type of deck, feel free to share it.
