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They say that it's possible to have too much have of a good thing. Though to those people, I would pose just this one question: Is it REALLY possible?

Yin-Yang

Riku

Of all the generals in the spectrum, Riku of Two Reflections is without a doubt my favorite.

The strength of this particular general over other popular options is that every single spell forces control players to have two counterspells to stop it if you have open to stop it and two removal spells for creatures if you have open as well. Generating extra card advantage by simply forcing your opponent to have multiple answers for one cards gets very hard to beat sometimes.

This effect goes in the opposite direction as well. Our own counter magic and removal can hit multiple things or force our opponent to have at least two counterspells to back up a game winning play.

As a result of these factors that allow Riku decks to eek out extra value from almost everything they play, Riku builds tend to lend themselves to mid combo/combo control style lists, which is exactly what I've built for my own list.

As stated in the section above, this list is what I call midcombo/control combo Riku. Midcombo/control combo is essentially a midrange strategy that is capable of winning the game with grindy combat damage while having one or more dedicated combos that can outright win the game, much like modern Twin decks do.

So the question is, "What combo does the deck try to capitalize on then?"

TNN

Well the answer is there is a couple, but they all revolve around Tooth and Nail packages.

1 - Deadeye Navigator + Palinchron is our first package. Pretty self explanitory, it generates infinite mana, and with all of our ETB creatures and draw spells it eventually should give us an extra turn spell with infinite creatures using Riku.

2 - Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts . So, as long as we're comparing this deck to the play style of Modern Twin decks we may as well copy their way of going for the insta-win.

3 - Bounding Krasis + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker . Very much the same goal as the package above, simply adds redundancy and another value creature to use for tempo in Bounding Krasis.

Well, I consider this to be an almost EDH equivalent of Modern Twin decks: We can combo out of nowhere and win games that way, but we also can just play a grindy tempo game with efficient creatures and countermagic/removal.

At that point the point, the deck basically goes to play a fair game by keeping the big issues under wraps and then makes smaller needling punches with 2-4 power bodies and just drawing a bunch of cards in the interim. Then one of three things happens:

1 - A big scary threat that's copied off Riku

Kozilek

2 - Or I find a Time Warp/Time Stretch copied

Time Stretch

3 - Or I just find the Tooth and Nail/naturally found combo pieces.

Kiki

Conscripts

Either way, the deck is fairly resilient.

Kiki

Conscripts

Krasis

Navigator

Palinchron

Why THESE combo pieces? Why not include things like the classic Avenger of Zendikar + Purphoros, God of the Forge , or Avenger of Zendikar + Craterhoof Behemoth TNN packages?

Well, simply put the pieces I picked have a couple things in common: They do something besides combo out or are incredibly resilient.

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker: He allows me to re-abuse an ETB trigger on a creature to further give me advantage outside of just comboing. Even just copying a Mulldrifter for a couple cards can go a long way.

Zealous Conscripts: She steals stuff and punches people right back in the nuts, and when she's copied, man she HURTS, often enough to just kill people sometimes.

Bounding Krasis: A tempo piece that can pin down a couple of attackers, or even create up to 4 surprise blockers when copied.

Deadeye Navigator: Similar to Kiki-jiki in that he allows me to abuse ETB effects since he can blink them, and can even help create more bodies by creating more copies of a given creature by copying it upon re-entry.

Palinchron: Doesn't do a ton on it's own, I'll admit that. However, Pali goes infinite with just my general.

1 - Nine lands and Riku of Two Reflections, cast Palinchron.

2 - ETB on stack, Riku trigger on the stack, use Riku trigger, second Pali hits play and second ETB on the stack.

3 - Copied Pali trigger goes off, untap seven, Original Pali trigger on stack, float 7 before resolution.

4 - Goes off untap 7.

5 - I now have 14 floating, pay 4 to bounce.

6 - 10 floating, recast Pali.

7 - 3 floating, Riku trigger.

8- 1 Floating/net, repeat.

That interaction alone makes it worth it in my mind to play it since it's almost a one card combo given that one card is my general.

As always, you guys know the drill. If you like the deck please don't forget to clickity-clack the upvote button. Everytime someone does, another cute cat video appears on the interwebs~! :D

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Revision 5 See all

(5 years ago)

Top Ranked
  • Achieved #20 position overall 8 years ago
Date added 8 years
Last updated 2 years
Splash colors R
Key combos
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

15 - 1 Mythic Rares

50 - 0 Rares

20 - 0 Uncommons

5 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.83
Tokens Beast 3/3 G, Copy Clone
Folders Commander, EDH, Fun
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