Splinter

Sorcery

Remove target artifact from the game. Search its controller's graveyard, hand, and library for all cards with the same name as that artifact and remove them from the game. That player then shuffles his or her library.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Big Apple Highlander	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
PreDH	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (45)

TheVectornaut on Monocolor hell

4 months ago

Cool to see this combo actually being tried out. Depending on the local modern meta, I could see this struggling with both speed and consistency. And if you're worried about wincons getting countered, I'd also be worried about the combo being disrupted. Something like Vexing Shusher could help get past countermagic, but it doesn't solve the more pressing issue of post-sideboard hate. Liquimetal Coating has some redundancy with Myr Landshaper but Splinter does not. A single Disruptor Flute, Ancient Vendetta, or more likely a Thoughtseize into Surgical Extraction could suddenly make things pretty tough. I think the deck is also likely to struggle against creature threats, especially when you haven't resolved a Liquimetal Coating. If you're willing to splash into black, I think Tear Asunder is better than Shattering Blow while having the option to kick and remove creatures and planeswalkers in a pinch. And while I know you'd prefer to exile over destroying, Assassin's Trophy is also very flexible without Coating. You might even be able to bait an opponent into searching for a basic to Splinter in cases where they don't already have one. Path to Exile is similar if you prefer white. Adding more colors would additionally justify running more shocks or other 2+ land type duals of different colors, something which would allow you to use fetches stolen by Oblivion Sower more reliably. Staying in red, there's still Abrade, Untimely Malfunction, Brotherhood's End, Explosive Derailment, and Overwhelming Surge as options. A final card that i think might fit here is Wrenn and Six. It's just such a nuisance in Gruul decks, keeps you on curve with a single fetchland, can get back Buried Ruin to keep your artifacts online, and the ultimate can even let you Splinter repeatedly if the game goes long. As for sideboard options, that will always depend on what you're actually facing. Still, I'd probably focus a little more than normal on matchups with decks that run few basics or few lands altogether. As an example, Leyline of the Void against manaless dredge or Blood Moon against amulet titan. If you're playing against refined versions of decks like that, I think it's still gonna be tough, but you gotta do what you gotta do for the sake of the janky combos!

legendofa on Grrr

6 months ago

What's the intent of Wall of Vines and Corpse Blockade? I know that having a direct win condition isn't the main priority of this deck, but I strongly recommend putting one in anyway. If you're trying to be the last one standing in free-for-all matches, you can't always rely on your opponents to 100% cooperate. The defenders are less proactive than other cards here.

Next thought is that the Liquimetal Coating + Splinter is cute, but the Coatings have nothing to do without the Splinters. This can be switched out for some other control options, or if you want to keep the style points, use Glissa Sunseeker. There's probably enough deck removal as-is.

I'm a big fan of discard, so I'm going to suggest the 1-mana options there. Anything from Duress to Inquisition of Kozilek to Thoughtseize will be a good turn 1 option. Right now, your 1-drops are all either reactive or passive, and this deck wants to start shredding fast, not wait for the opponent to build up resources.

Normally, I'd suggest Abrupt Decay here for general-use removal, but it sounds like your group leans toward the higher end of the mana curve. Assassin's Trophy is a similar option, if you can deal with helping your opponent ramp.

I'm a little more cautious about this next suggestion, since it's going to be very gimmicky, but a copy of Chancellor of the Spires can kickstart your Surgical Extractions and Extirpates.

Ogrecorps on "Unbeatable" card combo, or so …

6 months ago

UPDATE: VICTORY!!

Here's the deck I used (warning, it is not great and I'm open to suggestions to improve it as a more general-purpose meme deck that strips out important things and leaves someone else to actually kill people in free-for-all format.) https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/18-06-25-SkD-grrr/?cb=1750236034

The story: 3 players, me with the meme deck, work friend with the "you cannot lose the game" mystery deck, and a third with a deck specifically filled with legendaries of as many types as he can make work.

My starting hand had Leyline of the Void and I kicked off hostilities with Bitter Ordeal and got to peruse through the "cannot lose" deck to see how it works. Key cards found: Herald of Eternal Dawn, Negate, Three Steps Ahead, Restricted Office / Lecture Hall, Virtue of Persistence. I took out one of the 4 Heralds. The legendaries deck built up nicely with about 6 or 7 big creatures with deathtouch (All-Out Assault) and flying and vigilance and lifelink and other such nonsense. This player normally likes to be fair (i.e. spread the damage around, not pick on anyone) when he feels like he's winning so I had to warn him off with the strongest arguments I could that I was absolutely not a threat to him, that I had built the deck specifically to counter the other player. Cannot Lose had no creatures out so Legendaries swung at him fully with enough to put him to -9 life. Looked like it was over already and then pop! Cannot Lose flashed out Herald of Eternal Dawn before combat damage was dealt, keeping him alive despite negative life.

Cannot Lose then quickly got out two lecture halls from Restricted Office / Lecture Hall, giving the herald and both lecture halls hexproof. Around here I realized a major weakness in my deck: it largely has to target something in the opponent's graveyard, making Leyline of the Void super not helpful. Happily, Cannot Lose Get Lostd it. Because nothing much was going to graveyards that I wanted to strip out, I built up a little supply of Extirpate and Surgical Extraction - this will be important later... Legendaries took about 6 turns and smashed Cannot Lose to about -30 life while enjoying all the lifelink that gave him.

It was at this point that Cannot Lose messaged me privately to say that he'd won, it was just going to take an hour. The next turn, he used Loran's Escape on his Herald and then used one of his Restricted Offices for a boardwipe. My defenses being so pathetic, were fine. Legendaries, however, got cleaned out, 7 or 8 big beasts in the graveyard... This left Cannot Lose as the only one on the table with any attacking power and a pair of Fountainports to slowly grow an army of fish with.

Somewhere in the excitement I'd stripped out all of his Get Lost, and Stock Up. I knew from searching his hand that he had a Negate still ready for something that might kill his Herald, the only thing keeping him alive. Then came the exchange I'm going to be hearing about all day today at work from Cannot Lose, the part where he's kicking himself for doing what he did: Legendaries brought out a planeswalker; Cannot Lose used Three Steps Ahead to counter it, putting a copy of one of his 2 counter spells in his graveyard. I targeted it with Surgical Extraction. He Negated. I surgical extracted his Three Steps and then Extirpated his Negate, successfully exiling all of his counterspells! He has already told me that he shouldn't have countered the planeswalker, that he should have just used fish from Fountainport to neutralize it.

And then Legendaries Ruinous Ultimatumd. Herald, hexproofs, and my two Wall of Vines all gone! Cannot Lose was at -30 something life and evaporated in a long silence followed by a drawn out frustrated groan. He'd nearly fought his way back and if only he could have had another Herald in hand to flash out or I hadn't stripped out his counterspells... He was also intimately familiar with Legendaries' deck because the two of them worked on it closely together so knew exactly how little strength he had left after all of those creatures got wiped with no serious options for bringing any back. Either way though, I still had 3 Sudden Spoilings in my library somewhere so chances were decent I'd get him killed for being in negative life sooner or later.

Thus began the long, slow final phase of the battle wherein I had only defensive creatures, and Legendaries had 40-something life but only one or two offensive options left in his deck which was down to about 27 cards to my 35ish. I used Liquimetal Coating and Splinter on one of his Plains, a generally useless move and one I probably should have saved for an actual threat but I was just happy Cannot Lose had lose'd. The end came when I fired off a kicked Sadistic Sacrament, ensuring that there wasn't going to be anything left to hurt me. Before I searched his deck, however, Legendaries capitulated and we called it there, official cause of death: inevitable milling out.

cyeRunner on Jund Midrange Modern Horizons 3

2 years ago

Hello, how are Tear Asunder and Splinter working for you in The One Ring Meta ?
I'm thinking of adding either or a mix of both to my infect sideboard.

Last_Laugh on Your Cheap Obscure Overperformers?

2 years ago

FormOverFunction - If you ever feel like losing friends by being extremely evil...

Splinter does a similar thing with looking for all copies with the 'same name' but picture turning a mono color decks basic land into an artifact first using Liquimetal Coating.

Balaam__ on Splinter Shell

3 years ago

You nailed it amarthaler. I only have a select few decks that can survive in a competitive environment, and this isn’t one of them. Most of the time I have more fun building around an obscure card/mechanic/interaction than trying to design something for the competitive space. I recently saw Splinter for the first time and just wanted to see what I could do with it.

wallisface on Forged Execution (Gruul Land-Hate)

4 years ago

I think there will be matchups where Splinter has its place, but i think the majority of the time it won’t be the case - though your meta may vary (i’m from a very competitive background, so the games usually close-to-already- decided by the time someone has the mana to cast this). Having as a sideboard option seems like a better decision, as it means you can bring it in for the games it matters, instead of being stuck with it the games it doesn’t.

I think Smash to Smithereens is a fine card, and good in this deck. I’d only thought of dropping a single copy to make room for the other mentioned spells.

As for the lands, the scry-lands are always better than the lifegain lands. 1 life seldom matters but being able to fix your draw often will. But if you’re looking to invest in a better land i’d suggest Copperline Gorge - it is a little pricier, but it’s much more useful and’ll generally go up in price over time, so’ll be a better use of your money.

As for the original question, imo Rust Scarab is better than Sunder Shaman (though i wouldn’t run more than 2). Your mana base isn’t tuned enough to cater for the stupid requirements of the Shaman.

MortisAngelus on Forged Execution (Gruul Land-Hate)

4 years ago

@wallisface

Hey! Thank you so much for the extensive feedback! You make a lot of good points!

However, I think you underestimate the power Splinter brings. Being able to remove all win cons from a combo deck or removing all basic lands of one type is what really makes ppl hate it. But I have been considering bringing the count down to 3.

I am surprised about you also not liking Smash to Smithereens; I see your point with always having a destruction card, but ultimately, the end goal is to kill the opponent, not just control them. So killing a permanent and pinging them 3 seems like a win-win imho. Or?

Ancient Stirrings is definitely something I must try to insert here. I have played against it; how have I not realized how good it would be here?..

And Barrier Breach I have already considered for side board. :) Gotta deal with those pesky God-creatures.

Ultimately, 4x Rootbound Crag is what I want for this deck. I am considering switching the Kazandu Refuge cards for the scry-equivalent cards instead. But we'll see.

But we never solved the original question, if you left the deck as it is for now, and only thought about Sunder Shaman vs Rust Scarab , which one would you insert?

Anyway, thanks a lot for all the feedback! Have a lot to think about now.