The banning of Splinter Twin has left a huge void in Modern. That deck was the most consistent and interactive combo deck in the format, and always made its presence felt in the metagame. Even with Splinter Twin banned, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker is still available to try to combo off with the likes of Deceiver Exarch and Restoration Angel. Unfortunately, Kiki-Jiki’s mana cost is enormously prohibitive. Triple Red is difficult without the use of Cascade Bluffs and other filter lands, which means people are jumping through all kinds of hoops to avoid straight up paying for their Kiki-Jiki. Chord of Calling seems to be the most common way of cheating Kiki-Jiki into play, but Meanmrmustard has a different idea:

Mardu Goryo?s Vengeance ? Modern | Meanmrmustard, 5-0 Modern League

• Creatures (10)
• 4 Restoration Angel
• 3 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 3 Obzedat, Ghost Council

• Planeswalkers (4)
• 4 Liliana of the Veil

• Spells (23)
• 2 Path to Exile
• 4 Goryo's Vengeance
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 2 Painful Truths
• 3 Lingering Souls
• 4 Faithless Looting
• 4 Inquisition of Kozilek

• Lands (23)
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Plains
• 2 Swamp
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 2 Godless Shrine
• 3 Clifftop Retreat
• 4 Arid Mesa
• 4 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 4 Marsh Flats

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Lingering Souls
• 2 Anger of the Gods
• 1 Crumble to Dust
• 2 Duress
• 2 Fulminator Mage
• 1 Grim Lavamancer
• 3 Lone Missionary
• 2 Stony Silence
• 1 Wear // Tear

Buy This Deck

This is a very interesting take on midrange in Modern. All of the usual suspects are present in this deck: Thoughtseize, Liliana of the Veil, Lightning Bolt, and Path to Exile. With cards like these, you can trade resources efficiently and be left with something to kill your opponent, particularly with Lingering Souls in the mix.

The thing setting this deck apart is its ability to steal games with a powerful reanimation strategy. Faithless Looting and Liliana of the Veil help you to dump Obzedat, Ghost Council and Kiki-Jiki into your graveyard where they can be reanimated with Goryo's Vengeance. This interaction allows the deck to pull off all manner of interesting tricks. First, you can Goryo's Vengeance an Obzedat into play. Much like Whip of Erebos, Goryo's Vengeance doesn’t care how you exile Obzedat, and exiling Obzedat to it’s own trigger means you still get the Ghost Council back on subsequent turns. This allows you to start applying enormous amounts of pressure as early as turn two, and makes it possible to win games before they start.

Similarly, the ability to play both Kiki-Jiki and Restoration Angel at instant-speed is a big deal. This means any time your opponent taps out you have the ability to sneak your creatures into play and threaten a combo kill. Because of this, it is important to pay attention to the timing on Goryo's Vengeance and Kiki-Jiki. Goryo's Vengeance exiles your creature at end of turn. Kiki-Jiki exiles the tokens at the beginning of the end step. This means you can Goryo's Vengeance a Kiki-Jiki into play during your opponents turn, wait until the end step, make a million tokens during the end step, and still have those creatures available to attack on your turn.

Much like Splinter Twin decks, this deck blends the ability to combo off early in the game with the ability to grind out value and win a longer, fairer game. The increased vulnerability to graveyard hate means Vengeance is unlikely to reach the same ubiquity of U/R Twin, but the deck is powerful and a has a lot of room to be flexible. Goryo's Vengeance is definitely a deck capable of growing and evolving to find its place in the metagame.