Historic Ivy Lane Twin: Fun & Jank Episode 62

Welcome back to another episode of Fun & Jank! I’m your host, Plum, and first we need to have a little chat.

In the world of brewing, consistency is usually the enemy of jank. Most “fun” decks fall apart because they can’t find their weird pieces on time, but today, I have a deck that is both Jank, and dare I say it…..actually competitive. We’re going to take a peek at a deck that will have all the Twin fanatics trading in their Deceiver Exarchs for squirrel tokens.

The “Twin” Experience

If you’ve been around the Magic scene for a while, you know the terror of Splinter Twin. The opponent hits three mana, flashes in a creature, and suddenly you’re staring down a million copies of a guy you can’t block.

Well, we’ve found the green equivalent. By pairing Ivy Lane Denizen with Scurry Oak we get an infinite loop to create an unlimited number of squirrels! Eat your heart out Deceiver Exarch!

To initiate the combo, you must have both creatures on the battlefield.

1. With Ivy Lane Denizen in play, you resolve Scurry Oak (or vice versa, provided you have a way to trigger the Oak).
2. The Oak entering the battlefield triggers the Denizen, allowing you to put a +1/+1 counter on the Oak.
3. The counter on the Oak triggers its ability, creating a 1/1 green Squirrel token.
4. Because the Squirrel is a green creature, it triggers the Denizen again.
5. You repeat this process an infinite number of times.

The Result: You end the sequence with an infinitely large Scurry Oak and a board filled with an infinite number of 1/1 Squirrel tokens.

Okay, so we have a pretty jank combo to make an infinite number of squirrels, but if you actually look at this on paper it has a lot going for it.

1. It’s a two card, infinite combo.
2. The combo pieces can be curved one into the other.
3. Both combo pieces are green
4. Green has access to both ramp and tutors to assemble this combo even faster.

When you examine it at a larger scale, this combo is actually quite consistent. Yes, it may not be as fast as Val Combo or Rosie Cotton, but it can be streamlined with a ton of redundancy.

Let’s look at the deck list.

The Deck

This idea actually was a bit of a “one thing led to another” while we were on stream one day. I had already been messing around with the Badgermole Cub + Leyline of Abundance shells, but hadn’t found anything I was happy with yet. You could ramp so quickly with those two cards and some mana dorks, but if you draw the wrong half of your deck then you’re left there slowly dumping mana into Leyline in an attempt to slowly grow your team.

The Ivy Lane combo was one I had in the back of my brain from a previous brew and it just kind of clicked. Instead of using all that mana to ramp into a giant threat, we could use it to tutor for them instead. This kept it lower to the ground, and playing 8 tutors means we had something to do even if we only drew mana dorks, or didn’t draw them at all.

Bing, bang, boom! You throw ’em together and you get Splinter Twin in Historic!

The Core

• Leyline of Abundance: This is the card that makes the deck feel “broken.” If this is in your opening hand, your mana dorks (Noble/Ignoble Hierarch) tap for double. This allows for turn-two plays that usually require four or five mana. Best of all it provides an additional mana dump to pump the team if needed.
• Badgermole Cub: A powerhouse for the early game that provides ramp and immediate board presence. When it enters, it “earthbends 1,” turning a land into a 0/0 creature with haste and a +1/+1 counter. Crucially, it makes your mana dorks even more explosive by adding an additional green mana whenever you tap a creature for mana. Pair it with Leyline and you can get massive amounts of mana very quickly.
• Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: Because our deck is nearly 100% green pips, Nykthos becomes a ritual that can tap for 10+ mana mid-game, fueling massive Chord of Calling plays.

Tutors

Green Sun’s Zenith: Our most flexible tool. Early game, it finds a mana dork. Mid-game, it finds Scurry Oak. Late game, it’s the Ivy Lane Denizen.

Chord of Calling: This is how we win at instant speed. Because it has Convoke, we can use our creatures (even the ones with summoning sickness) to pay for the spell. If we have one in hand while we combo off, the squirrels you create can then be convoked to find Craterhoof Behemoth.

Turntimber Symbiosis: This is one of those under-the-radar cards that is usually played as a land but also functions as our 3rd tutor. It lets you look at the top seven cards of your library and put a creature into play, potentially finding the missing half of your engine to go off on the spot. With such a low opportunity cost to include it in the deck, it was a no-brainer.

Support

We run a full set of Noble Hierarch and Ignoble Hierarch to ensure we hit our mana requirements as early as turn two. While we usually win through infinite tokens, the Exalted triggers allow a single Badgermole Cub or Scurry Oak to chip away at the opponent’s life total in the early turns. Ignoble Hierarch occasionally helps casts Dismember out of the sideboard as well.

This guy is just a great roadblock for aggro. It replaces itself, blocks well, and fuels convoke. Could probably be something else too, but I enjoy the pretty flowers.

This is our flex spot. Currently, we are running Oath of Nissa to help with land drops and finding our creatures. However, it’s really up to you, and I think I’m going to change it to a Prosperous Innkeeper in the future.

• Oath of Nissa: Great for consistency and adds a green “pip” for Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.
• Prosperous Innkeeper: On stream, we discussed moving toward the Innkeeper. If you have an Innkeeper on board when you go infinite with Scurry Oak and Ivy Lane Denizen, you gain infinite life. This gives you an unbeatable cushion even if you can’t attack that turn.

These are just a few more low opportunity cost lands we were able to run that help tighten up the deck. Battle is interaction in a color combo that usually doesnt have much when it comes to combo decks. It allows us to pick off an annoying blocker or a hate-piece like Hushbringer without sacrificing a land slot.

Disciple of Freyalise is like a “Break Glass in Case of Emergency” card. If an opponent tries to remove your infinitely large Scurry Oak, you can sacrifice it to the Disciple in response after you Chord of Calling for it. You’ll gain a bunch of life and draw enough cards to find get yourself back in the game and try again.

This deck turned out to be much more consistent than I initially realized thanks to the redundancy in all its moving parts. Between the ramp and tutors, it’s easy to assemble the combo on turn 3 and 4 most games.

Gameplay

We took this shell through our usual gauntlet: Five Bo3 matches on the Historic Ranked ladder, and learned quite a bit.

One of the highlights of the stream was a match against a mono-green ramp deck [07:23]. We were able to stick an early Badgermole Cub and use our mana dorks to power out the combo pieces. The moment both hit the board, the game was effectively over. We generated an infinite loop of squirrels and immediately used Chord of Calling to find Craterhoof Behemoth to close out the game.

It wasn’t all sunshine and acorns, though. We ran into a few decks that were specifically designed to ruin our day. We faced off against a Turbo Fog deck running Cyclonic Rift and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon [38:41]. Because our squirrels don’t have haste naturally, we were forced to pass the turn, which gave the opponent the window they needed to wipe our board and reset.

We also went up against Eldrazi [41:43] and Auras [53:13] decks. If we don’t find our protection pieces like Sylvan Safekeeper or Heroic Intervention, the deck can be vulnerable to targeted removal like Soul Partition or Ugin’s Binding.

What did we learn?

By the end of the session, we identified a few key areas for improvement to make the deck even more consistent:

• We found that having Sylvan Safekeeper in the sideboard wasn’t enough; we often needed it in the main 60 to protect the combo from turn one.
• We discussed moving Prosperous Innkeeper into the main deck. Gaining infinite life on the turn you combo provides a massive safety net, ensuring you don’t die to a crack-back if the opponent has a fog or a board wipe.
• There’s a strong argument for splashing a second color—White for better removal or Blue for counter-magic to protect the loop.

Closing Thoughts

This list is sweet and with some tweaking feels like it could be fast enough to regularly compete in this format. The speed provided by Leyline of Abundance and Badgermole Cub allows you to outpace many of the format’s slower midrange decks. Combine that with the ability to play 12 tutors in a mono-colored deck and I feel like we have a strong contender for the ranked ladder.

We’re going to keep tweaking this list. Potentially looking at that Prosperous Innkeeper swap for infinite life or a light splash for better protection, but for now, go run people over with squirrels!

Thanks for reading!

As always, feel free to comment and leave any questions you have below. And make sure to come back next week for even more Fun & Jank!

If you want to see these decks in action, come hang out with me on stream where we test, refine, and have a ton of fun together.

Happy Brewin’!