Cube Card Spotlight: Kiki-Jiki,the Mirror Breaker

    Welcome into the Cube Card Spotlight where I focus on singles. Each installment will highlight the function of the card, its application in game, the archetype it supports, and a special section. The special section will touch on interactions that did not make it into the other sections, possible alternatives (Might not be present for all cards), and any differentiated application for multiplayer if any. The card names in bold are cards that synergize with the topic card.

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Summary

For those who want a quick run down of the post. 

Archetypes: Kiki-Twin, Midrange, Flicker, Fires, Aristocrats, 2 Power Matters

Synergies: Restoration Angel, Zealous Conscripts, ETB Effects, Large creatures, Felidar Guardian, Pestermite, Deceiver Exarch, Bounding Krasis, Thragtusk, Reveillark, Recruiter of the Guard, Imperial Recruiter, the Titans

Special Notes: Not really as special but he combos with any untap ability

Alternative: Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, Splinter Twin, Flamerush Rider

Introduction

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker is a staple across all traditional cubes. He is infamously known for being a combo piece in Kiki Twin decks (I mean he has his name in the archetype) and often merits inclusion just based on that. However, he is extremely versatile when played, though actually casting him is restricted because of his RRR cost. While his baseline is awful being a 2/2 with haste for 5 mana, his activated ability more than makes up for that shortcoming. It can make a copy of any non legendary creature and give it haste, which is an ability that will let it get better with time as more creatures get released. We'll discuss the applications in the archetype sections. It's crazy to see that when I was researching how the community felt about Kiki-Jiki, 10 years ago people were considering cutting it or already had cut it from their cubes. Many did acknowledge it was a matter of time before he came back into their cubes. Much like everyone else, I cannot foresee a moment where I ever get rid of Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.

Archetypes

As mentioned earlier, the real power behind this card is the copy ability since the baseline of a 2/2 with haste is horrendous for 5 mana. The copying of creatures lets you reuse their ETB abilities which lends it to value strategies. The tokens have haste as well which lets you use activated abilities and attack triggers an additional time or immediately. You also use the ability to make safe swings into your opponents since the tokens are temporary anyways. This card will be a prominent role player in any deck you play it in and its power level is heavily determined by your card choices in cube.

Flicker/Blink/ETB

Flicker decks are looking to abuse the ETB effect to generate value and overwhelm your opponents. Typically, the deck does so by repeating the enter triggers by having them re-enter. This can be done by either flicker/blinking (exiling and reentering, found in U or W) effects or making additional copies. Hence, Kiki-Jiki's ability would fall into the second category. This would make a solid addition to the flicker deck functioning as an additional flicker engine.  

Traditionally, the flicker deck has been WU because there was a concentration of flicker ability in those colors. As time has passed, WotC has added more flicker cards to both colors that allow them to function independently. This has made it so that instead of running WU, players can opt to run WR or UR flicker. Kiki-Jiki makes it more viable to run red as a support color to either of them. Running the red gives players more access to creature removal like Flametongue Kavu or reuse of cards like Goblin Engineer. 

Kiki Twin

As an extent of playing flicker, players can opt into a variant called Kiki-Twin. This deck is the cube translation of the banned modern deck Splinter Twin (WotC, free Splinter Twin, cowards). It is built as a tempo deck that can loop a combo into a win. You're looking for draw spells are removal spells to either beat your opponent down or delay the game long enough to get your combo and win. The deck is most popular as UR, but it can be played as UW or WUR. 

 The core of this deck is Kiki-Jiki, Splinter Twin, and a way to untap creatures. In white, your typical options are Felidar Guardian and Restoration Angel since these two are already played in cubes. The problem is that these cards only synergize with Kiki-Jiki since Splinter Twin can't stick. You may opt to run Village Bell Ringer, which does synergizes with both, but that card is weak on its on. In red, the main choice is Zealous Conscripts, which can serve as a powerful top end for aggro. It synergizes with both Kiki-Jiki and Splinter Twin. Combat Celebrant is a stronger, though less popular, alternative to Zealous Conscripts and does go infinite with the combo pieces. In blue, the popular options are Pestermite and Deceiver Exarch. Both of these untap/tap a permanent, which makes them viable for tempo decks. The untap let's them combo with either combo piece should the opportunity present itself.

Aristocrats

Aristocrat decks are looking to generate value from death triggers. The deck is made up of 3 components: sacrifice outlets, death payoff, and sacrifice fodder. The sacrifice outlets such as Dead Dispute or Bone Shard are used so that you can sacrifice your own creatures at will to either devalue your opponent's plays or trigger a death trigger when you want. The  payoff cards are anything that rewards you for killing your own cards. Deadly Dispute falls into this category as well since you are rewarded for sacrificing your creatures. Cards that create triggers on death such Zulaport Cutthroat or Midnight Reaper are of interest to Aristocrats.Finally, sacrifice fodder are targets you use for sacrifice. This part of the deck is the most incidental part of the deck since anything can be sacrifice fodder, however it will become clear what creature you will want to sacrifice and which ones you might want to hold on to.

The less impactful the fodder is, generally the more value you gain from sacrificing it. Low quality fodder can include tokens and creatures that have no role outside of their ETB effect. Kiki-Jiki's role is to create sacrifice fodders. Since the tokens generated will sacrifice themselves anyways, you can also use them to trigger the on death effects as well. With more symmetrical sacrifice cards such as Innocent Blood and Fleshbag Marauder, Kiki-Jiki can break the symmetry of these cards with the copy he creates.

Fires

Fire decks are midrange aggro decks looking to swing in with their larger creatures with haste. Do not mistake them with the Fire of Inventions deck that were around during Eldraine standard. Instead, these decks are named after Fires of Yavimaya. Generally the goal of these decks is to play large , hasted creatures early and overwhelm your opponents. You need a mix of either mana dorks, haste enablers, and large creatures. 

Because of these reasons, the deck is typically in RG. The deck plays low cost mana dorks such as Elvish Mystic to quickly play a 3 and 4 drop a turn earlier than intended, this will let them swing earlier as well. The haste enablers function similarly to the mana dork by allowing the creatures to swing the turn they enter. This component can take form in any number of ways: Enchantments that provide haste to all creatures like Fires of Yavmiaya, Equipments like Lightning Greaves, and creatures like Goro-Goro. Creatures that come with haste are especially good since they reduce the need for haste enablers. In regards  to creatures, you're looking for high quality creatures like Flametongue Kavu and Inferno Titan. 

Kiki-Jiki excels as a top end in the deck. It functions as both a haste enabler and damage dealer. On an already established board, he will create a hasted copy of your best creature. If the board is empty, Kiki-Jiki has haste to let him swing in and if you play a large creature that Kiki-Jiki can target, you can have pseudo haste with the copy. It also allows you to do really safe swings by swinging with just the copy.

2 Powers Matter

Though not so much an archetype, 2 powers matter is a deck that plays around with the deep interaction with cards that have 2 power. The deck is typically in Boros and is a hybrid between reanimator and flicker. Alesha, Who Smiles at Death is the best representation of this deck. The other key cards of this deck are Imperial Recruiter, Reveillark, and Felidar Guardian. The deck's game plan is to either out value and beat down your opponent or to tutor out their infinite combo (Kiki+Felidar). The card choices for this deck is fairly large with the only requirement is the creature having a power of 2.

Kiki-Jiki's role in the deck is to act as another flicker enabler and be part of an infinite combo. His 2 power/toughness makes him a target to tutor with either recruiter and a reanimation target for Reveillark. 

Special Notes

As mentioned, Kiki-Jiki, the Mirror Breaker can 2 card infinite combo with a large slew of cards. Also since it makes a copy, it can essentially double trigger attack triggers. Lastly, the copies are sacrificed, not exiled, at the end of turn, so be aware of what this means.

EDIT: Originally I did not mention Conspicuous Snoop because it's a card I do not consider for cube because of its niche. It is an important card to mention because it does have an infinite combo with Kiki-Jiki. As long as Kiki-Jiki is revealed at the top of your deck, the snoop will have the of the goblin at the top of your deck. It can use the ability to target itself and go infinite ETBs and tokens. The major problem with the card though is that it is way too narrow for traditional cubes. It has the hallmark of a parasitic card, which is that it cares only about goblin. Goblins are numerous in cubes, however there is still not a high enough density of them to warrant making this card a viable option. If you run tribal in your cube, this might be a consideration as a payoff card, otherwise avoid it.

Alternatives

The alternatives to Kiki-Jiki are not able to replicate the infinite combo as well if at all, so if you want to include them based on that it might not be possible.

With the release of NEO, we got the best call back to Kiki-Jiki with Fable of the Mirror-Breaker. The is essentially 2 creatures for 5 mana over the course of 3 turns. On the initial turn it comes out you can given a 2/2 goblin that generate a treasure token every chance it gets to attack. This token plays well with what red could be doing in cube. The token and flip side nicely fit into goblin decks looking for more goblins since this card is essentially 2 goblins. The token generates a treasure token likening it to a slower pseudo Ragavan. That treasure can also to used as a sacrifice target for Goblin Welder and Daretti. The second step has the player filtering their hand, which is generally useful. This also facilitates any graveyard strats. The final step flips the card into Reflection of Kiki-Jiki. The difference between this and the actual Kiki-Jiki is that Reflection loses haste and needs to pay 1 to use the tap ability. It still remains a goblin shaman, so those synergies will still be in play.

The small differences between Kiki-Jiki and his reflection are huge. He loses the ability to go infinite with just another card and not having haste means you will have to wait a turn to even activate the ability, this is on top of waiting for the saga to flip as well makes playing this card somewhay difficult . Once this card flips, this is basically the balanced version of Kiki-Jiki. The token is the saving grace that makes this card playable and the activated ability with let's the card maintain late game relevancy. 

EDIT: Having played with this card more thanks to MTGA, this card is powerful on its own and should not be underestimated. A user on reddit mentioned that even though it cannot infinite combo, you can still use it to turn anything into a Fireball, which is just as game ending, though you're restricted by your own mana.

If you have access to both card, I would run both cards since they are powerful and having more redundancy to this effect should be fine. If you can't find or afford a Kiki-Jiki, this card will be an acceptable option. If you had to pick one of the other Kiki-Jiki without question is the choice.

Splinter Twin is a card that is often mentioned alongside Kiki-Jiki and it might be the best replication of what you want to be doing with Kiki-Jiki. It fits in almost the same combos and is a flicker enabler as mentioned earlier when discussed on Kiki-Twin. I highly recommend running both for the sake of redundancy, but if I had to choose one Kiki-Jiki is still better since creature interactions.

Flamerush Rider fills the role of Kiki-Jiki in aggressive decks and actually might be better in that role, but lack of versatility elsewhere hurts this card. This card has a pseudo haste in dash. It allows Rider to activate its ability a turn earlier than Kiki-Jiki could. When this card attacks, it creates a temporary copy until end of combat. This will trigger any ETB again or allow another large creature to swing in.There are several problems with this card. The token comes in tapped and attacking, which prevents attack triggers from happening. In addition, the token will exile itself at the end of combat. This prevents death triggers from occurring normally. 

If you're looking to play red flicker or fires then this will suffice in those decks as a substitute for Kiki-Jiki. Outside, this card is not as powerful.

Commander Cube Considerations

Kiki-Jiki is an automatic in to any commander cube with no restriction. This is an option for commander, though most of the time he'll be in the deck.

Conclusion

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