Slivers in Modern?

[BBG|Scott-Spain]

Would it be uncouth to necro this thread with new additions?

[Phoenix Ignition]

Diffusion sliver seems like a pretty awesome pseudo Crystalline Sliver. I dunno if you want to run black, but I guess with the 5 color lands and Vials it isn't so bad. Diffusion solves a lot of problems this deck would face way better than Kira would have. Still, you don't have anything along the lines of a Silvergill Adept to reduce the impact of board wipers. I'm not sure being 5 color on a Sliver Hive manabase helps your non-creature spells either.

I think you'd want mutavaults in here as well, which makes the Sliver Hive's 2nd ability a little worse too, since they kind of do the same thing but SH's costs way more and if you get to super late game you're probably dead either way.

[Mr. Safety]

I've tinkered with bant vial slivers, and this new kira sliver is just right for it. The white and green alows for eight lords at 2 mana, the blue one drop provides flying, and gemhide or the other new mana sliver makes for explosive plays. Add vial, some mix of path, mana leak, and bant charm and you basically have a deck.

[JPoJohnson]

Would you ever want to include Phantasmal Image for more 'lords'?

[wonderPreaux]

Would you ever want to include Phantasmal Image for more 'lords'?

idk know a ton about how effects stack, but could duping diffusion sliver work too?

[Mr. Safety]

Would you ever want to include Phantasmal Image for more 'lords'?

I'm not sure it would be as good as it is in merfolk. Slivers have better quality one drops than merfolk, such as sidewinder sliver and virulent sliver. I think it has the potential to be faster, more aggressive. I'm not sure it wants tricks like image. Curving into bonescythe or essence sliver seems ok, but I think harmonic sliver is probably worth slors before image. I could very well be completely wrong on this, but I think slivers have better options in their own tribe than image.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Duping Diffusions with Phantasmal isn't very good since they can just target him to kill him without caring if the spell gets countered afterwards. I also don't like Image as much without a Silvergill to copy, since that was often the best strategy if you know you're facing a control deck or something with board wipers. I agree that overall you'd be better off just using other slivers.

[BBG|Scott-Spain]

I've tinkered with bant vial slivers, and this new kira sliver is just right for it. The white and green alows for eight lords at 2 mana, the blue one drop provides flying, and gemhide or the other new mana sliver makes for explosive plays. Add vial, some mix of path, mana leak, and bant charm and you basically have a deck.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of Bant Slivers. We wouldn't even need Manaweft or Gemhide. The access to Harmonic makes this insane, also.

Another build I've been thinking about is an Esper or B/R Blitzkrieg-style deck that takes advantage of Leeching.

[Mr. Safety]

I like manaweft/gemhide as a way to supplement vial. They both scale up with extra slivers...this could make for some explosive mana situations. I've done pauper slivers in g/b for gemhide and basal sliver. You tap them all for mana and then sac them for bb each, unload a big drain life. In modern bant colors I think the added big mana potential can allow curving higher for fat late game plays, maybe 2-4 of the fat slivers from m14. If there is a chance for doing some combo potential that would put it over the top. Tooth and Nail comes to mindn and maybe the bant ultimatum to make it a one turn clock.

[Finn]

I would be a little surprised if slivers was not able to be made successfully in modern. In my view, the deck is way better with Mirror Entity because of the interaction with sliver lords. Unlike all other lords, slivers get the +1/+1 bonuses after the power and toughness is calculated for Mirror Entity. This makes Aether Vial a powerful tool for extra damage after blocks.

4 Galerider Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
2 Diffusion Sliver
2 Opaline Sliver
2 Harmonic Sliver
4 Mirror Entity
4 Aether Vial
4 Path to Exile
4 Spell Pierce
4 *some sort of card draw, preferably not Lead the Stampede or anything green*
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Mutavault
4 Flooded Strand
1 Windswept heath
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
4 Hallowed Fountain
1 Island
1 Plains

I don't know enough about Modern to tune this, unfortunately. I leave that to my betters.

[JPoJohnson]

4 *some sort of card draw, preferably not Lead the Stampede or anything green*

The new card Military Intelligence?

[Phoenix Ignition]

The problem with any deck that's trying to win by creatures is going to be having enough disruption to shut down the turn 4 Splinter Twin or the turn 5ish Pod combos. You can't effectively race those 2 decks and without almost anything in the way of a road bump you can't stop them from killing you.

Even having 4 Spell Pierce, 4 Path, and 4 of something like Remand is tough at stopping something like Twin, and Pod regularly gets a turn 2 Birthing Pod negating all countermagic.

[JPoJohnson]

Flooded and Windswept aren't currently modern legal either - Probably up Misty to 4 and add 2 Arid Mesa or w/e instead.

[Finn]

Flooded and Windswept aren't currently modern legal either - Probably up Misty to 4 and add 2 Arid Mesa or w/e instead.

Right you are about the lands. Question: is there a compelling reason for an aggro deck to have any basic lands at all?

Also,

The problem with any deck that's trying to win by creatures is going to be having enough disruption to shut down the turn 4 Splinter Twin or the turn 5ish Pod combos. You can't effectively race those 2 decks and without almost anything in the way of a road bump you can't stop them from killing you.

Is that so? I did not know that it was such a rat race. This is the biggest reason Slivers can't stand up in Legacy. Merfolk, generally considered to be the better version of Slivers, has disruption and utility built into some of its creatures. Every single one of the creatures in Slivers is designed to deliver damage and nothing else. That leaves precious little room for anything else.

In that case, what if we forgot the card draw for more counterspells?

[Phoenix Ignition]

Adding countermagic will give you 2 very different games. The good kind is where you get an Aether Vial in your opening hand and you can keep mana open and tempo your opponent out, but the bad kind is where you don't get the vial and have to choose between keeping 2 mana up for a Remand/Mana Leak and putting more damage on the board. I'm pretty opposed to decks that play like that since it adds too much luck to your results, so I'd actually go with removal over countermagic.

Since Pod/Twin both need creatures to combo out (and the 3rd contender of the format, Affinity plays mostly creatures), I'd go with cheap removal. Merfolk plays the hell out of Vapor Snag which is just incredible. It doubles as saving your own slivers from removal, which is great, but generally you're not playing the attrition game against any deck so you are fine with just making them recast stuff (kind of like remand, except better since you don't need to keep mana untapped). I'd probably try to fit in 8 removal, 4 Vapor Snag + 4 Path to Exile since they'll effectively remove blockers from your path for long enough to hopefully win.

[YamiJoey]

choose between keeping 2 mana up for a Remand/Mana Leak and putting more damage on the board. I'm pretty opposed to decks that play like that since it adds too much luck to your results

That's not how Magic works. You just need to learn how to play these decks and you'll be playing correctly, not guessing.

Merfolk has recently switched to an Aggro Disruption deck, rather than the traditional Threats + Countermagic tempo strategy we've seen out of them, using cards like Vapor Snag and a much higher volume of Creatures. With Slivers we have 2 Lords and Image, just like they do, a 2-mana pseudo counterspell Vs their 1-mana variant, and a 1-mana "your guys are unblockable" Vs their Islandwalk strategy. Seeing as all of the best decks play fliers and Islands, Merfolk has a huge win on that front as far as I'm concerned. Rest Angel is a very real threat, and they can trade Pestermites up really easily by blocking our guy, bolting the Lord and then we lose a pair of 3/3's. This is where Vapor Snag will really shine. Your opponent won't get the value from their Pestermite, leaving then spending 3-mana on a Bolt to kill a guy and still take 3. They then can't kill you on the untap. Snag seems really powerful in every game right now.

I'd prefer this list:

Creatures: 20
4 Galerider Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Diffusion Sliver
4 Phantasmal Image
4 Predatory Sliver

Spells: 18
4 Æther Vial
4 Path to Exile
4 Vapor Snag
4 Mana Leak
2 Remand

Lands: 22
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Sliver Hive
4 Mutavault
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool

Lands are a little iffy, but it's just Meat Hooks. The only thing I want to find room for is Disrupting Shoal, and preferably without cutting anything that costs 1 (or too much). Shoal is how we power out our early threats, just like Vial. The draws with Vial/Shoal can seem awkward until you just start jamming it as UUX. Against Living End, it's a Counterspell. Woop woop! I would be a fan of cutting Green, as it's there for a single 4-of. We can handle basically any card in the format in that slot. What I'd like to do is play some Snapcaster Mages. It's half the reason most of the best decks get their free wins.

[cherub_daemon]

The only thing I want to find room for is Disrupting Shoal, and preferably without cutting anything that costs 1 (or too much). Shoal is how we power out our early threats, just like Vial. ...
I would be a fan of cutting Green, as it's there for a single 4-of. We can handle basically any card in the format in that slot.

Already kind of discussed, but what about pulling the 4 Predatory Sliver for some split of Disrupting Shoal and Mirror Entity? Entity is "lord-adjacent", which makes him a better replacement for Predatory than your other options.

The one tricky thing about Entity over Predatory is that I think it will make Phantasmal Image worse, since it will only have Diffusion and Sinew Sliver as good targets. Opaline Sliver might be better than Entity for this reason, and the fact that it pitches to Shoal at 3, but beating someone to death with Scryb Sprites is...tedious.

This last idea is almost certainly getting too cute, but...what about keeping Predatory and ditching white, where we run Venom Sliver (new in 2015, 1G, adds deathtouch) over Path? Now your 8 5-color lands can do more of the heavy lifting and you have a little more striking power. You would probably want to add more bounce (2 Echoing Truth for 2 Phantasmal Images?) if you went that way.

[Thor Hammer]

I have a Legacy sliver deck, and this is about as close as I can get to it under Modern regulations. The biggest difference between the two is actually the manabase, because the legacy version has more fetch lands with the non-shock version of the dual lands. Diffusion Sliver replaces Crystalline Sliver, and Opaline Sliver replaces Muscle Sliver. Also, Serum Visions replaces Brainstorm.

Main Board:
4 Galerider Sliver
4 Diffusion Sliver
4 Phantasmal Image
4 Opaline Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver

4 Aether Vial

4 Path to Exile
4 Spell Pierce
4 Serum Visions

2 Cavern of Souls
2 Sliver Hive
4 Mutavault
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple Garden
1 Breeding Pool
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest

Sideboard:
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Meddling Mage
4 Disenchant
3 Detention Sphere


Mana Curve:
1 = 20
2 = 16
3 = 4

Mana Symbols:
Blue = 24
White = 12
Green = 4

[JPoJohnson]

I think trying to build a deck for modern and basing it off of legacy will lead to poor results for you.

Example: Merfolk dropped the counter suite and goes hyper-aggro with Vapor Snag in there to muddle up the mixture and get additional damage in. They dropped counters to their sideboard.

Having said that, I think that Phantasmal Image is NOT where Slivers want to be. Far too fragile imo. I'm liking completely ditching Diffusion Sliver and sticking with regenerate with Sedge Sliver. I think that card is extremely underrated! Also, I think that Diffusion and Opaline in the same deck is a little unnecessary personally

Right you are about the lands. Question: is there a compelling reason for an aggro deck to have any basic lands at all?

If you have issues with Blood Moon coming down early in your meta.

[Phoenix Ignition]

That's not how Magic works. You just need to learn how to play these decks and you'll be playing correctly, not guessing.

Was referencing decks that have vial and explode or don't draw vial and flounder.

I like having at least 1 basic since fetch lands can really hurt against some decks and you sometimes need that mana the turn you grab the land. Added bonus is it helps against blood moons, but I think having the ability to not shock yourself when you draw a fetchland is necessary.