[Deck] Countersliver (MeatHooks)

[thulnanth]

Also, I really miss Stifling a first turn Fetch. It's just so good. It's seriously like sex on the first date.


Darn it Pinder, now I've got to work my Stifles back into the deck - thanks a lot :tongue:

Take it easy,
Jared

[BeeblesofLife]

I dunno if this has been talked about much yet...But has countertop been tried at all in slivers? Seeing as how slivers has sort of a thresh type of cantrip base and all. For thresh it seems to work wonders. Maybe keep like two tops main and put a 3rd top SB and SB threeCounterbalance?
Sorry if this has been talked about already I havent been lurking the forums for some time now.

[godryk]

I've been testing the last Volt's list incluiding Aether Vial and Talon Sliver. Aether Vial has proven to be useful, but I'm wondering wich number of slivers you have to run to make it worthy.

I mean, Talon Sliver sounds good to me, but I'm thinking that putting Counterspell and Vial together is pretty sexy, while Talon can be left in the sideboard if necessary. I sometimes felt that Volt's list needed some more control elements. Spell Snare is, in my opinion, better in those list not running Vial.


SB:
4 Meddling Mage
4 Spell Snare
3 Pithing Needle
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Harmonic Sliver

Anyway, I'm curious about what to side out to bring Spell Snare in.

I will test this:
-2 Talon sliver
-1 Daze
+3 Counterspells

I'll keep the Talon Slivers in the SB.

By the way, 3 Aether Vial is the right choice.

[BeeblesofLife]

Meh, Talon sliver seems good MB.
The card(as I've seen from personal experience) is amazing. It helps deal with thresh's critters(maybe not goyf) by stack blocking and surviving.
It gives an even greater edge vs gobbos(I hope this deck dies soon). It seems like that Talon sliver gives an edge in so many matchups. Can anyone give a negative to it?

[kicks_422]

Actually, with Goyf around, Talon Sliver seems so much better. Chump blocking Goyfs without losing any of your Slivers is great. The only negative against it would have to be its near un-usefulness against combo, since it's a 2cc 1/1 creature that doesn't add a significant clock by itself, and can't be pitched to FoW as a consolation.

[cheddercaveman]

I would say metagame would be the decision maker between having more counter magic vs talon sliver. Talon sliver is clearly going to be the right choice if you have a lot of aggro. If your facing a lot of combo in your area then I would suggest running the counterspells. My overall feel for the legacy environment has been that its heavy on aggro and aggro-control so that would make me say that if your unsure stick with talon. The only comment that I will add to that is that CRET Belcher is becoming more popular and it's deadly. Therefore, if a shift occurs towards that, more countermagic might be a better idea.

[BeeblesofLife]

I dont know if this has been brought up as a SB card but, have any of you thought of using chalice in the Sb? I think that setting it at 0 would stop cret belcher for a short while and it also helps against EPIC storm. On that topic stifle does the job just as well though. So are people MB stifle or is it still a SB choice?

[Q 221]

Well, I'm finally putting together the stuff to play this deck, and I just figured I should bring something up.

Standstill has been brought up here and there as a card for CounterSliver, but I never really saw a solid rebuttal as to why it should not be used. It seems like amazing draw, and it can help a lot in control matchups, which seem to be the problem for this deck. I'm going to start my list running Standstills over Portents, since it gives a ton of draw, takes advantage of the low landbase (if you don't have many lands, you'll draw more gas with generic card draw), and could allow us to survive mass removal, either by having the counters to stop it or by allowing us to keep Slivers in hand without slowing down much. Since we're running Aether Vial, we don't even have to slow down much in dropping threats.

Any thoughts?

[thefreakaccident]

trust me it doesn't work out that great... control decks will either be happy that you just did that or simply won't care...

If you are going to go that route (with slower power draw that is), you might wanna run ancestral visions (although I would usually not promote that card, cuz I think it is terrible).

[frogboy]

When do you propose to play Standstill?

[Kronicler]

The reason that Standstill is a poor choice in this deck is because the deck is, especially in it's current incarnation, much farther to the aggro side of aggro control. Remember that Aether Vial doesn't instantly mean that Standstill is an option. You may notice that the deck plays no counterspells. This is because we want to be playing slivers or playing cantrips to get more slivers, never leave mana open instead of playing threats. Standstill does the same thing to us, it stops us from playing threats. The reason we want to continuously play threats is because once we get an army down on the board, most decks have no way to beat us. Against board control decks, the game plan changes of course.

Kronicler

[SuckerPunch]

I know that its unorthodox, and the idea of playing a nonsliver in a slivers deck is blasphemy.

But what do you guys think of Tarmogoyf in the deck?

It helps you out versus hate directed against slivers. And it's a great massive beater all by itself.

Where as before, mass removal meant that there's little chance you could recover by playing enough slivers that they all get big again.

Now, one Tarmogoyf is all you need to make a comeback.

[Pinder]

I know that its unorthodox, and the idea of playing a nonsliver in a slivers deck is blasphemy.

But what do you guys think of Tarmogoyf in the deck?



Eh, Mav and I have batted the idea around a bit, if only because it seems like Tarmogoyf should be splashed in everything these days. We've never actually tested it, but it's enough of a beater that it doesn't really matter if it's a Sliver or not. And it certainly would lend you some late game gas.


As to Standstill, when I tried it I found that it was usually slowing me down more than my opponent. This deck wants to abuse Aether Vial, to be sure, but it also wants to be actually playing threats alongside it as well. Usually when I had Standstill on the table it was preventing me from playing things that would help me win faster. I suppose that with Vial as a 3-of it warrants a little more consideration, but I'm not really comfortable with depending entirely on Vial to put in creatures under Standstill.

I suppose, though, it might be a viable Ringleader-esque option, something to plop down after you've dropped all of the gas in your hand, to sit on a favorable board position and refill when they break it. But waiting with a Standstill in hand until you have nice board position can be painful sometimes. This deck isn't quite like Landstill in that it doesn't want to just plop down a Standstill on the 2nd turn and play from underneath it. I see Standstill as a turn 4 play at the earliest, honestly, because you really want to be sticking dudes to the table up till then.

[SuckerPunch]

If you end up testing it. Be sure to post here how the card does. I'm curious.

[kicks_422]

If you fit in Tarmogoyfs, I guess you'll be taking out some combination of Slivers. Once you do though, to make up for the un-untargetabilty of Goyf, you might as well fit in some Nimble Mongeese. And maybe Mystic Enforcer as well, since it has flying and could replace Winged Sliver.

I guess you all know what I'm saying.

[cheddercaveman]

I haven't seen a card so rediculously hyped in such a long time. Its called counterSLIVER, and there is an honest debate to put in a creature that is not a sliver. I think the answer to tarmogoyf is simple, and its the same answer that 95% of all creatures played in vintage have ... Swords to Plowshares

[zulander]

With aggro control on the rise, has anyone tried out oblation?

2W
Sorcery
Each player chooses a creature type, then sacrifices all creatures not of the chosen type.

Seems great in the SB against fish/aggro decks. I don't think it's that great in the main due to goblins running around.

[Pinder]

With aggro control on the rise, has anyone tried out oblation?

2W
Sorcery
Each player chooses a creature type, then sacrifices all creatures not of the chosen type.

Seems great in the SB against fish/aggro decks. I don't think it's that great in the main due to goblins running around.

Actually, that's not Oblation. Oblation lets you shuffle a permanent back in to draw 2 cards (perhaps not a bad idea either).

The card you're thinking of is Harsh Mercy, and no, I hadn't actually thought of that. It could be a decent answer to Mongoose, I suppose.

Only thing is, Thresh is likely only going to have 1 or 2 creatures anyway. What's to stop them from naming Lhurgoyf, keeping their 2 Tarmogoyfs, and beating face anyway? I suppose though, that if you can grab all of their Mystic Enforcers/Fledgling Dragons/Mongoose with it, it's still a decent trade.

[zulander]

Well you still run STP correct? Along with a couple of viled in slivers there's your answer.

[Pinder]

Well you still run STP correct? Along with a couple of viled in slivers there's your answer.

You have me there. It's definitely worth a shot.

And actually I've been thinking more and more about the actual Oblation in the Sb vs mass removal. I mean, save a dude + draw 2 cards could go a long way in getting set up again after a WoG or Deed. And I suppose that it could always be used as removal in a pinch, to get rid of a blocker before you swing for lethal or something.

It does cost 3 though, which sucks.

[noobslayer]

@Pinder:

Has a black splash been considered lately? It provides the powerful non-sliver Dark Confidant, as well as making engineered explosives a more viable option for higher cc removal. And Ghastly Demise as another removal spell.

Also, Tarmogoyf.

[Kronicler]

Noobslayer, I can't tell if your post is serious or not. If it is, then I whole heartedly disagree with you about running Bob or Goyf in this deck. We all know that they are incredible creatures, but the whole point of playing slivers is that they all benefit eachother. By playing non-sliver creatures in this deck you a) give your opponents targeted removal a use, b) make all your slivers worse because when you play that Bob or Goyf you could be playing a sliver that would pump all the other slivers already on the table.

Kronicler

[Nihil Credo]

And actually I've been thinking more and more about the actual Oblation in the Sb vs mass removal. I mean, save a dude + draw 2 cards could go a long way in getting set up again after a WoG or Deed. And I suppose that it could always be used as removal in a pinch, to get rid of a blocker before you swing for lethal or something.

It does cost 3 though, which sucks.

Perilous Research is a two-mana Oblation that, perhaps more importantly, doesn't create a 1-for-2 in the face of instant-speed removal. It also allows you to sacrifice extra lands for cards. The only downside is you can't use it as removal, but I think the upsides make up for it.

[godryk]

After GenCon results, everybody is now trying to fit Wasteland in all Threshold decks I'm seeing, even in 3-color ones. Two of three UGr Threshold lists that got into the Top 8 were running 3-4 Wastelands.

You all know we're playing less cantrips than Threshold, wich usually runs 12 cantrips, but I'm seriously considering running Wasteland in Counterslivers, specially if we have Aether Vial to protect us from mana denial. Anyway I won't play without, at least, one island.

What about something like this?

4 Flooded Strand
3 Windswepth Heath
3 Tundra
3 Tropical
1 Island
4 Wasteland

3 Aether Vial

Seems crazy? maybe, but those Thres decks made it to the Top 8 without basics and many decks were running wasteland, I think wasteland should be tested, specially when the metagame is getting more focused in control and slow combo decks.

[Maverick676]

The problem is your really running like 14 land, wasteland doesn't count as a mana source since you will in all probability be saccing it. Not to mention crystalline sliver costs UW kinda rough with wasteland in such a tight manabase.

[godryk]

It's just a suggestion, you can play 3 wasteland and some more colored lands. Crystalline is the only multicoloured card.

Anyway just an idea, I know Counterslivers is not Threshold but I think that both run similar manabases with simillar weaknesses. Of course it's not the same, they run 12 or more cantrips, but we don't really play like a 3-color deck as we have a little splash of green for muscle sliver. We also have Aether Vial wich is great.

I admit I wouldn't have ever considered it some months ago, but now I think it deserves a little bit consideration, but, I insist, just an idea.

[cheddercaveman]

This deck isnt about mana denial as a strategy, so why play wasteland. This deck is all about tempo. It throws down big damage in a small amount of time, while backing it up with disruption (force, daze, StP, crystalline sliver). Wasteland could be used as disruption too, but your sacrificing your mana to do so. If you want the tempo advantage of wasteland, run stifle and hit there fetches with it. Same tempo with out nearly the damage to your mana base.

[cheddercaveman]

@Pinder:

Has a black splash been considered lately? It provides the powerful non-sliver Dark Confidant, as well as making engineered explosives a more viable option for higher cc removal. And Ghastly Demise as another removal spell.

Also, Tarmogoyf.

If this is serious here are my comments...

Dark Confidant in this deck is definitely not worth a 4th splash color, the cantrips, and card qualitfy are plenty for this deck.

Secondly, people need to STOP trying to put 'goyf in everything. It makes no sense for this deck. On average Tarmogofy is a 4/5 for 2 for the same cost as muscle sliver. Muscle sliver on his own is a 2/2, BUT when you played a turn 1 plated sliver, turn 2 muscle sliver, and turn 3 sinew sliver. you now have 3 3/4s (9 damage) where as you *might* have at best 4/5 'goyf and another 4 damage in slivers. Yes, its only a little difference, but your also not making your 'goyf fly or untargetable either. Terrible idea, and it does NOT improve your damage output.

[Clark Kant]

I think it's going to be hard to justify running this deck over Thresh now that Goyf saw print.

The problem with all those slivers is, you have to overextend like crazy to make them into reasonable sized threats.

It leaves you vulnerable to threat light hands (you just don't draw enough pump slivers to put your opponent on any sort of a clock) and it leaves you esp vulnerable now that Landstill is making a comeback.

To get Muscle Sliver as 4/4, you need 3 of them in play. How often does that happen?

Goyf is a 4/5 all by itself and yet still wins the fight.

Before Goyf, the one advantage that Slivers had over Thresh was that it could more threats and thus put your opponent on a faster clock. So much for that.

Thats why I can no longer think of any good reason to run this over Threshold decks.

Now if the deck were to cut some noncreature spells to play some Goyfs. The deck would once again be faster than Thresh and thus would retain it's previous advantage.

That's all I'm saying.

It might be a horrible idea, but I just though it worth atleast bringing up.

[Curby]

I think it's going to be hard to justify running this deck over Thresh now that Goyf saw print.

The problem with all those slivers is, you have to overextend like crazy to make them into reasonable sized threats.

Goyf is wonderful, but I'm not sure if it's unbeatable. In your example he's only 1 toughness bigger than a Threshed Bear. Is it that much of a concern?

How many slivers does it take before you're overextending like crazy? If you have a Crystalline, Winged, Muscle, and Talon, you can gangblock the 4/5 (or 5/6) Goyf with the pumpers while Crystalline goes in for 3 a turn. Replace Talon with another Muscle/Sinew and you can trade with a Goyf while you attack with two Slivers for a 4-turn clock. (Note: he'd have 3 Goyfs left and you'd have 19 Slivers.) I think Aether Vial and its tricks lets such trades happen more often than the Thresh player would like.

As noted above, you run 50-100% more creatures than Thresh, and every one can get as big as the 4 Goyfs will ever get (as opposed to Confidant, Goose, Meddling Mage, etc.). Of course, we've just been talking creature combat... you could always Swords a Goyf, a favor they can't* return.

I'm just getting back into Legacy so I may be off, but again, it's just +0/+1 compared to a bear...

* Well, they'll have 4-8 creature kill preboard and more cantrips than you do. Hope you draw that Crystalline early! =)

Edit: I think I'm underestimating Thresh's speed. Please beat me with cluesticks as necessary. =)

[Volt]

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[Curby]

Just a newbie's war report. No real news here...

I just won a small (5-man) double elimination tourney here in town, for which I think fully-built Meathooks would be a bit overpowered. Talk about last minute though... I got 4 fetches and 4 Harmonics in the mail this morning, and sleeved the deck for the first time literally 10 minutes before the tourney.

In the end it still wasn't fully built. My maindeck subbed in two Windswept Heaths for missing Polluted Deltas, and a Harmonic Sliver for a missing Sinew Sliver. My sideboard was totally undeveloped, and ran:

3 Winter Orb
1 Forest (I knew 1-2 guys were playing blast, and was afraid of Price of Progress)
4 Spell Snare
1 Essence Sliver (anti-blast)
1 Chill (anti-blast, i really thought i had two :mad: )
1 Worship (anti-blast)
2 Reprisal (newbie choice, but I was expecting Goyf)
2 Harmonic Sliver

First round against random White Weenie deck. He played unsleeved and didn't seem to shuffle very well, which might have led to getting first manascrewed then manaflooded. I only took damage from fetchlands in 2 games. :rolleyes:

Result: 2-0

Second round was against a reasonably well-made Burn deck. Early Muscle/Sinew horde won game one, and a fast blast hand combined with my mulligan-to-5 led to a loss in the second game. Getting to 7 against Burn without countermagic in hand is deadly.

Third game was interesting. He finally started targeting my Slivers, and we ended up in a top-deck war. I drew Worship, FoW, Winged, and Crystalline (in roughly that order) and cast Crystalline. He tried to REB but I gambled by casting FoW to force Crystalline through. With me at 5 after FoW and him at 7, I was hoping that I could then cast Worship next turn, even though I'd be unable to counter a topdecked Flamebreak. On his turn he cast Flame Rift, bringing us to 1 and 3. Muscle or Sinew would win the game, which I thankfully got. Had I not gotten a pumpsliver I could have probably held out for a while with Crystalline+Worship.

Question: If you're playing Burn at 7 life against hooks at 5 life with a Crystalline on the board, and you topdeck a Flame Rift, do you play it? It seems awfully risky. If you play it, you get 1 more turn in the BEST case scenario (hooks draws no pumper). If you don't play it, you see another turn even in the WORST case.

Sided: -4 StP, -1 Harmonic, +2 Spell Snare, +1 Essence/Chill/Worship (He helpfully told me that he had one Price of Progress, so the forest stayed out.)

Result: 2-1

I thought Mr. Round Three was also playing burn, but it turned out to be a mono green aggro deck with evasive guys (Silhana Ledgewalker, Giant Solifuge, Dryad Sophisticate) and big pumpers (Stonewood Invocation, Might of Old Krosa, Jitte, Loxodon Warhammer). With frequent land-go first turns, it seemed like a bigger, slower version of the 9-land stompy theme. Since it had no removal, Needles and Mages would wreck this deck but I didn't have them. In this matchup, Aether Vial helped provide some speed and trickery, and learning that he had no sweepers let me play more aggressively. I never dropped under 10 life.

Sided: -1 Harmonic (I didn't know about all the equipment after game 1), -1 something, +2 Reprisal

Result: 2-0

Round 4 bye

Round 5 for the tourney was once again against the wacky green deck. Mulled to 5 again on game 1, and not countering a Warhammer cost me the game. A field of Muscles couldn't race with a Sophisticate draining 5+ life a turn, and by the time I StPed the Sophisticate, he had others to re-equip and swing for the win (I was at 1 for 3 turns). Fun game.

Seeing that his deck was a bit slow, I sided out Plated Slivers and another card for the Reprisals and extra Harmonics. Seeing him tap out every turn for his expensive pump spells, I was really tempted to side in Winter Orb, but a little hesitant over how it would affect my own tempo. Fourth Vial in the side might have helped.

Harmonizing Jittes and Warhammers gave me the next two games, and again I never dropped under 10 life.

Result: 2-1

In the end it was an interesting learning experience, being both my first time using hooks in a structured environment, and my first time playing in any Magic tourney (heh, noob). I made a few mistakes and the deck got a few bad draws (combining to result in the two lost games), but with a little more experience and a better sideboard I think I can do respectably even against a (slightly) better meta. The manabase is amazingly consistent at only 17 lands, especially when combined with shuffle+cantrip tricks. Vialing in slivers during opponent's turn is great fun, whether to keep mana open, play combat tricks, or appear to dodge summoning sickness.


In case anyone missed the memo, EE happens to be very bad for slivers.

So I guess running EE with Chalice will absolutely destroy Countersliver, but is there any chance to design around that? Would 2 Harmonics maindeck and 2 in the side slow it down too much?

I understand if it's a lost cause, but I admire decks like Angel Stompy that have been able to adapt with the meta (to stay effective if not dominating) and hope this deck has some more life in it.

Anyway, if hooks really becomes obsolete, it's only 10 critters and a few cantrips away from a (somewhat outdated) UGw Thresh build. =)

[Volt]

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[kicks_422]

Then I guess it's time to MD some Pithing Needles for the EE's and maybe some Talon Slivers for Thresh... 3 slivers can take down Tarmogoyf without one dying...

While I have to agree that Thresh is just a better deck than this for the meta, I still think it would hold its own. Besides, it's always better to pawn with Slivers than to pawn with Tarmogoyf.

[godryk]

I was last friday in a 13-15 people store tournament with a pretty standar Meathooks list, replacing 2 Talon Slivers for Counterspells, because in my meta good players play Landstill and simillar decks, so I didn't like MD Talons.

I ended 5th and went something like 5-1-4 after four rounds. I can say that Krosan Grip is really kickass, as it blows our number 1 enemy, the evil EE. I will play 3, it was my MVP (besides crystalline sliver, wich I'm in love with).

Let's talk about SB. I've also seen somebady playing Mind Harness as a SB option against Tarmogoyf, instead of usual choices like Threads of Disloyalty or control Magic.

I also think that I'll play Armaggedon against Landstill, because I had some situations in wich I would have liked to play it, winning me some games I couldn't win, when you try to overpower them and they start to play thousands of Mishras and evil Monasteries, you know, a resolved Armaggedon will let you strike for its last pints of life.

Anyway, Vial seems stronger than I previously thought, specially with so many counters ther out.

I'll finish with one of the last rumoured cards, Gaddock Teeg, wich can sometimes been better than Meddling Mage, having its same weakness, but also shuts down Belcher and TES almost as effectively as Mage does, if not better. And also shuts down the Sliver's best friend, EE, so, I think it deserves a try, at least.

[Volt]

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[Pinder]

Um, yeah, I just saw the spoiler. Gaddock Teeg is verrrrrry interesting. He does solve some of our problems. Bad synergy with Force of Will, though.

Well, it's not like we'd be maindecking him. Of course, switching Force out for this guy would be risky to say the least. It's probably a better idea to just leave Force in and gloss over the dissynergy (is that a word?) with Force of Will. I mean, once this guy sticks against combo we won't really need Force until they deal with him anyway. It's just too bad that we can't use Force to protect him.

And at 2cc, he is very Vial-able, which I really like about him.

[Volt]

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[cheddercaveman]

I think in this deck this guy would be challenging Meddling Mage for that sideboard slot, and I'm just not sure that this guy is good enough to trump the Mage in legacy and/or in this deck. But its an interesting thought.

[Volt]

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[kicks_422]

While I agree that Gaddock is a very strong card, I don't think it would help against combo much more than Meddling Mage. Unlike Mage, it can't stop all the tutors which combo can use to get an answer to him, and multiples of it are bad. And besides, it's not like you Mage for Tendrils more than you Mage for Burning Wish against TES for example.

What it WOULD help against would be board control decks though - no more Deed, Wrath/Damnation, Disk, Humility, all that.

So I guess it all comes down to shoring up either combo or your control MU. And I hear that this deck already has a good combo MU even without Mages, so...

[xsockmonkeyx]

What it WOULD help against would be board control decks though - no more Deed, Wrath/Damnation, Disk, Humility, all that.

How does it stop Deed?

[kicks_422]

How does it stop Deed?

Didn't you read his flavor text? With such great wisdom, no Pernicious Deeds will be hatched.

Actually, my bad. I intended to say Rolling Earthquake.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Clearly you meant Crime/Punishment. :smile:

[godryk]

Well, after some thinking, I consider that sideboarding Gaddock+Needle is stronger than Meddling+Needle, as Needle takes care of Pernicious Deed. The real advantage Gaddock has over MM is that gives you such a lot of card advantage (well, virtual Card advantage), one shuts down many cards, and nowadays, combo decks are built based on multiple win conditions.

Anyway, you can't name High Tide and then go to name Cunning Wish for the win, because if not, the card will be too overpowered. Anyway, that's when the contro part in aggrocontrol is involved...

[cheddercaveman]

I'm not going to say 100% until I test the other guy, or see some results of other testing. But, meddling mage is much, much more flexible, and drawing 2is good, as opposed to drawing 2 of this guy which is not good. Furthermore, against combo, the first thing though should be stopping is their wish. At that point, you know they're not getting any answers. They don't board in their removal generally speaking. At that point all you need to do against belcher is counter the belcher, or the mana production. Its kinda tough to know which one, but still. Also, against solidarity, the cunning wish might be there only way to be sure to win a lot of the times, also good there.

Conversly, play Gaddock, they cast their burning wish, get cave-in, cast it for free, kill your guy, belcher you, tendrils you, empty the warrens, all good again. The wishes are easier to counter than the storm cards though, so as I said, testing is necessary before I say that its not as good.

Remember at this point though too, your forces are dead cards too though, and thats one of the primary ways you were going to hit the burning wish most likely. Meddling Mage both A) pitches to force of will and B) only stops FoW if you actually say that when you cast it.

[diffy]

Conversly, play Gaddock, they cast their burning wish, get cave-in, cast it for free, kill your guy, belcher you, tendrils you, empty the warrens, all good again.


I think you misread Gaddock Teeg (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=56892&stc=1&d=1189398206):

Gaddock Teeg GW
Legendary Creature - Kithkin Advisor

Noncreature spells with converted mana cost 4 or greater can't be played.
Noncreature spells with X in their mana costs can't be played.

As Cave-In (http://magiccards.info/mm/en/180.html) has a converted mana cost of 5 (3RR) it doesn't do anything against him.



Remember at this point though too, your forces are dead cards too though, and thats one of the primary ways you were going to hit the burning wish most likely.


Your Forces are dead cards, yes but so are your opponents Burning Wishes unless he/she is playing some sort of Burn/Bounce in his/her sideboard which to my knowledge both Belcher and EPIC Storm arn't (yet).



Meddling Mage both A) pitches to force of will and B) only stops FoW if you actually say that when you cast it.


Yes, but the problem with Meddling Mage is that you tend to always chant the wrong thing... unless you are holding a Force of Will.

Generally speaking, I'd say that a combination of Gaddock and Mage is the way to go because Mage basically fills the (small) gap Gaddock leaves open.
As a starting point for testing I'd suggest:

3 Gaddock Teeg (-2 Meddling Mage, -1 Spell Snare)
2 Meddling Mage

And then continue working from there.

As an aside, by boarding in Gaddock and Needle against something like Consultant's UWb Landstill (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=158190&postcount=401), a horrible Matchup should actually become winable.

[cheddercaveman]

I think you misread Gaddock Teeg (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=56892&stc=1&d=1189398206):

Gaddock Teeg GW
Legendary Creature - Kithkin Advisor

Noncreature spells with converted mana cost 4 or greater can't be played.
Noncreature spells with X in their mana costs can't be played.

As Cave-In (http://magiccards.info/mm/en/180.html) has a converted mana cost of 5 (3RR) it doesn't do anything against him.



Your Forces are dead cards, yes but so are your opponents Burning Wishes unless he/she is playing some sort of Burn/Bounce in his/her sideboard which to my knowledge both Belcher and EPIC Storm arn't (yet).



Yes, but the problem with Meddling Mage is that you tend to always chant the wrong thing... unless you are holding a Force of Will.

Generally speaking, I'd say that a combination of Gaddock and Mage is the way to go because Mage basically fills the (small) gap Gaddock leaves open.
As a starting point for testing I'd suggest:

3 Gaddock Teeg (-2 Meddling Mage, -1 Spell Snare)
2 Meddling Mage

And then continue working from there.

As an aside, by boarding in Gaddock and Needle against something like Consultant's UWb Landstill (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=158190&postcount=401), a horrible Matchup should actually become winable.

Ok, so i picked the wrong card, pyroclasm still works though. Secondly, under no circumstances would I recommend dropping a spell snare, it is far too amazing. I'm thinking about maindecking them they're so good. The real difference comes down to the fact that with Meddling Mage, I can name ANYTHING i want, and with Gaddock I Have to hope that stopping things >=4 is enough.

Also, if you were going to do a split 3 Meddling Mage 2 Gaddock, he's legendary remember.

[diffy]

Also, if you were going to do a split 3 Meddling Mage 2 Gaddock, he's legendary remember.

He's like way better than Mage because he actually stops most combo decks cold on his own; that's why I opted to split in his favour.
I mean, a single Meddling Mage against Belcher only buys a few turns until they find the other Wincondition at best or is totally useless in worst case (they just kill you with Empty/Belcher whatever you didn't name).
Geddock stops both, Empty the Warrens and Belcher and pushes them to find their 4 off Burning Wish which gives you time to find your Meddling Mages/Counters (Counterspell, Spell Snare) and/or to put your clock on them.

I do however agree that Spell Snare is nice in this deck. You could probably put the 4th back in at the cost of a Pithing Needle because basically Gaddock is almost all the time better against Belcher than Needle and 2 should be plenty to find them against the slow clock of Pernicious Deed Based Control.

[troopatroop]

Ok, so i picked the wrong card, pyroclasm still works though. Secondly, under no circumstances would I recommend dropping a spell snare, it is far too amazing. I'm thinking about maindecking them they're so good. The real difference comes down to the fact that with Meddling Mage, I can name ANYTHING i want, and with Gaddock I Have to hope that stopping things >=4 is enough.

Also, if you were going to do a split 3 Meddling Mage 2 Gaddock, he's legendary remember.

I can't believe I'm actually adding my two cents in here. Naming anything you want is actually a bad thing against combo right now. Every single combo deck in this format has some sort of viable backup plan. The decision between naming ETW or Belcher, or ETW or Tendrils is actually the biggest boon to a combo deck. You could whif, you could hit, who knows. Teeg names everything. You don't have to hope that he'll target the right stuff, because if you've studied the format's combo win conditions, they're all 4 or greater. Dread Return, ETW, Belcher, and Tendrils are done.

Yeah, they can tutor for answers. Now all you need is a single counter to protect your dude, and you win the game.

That seems pretty effing good to me.

[kicks_422]

The only counters that this deck runs are Force of Will and Daze. Gaddock stops Force of Will too, so you'll be left with Daze. That's not much of a counterwall.

Like I said before, the MU that Gaddock will greatly improve is the board control MU, not combo.

[Volt]

.

[kicks_422]

Oh yeah, I forgot about Spell Snare. That changes the whole thing since the only cards that could slip under Gaddock to kill him are all 2cc (Burning Wish, Infernal Tutor, Pyroclasm, etc.).

I'm liking him more now that I think about it. He's not pitch-able to FoW though if the combo player tries to go off before he gets into play... But that's just some minor nitpicking.

[godryk]

EDIT: Btw, I always side in Spell Snare against combo. Spell Snare stops Burning Wish. For that matter, so do blue blasts. Just sayin.

That's what I'm saying. Gaddock doesn't pretect you from everything, but nothing can. I used to bring MM in with other cards such as Spell Snare, Pithing Needle or Stifle.

Moreover, I think that Counterslivers is able to put enough pressure to kill the opponent before they can handle our Gaddock and other protection.

[Pinder]

He's not pitch-able to FoW though if the combo player tries to go off before he gets into play... But that's just some minor nitpicking.

On the bright side, though, this makes him completely un-REBable as well, which is nice.

[Curby]

I'm taking my little hive to another, slightly bigger local tourney this weekend. I'm expecting 10-15 people there, with a mixed casual/serious metagame. I only know that one guy plays Solidarity, and I should probably expect a mix of Thresh, Goblins, random aggro, etc. The recent pages here have suggest some possible changes to the deck to fit the shifting meta, but suggestions for specific changes would be more than welcome. For example, if I were to include two maindeck Harmonics, what would I take out? If I were to add some Winter Orbs, what should come out of the board for them? I can finally build the list that's currently in the first post, with the exception of Engineered Explosives in the side. Thanks in advance!

[godryk]

Current Deck List
// Mana
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Plains
3 AEther Vial
// Creatures
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
3 Plated Sliver
3 Winged Sliver
2 Talon Sliver

// Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Daze
4 Portent

The list in the first page is very fresh and seems adapted to the new meta, although you can make some changes. I think the bolded cards are quite standard, and then we have 4-6 free slots, in wich we can include Talon Sliver, Aether Vial (if you don't expect much countermagic) and Counterspell/Spell Snare, depending on what you like and how your meta looks. Also, we can add/remove some copies of cards like Plated, Winged or Portent.

In the sideboard, I will also consider Krosan Grip in addition/instead of Harmonic Sliver, wich, I think, play different roles. Krosan is there to finish EE and Pernicious (or evil Humilty), while Harmonic are to rape artifact/enchantment-based decks.

Anyway, Volt, what will you side in/out against UGr Threshold assuming they're not playng the Countertop?

[Volt]

.

[Curby]

Aether Vial (if you don't expect much countermagic)

Was this a typo? I thought one of the key features of Vial is its ability to either bait counters or allow you to play under them. Thanks for the suggestions though!

[godryk]

Was this a typo?

My fault, it's what sometimes happens when you type in a different language than yours, I feel stupid... lol.

Volt, I'm glad to see you have come back to the evil side... we can play other decks than 'Goyfs decks again! There's another antiThresh-junktech I've seen played out there: Mind Harness, it's sometimes useful just by removing blockers from your slivers' way and attack a few turns with the stolen creature.


Landstill: -3 Swords to Plowshares, +3 Armageddon, pray

I always do...

[cheddercaveman]

The list in the first page is very fresh and seems adapted to the new meta, although you can make some changes. I think the bolded cards are quite standard, and then we have 4-6 free slots, in wich we can include Talon Sliver, Aether Vial (if you don't expect much countermagic) and Counterspell/Spell Snare, depending on what you like and how your meta looks. Also, we can add/remove some copies of cards like Plated, Winged or Portent.

In the sideboard, I will also consider Krosan Grip in addition/instead of Harmonic Sliver, wich, I think, play different roles. Krosan is there to finish EE and Pernicious (or evil Humilty), while Harmonic are to rape artifact/enchantment-based decks.

Anyway, Volt, what will you side in/out against UGr Threshold assuming they're not playng the Countertop?

While you have some interesting things taht are droppable, this is what I'd say ... Aether Vial is a must! Its amazing. It helps with the fact that the deck is mana light, it helps against anything blue (sometimes red too if they pack blasts in the board). Its just good. Considering the high number of threshold decks this is a must.

Harmonic Sliver is still better than K-grip. Its a beater, its the same CMC, and if you get into a random enchantress or staxxx match all your guys will be knocking out artifacts or enchantments.

SPELL SNARE ... I can not say enough good things about this card. I'm debating putting it in the maindeck its THAT good. I can't think of very many matches where it wouldnt do something awesome.

Talon Sliver ... this is the one im on the fence about. I didnt see a whole lot of good stuff from him yet. He's looking like he might get dropped from the deck, potentially in favor of adding in counterspell or spell snare (possibly dropping a daze too).

Armageddon is an interesting thought for the board.

The one card that I'm iffy about in the SB that I ran was engineered explosives. The only deck I even wanted it in was belcher, and I think there should be better options. Stifle or trickbind might make my board for more combo-hate and disruption too. Essense sliver comes down too late, seems like over kill

[DarkAkuma]

I got to say, ive played countersliver alot recently, and AEther Vial seems like a "must" anymore against blue decks, and even red. I tried upping the vial count to 4, but more then one is unnessacary, so i dropped it down to 3 with one board and never boarded in the 4th one. Atleast 3 vials should be played, at the very least board. They completely change the way the game plays out once you resolve one.

Ive also been testing 2 eladamri's call again along with 2 counterspells. I wanted to play eladamris call after loseing to bad goblins (no vial or lackeys) and not being able to draw a single crystalline. But its certainly nice to toolbox the other slivers normaly played. but i still have more testing to do for that since in 2 crucile games recently i couldnt draw a single EC/Winged, or EC/2xHarmonic to win the game.

[Volt]

.

[DarkAkuma]

I've been playing 1 Worship board. But just for the novelty of it. I bring it is against the burn scrubs in my meta, just to see them cry.

Im sure it can be nice against goblins (though not so sure its needed). And if you acctualy resolve it against thresh, it can help. But it will be hard to resolve a 4cc game changer against a deck with more counters then you. And while it may be hard for some decks to get rid of it, decks running the popular Engineered Exsplosives will just pop it for 2 and take out your creatures negateing the benifit. Basicly their gameplan doesent change. And of corse theres the fact that your harmonics can kill it.

Against CB i dont know. If the game makes it to your 4th turn it would be nice and hard to deal with.

Against combo, its almost worthless. More so against Tendrills.

[Volt]

.

[Curby]

SB:
3 Essence Sliver (die, Burn, die!)
4 Morningtide (Janktastic anti-Thresh tech. Try it)
4 Stifle
3 Armageddon
1 Harmonic Sliver

My collection isn't that great, and I've only a few of these and the other recently discussed cards. I'm considering running a transformational board, being able to go from a vial build to a harmonic build. Obviously Harmonics blow up a lot of our (traditional) sideboard cards, from Worship to Needle, as well as our Vials. However, I wonder if this is such a problem. If we've a Worship+hive strategy going, no one says we need to cast Harmonic when Worship's the only target in play. However, it can certainly lead to dead or bad cards in hand though. Incidentally, why aren't Spell Snares and Mages in the side anymore?

Winter Orb was suggested a few pages ago... how is that as a possible replacement for Geddon? Running the Vial build could help us make it a bit asymmetric, but only against certain decks.

Is Tormod's Crypt really that ineffective against Thresh? People say they're easy to play around but I have one I could add. Having a bunch of 1-ofs in the side seems to rely too much on luck though, unless several 1-ofs share a single role.

I'm considering a 3-Vial maindeck with a board like the following:

4 Harmonic Sliver
1 Worship (wish I had more)
3 Spell Snare
3 Pithing Needle
4 Meddling Mage?

Unfortunately, no Geddons, Morningtides, or Stifles atm.

EDIT: Why do you run two maindeck Islands again? In other words, when would you, due to nonbasic hate, want to fetch two Islands? Deadguy Ale seems obvious, but they have so much general land destruction it doesn't seem to really matter. Especially with the inclusion of Harmonics and the upcoming Teeg, I'm wondering if turning one into a Forest is advisable.

EDIT2: With my limited cardpool, I guess it comes down to Harmonic + Tricks (Mage, Spell Snare) or Vial + Tricks (Pithing Needle, Worship). The question is whether to run Vial or Harmonics in the main (against an unknown meta), and whether thinking in that way makes any sense at all to begin with. In other words, is Harmonic/Mage/Snare a good combo against certain strategies, and alternately is Vial/Needle/Worship good together? Vial + Needle seems good against Landstill, whereas Harmonic, Mage, and Snare seem like a general "hose everything, counter everything" strategy. Kinda seems like I should be running Harmonics in the main then, but Vial is so sexy against everything from Removal to counters to combat... hard choice.

[godryk]

Well, about Krosan Grip, this card has saved me many matchups against control decks. When you are forced to play against Landstill (wich I often do), they are going to let almost everything come, they will let you resolve Vial, Crystalline, Meddling Mage if boarded in, and then blow it all, gaining an extreme amount of card advantage and saving Counters, wich they will hardly ever use, for Pithing Needle on Pernicious/EE, Harmonic, etc.

When they drop a Pernicios /EE after your creatures have been luckily countered/sworded, they are winning a lot of turns, because you have to play something, deal some damage, and then, get it destroyed, trying to delay the activation as long as the can, buying time with mandlands. In that situation, being able to destroy the board sweeper without giving them a chance to answer has worked great for me.

About Aether Vial, I've putting it in and out of the deck for weeks, so I'm not sure about it. I play very simillarly with or without it, and you will have to play and resolve your slivers very often, so it can be dropped, but I'm not very sure yet. It doesn't make your control matchup much easier as they don't run more than 8 counters, in fact, Threshold runs more. Anyway, I'm seeing more and more blue decks sideboarding Spell Snare, wich really hurts us if we don't play Vial.

This takes me to the Spell Snare debate. I'm thinking on playing them in the maindeck, they seem useful and more helping than Counterspell. They are only unuseful againt goblins, but we do already side out most of our countermagic against them.

If I would decide not to run Vial, what about this Vial-less list?

4 Plated
4 Crystalline
4 Muscle
4 Sinew
3 Winged

4 FoW
4 Daze
3 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
3 Portent
4 Swords

4 Tundra
4 Tropical
4 Flooded
3 Windswepth
2 Island
1 Plains

We can also cut 1xDaze and 1xPlated to make room to a 2-card slot like Harmonic, Talon, Stifle or anything else.

[kicks_422]

LOL, that was where my list was before the whole Flash thing, but with Counterspells instead of Spell Snares.

I still whip it out every once in a while in MWS, and it still kicks ass. In a meta where not half of the field is playing Thresh, I find the Vials useless. Sorry, I never put Vials in, and I never will.

[cheddercaveman]

There is a reason that goblins plays vial, and its not just to beat blue decks. The same thing applies here, only we only need one of them with 2 counters on it. Lets assume you play it turn 1, now turn 2, you vial in plated sliver, and play sinew sliver, turn 3 you vial in crystalline sliver and play muscle sliver. Game over for anyone not playing wrath-effects. Ok, this is kind of a ridiculous aggro hand, but i've seen it. There are lots of other things the vial does for you. Trust me, its amazing.

Against landstill its good because you can wait and EOT your guys in so they're not just sitting ducks out there for a wrath on their turn. It gets around counters. It creates ridiculous tempo. Its good card. Also, the deck runs about 17 mana sources, thats a little low, the vial helps with that too. It helps against LD, its amazing vs threshold. Against other aggro you can probably arrange a bad block and then vial in sinew sliver, plated sliver or talon sliver before damage. Play the vial.

[Volt]

.

[kicks_422]

Here we go again... Aether Vial arguments.

I honestly think it's time to get it out of your lists. IIRC, it was a knee-jerk reaction to all the Fish decks running around when Flash reared its ugly head. Now that Flash is gone, Fish decks have gone back to hiding. I think what the deck needs now is more removal (Oblivion Ring? :tongue:), rather than Vials.

[Hanni]

Aether Vial arguments... it was a knee-jerk reaction to all the Fish decks running around when Flash reared its ugly head.

And? Thresh is about as popular now as Fish was at GP Columbus. And Thresh is running MORE countermagic than Fish did. Not only that, Aether Vial is simply strong in Slivers anyway... Slivers is a mana hungry deck, with the mana hunger coming from the fact that it wants to play 3-4 2cc creatures to feel "full." Think BK Commercial, and you'll understand.

At least 3 Aether Vial seems pretty mandatory in this deck IMO, if the archtype is to survive in this Thresh dominated era.

[from Cairo]

On top of being uncounterable it gives you instant speed Slivers, I really see no reason why you wouldn't run it. The ability to throw in combat tricks with +1/+1 or First strike at instant speed is awesome.

And as stated it gives you way better game when facing counters or land destruction.

[Curby]

I mentioned I'd be running hooks in a tourney this weekend, but it turns out I got into town in time for another tourney tonight. Practice is good! 4 Swiss rounds with 18 people, I went 3-1 and finished 6th. I ran Volt's suggested Harmonic build with an entirely nonsensical sideboard:

2 Meddling Mage (I actually had 4, why didn't I use 4? Stupidity is fun)
1 Chill (heh, this is from when I played in the last tourney)
3 Aether Vial (conversion card)
3 Pithing Needle (This card might be beyond my current ability... I forgot to use it and often wouldn't know what to name anyway)
1 Harmonic Sliver (Dodges most Chalices, so I guess we'll not use Krosan Grip)
1 Essence Sliver (In hindsight, this singleton won a LOT of games. Seems better than Worship and depending on meta, maybe even a maindeck choice.)
4 Spell Snare (Didn't see a single Confidant or Goyf all night. Wacky...)

Round 1: Newbie deck, huge (80+ cards) GW life gain deck. Not sure what the win condition is. Most surprising was Heroes Remembered, Suspend for W and gain 20 life 10 turns later, but the games were over well before then.

Result 2-0

Round 2: Aggro elves. Wow, this was annoying. First game we went back and forth but eventually he gained the upper hand. I stupidly StPed an Elf with Symbiote out. Seriously, read your own damn guides. In general, I think Needling key cards like Timberwatch Elf and Symbiote, and Maging/StPing/countering Elvish Vanguard could be really good. Engineered Explosives for 1 would also kill a lot of utility elves while saving your 2-cost Slivers. Second game, Essence Sliver hit the board, and I won at 32 life (Essence Sliver seems to win games whenever it resolves). Third game, he stalled the board with some early pump/bounce tricks, so I couldn't make an effective attack. Lacking Winged, I was forced to put up a wall of First Striking Slivers rather than suicide attack into his army. Of course, stalling helps them more than you, and he won the third game. Winged+Essence+anything seems to just beat elves, period. Are Needles/Mages better, or should we just beat down?

Sided in: +4 Spell Snare (hits a lot of good elves), +1 Essence, -3 Daze, -2 Harmonic
Should have tried: Mages, Needles

Result 1-2

Round 3: Newbie deck, red/green with huge beaters and little acceleration. Some countermagic for his very few, very big threats sealed the deal. Chill was cast game 2 for extra annoyance.

Sided in: +1 Chill, -1 Harmonic

Result 2-0

Round 4: Reanimator deck. This was totally unexpected, and ran a bunch of huge white and red guys with Reanimate, Exhume, Living Death, and other tricks. Sensei's Divining Top helped a bit with card quality but it seemed that more library manipulation might have helped him. The first game, he was simply too quick. Though he brought himself to 1 with a combination of fetchlands, Reanimate, and Ancient Tomb, there was even more hurt directed my way. In three attacks I was gone. I forgot what exactly happened the second game, but I only took one damage from my fetchland. Third time I actually cast my singleton Essence Sliver, which let me race with his biggies for the win. Never got to cast Mage to nullify some of his Reanimators.

Sided in: +2 Meddling Mage, +1 Essence, -2 Harmonic, -1 [something]
Should have used: more mages

Result 2-1

Summary: The most Harmonics ever blew up were Wild Growths in round 3. Of course, tonight's players didn't represent the usual powered Legacy meta at all. Some good decks, but some type 2/casual decks. The Elf match was the most interesting. You really do need sweepers or many-for-1 cards (Mage/Needle) against elves.

Every time I've lost a round of 3 games, it seems clear that it's my own mistakes that caused the loss. This gives me hope that the deck still provides plenty of learning opportunity, but I realize (1) I haven't fully fleshed out the board and (2) I haven't tested it against many truly tough matchups.

The most important skills I need to learn are how to sideboard and when to mulligan. My notes weren't detailed enough to include initial hand quality, so some of the game reports are a little out of context. I've basically learned to not keep a single-land hand unless I have all of (1) pump slivers, (2) cantrips, (3) maybe an StP, and (4) a way to get UW from that one land.

After the tourney

Finally got a chance to test the Goblin matchup, and then the same guy played Rock (?). Goblins seemed like a pretty standard build, but using Port instead of Wasteland, and maindecking two Grenades. First game, I Swordsed a first turn Lackey (he seemed to pull that first-turn lackey crap every game), and a total of 4 pump slivers and 4 Brainstorms out-aggroed and outdrew him for the win. Second game, Goblins did its normal thing and exploded all over me. When Gobs can hard-cast Siege Gang with Chill in play and you're out of answers, it's pretty much game. Third game I lucksacked into my singleton Chill in my initial hand. Since I went first, I StPed his first-turn Lackey on his turn and dropped Chill on the second turn, effectively for the win. He was forced to cast things once they became possible to cast, and the important spells ran into a wall of Dazes. With slivers swinging for upwards of 9 a turn, the game was soon over.

Sided in: +1 Essence Sliver, +1 Chill, -2 something

Haven't heard much of Rock, but apparently it's a B/G board control deck. Not sure if The Source has a primer thread on it, but it's a pretty nasty build with a bit of discard, destruction, Extirpate to kill strategies (from combo to pump slivers), Deed to blow everything up, Wall of Blossoms (!) to stall the ground war, and recursion to keep on doing it. First game took about ten hours, and he Extirpated my pump slivers, Brainstorm, Counters, and started going after my lands. Stalled by manlands and Walls of Blossoms on the ground, I needed a Winged Sliver to swing the game. When I managed to put one on top, he cast Extirpate again to make me reshuffle. Though I managed to get him down to 5 relatively quickly, I couldn't push the last points through without pump slivers. Second game, he didn't seem to draw much of interest, and though he Extirpated some blue instants, my slivers beat down for the win. It's a little unfortunate I got as much serious playtesting in these 5 games as in the tourney beforehand.

Sided in: nothing because we played 1-ofs, but I'm not sure what would help. Spell Snares would kill some stuff like Edict, Needles would kill Deed. Seems that Rock runs too many must-counter spells and others like Extirpate can't be countered.

This guy recommended that Plated Slivers be taken out or reduced now that Goblins are in decline. We still have StP, FoW, and Daze on the play to kill a Lackey. We still have cantrips and possibly Vial as first turn plays. In the absence of sweepers, creature hate such as Quilled Sliver may swing a battle, and Essence in the main further improves all manner of aggro matchups, and maybe even some combo matchups. It sounds a bit crazy since Plated has been a staple since the deck was first proposed, but remember that was when Goblins were more popular. Of course, Quilled makes Vial even more nutty (possibly replacing Talon), but makes the deck even more susceptible to Explosives (while Essence Sliver helps here).

This is pretty rough, but it's almost 5 am and i gotta sleep. More tomorrow!

[Volt]

.

[DURESSyou92]

Would Gadog Teeg be worth playing in this deck(for crystaline
It does pretty much the same as crystaline but also more.The problem is that its not a sliver

[Volt]

.

[Curby]

How odd, that the actual tourney turned out smaller than last night's practice tourney. 3 Swiss rounds with 8 people. This was an "official" tourney, so I finally have a DCI number. I went 2-1 and finished 4th. Like last night, I was last among the people who lost one round.

I went back to the 3-Vial build, subbing out a Plated for an Essence. In the board, I ran:

1x Aether Vial
3x Pithing Needle (one's in the mail... grr)
4x Meddling Mage
4x Spell Snare
3x Harmonic Sliver

Round 1: Type 2 Sligh Deck with splashed black for Confidant. First game I decided to keep a hand with 4 land and a Vial. I probably should have mulled this, but decided to keep it. I held him off and got him to 10, but he overran me in the end. I stupidly played out a single Muscle with a Seal of fire on the board... I should have waited for another or a Crystalline to Vial in response to saccing Seal. Second game, I returned the favor with a strong hand. I played out slivers more aggressively, guessing that he didn't run sweepers. Third game was just horrendous. Two landless mulls yielded a 5-card hand with a single Plains. I decided to try it, and never drew another land for the rest of the game.

Sided: Nothing... didn't know what would help

Result: 1-2

Round 2: Blue/White Board Control. Isochron Scepters, Wrath of God, man lands, Mobilization, Faith's Fetters, Martyr of Sands. He seemed to play quite well, which was annoying and led to long games. :tongue: First game, I played around an Isochron Scepter with Counterspell Imprint. I finished at over 30 life. Second game, I got him down to 11 before a Wrath hit the board. Fortunately only 3 slivers were on the board, and I still had a Sinew+something (Winged or Talon) in my hand. However, his point removal kicked in and by the time I died (which took a while due to him only having 1/1 tokens), he was at 23 life from Martyr and Fetters. By the way, I once again had to mull to 5 in game 2, but at least the resulting hand was playable. As the third game started, we were already short on time. Thankfully I had a rather explosive hand and could play first. Just before he got 4 land I dropped a Mage naming Wrath of God, as I was going all out with Crystalline + Pumpers. Time was called, and I won on turn 4 of 5 with a Force of Will and cantrip in hand for security.

Sided, 2nd game: +3 Harmonic, +4 Spell Snare, -1 Essence, -2 Plated, -4 StP
Sided, 3rd game: +4 Meddling Mage, +3 Pithing Needle, -1 Winged, -2 Talon, -4 [something]

Result: 2-1

Round 3: Black control with various splashes. Some discard, some creature kill, some land destruction, Nevinyrral's Disk, Smokestack, a singleton Juzam Djinn, etc. Seemed like a janky but annoying effective board controller. Not nearly as consistent or scary as last night's BG Rock deck. First game, Sliver army swung for the win. Second game, he was able to Disk my armies, point-remove my stragglers, and swing with double Mishra's Factory for a slow kill. Third game, Mages and Needles went in again to deal with the nasty Artifacts and Enchantments, along with Harmonics for added security. My opponent got exactly what happened to me during the first match, and after mulling to 5, kept a Workshop-only hand. As he got no further land, the two Mages that I drew stayed hidden, and the hive went nuts on him. Having experienced the same thing in round 1, I actually felt rather bad for him; I would have rather seen a more evenly matched game 3 to see how the decks interact.

Sided, 2nd game (roughly): +Spell Snare, +Aether Vial (his land destruction scared me)
Sided, 3rd game (roughly): +4 Mages, +3 Needles, +1 Essence, -2 Talon, -2 Plated, -3 StP, -1 Winged

Result: 2-1

Summary: All matches went to game 3, last two matches went really long. Unfortunately, two of three matches were decided based on horrific initial hands. I would rather lose due to a stupid mistake (which allows for learning) than lose due to pure blind luck. Arguably, I should have mulled that hand in round 1, game 3 down to 4. Anyway, the second match seemed the most interesting, pitting aggro-control against UW control in three well-played games. Mages and Needles should have been awesome, but it seems I would have won the games in which they were sided in anyway.

Against UW control and to some extent Black Control, both Spell Snares and Dazes seemed dead a lot of the time. UW control was playing land nearly every turn, which allowed it to shrug off Daze. (After the first time, he seemed to be extra cautious with regards to keeping some mana free.) While both the UW and mono black decks used a lot of 2-cost spells, Snare just didn't seem to do the trick often enough. I'm considering using straight Counterspells, which the heavy use of Vial makes possible.

My meta is really screwy... one of the guys who plays sanctioned tourneys at both tonight's and last night's venues says there're pretty much no combo decks at all. Goblins still rear their heads from time to time, and there's some Thresh and a lot of rogue builds. I wonder what to do in a Landstill-free, combo-free meta?

One problem I've noticed is that a fast game 1 win shows you little of their deck, while any Sliver pretty much makes your deck's strategy clear. This allows them to side effectively in game 2, whereas you're in the dark. While being ahead by a game allows some amount of safety, often a prepared opponent will come back in game 2 leaving the record pretty much even at 1-1. This probably happens with most heavily themed decks like Slivers, Goblins, etc. though.

Errors: Not remembering to add a counter to Vial. Naming/showing the Vialed critter before allowing Vial's ability to resolve. Not immediately going to Mages+Needle against the UW control deck. Non-optimal use of fetch+cantrip interaction (still, grrr what a noob). Not mulling to 4 with a stupid 1-Plains-only hand (only obvious in hindsight?).

Shout out: a friend piloted my 9-land stompy and won against the UW control guy. Yeay stompy! =)

[godryk]

Well, I ran Counterslivers last sunday in a 35-people tournament, not very much people. We played 5 rounds of Swiss before Top 8. I had a terrible day, I lost the first 3 rounds 2-1, smashed a random deck and got a 2-0 in the fifth round because my opponent didn't wanted to play... any way, you can always learn something. This is the list I runned (now I think I should have made some changes):

4 Tundra
3 Tropical
4 Flooded Strand
3 Windswepth Heath
2 Islands (I only own 3 Tropicals)
1 Plains

3 Aether Vial

3 Plated sliver
4 Crystalline sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
3 Winged Sliver

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
3 Portent
4 Swords to Plowshares

SB (quite janky, cause I didn't have Armageddons):
4 Meddling Mage (Never faced combo, so never sided in)
2 Pithing Needle
3 Krosan Grip
2 Stifle
3 Mind Harness
1 Plated Sliver (free slot)


Round 1 against MUC with Mishra's Factories: 1-2
Game 1. With a decent starting hand I can play enough slivers and Forced/Dazed his control tools to finish him.
+2 Pithing needle
+3 Krosan Grip
-4 Swords to Plowshares
-1 Portent??
Game 2. He counters my Crystalline Sliver, plays Vedalken Shakles (wich I Krosan Grip'ed in his upkeep), plays a Nevynirral's Disk, I Daze it, and then, plays a second Disk in the next turn, wich blows my guys up. Afterwards, he drops a Morphling for the win.
Game 3. I resolve a Crystaline and a Muscle, but he buys some time with a lonely Mishra. We are inthe last 5 turns and then he plays an early Morphling, wich was followed next turn by a second Morphling (!!!). He beats me up and got my last lives in the last turn...

Round 2 against R/g Vial Goblins: 1-2
Game 1: I didn't know he was playing goblins, so I kept a decent but slow hand, I manage to stop some lackeys, but with double Vial he chains several Ringleaders producing that well-known large swarm you can't do much againt.
+2 Pithing Needle
+2 Stifle
+3 Krosan Grip
-3 Spell snare
-4 Daze
Game 2: He mulligands and kept a slow hand while a got a load of pumping slivers wich finish him up without needing Crystalline or Winged.
Game 3: I manage to control him a bit, I attack with Crystalline, Muscle and Plated, leaving a Winged as a blocker, putting him at 6 life wile I have 12. Then, he uses Kiki-Jiki´s ability to copy a Ringleader, and drops everything he can, incluiding two fanatics, so he can swing for 12, deal 10 and sac the fanatics to end with my life...

Round 3 against B/w Confidant:
Game 1: He gets a 2nd turn Dark Ritual-Hymn to Tourach(wich I Spell Snare) and then a second Hymn. Hmanages to play a Confidant wich feeds his hand and buries me through card-advantage.
+2 Pithing Needle
-1 Portent
-1 Aether Vial
Game 2: I chain Plated-Crystalline and some pumping slivers as I sword his first Confidant. I win.
Game 3: We have good hands, playing a lot of creatures and disruption. He plays a Nantuko and then I play Needle on it. He has a Confidant and a needled Nantuko, and I have Plated+Crystalline+Sinew, then he resolves 2 Hypnotics. I have awful draws and can't cantrip into any winged or swords. He kills me slowly.

Round 4 against BU Random Aggrocontrol:
I win 2-1 without sideboarding. He wins second game by stealing me a sliver without an unexpected Shackles and me making awful draws. Rest of matchups I play a lot of slivers and counter/sword all his overcosted guys.

Round 5:
As I explained, i didn't play, my opponent didn't fancied as he hasn't any options to get into the top 8.

It wasn't a great day, I didn't like to loose this way, 2-1, in the last turn, with a very short advantage, but that's the game. Any way I have some thoughts.

-I have still got a strange feeling about Vial, because its ans AWFUL topdeck, and we can play againt control decks without it. It was only realy useful againt Goblins, with all his wastelands and rishadan ports.
-I think this deck is sometimes too dependant on a god starting hand or good draws, I have lost the chance to win some decks when they run out of gas because I had awful draws. This deck needs some kind of engine more than counters or Aether Vial.
-I sometimes hope I had a goyf, specially against this Mishra-Wall, but I have still got hope in slivers, Crystalline Sliver wins me matches and this deck can still be god.

[Volt]

.

[Nihil Credo]

Watch out for the mana curve. You're cutting a free spell for a 1cc spell, and a 1cc Sliver for a 2cc one.

[Volt]

.

[Wastoid]

Hey guys I'm kinda new to the Source (been reading for a couple months) and finally got off my lazy ass to register and start discussing. I'm actually really interesting in splashing black too. Here's a list a cooked up just now that I'll test tonight-

the dudes- 18

4 crystalline
8 pump
3 winged
3 hibernation

the spells - 24

3 vial
4 force
4 brainstorm
3 daze
3 portent (soon ponder)
3 duress (soon thoughtseize)
4 STP

land - 18

1 Island
1 plains
7 fetches
2 underground sea
3 tropical island
4 tundra

SB- Honestly I don't really know but I was really liking that Morningtide idea it might just be crazy enough to work.

3-4 morningtide
4 stifle
3-4 extirpate (hey if we're running black now let's take full advantage of it shall we?)
4 meddling mage

I'm also thinking of adding leyline of the void instead of extirpate since it's such an awesome hoser these days.

I don't know about cutting daze completely it's helped me out so much in the past. It's helped me win many counter wars against thresh and whatnot. If I did I guess I'd add the 4th ponder and thoughtseize and then either 1 more hibernation or land since the manabase is a bit shakier now.

As for the whole Vial argument I think it's E-FUCKIN-SSENTIAL! I would never leave home without it! It's saved my sorry hide many many times against targeted removal (surprise crystalline), surprise pumping, and against land hate. And we all know how it flips the bird to counters. Bascially whenever I resolved an early vial I won that game. Sure it's pretty much dead late game but it's absolutely worth it. No deck is perfect, I mean topdecking multiple crystallines late game ain't exactly awesome either.

I don't mind taking out plated since goblins are on the decline (I rarely face it anymore at my tourney) I don't really need a first turn threat so much.

I've been doing pretty well at my SNL tourneys lately except for yesterday. I usually top 4 it (there's only like 8-12 people who usually show, 14-16 if we're lucky). I'm kinda 50/50 on both builds of thresh but I think the UGW seems to be harder for me especially when a mystic enforcer gets resolved late game after I've wasted my counters/removal on goyfs and other shenanigans. Goblins seems 50/50 too, I usually can counter their early vial/lackey but if I don't I'm screwed. I haven't faced much combo really, just dredge but we were only playtesting. The only other deck I've faced is landstill which is a friggin nightmare. It's the only deck I lose both games too otherwise my matches always go to game 3.

Ok I'm tired of writing for now, I'll get back to everyone on my testing results.

[Kronicler]

IMO Daze needs to stay in the deck, and probably as a 4 of. This deck really isn't anything without the counters, and I think that 4x Force, 4x Daze are completely necessary. Here is a 62 card list that we need to cut 2 from:

Creatures
4 Crystalline Sliver
3 Hibernation Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
3 Winged Sliver


Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Thoughtseize
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares

Artifacts
3 Aether Vial

Lands
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
2 Underground Sea

If that only added up to 60... I would be a happy Info-Ninja, but unfortunately, it doesn't. There are lots of options of what to cut, but here are the ones I think we should be deciding from:

1x Winged
1x Hibernation
1x Ponder
1x Thoughtseize

It is very possible that this may end up being personal preference (or you may all think my list is crap), but let's debate it for now. I'll post my opinion once I actually decide on it.

Kronicler

[BoomChild]

Hello ladies and gentlemen, it's about time we tied it up a bit again.

I took counter-sliver to the Pastimes legacy tournament this weekend and I would like to say that I would have done EXTREMELY well had I not promised my brother a scoop into top8. Here is my list...

Lands:
4 Delta
2 Strand
4 Tundra
3 Tropicals
2 Island
1 Plains
4 Aether Vial

Creatures:
4 Crystaline
4 Muscle
4 Sinew
2 Winged
2 Talon
4 Plated

Spells:
4 Force
4 Daze
3 Portent
4 Swords
4 Brainstorm

SB:
3 Harmonic Sliver
4 Spell Snare
4 Morningtide
4 Stifle

There were about 30 people in attendance, playing for a set of Antiquities and a Bazaar to second... Here we go...

Round 1 - 43 (36 I hear) Land.dec

Game1 - He wins the roll and doesn't know what I am playing although we have played many times in the past because I always pick different decks. He leads with a fairly slow opening of Manabond, and no cycle lands. I open with a plated sliver, followed by Sinew and Muscle which he can't answer so game one goes to me quickly.

SB: +3 Harmonic, +4 Morningtide, -3 Vial, -4 Daze

Game 2 - He leads out with double Exploration and a loam. Damn.... I come back with land Plated, Land Morningtide which removes all his cycle lands and his loam. Very nice. Unfortunately I draw like 6.02x10^23 lands over the next 5 turns and he is able to gamble for another Loam to shut me out of that game.

Game 3 we start with a little time left in the round. I am able to get an offensive going but I can't find a winged to finish the game out. He kills me on turn 4 in turns with a Barb Ring played many times.

0-1 1-2

Round 2 - R/g Goblins

Game 1 - He leads out with Lackey. Nice deck. I answer with Plated sliver. He plays a Piledriver. I play a crystaline. He sighs. He plays a Warchief, I swords it, He plays another, I sword the Piledriver, He plays a Matron, I sword his tutor'd gobo. I kill him with a combination of Crystaline, Sinew, and Plated when a winged hits the board.

Sideboard - +4 Stifle, -4 Vial

Game 2 - He leads out with a metric ton of goblins and I get stuck with one land after a portent and a brainstorm. Gawd I'm dumb.

Game 3 - I once again remember how to draw my Swords and I have him dead on turn 5 with an onslaught of slivers and STP.

1-1, 3-3

Round 3 - Deadguy BW

Game 1 - He wins the die roll and leads out with Swamp - Duress. He sees.. "3 Land, Winged, Sinew, Crystaline, Brainstorm". I guess the play is brainstorm he remarks. I draw Force and play my land. He drops bob which I Force and he goes on tilt. The next 3 turns I play Crystaline, Sinew, Sinew, Winged and win the game. He plays nothing relevant.

SB: +3 Harmonic, +4 SpellSnare, -4 Vial, -1 Portent, -2 Talon

Game 2 - He goes first again and has a turn two top. I play turn 2 Crystaline sliver after a Plated sliver. I'm good at that. EoT he tops, I see him smirk and he draws and plays an engineered plague. I ask him if he is naming goblins, he chuckles and names Sliver. That's all good as I already have a harmonic in hand to blow it up next turn. He trys to drop a bob next turn which gets snared and he scoops it up.

2-1 , 5-3

Round 4 - GW Terrageddon

At this point I am paired against my little brother who is also 2-1 but is playing a deck that is much better against the current field of Thresh and whatnot. We sit down and watch the other matches around us for a bit and then I scoop to him because he has a better chance of winning in the top8.

2-2 Drop

The final standings go up and we realize that it would have been possible to draw our game in round 4 and win round 5 and we would both make top8. Oh well. Hindsight is always 20/20. Anyways here is the top8 as I remember it.

43 Land
UGr Threshold/Gro
Gw Terrageddon
No-Stick/Scepter Chant
Boros
Agro Loam
Agro Loam
Can't Remember


The finals were won by boros beating 43 land with three maindeck Price of Progress... Nice deck.

[Kronicler]

Good job, Boomchild, and I feel your pain about standings in Swiss rounds. Anyways, I guess I will be the 1st person to answer my own question, and say that I would probably cut 1x Ponder and 1x Hibernation Sliver from that 62 card list. I don't have a particularly convincing reason why those 2 should go, but rather that the other 2 should not. Winged is incredibly essential, we all know this. Being able to just sit behind your huge untargetable army and wait to draw winged dependably is frickin amazing. Though perhaps this is no longer as essential with the death of Gobos, and the 3rd Hibernation would be more important. Wow, that argument didn't get me anywhere. Finally, the 4th Thoughtseize should stay because it is just that frickin amazing. It can nab any problem before we even have to counter it! God I just can't get over the power of this card.

Kronicler

[Volt]

.

[kicks_422]

By cutting Dazes, the only pieces of "control" left in the deck (for a UWgb version) would be 4 Thoughtseize and 4 FoW... I kinda like that idea... :tongue:

Also, now that Wastelands are on a decline (according to what I'm seeing), I guess now's the time to bust out those UWgb lists... Where I think Vial would be worthwhile, at the very least...

EDIT: I'm going to try this list out....

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Plains (hey, I'm a sucker for basics...)

4 Muscle Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Hibernation Sliver
3 Winged Sliver

3 Aether Vial
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares

SB
4 Harmonic Sliver
4 Smother
4 Meddling Mage
3 Essence Sliver

Looks nice to me.

[godryk]

Hum it's true that it's time to go to 4-color, I would have loved to play Hibernation against control matchups. The metagame breakdown was pretty weird:

Landstill - 5
Goblins - 4
Fish - 3
Pikula - 3
Psychatog - 2
Madness - 2
Threshold - 1
BBS - 1
RGB Aggro - 1
White Stax - 1
5 Color Zoo - 1
Boros - 1
Belcher - 1
UB Control - 1
CounterSlivers - 1
IGGy Pop - 1
Aluren - 1
White Weenie - 1
MonoBlack - 1
Aggro Loam - 1
Elves - 1

At least I'm happy to know that the Goblins player that defeated me won the Tournament, he was very skilly and get to win Red Threshold in the final.

Well, black splash, that seems good, Daze may be the weakest card in the deck after Plated so it's ok to me. Thoughtseize seems very strong and, well Crystalline+Hibernation let us allow opponents resolve many things, I mean they dramatically reduce the number of opponents threats.


PS:
I draw like 6.02x10^23 lands That sounded very nerd...:cool:

[kicks_422]

With 8 fetchlands, 4 Thoughtseize, and 4 Hibernation Slivers, the life loss is just too much... So maybe I'll be going back to good ol' Duress for a while and see if it makes any difference. I'll be bringing in Smothers out of the board anyway for Tarmo.

I haven't faced Breakfast yet though, but I'm thinking that that's where Thoughtseize would shine the most over Duress.

[xsockmonkeyx]

After discussing it with my testing partner (Nightshade81), he talked me into cutting the Dazes and "just trying it for a while." I was very apprehensive, but I went along with it. Presto! I won 8 out of 11 games against Red Thresh from that point on.

I cut Daze months ago when Vial went in. I dont really miss it and I doubt I would put it back in.

@Everyone: play 4 Vial dammit. The thing flat out wins games.

[Pinder]

I cut Daze months ago when Vial went in. I dont really miss it and I doubt I would put it back in.

@Everyone: play 4 Vial dammit. The thing flat out wins games.

God, don't tell me we're going through another Daze/No Daze phase (say that 7 times fast)?

I'll try cutting them, and get back to you. If just 4 Force really enough? What did you put in? More Cantrips?



With 8 fetchlands, 4 Thoughtseize, and 4 Hibernation Slivers, the life loss is just too much...


Now, don't flame me too hard, but with all of the lifeloss we seem to be sticking in here with the addition of black (something I'm not completely sold on, but it might be better in the new meta), what about stuffing in 2 MD Essence Sliver? I mean, if we're already moving up to 4 Aether Vials to smooth mana anyway, as well as shifting to a more controllish build, 4cc might be very doable. Once you hit 4 counters on Vial though, it's pretty much useless after that. But if you land an Essence Sliver and have a way to protect it (Crystalline, Hibernation, Force, etc, etc.), it can seriously swing entire games.

[BoomChild]

Forgive me if I'm being blunt but I feel that Essence Sliver is the definition of WIN MORE. The list that I ran on sat was as close to an optimal build that I have ever played. For reference:

Lands:
4 Delta
2 Strand
4 Tundra
3 Tropical
2 Island
1 Plains
4 Vial

Creature:
4 Crystaline
4 Sinew
4 Muscle
4 Plated
2 Winged
2 Talon

Spells:
4 Force
4 Daze
3 Portent
4 Brainstorm
4 STP

SB:
4 Morningtide
4 Stifle
3 Harmonic Sliver
4 Spell Snare

The only changes that I would make to the deck would be to change the STifles in the board to Pongify. It is my feeling that the deck has no troubles fighting 2/2's and 3/3's but Goyf's and Dryads make for some troubles. Pongify answers everything but Piledriver... but who plays goblins anymore.

[xsockmonkeyx]

I'll try cutting them, and get back to you. If just 4 Force really enough? What did you put in? More Cantrips?


I put in Counterspells, although I never really took them out.

[Pinder]

Forgive me if I'm being blunt but I feel that Essence Sliver is the definition of WIN MORE.

Eh, it's probably not an auto include, but if the lifeloss ever becomes an issue, I was just looking for good ways to combat it. Essence just seemed like the best option, because a) it's a Sliver, and b) it's a 3/3 (read: 5/5). Besides, if you're already winning, sure, it's win more, but if you're losing, it can turn a game around. Just because it helps you win when you're winning doesn't mean it doesn't help you win when you're losing.

I'm just throwing out ideas.

[Volt]

.

[xsockmonkeyx]

This is what Im running right now. Pretty much the same except for the counterspells. Its pretty solid.

Stuff
12 FoW/BS/StP
4 Ponder
3 Counterspell

Slivars!
8 Muscle
4/3 Plated
1/2 Talon
4 Crystal
3 Wing

More Stuff
4 Vial
4 Strand
2 Delta
1 Heath
2 Island
1 Plains
4 Tundra
3 Trop

Other Stuff
4 Stifle
4 Disenchant
3 Armageddon
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Control Magic

[kicks_422]

I dunno about Darkheart. I don't think sacrificing Slivers is the way to go when you're already racing to win with a low life total.

I'm really loving them Smothers out of the board. I felt that what the UWg lists lacked was non-StP removal, and Smother is just a perfect compliment to StP.

I'm finding that it's the Vials I side out the most after Game 1 though, even against lands packed with Wasteland. Don't know what else I would take out.

[Wastoid]

kicks 422 reminded me of what I think my main problem is these days when playing in tourneys, I never know really what to take out for games 2 and 3 in any matchup really. I know what to put in but I always feel like I'm taking forever to choose what to side out so I just pick whatever then play which probably led to some mistakes. You say you take out your vials most of the time? I've only taken them out vs. combo. I know some tips like taking out maybe the plated slivers vs. control decks but otherwise it's always so hard for me. Any pointers guys? Oh btw I'm LOVIN' hibernation sliver. I guess the saying's true once you go black you never go back.

[Kronicler]

Except that we, meaning members of team info-ninja, have gone black many times, and every single time we have also gone back!

Kronicler

[Curby]

I never know really what to take out for games 2 and 3 in any matchup really. I know what to put in but I always feel like I'm taking forever to choose what to side out so I just pick whatever then play which probably led to some mistakes. You say you take out your vials most of the time? I've only taken them out vs. combo. I know some tips like taking out maybe the plated slivers vs. control decks but otherwise it's always so hard for me. Any pointers guys?

I agree, this is something I find myself also banging my head against (but I'm a noob :wink:). It's made even more difficult by the fact that the sideboard changes much more often and drastically than the maindeck, which makes it that much harder to develop strategies as you seldom see the same situations. On a not very related note...

This deck seems to be gradually leaning in the direction of the old 4-5 color Type 1 Keeper/"The Deck" sorts of decks. We try to take care of everything with silver bullets (Duress/StP/Force of Will/Crystalline/Hibernation), but with more colors and cards that fit into more fragmented niches, are we losing consistency?

With only 4 Duress, we don't really have consistent hand destruction. With only 4 StP, we can't rely on always having removal when needed. With only 4 FoW, we don't have much of a counterwall (as Kronicler mentioned last page). I'm not saying that the UWgb build is a jack of all trades and master of none, as I've only just tested it briefly. However, I'm worried that it's heading in that direction.

That said, Hibernation combat tricks combined with Vial combat tricks, and bouncing a blue Sliver to FoW is tons of fun. =)

EDIT: While I'm being dumb anyway, should the issue of Living Wish be revisited? Running Vials lets us splash all sorts of wackiness in (and we're running hard sources of 4 colors anyway). This could pull in Mages and Teegs in a pinch, or simply whichever Sliver we're missing at the moment. It was argued that Glittering Wish for Mages and such should be avoided because paying 4 colored mana for any 2/2 is just too much, but with Vials in the main the cost of such a maneuver might not be so prohibitive, and Living Wish is slightly more splashable. One big problem is that Wish can't be pitched to FoW, whereas Crystalline, Hibernation, Winged, and Mage can. On the other hand, a late-game, top-decked Wish that can become whatever you need most at that time sounds very appealing!

[cheddercaveman]

Did I miss something? When did we start running 4 and 5 colors? The deck is almost only a 2 color deck with a splash of green for muscle sliver. Its light on mana, and the mana base isnt the strongest to begin with. Hibernation sliver isnt necessary, crystalline sliver does just fine. StP no is not really enough removal, its just disruption. We need to be able to hit a creature here and there to make the way for our men. FoW + Daze + ??? as counters mean thats where a lot of your control comes in, and they're free counters typically. Then you drop your flying sliver to get in a cpl turns once they do play guys.

Adding more colors is definitely not something that i'd advocate for this deck. And no, living wish isnt good enough, its slow. This is not a control deck, its aggro control and even thats pushing it, really your control is just there to throw them off for a turn or 2 which is usually all you need to get in there for to win.

While we're on the subject, Gaddock Teeg is not that great for this deck either and I think once people start playing it a little they'll see why. Yes, there are a lot of cards in landstill that cost 4 that it'll stop. What it WON'T stop are the lightning bolts, StPs, Smother, Ghastly Demise, Vendetta, Fire//Ice, Magma Jet, Counterspell, Spell Snare, Daze, Pernicious Deed, Pyroclasm. See what I mean? With Meddling Mage I have control over what I am naming, making it a better all around sideboard card. If I bring it in again landstill, I might name WoG. I might also name Pernicious Deed though. If I play against belcher, I might name Burning Wish or Empty the Warrens or even Belcer. Against Solidarity I'd want to stop cunning wish first, then high tide or reset. Meddling Mage is still the correct card for this deck.

[godryk]

I'm still thinking of UWg list, and I thought that I feel like to play a more agresive list. One thing that I felt that makes me loose some games is by loosing tempo keeping creatures untapped. This deck wants to attack, and wins when it manages to go beatdown. One card that had been suggested in order to improve aggro matchups was Talon Sliver, but I think it's time to test a very underrated card, Sidewinder Sliver, which I think it's and undercosted Talon Sliver, an a virtual pumping sliver.

Yes, I remember it was considered to be worst than plated against Goblins, but, what if we run both? It is very good also againt Goblins, you won't have to wait a Winged Sliver to come, because they won't be able to trade your most valuable slivers for 3 goblins as easyly as they did. Of course it's just a 1/1, just as Talon, and the main use of first strike creatures is to gain tempo by dominating creaures with similar CMC and strength. Well, you can't use it to block a Goyf with several slivers, but, you are gaining a virtual +1/+1, and you want to attack.

I'm testing 3 Plated+3 Sidewinder, and it seems, at least, more useful than Talon in many situations, and is a turn 1 drop.

[Wastoid]

Except that we, meaning members of team info-ninja, have gone black many times, and every single time we have also gone back!

Yeah I'm probably jumping the gun on settling on black for good but so far I'm definitely liking it but I haven't even brought it to a real tourney yet and unfortunately wont be going to the next one this sunday since I have to work.

I also second the no living wish notion. At this point what would you take out? It's just not necessary to play as it would slow the deck down too much.

In my experience against solidarity I'd first name high tide with a mage since that's what let's them go off so fast, if they don't have that then it'll take way longer then you can stock up on defense/offense. Just thought I'd throw in that random tip then again I'm still kinda new to legacy.

[xsockmonkeyx]

I'm still thinking of UWg list, and I thought that I feel like to play a more agresive list. One of that I felt that makes me loose some games is by loosong tempo keeping creteures untapped. This deck ants to attack, and wins when it manages to go beatdown. One card that had been suggested in order to improve aggro matchups was Talon Sliver, but I think it's time to test a very underrated card, Sidewinder Sliver, which I think it's and undercosted Talon Sliver, an a virtual pumping sliver.

Yes, I remember it was considered to be worst than plated against Goblins, but, what if we run both? It is very good also againt Goblins, you won't have to wait a Winged Sliver to come, because they won't be able to trade your most valuable slivers for 3 goblins as easyly as they did. Of course it's just a 1/1, just as Talon, and the main use of first strike creatures is to gain tempo by dominating creaures with similar CMC and strength. Well, you can't use it to block a Goyf with several slivers, but, you are gaining a virtual +1/+1, and you want to attack.

I'm testing 3 Plated+3 Sidewinder, and it seems, at least, more useful than Talon in many situations, and is a turn 1 drop.

I agree with you with your analysis of the 2. The difference is largely one of philosophy. With Sidewider you are better off on the offensive and with Talon the defensive. SInce the slot has only come up due to the presence of Tarmogoyf I would make the choice based on which is better vs him. It is better IMO to stick to Talon as Tarmogoyf is a problem because he can put you on the defensive before your army is ready.

I still believe the best strategy when it comes to creature matchups is to build an army to clog the board, counter sweepers, resolve a Winged and turn your guys sideways FTW.

@godryk:is your avatar an artichoke man? If so the ninjas approve. :P

[godryk]

Well they're both similars, of course talon is more defensive, but my meta is a little bit more aggresive and I felt I loose games by staying defending. I'm trying Sidewinder, and seems nice for a 1-mana drop, and its ability stacks. Also I find funny how it makes your boys a little unblockable against goblins (as long as they don't want to give you a huge amount of card advantage). Of course it doesn't gives you real power or toughness, but well, we all know that's why Crystalline shines.

@xsockmonkeyx: Yeah, it's some kind of vegetable-man

[Pinder]

@godryk:is your avatar an artichoke man? If so the ninjas approve. :P

A cabbage actually, methinks.

As far as Talon vs Sidewinder, both have their merits, but I think Talon is the right call for a meta swarming with Goyfs. It might not be quite as fast (and the ability doesn't stack, so it's not that great in multiples, either), but it's definitely a lot better if you're on your back foot, and is still great even when you're on the offensive.

Of course, the fact that flanking stacks is a very interesting argument for the inclusion of Sidewinder at this point. I mean, +0/+1 and Flanking is not that impressive, and +0/+1 and First Strike doesn't really scream synergy, either. But First Strike and Flanking? Then you've got something.

On that reasoning, and with Goblins on the decline and less of a need for Plated as a blocker for Lackey (let's not forget that that was the whole reason he was considered in the first place), why not just straight swap Plated for Sidewinder and keep a couple of Talon in as well? I mean, Talon is good on the defensive against Tarmogoyf, but let's face it, you'll usually have to block with at least 2 of your guys to kill a Goyf, which means that they can just as easily not swing into you, and you can't do shit because swinging into them will lose you guys. But if your guys had flanking and first strike, you could realistically swing into big dudes without as much fear of losing your own. Also, Goyf aside, Sidewinder is a one-drop, so it allows you to put the pressure in the early game a lot easier as well by making their early drops a hell of a lot easier to swing into.

[Nihil Credo]

Of course, the fact that flanking stacks is a very interesting argument for the inclusion of Sidewinder at this point. I mean, +0/+1 and Flanking is not that impressive, and +0/+1 and First Strike doesn't really scream synergy, either. But First Strike and Flanking? Then you've got something.

I think it's more complex than that; Flanking is basically Bushido 1 when attacking, so it does stack with +0/+1; in particular, the fact that Tarmogoyf has a higher toughness than power skews things a bit. Let us try a few scenarios:

Flanking and +0/+1:
You: Pump Sliver, Sidewinder Sliver, Plated Sliver
Opp: 3/4 Tarmogoyf

Here, you can swing safely: one of your 2/3s will bounce off a 2/3 Tarmogoyf, and the others will connect.
Moreover, adding any non-Crystalline Sliver to the board (whether pump, Sidewinder, or Plated) will let you swing through a bigger Tarmogoyf.

Flanking and First Strike:
You: Pump Sliver, Sidewinder Sliver, Talon Sliver
Opp: 3/4 Tarmogoyf

Now you're in a stalemate. You can't attack or you'll lose a 2/2 First Strike sliver to your opponent's 2/3 Tarmogoyf, and your opponent can't attack or Tarmogoyf will die to a gang-block of first strikers.
With an extra Pump or an extra Sidewinder, you can punch through; however, extra Talons are redundant.

First Strike and +0/+1:
You: Pump Sliver, Plated Sliver, Talon Sliver
Opp: 3/4 Tarmogoyf

Same stalemate as above. Extra Pump or Plated will allow a punch-through.

----

So what, then? Do you prefer a stalemate with X + Talon Sliver while you hope to resolve and stick a Winged Sliver, or to be able to race Tarmogoyf with Sidewinder+Plated?

I think the latter option looks better. This is for a couple of reasons: 1) Talon Sliver costs twice as much as Plated Sliver; 2) Engineered Explosives has made its way, if not in the maindeck, at least in the sideboards of tons of decks. One minor consequence is that differentiating your creatures' CMC is a good thing; a major one is that in game 2 and 3 it can be very risky to just clog the board and wait for Winged... because they could just as well topdeck EE and screw you.

[Pinder]

I usually assume Tarmogoyf is a 4/5, but in either case your point stands. I suppose I underestimated the power of extra toughness + flanking. I'm thinking Godryk's suggestion of a 3/3 split of Plated/Sidewinder is probably the best option (although since they both stack, if there's room then running four of each would be nice).

Something like:

4 Crystalline
4 Muscle
4 Sinew
3 Winged
3 Plated
3 Sidewinder

That does push us up to 21 slivers, though that may not be a terribly bad thing. Perhaps a list like:

4 Tundra
4 Trop
4 Strand
3 Delta
1 Island
1 Plains

4 Brainstorm
4 Portent (read: Ponder when it's legal)
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Swords
2 Aether Vial

21 Slivers


Of course, pushing back down to 2 Vials might not be the best option, but I really don't know what else to cut in this case. Unless of course you're one of those people who got rid of Daze already (though I'm not convinced), and you could cut one of whatever you're running instead (3x Thoughtseize with the black splash?)

I dunno. I'm definitely going to test out Sidewinder either way.

[xsockmonkeyx]

I usually assume Tarmogoyf is a 4/5, but in either case your point stands.

No it doesnt. I modified Nihil's examples to account for a 4/5 Goyf. Also Pyroclasm for some reason.



Flanking and +0/+1:
You: Pump Sliver, Sidewinder Sliver, Plated Sliver
Opp: 4/5 Tarmogoyf

Here, you can't swing safely: your best 2/3 will die to a 3/4 Tarmogoyf, and the others will connect. The Tarmogoyf would be foolish to swing alone into 3 2/3's unless they really want your muscle sliver dead. Probably a stalemate with a little advantage to goyf.
Note: you dont die to Pyroclasm here.

Flanking and First Strike:
You: Pump Sliver, Sidewinder Sliver, Talon Sliver
Opp: 4/5 Tarmogoyf

You're in a stalemate. You can't attack or you'll lose a 2/2 First Strike Pump sliver to your opponent's 3/4 Tarmogoyf. Your opponent can't attack or Tarmogoyf will die to a gang-block of first strikers.
Note: Pyroclasm owns you.


First Strike and +0/+1:
You: Pump Sliver, Plated Sliver, Talon Sliver
Opp: 4/5 Tarmogoyf

Same stalemate as above, but now you dont die to Pyroclasm.

[Pinder]

No it doesnt.

Of course you would need more in that case, I was just saying that in any given combination of Talon/Sidewinder/Plated, all things being equal, the combination of Sidewinder/Plated is generally more potent (on the attack, at least) than any combination of Talon/Sidewinder or Talon/Plated.

Also, though, Nihil's example of Plated/Sidewinder says nothing of defending against the Tarmogoyf, which Talon is clearly superior at. The other two examples might be stalemates, but at least they can't swing into you, either. In the first example you can't block without losing at least 1 guy. Of course, if you have 3 dudes to their 1, you're probably outracing them anyway. And the point of this little excersize was to try and be more on offense anyway.

And really, when are you ever only going to have exactly 1 Sidewinder, 1 Plated, and 1 Pump Sliver? I mean, this deck runs 8 pump slivers for a reason, and you have to remember that Crystalline is 1 p/t bigger than everything else, too. Odds are your guys are going to be much larger than 2/3's, and that there will be more than just 3.

[xsockmonkeyx]

True. But a 4/5 Goyf would be different than a 3/4 Goyf in those examples.

Also remember that Plated is great against stuff like Pyroclasm.

[Nihil Credo]

For the record, I chose those examples in order to make the Sidewinder/Plated/Talon Slivers' abilities as impactful as possible. As xsockmonkeyx observed, a bigger Goyf always results in a stalemate, and bigger Slivers always result in you being able to just swing through.

[plus_ten]

Finally I finished the deck... as u guys know the deck well, i got a (noob?) Q...

When the hive is facing 2 goyfs on the ground, is it wise to swing and get some point of damage? Say, only the crystalline can hit a single goyf and live while the other ones are smaller?

Thanks.

[godryk]

I'm now trying a Vial-less list (like many people, I'm putting Vial in and out of the list every two weeks, lol) that looks like this:

4 Plated
4 Crystalline
4 Muscle
4 Sinew
3 Winged
3 Sidewinder

4 Fow/Daze/Brainstorm/Ponder/Swords to Plowshares

18 Lands

And seems strong, but I haven't tested the Threshold matchup very much.
BTW, I'm loving ponder, specially to get a Crystalline or Winged when you need it.

[Nihil Credo]

When the hive is facing 2 goyfs on the ground, is it wise to swing and get some point of damage? Say, only the crystalline can hit a single goyf and live while the other ones are smaller?
As you can guess, it depends on how much damage can go through and on each player's life total. Do some math and figure out if you would win the race or not.

[Clark Kant]

It really seems like any Thresh list using Goyf, Mystic Enforcer, Mongoose and Werebear (4/4s are hard for Slivers to deal with too), has strategic superiority to this deck.

Both would be running the same number of creatures. But thx to the addition of goyf, thresh's creatures are by themselves as big as slivers hope to get if you can get and keep a group of them in play. An StP on a Sinew and a FoW on the Muscle can ensure the slivers stay 2/2s while Thresh just rams over them with 4/4s, 4/5s, and 6/6s.

What advantage does this deck have over such a thresh list?

[Zach Tartell]

It really seems like any Thresh list using Goyf, Mystic Enforcer, Mongoose and Werebear (4/4s are hard for Slivers to deal with too), has strategic superiority to this deck.

Both would be running the same number of creatures. But thx to the addition of goyf, thresh's creatures are by themselves as big as slivers hope to get if you can get and keep a group of them in play. An StP on a Sinew and a FoW on the Muscle can ensure the slivers stay 2/2s while Thresh just rams over them with 4/4s, 4/5s, and 6/6s.

What advantage does this deck have over such a thresh list?


Countersliver is better than Thresh in the Thresh/Countersliver match-up because Countersliver runs like eight more creatures than Thresh, the same removal package, and the same amount of counterspells.

Also, I don't recall a creature in Thresh that gives every other creature protection from removal. Just sayin'.

[Shriekmaw]

Countersliver is better than Thresh in the Thresh/Countersliver match-up because Countersliver runs like eight more creatures than Thresh, the same removal package, and the same amount of counterspells.

Also, I don't recall a creature in Thresh that gives every other creature protection from removal. Just sayin'.



I agree that the creature base may give countersliver the creature advantage, but threshold is always so consistent b/c of the card draw that it has in the deck. Countersliver must have their creatures in multiples while any of threshold creatures are a problem for them to deal with.

I firmly believe Threshold has the advantage in this matchup based on the better creatures is has and the card draw that they run. I believe Red Threshold is a lot tougher to beat b/c after game 1 they get pyroclasm out of the board to deal with all the relevant slivers.

Plus, friends don't let friends play counterslivers.

[godryk]

Plus, friends don't let friends play counterslivers.

Well, I don't pretend Counterslivers to be best than UGr Threshold, because this is the nowadays Tier 1, that's a fact, but we can race them, and with Aether Vial we can go through counters, whoever wins, it's not easy to anybody, it depends on how much EE and Counterbalance they run and how well do you side, they're a Tier 1, so you've got something against them.

Anyway I'm still thinking the deck sometimes need some kind of engine...

[Wastoid]

Think it would be worth it to be the counter top combo in the board? I think someone mentioned that before but I'm bringing up again. That's the only engine off the top of my head.

Threshold is definitely a better deck guys, sorry but it's true for the reasons nickrit said. In my experience the UGW has been harder for me than the red version, however.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Finally I finished the deck... as u guys know the deck well, i got a (noob?) Q...

When the hive is facing 2 goyfs on the ground, is it wise to swing and get some point of damage? Say, only the crystalline can hit a single goyf and live while the other ones are smaller?

Thanks.

Depends. You should be swinging in whenever you have the opportunity to safely do so. I dont know if i would swing into 2 goyfs with a Crystalline unless I new I could eat one of the Goyfs and I dont really need the Crystalline. Basically you swing into blockers when they have to choose between making a bad decision and taking damage.

Volt is the master at knowing which Slivers to swing with and when IMO.

[Volt]

.

[Pinder]

Countersliver is better than Thresh in the Thresh/Countersliver match-up because Countersliver runs like eight more creatures than Thresh, the same removal package, and the same amount of counterspells.

Also, I don't recall a creature in Thresh that gives every other creature protection from removal. Just sayin'.

Your confidence in this deck is heartening, but I'll have to agree that with Goblins on such a decline, and Thresh's success giving rise to more and more board control decks to combat it, the metagame is shifting rapidly in to a position that is very bad for Slivers. Not that Slivers is a horrible deck in and of itself, but without modification it hardly stays afloat in the format Legacy is turning into. Countersliver might be a lot better against Goblins than Thresh and roughly even in the Thresh/Sliver matchup, but Thresh has an easier time dealing with board control because it's threats are huge even if they're a topdeck when the board is empty. If Slivers and Thresh both have 3 or 4 guys out, they're all roughly the same size, but if each have only 1, the difference is pretty stark.

So yeah, play Thresh. It's not going to hurt my feelings.

[Kronicler]

Yeah, I agree with pretty much everything that my teammates have said, but one thing that I don't agree with in general is that Thresh wins the Slivers vs Thresh matchup. I have quite a bit of experience with this matchup (mostly UGR) and I definately have a positive matchup against a good player. Not hugely postitive, keep that in mind, but probably 55/45 - 60/40. I am unsure about how boarding effects this though, so that is definately a whole in my testing.

Kronicler

[tpnp]

Yeah, I agree with pretty much everything that my teammates have said, but one thing that I don't agree with in general is that Thresh wins the Slivers vs Thresh matchup. I have quite a bit of experience with this matchup (mostly UGR) and I definately have a positive matchup against a good player. Not hugely postitive, keep that in mind, but probably 55/45 - 60/40. I am unsure about how boarding effects this though, so that is definately a whole in my testing.

Kronicler
I couldn't agree more with this statement. In the games that I've played, I was able to hold the fort with Crystalline+Plated+Muscle/Sinew until a Winged showed up to finally race against Thresh. Vial has also been great against Thresh, giving out a surprise +1/+1 or first strike.

[cheddercaveman]

UGr Thres I dont think is unbeatable, but its quite rough (lost to 2 of them recently). I want to playtest it more. I was actually experimenting with spell snare in the mainboard (3 daze 3 snare, 0 talon). Not sure it was the right way to go in hindsight. One of the games i completely misplayed though, so I wont count that one. The burn was the thing that got them there though, once I was down to 5-8 life it was pretty much over.

I'm going to test out Morningtide and see how that works for me. Probably moving the talons back in and the snares back to the board too. I don't own meddling mages either, so I've been playing without those.

Question for everyone ... how often to you board in the engineered explosives? The only match I board them in against is belcher (add TES to that, but I've not seen much of TES in my area). Also, interestingly, if you can hold off belcher long enough, the empty the warrens for 12 guys is fine (im talking hold them off to maybe turn 2 or 3). I actually was able to punch through enough aggro to outrace their guys.

[RoddyVR]

i'm curious if anyone has gone through the new lowryn slivers to see if any of them are worth adding in to this deck?

Amoeboid Changeling 1U 1/1
Changeling (This card is every creature type at all times.)
T: Target creature gains all creature types until end of turn.
T: Target creature loses all creature types until end of turn.

might be a way to protect those meddling mages from being shot at.
i keep trying to figure out a way to use the "loses all" ability to combat an e plague, but i dont think it realy works...

Shapesharer 1U 1/1
Changeling (This card is every creature type at all times.)
2U: Target Shapeshifter becomes a copy of target creature until your next turn.

might be used as a very expensive 9th muscle sliver (by making it copy one during attack)... could also be a temp backup to something like winged if the one winged you have is getting killed during your flying attack or something.
the ability is prety useless once you have a crystalline though (most shapeshifters have changling and so are slivers which cant be targeted while crystaline is in play).

and ofcourse:

Mirror Entity 2W 1/1
Changeling (This card is every creature type at all times.)
X: Creatures you control become X/X and gain all creature types until end of turn.

i'm not 100% sure, but i assume if there's a muscle sliver in play and you use this guy's ability for 3, the muscle sliver will be a 3/3 from the ability and still get its +1/+1 from its ability right? for a 4/4 total.

then there's the Championing changelings, which could basicaly remove an extra crystaline from the game so that a WoG effect would leave you with a crystaline on the board....

[Ataxrxes]

Those are some interesting ideas, but it seems to me they mostly fall into the "danger of cool things" category. You also already outlined most of the reasons why these strategies wouldn't work or would be very situational, and I don't think this deck can support that. Perhaps these are sideboard possibilities? They would need a lot of testing though.

[godryk]

The only card that seems really useful to me is Mirror Entity wich can be very funny, especially if we get to know what the hell happens with those static abilities which is the only part of Magic rules I don't usually remember. If pumping slivers' effects do still apply, then our sliver can really grow.

I'm also considering how awsome can be vial it out against goblins with a Warchief in play, you know, we would be goblins, so, we could play undercosted slivers to alpha-strike that very turn.

Seems interesting to me, not just a cool thing, it can help when opponent has managed to avoid us to keep a single pumper into play. You know, it's tenth turn, you have a Winged, Plated and Crystalline, and you're low at life, then you vial it and tap all you mana. And we have to consider how strong is in the currentmetagame to have different CMC. I think It deserves some testing, maybe like a 2-of.

[xsockmonkeyx]

I'm also considering how awsome can be vial it out against goblins with a Warchief in play, you know, we would be goblins, so, we could play undercosted slivers to alpha-strike that very turn.

Just wanted to point out that Warchief is not symmetrical. Only the person who controls the Warchief gets busted goblin action.

[RoddyVR]

actualy i already thought of the warchief thing against goblins... it doesnt work...
warchief:
Goblin spells you play cost 1 less to play.
Goblin creatures you control have haste.

so no bonuses for enemy changelings.

[godryk]

Ok, thanks, that makes it less cool, but I will test it anyway...

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Mirror Entity is sickening. My only question is: what do you guys propose dropping for it? Myself, I haven't a clue beyond perhaps cutting into cards here and there.

[Pinder]

Mirror Entity is sickening. My only question is: what do you guys propose dropping for it? Myself, I haven't a clue beyond perhaps cutting into cards here and there.

I don't know. I haven't tested Mirror Entity, but from the outset it just looks like a 3 mana 1/1 that you need a lot of mana to make truly useful. The fact that its abiltiy works nicely with pump slivers and not instead of them (your creatures become X/X, then get all the +1/+1's) is great, but it always struck me as a little mana intensive. In a deck that usually has roughly 3 lands out most of the time, is it really worth it?

[Goaswerfraiejen]

In your opinion, then, it's just a win-more card?

[Pinder]

In your opinion, then, it's just a win-more card?

I haven't done any testing, so I reserve judgement for now, but it certainly comes off that way.

[godryk]

Well, in my opinion this card is the only good topdeck this deck has acces to. I mean that if we get stopped, and we're not allowed to keep pumpers, this can save our ass when we are in low life with Plated+Plated+Crystalline or something like this. I will consider to include a few copies, maybe 2. I will consider anything that helps to kill that pesky 'Goyf and I think this does.


In your opinion, then, it's just a win-more card?

It isn't the same, but, if you could play a third pumper, will you consider it a win-more card?

[Curby]

i'm not 100% sure, but i assume if there's a muscle sliver in play and you use this guy's ability for 3, the muscle sliver will be a 3/3 from the ability and still get its +1/+1 from its ability right? for a 4/4 total.

Yup, Mirror Entity is applied at layer 6b first, then Muscle Sliver is applied at layer 6d.

See: http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=12326006

[xsockmonkeyx]

Initial qualms I would have with Mirror Entity is the fact that you have to tap mana to pump and he costs 3. Ramping up Vial to 3 kind of kills the vial and tapping 3 lands on your turn to play him isnt so hot if you need to leave mana open to counter spell.

The way he is worded makes him easy to evaluate with this deck because almost all of your slivers have the same base power and toughness. This means the X mana you dump into him makes your all of your slivers essentially +(X-1)/+(X-1) because they are all 1/1 (except crystal). That means you need at least 2 mana open for him to do any good. Would you play a sliver that costs 3 and required at least 2 mana upkeep to do anything besides be a sliver? He would cost 4 mana every round to produce the same effect as Muscle sliver.

[Wastoid]

My initial thoughts of this mirror entity character is that he's definitely not worth putting in. With 8 pump guys already you really don't need this guy and he costs 1 more mana. His ability isn't that awesome considering how mana light this deck is. I never play more than 2-3 lands out at a time with all the wastelands and such in my meta. Most importantly what on earth would you take out to stick him in? This guy brings nothing new to the table.

[Nihil Credo]

If you already run Vial and splash black, then Mirror Entity does not compare very favourably to Sedge Sliver.

[Curby]

If you already run Vial and splash black, then Mirror Entity does not compare very favourably to Sedge Sliver.

Except that you'd have to run a 5-color mana base to support Sedge, and require red+black or vial+black to fully power it. It would certainly be better once cast with a Swamp in play, but getting to that point seems a lot harder to pull of consistently when compared to running a critter in our secondary (main) color.

Maindeck Hibernation, Harmonic, or Essence all seem like better ideas than Mirror Entity, mostly because they provide flexibility whereas Mirror Entity just (might) make things bigger. If I can fly over Goyf's head to drain life or block+bounce for 2 lost life per attack (or 4 lost life per dead Goyf), I couldn't care less about them anyway.

Incidentally, I wonder about our mana curve, which is low enough to present a problem in itself. Perhaps running more biggies like Harmonic, Mirror Entity, Sedge, Essence, etc. would help us against Explosives and the like. We'd have to do better than 20 Lands+Vials to support the increase, but opening up the middle range of sliver casting costs might give us a lot more flexibility for the reduced speed. EDIT: Ok, probably not, but Explosives does royally screw us.

[Wastoid]

I don't think EE is a big enough problem for us to start running more expensive slivers even though it does completely hose us. That's what FOW hibernation sliver and stifle are for. I'm gonna play 2 CC slivers until the cows come home. :tongue:

[cheddercaveman]

Is Hibernation sliver even being played? Making this deck 4 colors seems like a terrible Idea, even with the vial. The 3 color manabase is shakier than I'd like, and with Wastelands still being plentiful it seems like a bad idea to me.

[Curby]

Is Hibernation sliver even being played? Making this deck 4 colors seems like a terrible Idea, even with the vial.

http://www.germagic.de/dc/deck.php?id=10890 finished 5/46, and seems mostly standard. Says "screw your nonbasic hate" with all nonbasics, and uses 4 Vials to help with mana issues. Plated was probably added to deal with early Mongoose and Lackey, but no Goblin deck reached T8.

http://www.germagic.de/dc/deck.php?id=7987 finished 6/48, and is an odd list with Scrublands and maindeck Bobs and Mages. Hibernations are in the side. Note the total lack of artifact/enchantment removal. (This was from April though, and isn't as relevant.)

Mildly off-topic, but any other lists from good finishes? Back on topic...

Hibernation seems good but I'd be tempted to run 18 lands with 4 Vials like the first list above. Too often I draw a hand with 1 land, or no land at all. Might be bad luck or bad shuffling, but I mull to 5 disturbingly often with a 17-land build. Am I mulling too aggressively? Assuming the unlisted cards are near optimal (e.g. Crystalline, Sinew, Daze, StP):

0 Land: Mull
1 Land, no Vial, no Cantrip: Mull
1 Land, 1 Vial or Cantrip: Mull on the play or if facing Land/Artifact Destruction
1 Land, 1 Vial, 1 Cantrip: Mull if facing Land/Artifact Destruction? Or always keep? Or only keep if it's Ponder (to dig at up to 4 cards)?

Anyway, the other thing I'm interested in trying is maindeck Essence. When I was able to resolve Essence, I pretty much won the game every time. If only I could fit both Essence and Hibernation in the deck, I could use the bounce tricks fearlessly. But then I'd be needing 4 colors and 4 mana, which is likely more than the deck can comfortably handle. A 19-20 sliver package might look something like:

4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
3 Winged Sliver
2-3 Hibernation Sliver
2 Essence Sliver

Running both Duress/Thoughtseize and Hibernation is almost certainly backbreaking. With only 4 Muscle Slivers as the maindeck green splash, I sometimes had trouble finding the green mana with which to cast them. If I not only threw in Hibernation but also the discard (which is better on turn 1 than turn 5), I'd often be needing more colors than I have turns, which is difficult to do consistently even with our cantrips and fetchlands. I may be getting too gun-shy with my recent experience in horrible initial hands, but I'm increasingly craving consistency over raw power. Note that while Vials can help you play off-color Slivers, your spells must be cast with actual mana.

EDIT: Gah, I just played a game against UG Thresh (no splash), and was stuck with two Tropical Islands and an Island for the majority of the game. A resolved Vial let me cast Crystallines and Hibernations to support my Muscles, but my 2x Duress were dead in hand for a long time (haven't switched them to Thoughtseize yet). I finally won on turn 23 at 5 life, but life would have been so much easier with more appropriate mana. It really makes me want to run a fourth vial in the 4-color build, since it's your only out when colorscrewed.

[Volt]

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[kicks_422]

Woot! New decklist! Eerily similar to what I already have though... Have you been hacking my PC? j/k... :tongue:

I'm wondering about the Plagues in the SB though. Are they really needed?... I could imagine them being useful against combo more than aggro (EtW, Cephalid Illusionist), but I think EE would be a better option there.

[Volt]

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[godryk]

I assume you have done enough testing so let me make a few questions:
Can you say that black splash makes Threshold matchup better?
Does it keep its good Goblin matchup? (goblins is still very relevant in my metagame)
Is Thoughtsize really needed? I mean, do I have to purcha$e them or duress is enough?

[Volt]

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[cheddercaveman]

Here's what I'd like to know. How is your Landstill matchup? I can't imagine that it really got any better. This build is resistant to the mass removal that they play I will give it that. However, it is EXTREMELY vulnerable to wasteland+crucible, or really just wasteland on its own. Your running 4 colors now, and I'm not sure how we're answering the problem any better than playing other/more white slivers (plated, sidewinder, talon, essence) or maybe bounce (chain of vapor seems like the play here or hibernation for the big effect). AND, with just the typical fetching/forcing life loss, what i lost hard to with the thresh game was being lightning bolted more times than not, and we've done nothing to help that either.

But back to my question, have you tested the landstill matchup? Multiple builds (U/W, U/B/W, U/R, U/W/B/G, U/B/G, etc)

[Volt]

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[Curby]

I lucked out by opening a Thoughtseize in the Prerelease I went to, but I think getting #2-4 will be quite a bit more painful. Until then, Duress will have to do. In the meantime, I'm mostly wondering what to do about my sideboard.

I really like Engineered Plague, as I'm more likely to face tribal here than Thresh (stupid wacky meta) which makes Perish slightly less widely applicable. EE is great for blowing up tokens, but Plague can also nullify Warrens Goblins and halve the power of Bridge Zombies (but I'd go for graveyard hate against Bridge). If Lorwyn gives Legacy tribes a boost, this will be extremely relevant. But is it better than Explosives?

Next, with Ichorid and Breakfast as such potent decks, some sort of Graveyard hate seems good. Between Leyline of the Void, Planar Void, Yixlid Jailer, Jotun Grunt, Stonecloaker, Tormod's Crypt, and Morningtide, I think Leyline is the best overall. Planar Void is better when it's not in the opening hand, but is more easily blown up by Deed and EE, and can get pulled by Duress and family before it's cast.

I'm also annoyed by a local BG Rock deck (possibly with other splashes, I forget). While he doesn't use recursion as much as the graveyard combo decks, this might have a place against him as well. Extirpate taking out slivers quickly gets out of hand, and unfortunately Planar Void actually works better in making Extirpate useless. This is unfortunate because Leyline is generally better, and because pretty much any Deed will kill Planar Void.

Harmonic Sliver is a must, and 3 seems sufficient.

With the 4 more slots, I was thinking of running the rather old-school Meddling Mage, but I have no room for his friend, Pithing Needle.

In the end, I'm up to something like:

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Engineered Plague
4 Meddling Mage
3 Harmonic Sliver

I think my love for Essence Sliver is a bit of a newbie flag, since newbies tend to gravitate towards life gain and big creatures. However, it so consistently wins games when it resolves that I'd love to find a way to put him into the side if not the main. Especially with the introduction of Hibernation Sliver and Thoughtseize, it seems that much more relevant. Volt's testing indicates that my fears are not justified and my reliance on life gain just shows a lack of experience with the deck, but our build is starting to look like Suicide Sliver with 16 sources of life loss, some of them recurring. How might you build a sideboard package with Essence against a pretty random but aggro-heavy, aggro-control-heavy, combo-light local meta?

Stifle was suggested by Volt's new side, and I'd probably use it over Mage if I had them to use. =) Any pointers (with or without Essence) would be most appreciated. Thanks!

[Volt]

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[Volt]

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[david_ir1]

Hi, this is my current decklist

LANDS: 18

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland

CREATURES: 15

4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
3 Winged Sliver

SPELLS: 27

2 Spell snare
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Sword to Plowshares
3 Sensei's divining top
3 Counterbalance
3 Stifle

SIDEBOARD: 15

4 Meddling Mage
3 Pithing Needle
3 Harmonic Sliver
4 Plated sliver
1 Stifle

I played this saturday a 24 people tournament in Madrid (Spain) and went 4-0, let's go with a small report:

Round 1: WWu, against a random guy

On game one I dazed a turn one Mother of runes he casted out of a tundra, wasteland on the tundra on turn 2 and he never got another plains, he only drew 2 wastelands and 2 Mishra's factories.
Game two: -2 spell snare +2 pithing needle. I had the nuts and just dropped turn one top, turn two counterbalance and he didn't resolve a single spell.

Round 2: High Tide, against my friend Joaquin Tejero, Spain's 2007 National Subchampion
Game one is easy, counterbalance does wreck his deck, he tries to go off, a well placed stifle on a cycled faerie prevents him to get a much needed card from the top of his library, he scoops.
Game two is a walk on the park, -4 swords to plowshares -3 winged sliver -1 muscle sliver +4 meddling mage +3 harmonic sliver (needed for revealing with counterbalance against mana shorts) + 1 stifle

Round 3: 4C madness survival

Game one I counter the following spells on turns 1, 2 and 3: Aquamiba, survival, wild mongrel. He runs out of gas and dies to 3 3/3 flying slivers
Game two: -3 stifle+3 pithing needle (tough decission, I don't know if it was the right one) I keep a hand with no counters but 2 lands and 5 slivers. I proceed to beat him down to 3 life, he gets control of the game with 2 more creatures than me and drops a wonder to his graveyard so I can't attack anymore. For the next 5 or 6 turns we trade spells, he gets his genesis to work and starts building an army, I start chumpblocking to prevent me from dying. When all hope is lost, next turn i'm dead, that's for sure, I topdeck a wasteland, destroy his only island and fly over his non-flying creatures for the win. Lucky me.

Round 4: Mono Blue, against a very good player

Game one he drops a turn 3 Back to basics, I Daze it, he casts Fow. A powder keg takes care of my 2 attacking slivers and it's GG for him.
Game two: -3 counterbalance, -4 swords, +3 harmonic sliver + 3 pithing needle, +1 stifle. He casts again a turn 3 back to basics but I'm not tapped this time and remove it with a Harmonic sliver. After that every sliver I cast destroys something, vedalken shackles, powder keg....
Game three: I lay a turn 2 Sinew sliver and hold back everything else he casts to remove it. I play more creatures, he counters them all spending his resources, and the sinew goes all the way knocking him down to 0 life.

And that was my saturday afternoon, please let me know what you think about my decklist and what would you do to improve it, please let me know as well what do you think about my sideboarding.

[Curby]

Interesting build. I recall that a tourney-winning countersliver deck on magic-league also used CounterTop.

It looks like UG or UGw CounterTop Thresh with different creatures. How would you compare the two? Judging from your meta, you feel that playing with all nonbasics is justified (especially without Vial)? I'm considering dropping basics out of my UWbg build.

I'm wondering how this build and the UWbg would perform in the same matchups against different decks.

[godryk]

(Enhorabuena)

I've tried to fit Counterbalance in the deck long ago. Besides the tournament report and your amazing results, I wonder if you had had any problems againt mana denial, with no basics and 3 wasteland, although, I supose that's what Stifles are for...

Interesting build anyway.

[david_ir1]

(Gracias!)

The only problem against mana denial is Crucible+wasteland, the stifles help in normal situations, and the Pithing needles in the board sure help, but if someone gets the crucible combo you'd better move onto next game. Luckily crucible is played only in slow decks like Standstill, and that shouldn't be a problem. This weekend Lorwyn becomes legal, let's see what happens with Thoughtseize, I think this card will change the metagame, and it's bad news against our deck.

[cheddercaveman]

I actually disagree, I don't think that thoughtseize changes the metagame hardly at all. The only potential change would be a resurgance of deadguy or deadgoyf into the metagame, and even that doesnt overly concern me. Beating those decks is basically as simple as just putting down guys and turning them sideways (countering or swords-ing bob along the way).

Now, on counterbalance ... I haven't played it I will say, but the thing that I see with it is that it takes 2 turns to setup and you can't even use it (for the most part) until turn 3. With this deck, by turn 3, I typically want to be turning creatures sideways for another 4-6 damage, not slowing them down. And against combo, I could see the point, but just playing medding mage in your sideboard would take up less space and probably do just as good.

However, there is a card that I am planning to put into this sideboard. If your running black it would be perish, however, I know there are a lot of people, myself included, that do not think a 4 color deck is advantagous. Therefore, I will be putting hibernation into my sideboard (either 2 or 3). I had another deck that I played it in and it was phenomenal. Takes care of lots of our problems with threshold. I do realize that in this deck it means that we might be putting our muscle slivers back into our hand too, but its probably worth it vs threshold, and we play it on their turn so we either attacked already or we can replay the sliver next turn and get in a big alpha strike still. Thoughts?

[david_ir1]

Now, on counterbalance ... I haven't played it I will say, but the thing that I see with it is that it takes 2 turns to setup and you can't even use it (for the most part) until turn 3.

You'd be surprised how efficient becomes when you play a turn 2 Counterbalance, without top the Counterbalance still triggers!!! Plenty of spells got countered this way, my friend!!!, and remember, you can let the Counterbalance trigger resolve and if the spells doesn't get countered and then play Daze or Fow. Believe me, best turn 2 play: Counterbalance. I don't know how to fit the 4th counterbalance, any ideas?


I know there are a lot of people, myself included, that do not think a 4 color deck is advantagous.

You're right, playing wasteland in any agro or agro control deck sounds great to me, so going 4C is too risky, check my report in previous posts from last weekeend tournament and see what happened to the 4C survival guy.

[godryk]

Well, considering Volt has opened a new thread for the new 4-color builds. I think we should keep this thread focused in UWg Counterslivers as it is what we usually call Meathooks.

I really like the Stifle+Wasteland suggestion (even if it weakens our mana base), although I'm not very fond of the Countertop idea, anyway I'll test it. But what I really like is that it only keeps the real 15 esential slivers to get much more room.

Anyway I'll consider a Stifle+Wasteland+Vial list, just in case, to not get slowed down against certain decks we must aggresively race.

[godryk]

(Sorry fordouble post, but I have changed my opinion)

I've tested with the Countertop list and I found it to be very strong. You can disrupt your opponentes starting mana base, drop a few creatures that can get destroyed/countered and then drop the countertop FTW, which usually wins you the game against all kinf of decks, from combo to Burn. Anyway, I found Spell Snare too redundant, because with countertop you won't easyly let CMC 2 spells resolve. I rather cut the 2 Spell Snare and another card, maybe a Winged ot someting else, because sensei's divining top isn't a real cantrip, and after a few turns we end up by just watching the top card of our library. I think sensei's gets stronger combined with more shuffle effects. eight fetchlands is ok, but with 11 shuffle effects I found the deck to do it great. And of course is necesary to the first turns mana fixing.

[kicks_422]

This weekend Lorwyn becomes legal, let's see what happens with Thoughtseize, I think this card will change the metagame, and it's bad news against our deck.

Actually, Thoughtseize is a much needed boost for the deck (and for any aggro-control deck with black, as a matter of fact) because the deck usually finds it hard to dig for those 4 StP's when needed, considering the lower number of cantrips that the deck has.

[Curby]

I think he meant Thoughtseize will be bad when used against us because people can pick apart our hand, i.e. the boost it gives decks against us is bigger than the boost it gives us against other decks. Not sure if this is true, but that seems to have been his intent.

I suppose it comes down to UWg with Countertop/Stifle/Waste for disruption, or UWgb with Hibernation and 'seize for disruption and tricks. I need to get some Counterbalance so I can test out both. =)


I rather cut the 2 Spell Snare and another card, maybe a Winged ot someting else

Cut for Ponder? Vial? You mentioned you'd try to fit Vial in; what does your list end up looking like?

[godryk]

Well, I basically left the Vial idea, since I played against some decks playing wasteland and didn't got manascrewed. Of course BwConfidant classical LD package or Wasteland+Crucible destroys us, but, what the hell, it already did. I found out that most of time I just needed to stay alive a few turns and get the countertop FTW. And top gets better with shuffle effects, we all know, and thought that Spell Snare was redundant, because I will be able to easy counter the 2 CMC in shory, even with random counterbalance revelations. Sure Spell Snare is great in the first few turns, but I usually preferred stifle or wasteland, and finally, things like ponder avoid mulligan.

The list I've tested is the one david_ir1 posted a few posts above with this changes:
-2 Spell Snare
-1 Winged Sliver (I'm not sure)
+3 Ponder (maybe portent, to rearrange the top cards of a shuffled library)

I found it's powerful get slower, play with your library every turn, and keep the real good slivers.

[david_ir1]

-2 Spell Snare
-1 Winged Sliver (I'm not sure)
+3 Ponder (maybe portent, to rearrange the top cards of a shuffled library)


I don't think removing slivers from the deck is a good idea, 15 creatures is the right number. Anyway I've tested spell snare this weekend and didn't work well for me, maybe I'll return to -2 spell snare + 1 stifle (4th one) +1 counterbalance (4th one).

[kicks_422]

I think he meant Thoughtseize will be bad when used against us because people can pick apart our hand, i.e. the boost it gives decks against us is bigger than the boost it gives us against other decks. Not sure if this is true, but that seems to have been his intent.

What I meant to say was that he was wrong. I think Thoughtseize would be a much bigger boost for MeatHooks than it would be a boost to other decks.

[cheddercaveman]

Well thoughtseize isnt really playable in the Meathooks deck because we don't have black. It is in the 4-color list though I believe already. Also, I need to get my hands on some counterbalances and I'll give it a shot.

[Zach Tartell]

What I meant to say was that he was wrong. I think Thoughtseize would be a much bigger boost for MeatHooks than it would be a boost to other decks.

I don't understand this mentality - dont' you fear massive removal spells? How does thoughtsieze pick up where Duress left off there? Why not just spare yourself the 2-6 life loss you'll incur from playing TS and run 4 Duress and 4 Therapy - you run enough creatures to make it happen.

[godryk]

Wow, I'm really liking Counterbalance, now we got 2 different plans, go aggro if our hand or your opponent alows you or just drop counterbalance and stop his start until you can confortabily build you hive.

Anyway, I'm still think that extra shuffle effects are needed, maybe not by cutting creatures, maybe just:
-2 Spell Snare
-1 Daze
+3 Ponder

Ponder is extremely efficient to reach mana stability in first turns, and makes fetch+ponder starting hands in strong hands that, otherwise, should have been shuffled away. Anyway, I think 4 counterbalance, although useful without Top, is too redundant.

And maybe cutting a single Tundra fo an Island may give us some stability to play Ponder/Top in the first turn without fearing being wastelanded , although it isn't essential, having a safe blue source helps when you can draw colorless lands. Anyway, I'm really liking Wasteland and Stifle as mana denial, considering a huge variety of decks open with first turn fetch.

Moreover, let's see this list that top8'ed a 22 person event (http://www.germagic.de/dc/deck.php?id=11027) last saturday in Speyer. This comes back to the Meathooks deck as we understanded it 2-3 weeks ago, with Aether Vial, Plated Slivers and the inclussion of 2 Essence Slivers.

And that made me think about making a Countertop Meathooks with a transformational sideboard that changes the countertop engine for a 4 Plated+2 Essence/Talon against Goblins and other decks Countertop isn't very useful against. That could also be the opposite dependeing on the meta. This holds a wide variety of decks, leaving 9 SB slots to Landstill and other decks hate. Just an idea.

[kicks_422]

I don't understand this mentality - dont' you fear massive removal spells? How does thoughtsieze pick up where Duress left off there? Why not just spare yourself the 2-6 life loss you'll incur from playing TS and run 4 Duress and 4 Therapy - you run enough creatures to make it happen.

It's not like you face mass removal in any deck you face. It's true that Thoughtseize's lifeloss hurts (especially when coupled with Hibernation Sliver), but being able to snag a creature before it hits you, allowing you to attack with your whole hive, and/or not forcing you to dig for removal is well worth it.

Truth is though, I've been switching TS and Duress in those slots just when I feel like it, then board in Smothers if extra removal is needed. That's another option.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Anyway, I'm still think that extra shuffle effects are needed, maybe not by cutting creatures, maybe just:
-2 Spell Snare
-1 Daze
+3 Ponder


Im confused with the changes. What is your current list?

[Pinder]

I don't understand this mentality - dont' you fear massive removal spells? How does thoughtsieze pick up where Duress left off there? Why not just spare yourself the 2-6 life loss you'll incur from playing TS and run 4 Duress and 4 Therapy - you run enough creatures to make it happen.

First off, 4 Thoughtseize is 4 slots, 4 Duress 4 Therapy is 8. Second, although we have enough creatures to use Therapy, sacrificing creatures is one of the last things this deck wants to do.

Honestly though, the only thing Thoughtseize has over Duress in this deck is the fact that it can hit Goyf. Outside of that, they are essentially equal. So it basically comes down to whether or not you want to pay life in exchange for added ways to del with Goyf. I honestly think that either one of them could fill that slot.

[Volt]

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[godryk]

Im confused with the changes. What is your current list?

I'm testing around the countertop list david_ir1 shared with us some posts before.

It's now something like this:

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tundra
3 Tropical
1 Island
3 Wasteland

4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
3 Winged Sliver

4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares

[david_ir1]

I'd never go below 4 dazes. I think the 8 free counterspells are essential to this deck to work.

About the basic island I'll give it a try.

About adding black cards to the deck: the only truly good card to add to the maindeck is Dark Confidant. Full stop. I don't really see the point of Hibernation Sliver in the current format, are you going to chumpblock with your slivers to then return them to your hand (losing 2 life in the process) and then playing them again? It's a huge tempo disadvantage and I don't think it's worth it. The other truly good thing about adding black is the sideboard options (E. Plague, Extirpate...)

About adding Thoughtseize to the maindeck... why is it needed maindeck? what card does it replace? I'm not really worried about losing 2 life for caswting such a powerful and cheap spell, it's different than losing life from hibernation every time you return an sliver to your hand.

One issue to discuss is the mana disruption package, if you add black you can't run wastelands anymore, so if you add black, is stifle going to be in the maindeck?

About the sideboard, if going UWg, is Meddling mage necessary? I've found that stifle+counterbalance+ pithing needle+ free counterspells are enough to beat any combo.

[kicks_422]

I'd never go below 4 dazes. I think the 8 free counterspells are essential to this deck to work.

About the basic island I'll give it a try.

About adding black cards to the deck: the only truly good card to add to the maindeck is Dark Confidant. Full stop. I don't really see the point of Hibernation Sliver in the current format, are you going to chumpblock with your slivers to then return them to your hand (losing 2 life in the process) and then playing them again? It's a huge tempo disadvantage and I don't think it's worth it. The other truly good thing about adding black is the sideboard options (E. Plague, Extirpate...)

About adding Thoughtseize to the maindeck... why is it needed maindeck? what card does it replace? I'm not really worried about losing 2 life for caswting such a powerful and cheap spell, it's different than losing life from hibernation every time you return an sliver to your hand.

One issue to discuss is the mana disruption package, if you add black you can't run wastelands anymore, so if you add black, is stifle going to be in the maindeck?

About the sideboard, if going UWg, is Meddling mage necessary? I've found that stifle+counterbalance+ pithing needle+ free counterspells are enough to beat any combo.

Aside from having a way to escape mass removal, Hibernation gives you a lot of combat tricks. Yes, chump blocking every turn for 2 life is worth it... Would you rather take 5 from Goyf? You have Vial to put them into play right after you bounce them, anyway. Not to sound like I'm campaigning for the 4c build (though I am :tongue:, and I'm still thinking of a name for it), but I've found it to offer so much more than what MeatHooks does.

Now that Pinder and Volt have said that Duress is a worthy (if not better) replacement than Thoughtseize, I guess it's official. :tongue: I actually made a tally of how many times I actually picked off a creature when I used TS, and I think it's now at:

Creature: 9 (5 Tarmogoyfs, 1 Illusionist, 1 Nomads en-Kor, 1 Priest of Titania, 1 Phyrexian Dreadnought)
Non-creature: 48

And MeatHooks never ran Wastelands. I guess it's your own innovation to the deck, but mana denial was never a major component of the deck to begin with, along with the Top+CB package. The cc's of the deck isn't varied enough to fully make use of CB, so I think it was dropped after being tested by a lot of people here. If you DO run it though, yes, MM is still a nice choice of out of the board - it stops mass removal, something which CB can't do.

[Volt]

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[godryk]

And MeatHooks never ran Wastelands.

Neither Threshold did... I perfectly know they are not the same, but this didn't mean it doesn't work. Changing basics for wastelands can be a metagame choice. Sure it increses a little your mulligan ratio (that's why I suggested Ponder to help mana fixing), but on the other hand you can win games just by wasting an opponent's first turn dual or stiffling a fetch.

Of course Landstill is a horrible matchup, but, it will always be a nightmare for us. And wasteland+stifle can delay wrath of god enough turns. And countertop stops counterspell, spell snare, swords to plowshares, diabolic edict, so you can keep your countermagic for good stuff. But the question is, is it worth to design your deck focusing on such a horrible matchup as Landstill?

I must admit that countertop and mana denial doesn't seem to fit in the same deck, maybe they belong to 2 different lists, the one more aggro, and the one more controllish, but well, I'm giving it a chance and seems pretty good. I must say that I haven't done an intensive testing against Landstill yet.

In conclussion, now that a 4-color list is being discussed in a new and more accurate thread, I don't want to just close the thread and forget about 3-color decks which, actually, can be very good.


About the sideboard, if going UWg, is Meddling mage necessary?

If you play your last list I think Meddling Mage isn't needed at all. Countertop+Stifle+Cheap Counters are more than enough, graveyard hate can be even more useful. But I'm still toying with the idea of a tranformational SB...

[DURESSyou92]

why does swithing slivers for thresh creatures keep ur creatures from be destroyed? slivers will just handle it the same way thresh does iether counter it or be srewed for a while

[Jak]

Slivers are weak on their own. You would be attacking with really weak 1/1s and 2/2s without the 8 pump slivers. Thresh can survive by attacking with untargetable 3/3s and huge Goyfs. They don't need to overextend to be threats, whereas Slivers do.

[BoomChild]

In legacy as a whole, there is not a huge reliance on mass removal. Most decks in the current global meta are completely content to drop one bomb, protect it, and win with it. It is my experience that these bombs are concentrated into a few areas. Most are dropping a huge green guy, Goyf, Vore, Thresh Creature, or playing a hard to remove threat. To combat this frightening efficiency of creatures, many decks play spot removal at instant speed to combat the single threat. This is where the Slivers have the advantage.

Sliver decks are fine with losing one sliver. Most decks are content to run between 18 and 20 slivers depending on personal preference. Compare that to the other "Big Decks" we are currently facing and we see an interesting niche. Thresh generally runs Goyf, Mongoose, Werebear. Some don't even run the bear and some play around with 1-2 Enforcers based on preference again. This is an avg creature count of 8-14. Deadguy runs Bob, Hippie, Shade, Grunt maybe. That is again in the range of 12-16 threats, and Bob doesn't hit offense very often.

A competitive advantage of Slivers is the amount of threats it can pack into the board. Decks are capable and willing to pack answers to certain cards like goyf and bob but are unwilling to deal with swarms. Turning off spot removal with Crystaline and saving counters to deal with sweepers is the advantage of slivers. We should not be looking to deal with certain issues but to build the deck to your personal preference and play it to your highest level.

I may sound like a complete barn saying this but I would recommend reading Pat Chapin's article on scg if you get a chance from 11/12. Slivers fits into the warm area that he is speaking about where you have to understand your role in the matchup. Against thresh we are the agro deck. Against Goblins we are the control. If you can figure out where you are supposed to be in a specific match, you will be successful with any deck that you play.

[Jak]

In legacy as a whole, there is not a huge reliance on mass removal. Most decks in the current global meta are completely content to drop one bomb, protect it, and win with it. It is my experience that these bombs are concentrated into a few areas. Most are dropping a huge green guy, Goyf, Vore, Thresh Creature, or playing a hard to remove threat. To combat this frightening efficiency of creatures, many decks play spot removal at instant speed to combat the single threat. This is where the Slivers have the advantage.

Sliver decks are fine with losing one sliver. Most decks are content to run between 18 and 20 slivers depending on personal preference. Compare that to the other "Big Decks" we are currently facing and we see an interesting niche. Thresh generally runs Goyf, Mongoose, Werebear. Some don't even run the bear and some play around with 1-2 Enforcers based on preference again. This is an avg creature count of 8-14. Deadguy runs Bob, Hippie, Shade, Grunt maybe. That is again in the range of 12-16 threats, and Bob doesn't hit offense very often.

A competitive advantage of Slivers is the amount of threats it can pack into the board. Decks are capable and willing to pack answers to certain cards like goyf and bob but are unwilling to deal with swarms. Turning off spot removal with Crystaline and saving counters to deal with sweepers is the advantage of slivers. We should not be looking to deal with certain issues but to build the deck to your personal preference and play it to your highest level.

I may sound like a complete barn saying this but I would recommend reading Pat Chapin's article on scg if you get a chance from 11/12. Slivers fits into the warm area that he is speaking about where you have to understand your role in the matchup. Against thresh we are the agro deck. Against Goblins we are the control. If you can figure out where you are supposed to be in a specific match, you will be successful with any deck that you play.

Mass removal is extremely prevalent right now with landstill being a DTB. Removal is also really good against thresh, so decks like Truffle Shuffle and Wombat are played. EE is played in a shit ton of decks to take care of tokens and Flamebreak is used in Burn. There is a ton of mass removal in this format and Harmonic is great at that. It is also amazing in combat situations.

Now, I really don't know what you are trying to say. I take it, that you are saying why Counterslivers is superior and we shouldn't worry about certain issues, but to make this deck better, you have to fix those issues. Thresh is still a tough MU. In no way is it a cake walk because you shut off their spot removal. Their threats are bigger, so they can hold the slivers off for awhile, while they counter your threats. Plus, most builds run EE. This is why fixing those issues with Harmonic helps. Bouncing to save them from EE or to do combat tricks is really good.

I hope I understood what you are saying.

[BoomChild]

I see what you are saying. In the meta around the Chicago area, there are many loam decks, threshold decks, and people still hanging onto goblins. With this type of meta slivers are still golden. Very few people are playing landstill, EE is no problem with harmonic in play or vial for it. I have attempted to refine my playskill with the deck to understand what the threats are and what I NEED TO COUNTER. I will usually let any creature hit the board because I know that my slivers can hold it off. EE I never let resolve. Wrath... Never. Clasm.. usually never :cool: .

As for thresh and other decks with "Big Threats" I have adopted a new sideboard strategy that involves using Pongify. Don't laugh. Goyf becomes a 3/3 Ape. Were Bear gets -1/-1 and can't tap for mana. Mystic Enforcer can't fly and is just a 3/3 forever. About 80% of the time my slivers will be at least 3/4's and will just chump them all day until I can get the winged out.

Try it out, it seems janky, your opponent will be pissed, and you will likely win the game.

On a side note... it also wrecks Dreadnaughts.

[Pale Moon FTW]

Why are you running Pongify when you run white as the secondary color and thereby have access to Condemn, which is undoubtably better?

[cheddercaveman]

Condemn has the issue that the creature has to be ATTACKING. If we need to be able to attack into them without a goyf in the way or a 6/6 flyer then you need to kill it first. Now we could just be mean and play something like ovinize (which would piss off your opponent even more probably) and do the job a lot more often than you might think, but again, situational.

[godryk]

Well... Pongify and Ovinize are just... nice cards for limited, but not very good in Legacy. If you feel like playing more removal Condemn is the way to go, and you've already got a Swords to Plowshares set to deal with utility creatures. This, assuming that you are going 3 color, because black offers really solid options.

In my oppinion 4xSwords is really enough, most white decks just run a set and no further removal.

Just make sure you can drop some creatures, specially by using Vial (which is an autoinclude in the current "everybody-runs-counterbalance" metagame, no doubt about that).

If we are running a 3-color decklist, I think we can also get the countertop engine, which just wins games, so Aether Vial+Countertop+Crystalline give as a little chance to fight Threshold.

[Ataxrxes]

So are you running Vial and SDT+Counterbalance at the same time? Or were you just hypothesizing? Do you have a current decklist?

[godryk]

Well, I have played Counterbalance and Vial in different lists, the last list I tested was some posts above, alittle experimental, with some LD in form of Wastelands and Stifle. Although it worked well, I felt there were two diferent paths for this deck, the one more aggresive, in which I would consider running LD with Vial to "stabilize" our mana base, and the other, a little more controllish, with the countertop.

I felt that the countertop way was safer, so I'm on this path. Countertop owns many aggro and combo decks so we can reduce our SB slots and focus on the always awful control matchup. We would have room for some Plated and maybe other Slivers to side in for Countertop against decks it is unuseful against, like goblins.

Something like this...

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
4 Tropical
1 Island
1 Plains

3 Aether Vial

4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
3 Winged Sliver

4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Counterbalance
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares

I haven't tested it yet, but seems interesting. Any thoughts?

[Ataxrxes]

That's almost the exact list I was thinking of. Is 15 Slivers too few though? I will have to try this out.

[godryk]

Well, 15 slivers is the correct choice if they are the really good slivers. We've toyed with Plated Sliver, Talon Sliver or Essence Sliver, but they sometimes seem too situational. Againt manay decks, you just want to play as many Crystalline/Pump Slivers you draw and make them fly to go over the opponents blockers, it's been very discused, but the good amount of winged is three. With such a good cantrips as Brainstorm and Ponder and the evil combination of top+shuffle effects we can see more cards and get the real ones.

[cheddercaveman]

Well... Pongify and Ovinize are just... nice cards for limited, but not very good in Legacy. If you feel like playing more removal Condemn is the way to go, and you've already got a Swords to Plowshares set to deal with utility creatures. This, assuming that you are going 3 color, because black offers really solid options.

In my oppinion 4xSwords is really enough, most white decks just run a set and no further removal.

Just make sure you can drop some creatures, specially by using Vial (which is an autoinclude in the current "everybody-runs-counterbalance" metagame, no doubt about that).

If we are running a 3-color decklist, I think we can also get the countertop engine, which just wins games, so Aether Vial+Countertop+Crystalline give as a little chance to fight Threshold.

Well, I guess, my comment is this. That being able to remove BLOCKERs can also be important, Condemn can't do that. I know the Chicago metagame myself and the person who's playing Pongify has had the opportunity to test it out of his sideboard, if you do not have any results from testing I'd personally be inclined to side with the person who's done testing.

When I suggested Ovinze I was not serious, but it would catch someone off guard probably the first time and kill a 'goyf.

I am intrigued to see a list with the countertop engine and results to post for it.

[Volt]

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[Aggro_zombies]

EDIT: I will also mention this one more time... If you're looking for a secondary spot removal spell, consider Kirtar's Desire (http://magiccards.info/od/en/27.html).
How is that better than Condemn, just out of curiosity?

[Volt]

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[david_ir1]

I have good news boys, last weekend I won Spain's 2007 Legacy Championship. You can find the Top 8 decklists here: http://www.arenadejuegos.com/article.php?article_id=76

[godryk]

I told you I would try to go, but again I'm too busy, anyway, 10€ for promo cards isn't that great.

However, congratulations, I'll have to give it a try, even though the meta is a bit janky, there were good Landstill players in the Top 8 that I have played against. I would like to hear about your Landstill matchup, Wasteland+Stifle should have been useful.

[david_ir1]

I would like to hear about your Landstill matchup, Wasteland+Stifle should have been useful.

I haven't lost a match against Standstill yet, I find the finalist's decklist very interesting, I had to sideboard in a very different way and was a trickier deck to play against.

I'm writing a full report for a spanish website, I'll let you know as soon as it is published.

[Volt]

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[godryk]

I haven't lost a match against Standstill yet, I find the finalist's decklist very interesting, I had to sideboard in a very different way and was a trickier deck to play against.

I'm writing a full report for a spanish website, I'll let you know as soon as it is published.

I don't mind to translate if you don't feel like.

[xsockmonkeyx]

I have good news boys, last weekend I won Spain's 2007 Legacy Championship. You can find the Top 8 decklists here: http://www.arenadejuegos.com/article.php?article_id=76

Wow, congrats. :smile: Be sure to link us to the report, Im sure Babelfish will have a great time trying to translate those sliver names :P

[b4r0n]

What are those cards in the picture? I can't quite make them out.

Waste/Stifle seems really good. I think it actually fits better in this deck than in Thresh.

[Pinder]

I haven't lost a match against Standstill yet, I find the finalist's decklist very interesting, I had to sideboard in a very different way and was a trickier deck to play against.

I'm writing a full report for a spanish website, I'll let you know as soon as it is published.

Wow. How many people were at this thing? I think it's funny actually, that a deck we'd written of in favor of a 4c version just topped Spanish Legacy Champs. Maybe the ol' hooks aren't as dull as we thought they were, eh?

And the Wasteland/Stifle combo in the main certainly is interesting. Did it ever come into play as an effective mana denial strategy?

I'd also note that you ran 8 fetches with only 7 fetchable lands. Any particular reason for that? I would have gone for 4 Trop/Tundra and 7 fetch, myself.

And you say you've never lost to Landstill? Teach me.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Wow. How many people were at this thing? I think it's funny actually, that a deck we'd written of in favor of a 4c version just topped Spanish Legacy Champs. Maybe the ol' hooks aren't as dull as we thought they were, eh?

Maybe you wrote it off. I told you hooks was fine. :tongue:

EDIT: here's the winning decklist. I kinda like it (except for those essense slivers, yuck)


David de la Iglesia -Ganador
Counter Slivers

Tierras
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland

Criaturas
4 Plated Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
3 Winged Sliver
4 Æther Vial

Hechizos
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Stifle
4 Swords to Plowshares

Banquillo
4 Meddling Mage
3 Harmonic Sliver
2 Essence Sliver
2 Spell Snare
2 Pithing Needle
2 Tormod's Crypt

[david_ir1]

Sadly there were less than 50 people (last year I ended 11th and there were over 70 people), it was 6 rounds plus Top 8. I ended the swiss first, I went 4-0 and then ID on rounds 5 and 6. The point behind trying this decklist instead the one with the counterbalance is that the metagame here in Spain leans too much towards aggro, I didn't see a single combo deck in the top tables for the whole day! Plenty of goblins, mono green stompy, BW pikula, ... etc.

As soon as I have the report published in a Spanish website Godryk can translate it for you.

Against landstill the trick is simple: don't overextend, never more than 2 or 3 critters, and use the stifles wisely (the pithing needles are amazing!)

About the 2 Essence slivers, they used to be 2 Worship, but in the last minute i thought that everybody with aggro decks would be going to sideboard disenchant effects against me because of the vials, so I opted for adding sinergy to the deck. Against red-based decks they're incredible, you drop it, swing with your fliers and get out of burn reach forever.

The stifle+wasteland package work very well, about adding 8 fetchlands maybe you're right, 7 would probably be ok, but I've found that the virtual advantage they give thinning your deck is great. And opposing Stifles never have been a problem, I know the risk you take running this mana base, and it's worth it.

As soon as the report is published I'll let you know.

[DURESSyou92]

I've been thinking about what Volt said and i think he's right, playing CounterTop will make it so u never have enough slivers in play to post a big enough threat. So i came up with what i think is the best list to play with out CounterTop:

Lands//// 17

4 Windswept Heath
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
4 Tropical Island
1 Island

Creatures//// 19

4 Sinew Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
3 Winged Sliver
4 Meddling Mage

Spells//// 23

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 STP
3 Pithing Needle
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

SB////

4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Kirtar's Desire
4 Spell Snare
3 Harmonic Sliver

There are 59 cards total the extra slot can be winged sliver/needle/or extra land


Card Choices:

Meddling Mage:These days in magic you either play Tarmogoyf or play Ichorid, Counter Slivers plays neither. All you gotta do is play mage naming tarmogoyf and 50%+ the format is screwed. Yea he's not a sliver but i think he's worth it.

Aether Vial:I used to play this but didn't find it very useful with the low amount of creatures and the fact that slivers cost so little

Wasteland:I'm not a fan of wastelands in a 3 color decks but if you think it will hurt other players more than it hurts you, (depends on your meta) go ahead and play it.

Kirtar's Desire:I don't think extra removal is required but if you feel that it is go with Kirtar's Desire.

[godryk]

Well, maindecking Meddling Mage is debatable, I've seen some people in the past maindecking Meddling Mage and Dark Confidant and the idea was abandoned becuase they weren't slivers and just sucks against aggro decks, although, naming Tarmogoyf is an option that seems interesting.

What I've really thought about sometimes was about maindecking Pithing Neddle in certain metas, since in some tourneys I've found myself siding them in almost every matchup. Anyway, it doesn't have very much sinergy with Aether Vial, and I think that if you face countertop it may be necessary.

[kicks_422]

Well, for me the main reason to play the black splash isn't Hibernation Sliver and/or Thoughtseize/Duress... It's the Smothers I have in the SB. Yeah... so shoot me.

The UWG version is already pretty good against combo and not much changes against Landstill even if you splash black (though Hibernation helps, Pithing Needle is clearly the MVP and the WINNING CARD in this MU). Extra removal is what the deck lacks outside of StP, primarily for Tarmogoyf, but not limited to it.

The list that DURESSyou92 posted is just a few cards off the UWG list I ran before splashing black, with Plated over Magi in the MD and some Essence Slivers and Stifles in the SB. And I don't run Vials in the MD in UWG just because I don't think the deck benefits much from it, at least not as much as UWGB does.

On that note... I might go try Oblivion Rings in the SB in UWG.

[Mordenkain]

I played UWg slivers at national championship in Denmark (where I live), and I can't say im impressed really.

My list wasn't the most optimal one, mostly because im missing out on a few trops and fetch, but mana screw wasnt the problem all day long. I felt like I was playing threshold deck, only with worse beaters and less cantrips. I had to go out with 4-5 slivers to do something about a single tarmogoyf, which wasn't very pretty. Spell Snare, FoW, Daze, Swords/Lightning Bolt made it VERY hard to get to the point where I could do anything about him.

Also, Pernicous Deed and Engineered Explosives gave trouble all day long. This may be because I don't have any needles, but I don't think that it's only that.

Anyways, unless Wizards prints some amazing slivers to make this deck viable, I don't think this dead is any good really.

- Mordenkain

PS. The AEther Vials were amazing tho. Play 4, at all times.

[godryk]

The list that DURESSyou92 posted is just a few cards off the UWG list I ran before splashing black, with Plated over Magi in the MD and some Essence Slivers and Stifles in the SB. And I don't run Vials in the MD in UWG just because I don't think the deck benefits much from it, at least not as much as UWGB does.

On that note... I might go try Oblivion Rings in the SB in UWG.

Do you mean you run them in the SB? This may be an odd choice, but may surprise the opponent. Vial is fine, but will always be discussed, I'm starting to think that they're only amazing against counterbalance.

An about Oblivion Ring, I'm not sure, there are better options against Tarmogoyf and we already have Harmonic/Krosan Grip against problematic artifact/enchantment. Anyway, reducing SB slots seems fine.

[Kronicler]

Hmmm, that's a really interesting list with wastelands and stifles. I have only 2 problems with it. 1st when it comes to stifle and wasteland you need to run 4 of both. The thing is that LD is just so much better in multiples that it's worth it to run all you can. Unfortunately I don't think we have room in the list to run 4 of both. Ack. My 2nd problem is the lack of ponders. Frankly I don't see how we can still run 18 land (only 15 of which produce colored mana!) when our only draw spells are brainstorm. That just seems like a train wreck waiting to happen. Either way though, excellent job on the tourney dude. And yeah, I think we all want to know how the hell you are beating landstill so consistently. While I can see MD stifles and wastelands helping a lot, there is no way that alone makes the match up incredibly positive.

Kronicler

[kicks_422]

Do you mean you run them in the SB? This ay be an od choice, but may surprise the opponent. Vial is fine, but will always be discussed, I'm starting to think that they're only amazing against counterbalance.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I don't run them at all in UWG, I guess I'm just the knucklehead that refuses to do so. It just seems too lacking for me in UWG, but it's better in UWBG because of the shaky manabase and Hibernation tricks.

[david_ir1]

Here you can find a full report of Spain's 2007 Legacy Championship (in spanish)

Report Legacy Championship Spain 2007 (http://www.magicevolution.com/noticia.php?id=125)

[xsockmonkeyx]

Here you can find a full report of Spain's 2007 Legacy Championship (in spanish)

Report Legacy Championship Spain 2007 (http://www.magicevolution.com/noticia.php?id=125)

Again, congrats.

Cliff's Notes version of his report: Aether Vial is a beast. Winged Sliver for the win!

[Volt]

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[godryk]

Wow, that seems interesting, although I'm not sure about running "only" 4 pumping slivers. Anyway, I'm thinking about 14 creatures and aether vial, when you can rely on counterbalance to help you resolve your guys... I've run 15 creature lists with vial, and didn't questioned it very much, but now we have access to the countertop engine, we can resolve much easier our guys. I mean, we can excange them for stifle/duress/thoutseize to help early game creaure resolution, and later, just protect our game with counterbalance.

[Volt]

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[Volt]

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[Osse]

I think 3/3 is wrong personally, I'd much rather 3 top, 2 cbalance, or something to that effect, you can even go down to 2/2 if you can fit Trinket Mage in there somehow (Run a single Crypt/Needle/Chalice maindeck?). Also, I'm really disliking Daze recently as it's pretty much dead if a player knows you're playing it. With Cbalance you pretty much need it to resolve and Daze doesn't do that effectively. Maybe running vanilla Cspell/Spell Snare would be better in that spot. Especially with Vials. -4 Daze, +1 Vial, +3 Cspell/Spell Snare?

Also, I can't say that Cbalance will be very effective in this deck without running something with 3cc. You'll just lose to Kgrip and Goyf all day long. Trinkets and some other 3cc card like Threads, Shackles or Shadowmage? Just a thought.

I've found the real problem with people throwing Cbalance into decks is they think it miraculously changes matchups that you're not winning, that's not true. The reason Cbalance was played at GP: Columbus was because it neutered Fish, and you beat Fish already. So, what's the premise of adding Cbalance? Beating Combo? If that's the case, it should most probably be sideboarded.

[Volt]

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[thefreakaccident]

I've been giving some more thought to David's UWg CounterTop Slivers build that was posted a couple pages back. Obviously, the CounterTop engine is terrific, as evidenced by the fact that many of the new Thresh builds have adopted it. As I mentioned before, my main complaint with that list is that it's still vulnerable to mass removal. Well, what if we convert it to a UWb build? Replace Muscle Slivers with Hibernation Slivers, swap the Tropical Islands for Underground Seas, and you're pretty much good to go. For reference:

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Plains

3 Aether Vial
3 Sensei's Divining Top

3 Counterbalance

4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Hibernation Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
2 Winged Sliver

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Daze

SB:
4 Engineered Plague
4 Pithing Needle
4 Planar Void / Yixlid Jailer
3 Vindicate

Obviously, this build runs a smaller cadre of creatures than we MeatHooks enthusiasts are used to. However, the additional search and control elements help compensate for the relatively small threat-base.

Note that this deck runs 21 2cc spells, whereas most Thresh decks only run 11-17. This means that the CounterTop engine may actually be better suited to this deck than it is to Thresh!

My initial playtesting to this point shows that this build has pretty good game against Thresh. You win either by establishing CounterTop lock before they do, or by using Aether Vial to circumvent their countermagic. Other selling points include improved matchups against Burn, Sligh, TES, Breakfast, and Landstill. The downside is that the Goblins matchup is no better than 50/50.

I'm still testing this new build, but I feel comfortable saying that it is better than standard MeatHooks in virtually any metagame that isn't dominated by Goblins.



With this version of meathooks there is absolutely no reason to play meathooks over thresh... you only run one pumper, 2 guys to give flying, and 4 dudes for protection... Thresh's critter will stomp over your creature base now, and I would fear for what this may have done to once ever so important goblin MU (one of the strengths that this had over thresh long ago).

[Volt]

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[Sanguine Voyeur]

I think there should be more on emphasis on card explanations and play descriptions. Another important question is "Why play this over threshold?"
James Hammer (Pinder)Pinder's last name is Hammer? Awesome.

[Volt]

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[Sanguine Voyeur]

As for "Why play this over Threshold?" that's probably the first question everyone should ask themselves about any non-Thresh deck they may be considering playing. Usually the answer is either "You shouldn't," or "Because this deck beats Thresh."Is that really the only reason? I thought it had a better Goblins match-up then Thresh.

Like I said a few posts up, further content (such as card explanations and strategy) for the OP will be forthcoming. I had all that stuff in there, but it was tailored to the standard UWg MeatHooks list.Yep, I see it now. Missed that bit.

[godryk]

Wow, I'm completely in love with Counterbalance, this card is insane. This weekend I played at a friend's shop in a small tournament (just 10 guys) with a UWg version of the deck with maindeck countertop and it was awesome, even when you haven't managed to get a top in play, giving card advantage to the deck, countering blindly 1 or 2-costed spells 40-50% of times.

[Osse]

Is that really the only reason? I thought it had a better Goblins match-up then Thresh.

Not with Tarmogoyf present. Thresh beats Goblins fairly consistently now.

[Volt]

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[wh33lz]

I enjoyed playing the deck @ the SoCal winterfest tourney (even though I didn't own the 3rd trop or 4th tundra).

I'm still not convinced the list needs vial as it seemed like a win more card whenever I cast it in testing as opposed to something that clutched a match for me or anything. The counter/top combo is strong as all getout but having it in the deck changes the tempo and playstyle of the deck pretty drastically imo. Anyway if anyone has any advice for my list (I'm planing on keeping this one for a good while now that I've sold off the last remnants of iggy) other than acquiring the last duals (yes coast sucks...I know) or placing meddling mage in the sb over grunt (he was in the sb all the way until about 1/2hr before the tourney when I realized thresh and dredge were more common than combo).

Also what if any game do we have against reanimator? His spells and threats were much quicker and prevalent than I expected (I'll also fully admit to having very little practice w/ or against that deck).

[xsockmonkeyx]

I enjoyed playing the deck @ the SoCal winterfest tourney (even though I didn't own the 3rd trop or 4th tundra).

I'm still not convinced the list needs vial as it seemed like a win more card whenever I cast it in testing as opposed to something that clutched a match for me or anything. The counter/top combo is strong as all getout but having it in the deck changes the tempo and playstyle of the deck pretty drastically imo. Anyway if anyone has any advice for my list (I'm planing on keeping this one for a good while now that I've sold off the last remnants of iggy) other than acquiring the last duals (yes coast sucks...I know) or placing meddling mage in the sb over grunt (he was in the sb all the way until about 1/2hr before the tourney when I realized thresh and dredge were more common than combo).

Also what if any game do we have against reanimator? His spells and threats were much quicker and prevalent than I expected (I'll also fully admit to having very little practice w/ or against that deck).

Vial is not absolutely necessary but it is a very very good card that helps you out in matchups that feature heavy countermagic, counterbalance+top, etc. that have been on the rise recently and/or seen a resurgence (think Thresh and Landstill). Back when the DtB was Goblins the Vial was a waste of space. The card is a definite win more in that matchup as your slivers do all the work defending and attacking for you and they could all be dropped off of 1-2 basics. If you dont feel you need vial then dont sweat it. The real strength in the deck is the 19 slivers, anyway.

Not sure about that reanimator matchup. That one match you played is probably one more than we have under our belts (havent tested it) so your guess is as good as ours at this point. Purhaps something like Chain of Vapor/Echoing Truth would do the trick.

[cheddercaveman]

I enjoyed playing the deck @ the SoCal winterfest tourney (even though I didn't own the 3rd trop or 4th tundra).

I'm still not convinced the list needs vial as it seemed like a win more card whenever I cast it in testing as opposed to something that clutched a match for me or anything. The counter/top combo is strong as all getout but having it in the deck changes the tempo and playstyle of the deck pretty drastically imo. Anyway if anyone has any advice for my list (I'm planing on keeping this one for a good while now that I've sold off the last remnants of iggy) other than acquiring the last duals (yes coast sucks...I know) or placing meddling mage in the sb over grunt (he was in the sb all the way until about 1/2hr before the tourney when I realized thresh and dredge were more common than combo).

Also what if any game do we have against reanimator? His spells and threats were much quicker and prevalent than I expected (I'll also fully admit to having very little practice w/ or against that deck).


I can kind of see your point, however, in my experience the vial comes down on turn 1 and does 3 things for you...
1) Gets around countermagic - this should be fairly obvious
2) Smooths your mana out - You only play 3 Tropical Islands and only 17 total, hitting a vial means you can be less concerned with getting color or mana screwed.
3) Speeds up the clock - Against just about anything more clock is good. You set vial at 2 and start putting down creatures faster. This is sort of hand dependant, but it still happens frequently. Example ...

Turn 1 - Vial
Turn 2 - Vial @ 1, Cast Sinew Sliver, Vial in Plated Sliver
Turn 3 - Vial @ 2, Cast Muscle Sliver, Vial in Crystalline Sliver, Attack for 6
Turn 4 - Vial @ 3, Vial in Winged Sliver, Attack for 13 (probably game over).

There are even faster draws than this, this is only an example.

[Volt]

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[cheddercaveman]

Aether Vial is here to stay. If you're not playing it, you're playing a suboptimal list. Let's move on, people. No wonder this thread doesn't get taken seriously.

I see your point, I've liked the vial from step one. However, to just say its always going to be a suboptimal list is not really a viable argument. I'm not asking you to restate your arguments (there are plenty FOR vial through out the thread). However, if someone wants to challenge that a deck should or should not run a card thats viable. Everyone plays in a different metagame, also, the other decks change in the formats and sometimes you have to adapt to stay alive. Lastly, I'd assume that people make slight changes to all of these decks on here anyways from time to time based on their play style, preference, metagame, collection, etc.

[The Marco]

Aether Vial is here to stay. If you're not playing it, you're playing a suboptimal list. Let's move on, people. No wonder this thread doesn't get taken seriously.

I completely agree Vial alow you to be ridiculous with pretty much any of your sliver (especially good with hibernation and crystalline sliver). Making your slivers uncounterable and castable for free at instant speed makes me wonder why one would not play it....It does not dilute the deck at all, in fact it is what makes this deck what it is and potentially better then Thresh. The vial needs to be played with skills (reading the tempo and anticipating wheter to extend or not and anticipating what your oponent's next move is going to be) to be completely efficient.

I feel that what dillutes the deck too much is the counter top engine, although I have not tested it...I can't not think that it feels like a suboptimal built of Thresh or fish, I like the previous 4 color list (for Hibernation and duress/seize), as I feel the build is close to optimal with a decent amount of slivers. I just feel that 14 slivers is not enough to have decent powered creatures into play... even with 8 cantrip plus the top...
On that note I would like to ask Volt about is testing with the counter top list, still playing it, liking it???

[Volt]

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[xsockmonkeyx]

Aether Vial is here to stay. If you're not playing it, you're playing a suboptimal list. Let's move on, people. No wonder this thread doesn't get taken seriously.

YOU of all people should understand the hesitation to add Aether Vial. It took me months to convince you to play Aether Vial and some other months more convincing you to keep it. Not really criticizing your stance on Vial just pointing out that you have some egg on your face.:laugh:

[Volt]

.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Ok.

Here is my list for 3 color sliver:

Spells
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Brainstorm
2x Top
4x Force of Will
4x Daze
2x Stifle

Artifact
4x Aether Vial

Creatures
4x Muscle Sliver
4x Sinew Sliver
4x Crystalline Sliver
4x Plated Sliver
3x Winged Sliver

Lands
2x Polluted Delta
4x Flooded Strand
2x Windswept Heath
4x Tundra
3x Tropical Island
1x Island
1x Plains

Side
1x Top
3x Counterbalance
3x Harmonic Sliver
4x Pithing Needle
4x Tormod's Crypt

Its got all 19 slivers and 4 vials. The counterbalance engine and 4 needles come out of the side. The 2 maindeck Stifles are questionable and they may come out for 2x Counterspell or another top and a land if they dont pull their weight.

[Curby]

CounterTop: Features 14-15 creatures, 3-4 Counterbalance and 3 Sensei's Divining Top. This version has the best matchup against Thresh, Fish, Burn/Sligh and most combo decks.

Mana Disruption: Features 14-15 creatures, 3-4 Wasteland and 3-4 Stifle. This version has the best matchup against Landstill and Control decks that rely heavily on non-basic lands.

Is a transformational sideboard a reasonable thing to consider (Countertop in the main with Waste/Stifle in the side)? This is similar to what sockmonkey did, but in reverse. I'm kind of hoping to do something similar, but with Hibernation Slivers in place of Plateds/Muscles. Black adds so much power to the side!

[xsockmonkeyx]

Is a transformational sideboard a reasonable thing to consider (Countertop in the main with Waste/Stifle in the side)? This is similar to what sockmonkey did, but in reverse. I'm kind of hoping to do something similar, but with Hibernation Slivers in place of Plateds/Muscles. Black adds so much power to the side!

Considered it but havent tried it. Seems interesting at least.

[Kronicler]

I actually think that the normal UGW list with Vial, Wasteland, and Stifle could be really interesting. It just seems incredibly synergistic. You can not care about the tempo setbacks of wasteland because you have vial, you can keep your mana open to stifle stuff because... you have vial. Finally, the weaknesses of the 3 color lists were against mass removal. The thing is that wasteland can keep your opponent off of the mana needed to cast an EE at 2 (rare, I know) or more likely casting a deed in 4c landstill, and of course you can also stifle both of those effects. Oh, and and Stifle / Wasteland package also makes daze much better. Seems strong to me all in all. Here is the list I would start with:

Creatures
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
3 Plated Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
3 Winged Sliver

Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
4 Swords to Plowshares

Artifacts
4 Aether Vial

Lands
3 Flooded Strand
1 Island
3 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
4 Wasteland

I goldfished a few hands and it seems pretty strong.

Kronicler

[xsockmonkeyx]

That's basically what david_ir1 used to win the spanish legacy championships (Waste + Stifle). Seemed to work out well for him ;)

[godryk]

As you all have already said, Stifle's second ability to counter EE, Powder Keg and Pernicious devastating effects is something that makes it much more interesting as a 4-of than just LD, and of course is always useful against goblins, so I really like that list.

[david_ir1]

I've been tinkering the mana base to something like this:

Lands
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
4 Wasteland

Plus I've been thinking what to remove to add the 4th stifle. Maybe a Plated sliver? Beside that I'm pretty sure 3 Meddling mages are enough in the sideboard, this allows to play 3 Spell snare, improving the threshold matchup.

[Volt]

.

[Pinder]

I saw this on the Worlds Coverage, and I thought it would make my fellow sliver fans smile:



Threshold: 76
Goblins: 34
Cephalid Breakfast: 26
Landstill: 24
...
Counter Goyf: 5
Black-Blue-Green: 5
Slivers / Meathooks: 3
Black Splash Green: 3
Aluren: 3
Monoblack Aggro: 2
...


So I think the name stuck.

Link (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgevent/worlds07/legbreak) for those who want it.

Best part? We weren't in the 'Other' category.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Yeah, but WTF is "Sea" Stompy? :rolleyes:

[Kronicler]

I know these manabases seem horrible, but I play 3c Thresh with only 14 color sources and we have vial here. I duno, I'm gona test it and I'll let you know what I find.

Kronicler