[Deck] Countersliver (MeatHooks)

[Travy]

Hello there, I figured I would offer my input on this thread after playing in the tournament in Binghamton. To begin with, here is my list:

//Creatures [18]
3 Plated Slivers
4 Muscle Slivers
4 Sinew Slivers
4 Crystalline Sliver
3 Winged Slivers

//Artifacts [7]
4 Aether Vial
3 Winter Orb

//Spells [17]
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
1 Thwart
4 Path to Exile

//Lands [18]
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
2 Island
1 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest

//Sideboard
4 Stifle
4 Harmonic Sliver
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Relic of Progenitus

I ended up going 3-4 before dropping. Of the matchs I lost 1 was to elves, 1 was to dark depths combo, 1 was to reanimator, and 1 was to some sort of planeswalker deck utilizing ajani/elspeth to stall out. Not sure of the archtype but I saw a few people playing it.

Every one of those matchs that I did lose was 2-1 and in the planeswalker and elf matchups I lost 1 of each of my rounds as a result of drawing only land. In the planeswalker match I literally ended up with every one of my lands in my hand/in play. The other issue with the planeswalker deck is that I didn't play aggressively enough first game. The Dark Depths game didn't see me drawing a solution to the 20/20 quick enough, I had managed to take care of the hexmage but he hard cast the 20/20... was pretty funny. And as for the reanimator game... well I had never quite played a deck like it, I am pretty sure it was some sort of homebrew... was neat though.

The matchs I won were to zoo, elves, and ad nausem combo. Zoo is essentially an auto-win post board, being able to counter and remove anything they play. Elves is a similar story, and ad nausem was a race with well placed counters.

Now for an explanation and analysis of my non-traditional card choices. Originally I was working on a g/w/u orb deck which had a different aggro base, I ended up trading it out for the sliver base and it worked brilliantly!

Winter Orbs - they won games. Especially in the control/combo match ups I played. With your slivers costing 2 and aether vials on your side the drawback really isn't there for you. In something like the zoo match-up you can side them out for more removal. Path to Exile is all ready pretty good in Legacy with the low basic land count (There were games I pathed and the opponent had no land to fetch) and couple it with Winter Orb and there really isn't a "drawback." I opted to run 1x Thwart as once again, it couples well with Winter Orb (Daze following along the same lines) and did win me a game.

While I don't know that I would have made it into the top 8 if I played better, I still feel that those couple of losses to mana flooding don't justify any form of negativity towards this decklist. The only card I really didn't like was daze, very rarely did it impact a game positively for me. I also did not have a full set of Misty Rainforests at my disposal which is why I ran Polluted Deltas instead.

I intend to keep playing with this deck, even the matchs I lost were enjoyable (mana flooding aside) Feedback would be great!

[gamegeek2]

I'd recommend Wasteland over Winter Orb.

[Travy]

I really am not a big wasteland fan, not in slivers at least. It will hit a single non-basic land... where as winter orb keeps them all down on 'lock.' There wasn't a single game the other day I would have preferred wasteland over winter orb. I feel it messes with tempo too much in the form of colorless mana/wasting a land drop. My best games were the games I saw just 2 lands, and adding waste lands in the hopes of seeing more lands... just don't like that idea.

[matamagos]

did stifle worked in the side? I'm not sure what kind of storm hate shoul I run and stifle has been always one of the possibilities.

[Travy]

Yeah, it won a game against the combo deck I played. I suppose it depends on the meta and how much combo is going around. From what I understood the meta for the tournament I went to was pretty up in the air so I packed hatred against things I really didn't want to race. Low mana cost and in colors is pretty good and if you can stifle them from going off once, chances are they aren't going to manage it the second time.

[Purgatory]

*Resurrecting from page 3*


Yeah, it won a game against the combo deck I played. I suppose it depends on the meta and how much combo is going around. From what I understood the meta for the tournament I went to was pretty up in the air so I packed hatred against things I really didn't want to race. Low mana cost and in colors is pretty good and if you can stifle them from going off once, chances are they aren't going to manage it the second time.

I've always found Stifle to be useless when it comes to actually stifling storm copies on Tendrils or Warrens (or Brain Freeze, though I rarely see that one nowadays). By the time they actually cast the storm spell, they have Duressed you so many times, you'd be happy to even have a hand at all. Ethersworn Canonist works in a more pro-active way, and once it's on the board, it'll take them time to get rid of it, since they can't search for a removal and play it the same turn.

The upside wtih Stifle is of course that it's really useful for stifling ANTs fetchlands the first couple of turns (although I never seem to have mana for it with Slivers) and it can also be useful combating Engineered Explosives and Pernicious Deed.

On an unrelated note:

This is a little thing I've been tinkering with lately. The sideboard is mostly experimental, though I'd like some feedback.

Slivers (18)
4 Sinew Sliver
2 Winged Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Hibernation Sliver

Other Stuff (24)
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
1 Jace Beleren
4 Force of Will
3 Living Wish
4 Aether Vial

Lands (18)
3 Mutavault
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea

Sideboard (15)
3 Meddling Mage
3 Pithing Needle
1 Talon Sliver
1 Gilded Drake
1 Winged Sliver
1 Yixlid Jailer
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 City of Brass
1 Maze of Ith

A hefty 9 cards in the wish part of the board might look like much, and the Macabres should probably be Crypts/Relics instead. Other options in the sideboard include Ethersworn Canonist and True Believer, just to name a couple.

Also, the one Jace in main is mostly a joke. Not sure what to replace him with though.

[Curby]

@Travy: PtE is not synergistic with Worb. We're not aggro enough to warrant the use of PtE anyway. Time and time again we've been shown that our critters barely stack up anymore: we have fewer lords and about the same evasion as Merfolk, fewer lords and explosiveness than Elves, and less raw power than Zoo. We're an aggro-control deck packing such things as Daze, which is also bad with PtE.

I agree that Wasteland doesn't belong. I'd use Mutavault first if I'm considering colorless land.

@Purgatory: It's interesting that you still use Hibernation, but I'd definitely put a Crystalline in the wishboard to have 6 in the maindeck. In fact, the wishboard seems a bit odd to me. Why Maze of Ith? You've got a wishable answer for Dreadnought already (though you could use more), and you can't use it on Progenitus.

How have you been using Medddling Mage? I'm not sure if it deserves to be such a big part of your board: you could have just one to wish for.

I like the idea of using wishes, but they typically haven't been a staple of countersliver: please let us know if the speed loss is worth the flexibility.

And yeah, Jace probably isn't worth it.

[troopatroop]

With the changes in combat from M10, Hibernation Sliver became terrible. Why play it now?

[Curby]

Well he still helps you save guys from point destruction and sweepers, and you can still block goyf for 2 life per swing, but it no longer lets you cheat the way it used to. For that reason, I dropped it and therefore dropped black. The 4-color manabase always gave me fits anyway, and is even worse with Mutavault. That said, if you still use it (and therefore black) I'd run Engineered Plague in the side, as Elves and Merfolk are still popular.

[Volt]

PtE can be used to supplement StP, but shouldn't replace it. Zoo is the only mainstream deck I know of that can justify playing Path instead of Plow.

Since being neutered by M10, Hibernation Sliver is really only useful against control decks that run Pernicious Deed and Engineered Explosives. Those decks aren't being played much right now.

Plated Sliver is like a half-lord for half the mana, which is really pretty good when you think about it. I definitely recommend it.

I'm not a fan of the Living Wish + wishboard plan. You're almost always going to want to Wish for a Crystalline, Muscle/Sinew, or Winged. So why not just play Eladamri's Call (http://magiccards.info/ps/en/106.html)? It's instant speed, and doesn't require you to butcher your sideboard.

I play Countersliver only occasionally these days, and only at minor tournaments where I don't really care about trying to win every match. I usually go 3-1 or 2-2 and have fun playing the slivers, and that's good enough for a Sunday afternoon. For those times, here's the list I play:

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

4 Aether Vial

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

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
1 Eladamri's Call

SB:
3 Annul
3 Spell Pierce
3 Spell Snare
3 Path to Exile
3 Tormod's Crypt

[Curby]

I don't see why this deck is necessarily inferior these days. It's basically Merfolk with fewer utility lands, more colors, and a different complement of dudes.

It's basically less disruptive, more easily disrupted, and has worse creatures. Crystalline is obviously the best out of both tribes, but Merfolk has more lords and does more with them. Instead of just +1/+1 to all, they get to tap blockers, untap lands and Vials, and give two kinds of evasion. They're simply better creatures for both combat and utility.


I agree with Illissius 100% that if Merfolk can a DTB, so can Slivers. Slivers just needs to be more aggro and less aggro/control.

After which you recommend in a classic control deck card, Standstill, which would inevitably slow us down. Please let me know how we can be more aggressive with Slivers, because you certainly haven't done so yet.

Here's my take on the state of the deck. It deck started from Crystalline+8Muscle+Winged+Plated. Then it started using Hibernation, and the utility was worth weakening the manabase. Then Mutavault started being used, but they (effectively) took away Hibernation. 2-3 years later, all we can say that we've really gotten is Mutavault, while other decks are getting new tricks and entirely new designs, in addition to Mutavault. In other words, we're actually moving backwards with respect to the field. It's not to say that the deck can't win small tourneys and casual games, but you're increasingly dependent on having better skill than your opponents to counter the relative weakness of the deck, and the first rule of objective analysis is to assume you're playing against someone at least as good as you. I'm merely stating the obvious, but the quotes above indicate that common sense isn't all that common. Or more likely, they haven't the same experience with this particular deck.

[Purgatory]

Thanks for the input guys, and I'll report back on how the whole wishplan is doing.

Regarding Hibernation Sliver: Sure, it is not as good as it was pre-M10, but it can still do some tricks in combat (blocking anything not named Phyrexian Dreadnought or Terravore, and live to tell the tale) and it's useful against sweepers. Though I see less EE/Deed these days, a lot of people still board Pyroclasms and Firespots, which are almost as bad - since you need two lords on the field for the first to be neutered and three for the second.

On a side note, I rarely play MeatHooks anymore - when I go to tourneys I typically bring Canadian Thresh instead, as it has served me well when I'm trying to T8 something. The Slivers are still as fun to play though, and when I join my mates for a gaming night, I like to bring them along as well. :)

[Curby]

Thanks for the input guys, and I'll report back on how the whole wishplan is doing.

Regarding Hibernation Sliver: Sure, it is not as good as it was pre-M10, but it can still do some tricks in combat (blocking anything not named Phyrexian Dreadnought or Terravore, and live to tell the tale) and it's useful against sweepers. Though I see less EE/Deed these days, a lot of people still board Pyroclasms and Firespots, which are almost as bad - since you need two lords on the field for the first to be neutered and three for the second.

I'd say that using Plated along with 8 Sliverlords mostly negates things like Pyroclasm, Volcanic Fallout, and the like, especially since our lords cost less than most others. Firespout and Flamebreak are problems though.

[Illissius]

It's basically less disruptive, more easily disrupted, and has worse creatures. Crystalline is obviously the best out of both tribes, but Merfolk has more lords and does more with them. Instead of just +1/+1 to all, they get to tap blockers, untap lands and Vials, and give two kinds of evasion. They're simply better creatures for both combat and utility.

This is basically what I said it comes down to: which has better creatures. Crystalline is so good that Merfolk sometimes runs Kira. LoA is like Muscle and Winged Slivers in one, so obviously that's amazing. I wouldn't be so sure that Muscle/Sinew are worse than Reejerey/Sovereign: the latter are 50% more expensive. And Plated is probably better than Cursecatcher. Silvergill Adept is sort of a wild card; I'd guess he's up there with the best as well. Overall, maybe Slivers is worse (given results, probably), but I don't think it's obviously so to the point where people should just give up and stop working on Slivers.


After which you recommend in a classic control deck card, Standstill, which would inevitably slow us down.

Merfolk doesn't play Standstill?

[Curby]

This is basically what I said it comes down to: which has better creatures.

But that's not what I said. We're less disruptive (fewer tricks in our critters) and more easily disrupted (multicolor manabase, flat mana curve of creatures). Merfolk can and do run pretty much every trick that we have (Stifle, StP, FoW), so in fact we need significantly better creatures than Merfolk in order to pull even.


LoA is like Muscle and Winged Slivers in one, so obviously that's amazing. I wouldn't be so sure that Muscle/Sinew are worse than Reejerey/Sovereign: the latter are 50% more expensive.

What you're saying totally makes sense if we can run 8 Muscles, as you counted them twice. The problem is we've got 2 lords and everyone else has 3-4 lords. So sure they're more expensive, but they do more and they exist more. Anyway, Reejery tricks help absorb the cost difference by untapping land and Vials. Just to reiterate the most important point: at least they exist and are an easy inclusion. Sedge Sliver is too conditional, Bonesplitter Sliver costs too much, and they're all off-color, which makes the problem of opposing disruption even worse if we consider their inclusion.

By the way, on its own Cursecatcher is probably worse than Plated Sliver. Along with maindeck Stifle, Daze, and Wasteland, he's an important piece in an increasingly annoying puzzle.


Merfolk doesn't play Standstill?

Yeah, but he was talking about making Slivers more aggressive, and a stalling card doesn't seem like the right way to get there. To be honest, this is a point that I'm a little uncertain on, but slowing down the game once you've gotten an advantageous board position seems to be a control deck move. How can we translate the inclusion of Standstill into better combat size/speed/tricks?

In the end, what's the best argument against the last paragraph of my post (the paragraph you didn't quote)? As of M10 we're going backwards, and others are going forwards. Without some real innovation, it's the same Crystalline/Muscle/Sinew/Plated/Winged combination of years ago. Given that Slivers has done reasonably well but not spectacularly well in the past, and given the lack of new tech, I don't see where the optimism is coming from. The only saving grace seems to be a newfound interest in aggro, and this deck had its roots in 8 maindeck answers to Lackey.

This was my first Legacy deck when I got back into Magic, and I'd love to see it prosper. But we need real developments instead of saying, "this deck should be competitive." Without the former, the latter are just empty dreams.

[Illissius]

We're less disruptive (fewer tricks in our critters) and more easily disrupted (multicolor manabase, flat mana curve of creatures). Merfolk can and do run pretty much every trick that we have (Stifle, StP, FoW), so in fact we need significantly better creatures than Merfolk in order to pull even.

The weaker manabase is the only true drawback out of these (which does have to be compensated for). The important bit is how good the creatures are, not why they're good (disruptive or otherwise); and while a lower manacurve makes us more vulnerable to Counterbalance and Chalice, being faster tends, otherwise, to be regarded as an advantage.


What you're saying totally makes sense if we can run 8 Muscles, as you counted them twice.

I wasn't actually counting here, just trying to get a general sense of how the various cards stack up with regards to quality.


The problem is we've got 2 lords and everyone else has 3-4 lords. So sure they're more expensive, but they do more and they exist more.

Yeah, Merfolk has three +1/+1 lords to Slivers' two. This is certainly true. That said, before Sovereign came around Merfolk was using Wake Thrasher, and I think the general reaction to Sovereign being printed from the Merfolk side was along the lines of, "eh, well, I guess it might be better than Thrasher", and not "oh yay! we get another lord!". So I don't think fixating on this point is necessarily useful.


By the way, on its own Cursecatcher is probably worse than Plated Sliver. Along with maindeck Stifle, Daze, and Wasteland, he's an important piece in an increasingly annoying puzzle.

We're only interested in looking at cards in-context here. (For the record, on its own Cursecatcher -- a 1/1 with a useful ability -- is actually better than Plated Sliver, a 1/2 without one.) But if Cursecatcher in the context of an actual Merfolk deck is a better card than Plated Sliver in the context of a Slivers deck, then for our purposes it's a better card, period. Is it?


Yeah, but he was talking about making Slivers more aggressive, and a stalling card doesn't seem like the right way to get there. To be honest, this is a point that I'm a little uncertain on, but slowing down the game once you've gotten an advantageous board position seems to be a control deck move. How can we translate the inclusion of Standstill into better combat size/speed/tricks?

Whether we make Slivers more aggressive or not is sort of besides the point. The basic idea was that the two decks are so similar in concept -- cheap synergistic blue creatures backed up by disruption and Vial -- that you could basically take a Merfolk deck, swap out the Merfolk for Slivers, and end up with something similar in power level. Maybe Slivers has an edge due to Crystalline; maybe Merfolk has an edge due to LoA and a stabler manabase. But both decks run cheap creatures, Vial, and Mutavault, so if Standstill works in one deck it seems logical that it should work in the other. And Merfolk is having some success, so odds are they're doing something right and we would do well to copy them.



In the end, what's the best argument against the last paragraph of my post (the paragraph you didn't quote)? As of M10 we're going backwards, and others are going forwards. Without some real innovation, it's the same Crystalline/Muscle/Sinew/Plated/Winged combination of years ago.

I don't care so much about the past or the future, this was an argument about the present. If/when Wizards prints more top-quality Merfolk, while neglecting Slivers (which seems likely, but then you wouldn't have predicted them ever printing more Slivers before they went and did so -- twice), then Slivers will gradually fall behind, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.


Given that Slivers has done reasonably well but not spectacularly well in the past, and given the lack of new tech, I don't see where the optimism is coming from.

It's not so much optimism as "hey, we're nearly the same deck, there's no reason we shouldn't be able to do at least nearly as well if we wanted to". To be more explicit, the hypothesis is that Slivers has been held back because we were building it wrong, and if we build it more like Merfolk then it'll do better. If that's tried and ends up failing then I guess you can conclude that Slivers is just plain worse.

[Volt]

Whether we make Slivers more aggressive or not is sort of besides the point. The basic idea was that the two decks are so similar in concept -- cheap synergistic blue creatures backed up by disruption and Vial -- that you could basically take a Merfolk deck, swap out the Merfolk for Slivers, and end up with something similar in power level. Maybe Slivers has an edge due to Crystalline; maybe Merfolk has an edge due to LoA and a stabler manabase. But both decks run cheap creatures, Vial, and Mutavault, so if Standstill works in one deck it seems logical that it should work in the other. And Merfolk is having some success, so odds are they're doing something right and we would do well to copy them.

Standstill works better with Merfolk for the simple reason that Merfolk can afford to run more colorless lands (i.e. Mutavaults and Wastelands). Meathooks can't function with only 12 or 13 color-lands. 15 is the bare minimum you can get away with. I have tested the hell out of Standstill, and I can definitively state that Ponder is a much better card for this deck.

[Purgatory]

After doing some testing today, I just want to say that while I do enjoý the flexibility of Living Wish, they make it hard to keep up with some decks (tested against Loam, GoyfSligh, Affinity, Burn and Blue Stax). I also found myself getting Harmonic Sliver more than anything else in the side, so I'm thinking about going back to just playing Eladamri's Call and maindeck one of the buggers. What bothers me in that case is that I'd probably have to drop black all-together, and Hibernation Sliver is just too good to give up in my eyes.

When I got bored with the Wishbuild's sluggishness, I also tried a more aggressive approach, and just cut Standstill/Ponder/Wish altogether and played more creatures. While I tried it mainly for fun, it really changed the entire focus of most of the games and suddenly I was aggro in all matchups, as I only used my FoW/Dazes to counter one or two relevant spells and then put them on a 3-4 turn clock. I had to be a lot more careful with my opening hands, since it plays mostly off of them. I'm seriously considering replacing StP with PtE and have a spin with them. An additional basic land on their side is usually not a big deal, since I'm not playing tempo thresh. The idea was just to put down an army (3-4) of slivers and swing for the fences, and in that case, StP feels more counter-productive than PtE. In most games I really didn't need the spot removal though since I could race anything not named Terravore. All in all, it did surprisingly well.

I'm not quite ready to share a list though, I will get back with a revised version of the Wishlist soon enough however.

[Curby]

I see what you mean, but say we try to emulate Merfolk: I still maintain that the manabase isn't the only problem we have. Perhaps I've been playing Death and Taxes too much, but I love the idea of multifunctional deck components.

The land in Merfolk provides mana, attacks, and disrupts. Ours can only do the first two, and due to the multicolor requirements it does so less consistently. The creatures in Merfolk do what ours do, but they also act as Dazes, Cantrips, and Twiddles. When we get multiple evasion providers, we groan and wish they were more pumpers. When Merfolk gets multiple evasive critters, they smile as they're also pumpers. Oh sure we can pitch multiples to FoW, but so can they.

By the way, when talking about moving backwards after M10, I meant the nerfing of Hibernation due to rules changes and I am in fact talking about the present. And regardless of the usability of new Merfolk, at least they are being printed and they allow for new ideas. The bridge you mentioned is actually a series of bridges, being crossed with every new set that includes Merfolk.

When you're behind and you want to win, you don't just mimic the person in the lead, you have to fix or overcome the fundamental flaws that put you in the rear to begin with.

[Illissius]

I'd like to examine the mana question more closely. (Volt: is 15 as a bare minimum because of Wasteland, or even in a vacuum?)

Slivers has three colors, Merfolk has one or two. Their mana curves are broadly similar, though Merfolk has several 3 mana spells whereas Slivers does not. Merfolk has one, possibly two cards which require more than a single colored mana: LoA and Sovereign. Slivers has only one: Crystalline Sliver. There is not a card in the deck you can't cast with any two out of Tundra, Tropical Island, and Savannah.

I'm not saying we can run as many colorless lands as Merfolk. But maybe we can get close.

Again, I'm thinking about something along these lines:

4 Plated Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Winged Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
4 Standstill
4 flex slot, probably Daze, likely needs to be blue

4 Aether Vial
3 Mutavault
3 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
1 Tropical Island
1 Savannah

Appraising the various options, looking at the important things, it's something like this:

Monoblue Merfolk
+ Lord of Atlantis
+ Silvergill Adept
+ stable manabase

U/w Merfolk
+ Lord of Atlantis
+ Silvergill Adept
+ Swords to Plowshares

Slivers
+ Crystalline Sliver
+ Swords to Plowshares
- not as stable manabase

(Not all + and - are created equal, obviously.)

[Volt]

I'd like to examine the mana question more closely. (Volt: is 15 as a bare minimum because of Wasteland, or even in a vacuum?)

Slivers has three colors, Merfolk has one or two. Their mana curves are broadly similar, though Merfolk has several 3 mana spells whereas Slivers does not. Merfolk has one, possibly two cards which require more than a single colored mana: LoA and Sovereign. Slivers has only one: Crystalline Sliver. There is not a card in the deck you can't cast with any two out of Tundra, Tropical Island, and Savannah.

Your proposed manabase will lead to a lot of dangerous or unkeepable opening hands. Two colorless lands is an auto-mulligan. Savannah + colorless land is terrible. Tropical Island + colorless land is slightly less terrible, but still terrible. You'll end up keeping a lot of hands with Tundra + colorless land, and praying that your opponent doesn't rout you with a single Wasteland. It is absolutely vital to our strategy to play Crystalline Sliver on turn 2 as often as possible. Merfolk can generally afford to be a little more patient with getting Lord of Atlantis into play, as it is often played as an enabler for a finishing strike (similar to Winged Sliver in Meathooks).

EDIT: Also, no Brainstorm? That's just crazy talk.

[Travy]

@Travy: PtE is not synergistic with Worb. We're not aggro enough to warrant the use of PtE anyway. Time and time again we've been shown that our critters barely stack up anymore: we have fewer lords and about the same evasion as Merfolk, fewer lords and explosiveness than Elves, and less raw power than Zoo. We're an aggro-control deck packing such things as Daze, which is also bad with PtE.

I agree that Wasteland doesn't belong. I'd use Mutavault first if I'm considering colorless land.


I found PtE to be very synergistic with Worb and honestly can't see how it wouldn't be considered as such. My better games found me dropping Vial turn 1, WOrb turn 2, then going to town off of that. PtE with WOrb out was incredibly saucey and the combination of PtE and StP wrecked the aggro decks I played. As for our lack of lords as compared to Merfolk we are on par. 8 muscle effects is pretty good + plated and crystalline.

[Mosesthecoot]

Hey, my first competitive deck was UWbg CounterSliver and I've seen it get improved with the addition of Mutavault and I've seen it get hosed with no more stack shenanigans. I know I'm a bit late but I've seen decks on workstation who swear by Spell Pierce INSTEAD of Daze maindeck. I see that a lot of current lists run them in the sideboard, most likely for combo and game-ending hurtful spells (NO), but has anyone tried running them maindeck with any success or failure?

My current list:

3x Flooded Strand
3x Misty Rainforest
4x Tundra
3x Tropical Island
1x Plains
1x Island
4x Mutavault

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

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

4x AEther Vial

sb:

2x Hydroblast
2x Blue Elemental Blast
3x Pithing Needle
4x Krosan Grip
4x Meddling Mage

[Curby]

I'd consider changing a Winged to be a Plated, as Wingeds don't stack but Plateds do. At first I thought you were recommending getting rid of Dazes entirely, which is a bad idea because we often want to stick a Vial on turn 1 or a Crystalline on turn 2, and the free Countermagic is essential for that. My concern now is that the lowered number of Cantrips means you won't have enough of a Cantrip/Fetch card quality engine to sculpt your hand. Have the Snares worked well for you?

[Mosesthecoot]

The snares definitely have worked well since it hits so much in legacy. Obviously once in awhile it will just get pitched to Force. I guess I could easily switch those out with Ponders if that's what you're getting at.

I feel Winged is quite important to our game plan and I always want to see it in any given game. I used to run 3 and NO Plated but I've grown to like the Tarm-blocking ability of a 3/5 sliver

To be clear, I didn't recommend getting rid of Daze but I ran into someone that did. I'm in fact all about Daze because if anything it keeps them guessing and mind games are always fun in Magic.

[KaraZorEl]

I came up with a few different ideas for this deck, and I thought I would post to get some feedback here. I'm thinking about going to the tournament in Columbus this year for Legacy. It seems like every time I turn around, I find something else that I want to put in. But, here's what I have so far:

Creatures (20):
Crystalline Sliver x3
Sinew Sliver x4
Muscle Sliver x4
Shifting Sliver x2
Winged Sliver x2
Sliver Legion x1
Talon Sliver x2
Gemhide Sliver x2
Linvala, Keeper of Silence x1

Artifacts (8):
Isochron Scepter x4
Aether Vial x4

Spells (12):
Unified Will x3
Counterspell x3
Orim's Chant x3
Brainstorm x4

Lands (20):
Ancient Ziggurat x2
Reflecting Pool x4
Vivid Creek x1
Vivid Grove x1
Vivid Marsh x1
Vivid Crag x1
Vivid Meadow x1
Plains x1
Swamp x1
Forest x1
Mountain x1
Island x1
Mutavault x4


Sideboard:
Tajuru Preserver x1
Eladamri's Call x4
Clot Sliver x2
Terminate x4
Frozen Aether x2
Platinum Angel x1
Heart Sliver x1

I just started playing within the last few months, and my problem so far is a lack of cards. I would prefer to run the multi-color lands that don't come in tapped, but I can't afford those, so my solution is to run reflecting pool and all 5 vivid lands. Once their charge counters are used up, there's still enough variety in there to make it run well, it just doesn't run as fast as I could wish.

I've constructed my sideboard to prepare for some of the newer ideas that will probably come about as a result of the Eldrazi set. If I find that I can't get the creature I want, I'll sideboard in Eladamri's Call, although that seems an unlikely event the way this deck is constructed. I thought about running Reliquary Tower and Distant Melody, but in order for Melody to be effective, I'd have to have a ton of creatures on the board, by which point I probably don't care whether I'm drawing cards or not.

Isochron Scepter might be the key to this deck. Imagine using a Brainstorm every turn...Orim's Chant works pretty well. I've played this deck through proxies and it's difficult to beat in a Legacy format. I like the combination of Gemhide Sliver and Heart Sliver- tap a Sliver for mana as soon as you play it.

At first, I was running Training Grounds and Sliver Overlord but I realized Overlord is unnecessary in this deck anyways. Those two cards are clutter more than anything else. While it is nice to tutor for 6 Slivers in one turn, it's probably not necessary. All you really need is to get Shifting Sliver on the board and you've won. At least, that's been my experience. :)

[Curby]

You might try posting this in the Casual forums, because IMHO it doesn't belong here. There are many ways to construct a sliver deck, and I'm not sure that there are any tournament-viable ways. When straying so far from the accepted build (as in the first post of this thread), you must provide reasons for your changes, and argue about the relative strength of the designs.

Sample complaints: Unified Will and Counterspell cannot hope to compete with Force of Will, the lack of the fourth Crystalline Sliver is very distressing, and the Scepter seems misplaced. Where are the Swords to Plowshares, a staple in almost any deck with white mana? In fact, I cannot see how any of the additions or changes you've proposed benefits the performance of the deck.

You say that it does well in the Legacy format, but I just cannot believe that. Have you tested against a seasoned Legacy player with a traditional Zoo deck? Its own army will likely outnumber yours, making half of your countermagic useless. Its mountain of removal will not only get rid of your Scepters and Vials but also your creatures.

I can appreciate the fact that you're just starting and do not have access to some of the rarer cards, but if you're designing with such constraints, you should post it as a casual deck in the appropriate place. Alternately, I'd look at building a high quality single-color deck if you're just starting out. This gets around the obvious problems of acquiring the mana base necessary to power a multicolor deck.

Good luck!

[KaraZorEl]

You might try posting this in the Casual forums, because IMHO it doesn't belong here. There are many ways to construct a sliver deck, and I'm not sure that there are any tournament-viable ways. When straying so far from the accepted build (as in the first post of this thread), you must provide reasons for your changes, and argue about the relative strength of the designs.

Sample complaints: Unified Will and Counterspell cannot hope to compete with Force of Will, the lack of the fourth Crystalline Sliver is very distressing, and the Scepter seems misplaced. Where are the Swords to Plowshares, a staple in almost any deck with white mana? In fact, I cannot see how any of the additions or changes you've proposed benefits the performance of the deck.

You say that it does well in the Legacy format, but I just cannot believe that. Have you tested against a seasoned Legacy player with a traditional Zoo deck? Its own army will likely outnumber yours, making half of your countermagic useless. Its mountain of removal will not only get rid of your Scepters and Vials but also your creatures.

I can appreciate the fact that you're just starting and do not have access to some of the rarer cards, but if you're designing with such constraints, you should post it as a casual deck in the appropriate place. Alternately, I'd look at building a high quality single-color deck if you're just starting out. This gets around the obvious problems of acquiring the mana base necessary to power a multicolor deck.

Good luck!

Okay, sorry for posting in the wrong place...but, as long as I'm responding, I'll try to explain some of my changes.

I didn't put Swords to Plowshares in because I'm a little iffy about making my opponent life. At least I think that's the way it works. I would much rather use Terminate for removal. I am not sure why Swords would be a better option than Path to Exile, for instance. Someone who decides to run Cradle of Vitality could make someone else's Swords work in their favor.

Also, the problem that I noticed with Force of Will is that you can't imprint it onto a Scepter. Counterspell allows you to counter any number of things this way. I have thought about running that card simply because you don't have to pay any mana for it...the problem is obviously the cost it would take to acquire the card; I suppose you could say my version is Countersliver on a budget. :P

I did notice that I hadn't put in a fourth Crystalline Sliver, although it's easy enough to get rid of a Frozen Aether or something and just put Legion into the sideboard.

I haven't played in any tournaments other than what's in my area locally, and I don't know if anyone was playing a Zoo deck or not. However, my own personal experience was the deck ran so fast that I got Shifting Sliver out pretty early a lot of the time and I was swinging for game by turn 5 or 6. I've tried as much as I could to prepare for whatever eventuality I might come across with the exception of a graveyard that powers up someone's creatures. If I had the good multicolored lands, I would throw in a Bojuka Bog or something, but I don't have those, so I'm kind of limited.

I threw in Linvala to avoid things like Deathless Angel, Vent Sentinel and leveler cards. If I don't need to play it, I'll change it out for one of my other Slivers.I put in Tajuru because I am sure that someone will decide to play All is Dust or some Annihilator Eldrazi or other. It starts out in my sideboard because it's more of a preventative measure more than anything. Gemhide is in there so I can tap for mana on my opponent's turn with the Scepter. Heart Sliver is in there so I can attack or tap for mana right away. One of the things I realized in this deck is that it's a little mana-heavy, so I tried to balance that out by giving myself the option of tapping creatures for mana. I've thought about running Progentius in this deck, and if I could find a way to pull that off, I wouldn't mind playing Swords quite so much.

[kicks_422]

Wow. Cradle of Vitality, Deathless Angel, Vent Sentinel, leveler cards, All is Dust, Eldrazi... Nice metagame you got there. No wonder your deck can do well.

Also, a lot of your reasonings are pretty horrible. I suggest you read up on the format first, since most of the things people will say to you have been repeated so many times.

[FoulQ]

I smell troll.

Cradle of Vitality?
Hardcasting Progenitus?
VENT SENTINEL!?

Here's my recommendation, if you want to play legacy decks, go netdeck something, and once you have played against competitive legacy decks in a tournament setting a few times, you will be able to better design your slivers deck for that particular metagame.

Because nobody will be playing cradle of vitality. And if they are, I'm not sure www.mtgthesource.com is for you.

[KaraZorEl]

Wow. Cradle of Vitality, Deathless Angel, Vent Sentinel, leveler cards, All is Dust, Eldrazi... Nice metagame you got there. No wonder your deck can do well.

Also, a lot of your reasonings are pretty horrible. I suggest you read up on the format first, since most of the things people will say to you have been repeated so many times.

Okay, thanks for the advice. I get the impression that the strategies I've prepared for aren't giving me the best ideas... :-p

[Curby]

As kicks said, read up on the format. Assuming that you're being sincere, a lot of what you said are what might fall into the realm of "beginner's misconceptions." Here's a good start at getting rid of those:

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?609

You'll find out why:

1) Swords to Plowshares is not just great, it's stellar
2) You want cards that take care of many threats
3) It's better to remove a threat than to invalidate it
4) If a card's good, you should run 3-4 of it. If a card's not good, you should not run it.

Most of these are intentional overgeneralizations. It's when you learn when to break the rules of thumb that you know you're getting good.

[Oiolosse]

Wow. Cradle of Vitality, Deathless Angel, Vent Sentinel, leveler cards, All is Dust, Eldrazi... Nice metagame you got there. No wonder your deck can do well.

Also, a lot of your reasonings are pretty horrible. I suggest you read up on the format first, since most of the things people will say to you have been repeated so many times.

Be kind. You can make the truth sound like it's not coming out of a puckered asshole.

[Tru3z3rox]

I've been playing the deck and I love it. It has been so much fun. I've also been testing mirror entity and I LOVE him. He has swung for the win in multiple games on his own.

Anyone else been having success with this deck? It is similar to fish in my opinion.

[GGoober]

Deck has fallen out of favor due to a couple of reason:
- Dies to mass removal and cannot recouperate without hibernation sliver
- hibernation sliver is weak post m10 combat rules
- EE@2, CB@2 kills the deck.
- Slivers needs to be in a swarm to function well, and this is its weakness.
EDIT: and a horrendously scary manabase (wastelands/mutavault) that dies to Wastelands

However, I am recently thinking of picking the deck up again, but in a non-countertop way.

I think Survival Slivers has more synergy: A rough list would be:

23 lands
3-4 Wasteland (cut these for more basics since slivers have trouble with manabase)
4 Mutavault
Fetches/Duals/Basics

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Muscle
4 Sinew
4 Crystalline
1 Gemhide
1 Talon Sliver/Essence Sliver
1 Winged Sliver
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Mirror Entity (pumps and then gets more pump from sliver synergy)
1 Loyal Retainers
1 Iona
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Squee

4 Aether Vial
4 Survival

4 Standstill (or flex slots (probably Survival Advantage toolbox or Standstills)

I'm not too familiar with Slivers, but by playing Survival, you aim at the synergy of the tribal power of the deck i.e. amassing the slivers you need. Teeg will help against control/WoG/combo to some extent. You can squeeze in a 4th color to run hibernation sliver/thoughtseize. I think the stronger approach is to go like the goblin/merfolk approach: focus on tribal. Mutavault is quite sick in the deck and it gets pumped and eats Merfolks with their island walk :D

Sliver Legion can be played off Gemhide slivers or with Retainers if you need to win fast. I think control-slivers is not as synergistic as aggro slivers. Take a look at today's aggro decks, a lot of them are Survival based (e.g. UG madness) and really focus on winning fast. Slivers still lack speed but build up a sizeable big force that can block and stall games and alpha strike like goblins. I will probably run GWU Slivers with Survival + Standstill, with 4 Wasteland and 3-4 Mutavaults, focusing on a very aggro-advantage approach to the deck

[Tru3z3rox]

But it is quite similar to merfolk. It has the same strengths and weaknesses it does, except for that fact that it aggros better and has less against combo.

Also mirror entity speeds us up and improves the mirror/any tribal match. So godly.

[GGoober]

Yupp I always had the love for Slivers over fishes. They have about 8 lords, merfolks have about 12-16 now though :( And Merfolks has much better singleton creatures whereas slivers need each other out to function. This is the main drawback. There are more options with Slivers though e.g. Lifelink/flying/trample/haste/first strike, but these are not too accessible without making the maindeck clunky if you play counterslivers. Survival slivers won't run into the clunkiness since you run the best slivers (crystalline, muscle, sinew) and 1 copy of each utility slivers.

If Survival Madness can do so well so can Survival Slivers! Except Survival Madness is still 1-2 turns faster if they get out Suvival (it is the FASTEST survival deck to date when beating down).

[Tru3z3rox]

Well the flying one isn't clunky at all. It fits right in. Our answer is mirror entity though. It makes all of that excess mana useful. I've swung for 15 damage with only 3 slivers and 1 lord. Great finisher.

[Curby]

But it is quite similar to merfolk. It has the same strengths and weaknesses it does, except for that fact that it aggros better and has less against combo.

Where are all the three and four color merfolk decks? Where are the sliver lords which happen to not only pump, but also give evasion and other useful abilities while being moderately priced? Where are the 8 colorless land in Slivers, which not only boost our army but also directly attack their manabases? As decks, both are aggro-control. However, the underlying tribes are quite different, and these differences lead to differences in the decks.

EDIT: Was your statement comparing typical merfolk decks to crz87's list? If so then I'd say they're even more different.


It makes all of that excess mana useful. I've swung for 15 damage with only 3 slivers and 1 lord. Great finisher.

I used to run Worship when I just started out and didn't have access to all the cards, but dropped it cause it cost 4. While fighting Burn, Elves, and other things where life was relevant, I tried Essence Sliver but dropped it cause it cost 4. I more often found myself running on 2-3 land than I did 4+ land. It worked because of Aether Vial and cantrips, but I didn't exactly have oceans of mana. By and large, Mirror Entity was tried and discarded largely due to the lack of mana in the deck. Admittedly, this was back when the deck ran 17-18 land. Having more land and running a Survival toolbox with a single Entity is probably less horrible.

[Aadz0r]

Is it not a good idea to run more Mirror Entity's? Seems like he serves as a game-winner and it sucks to have you single copy get countered/destroyed. I'm guessing you wouldn't mind having it in your opening hand, and it could serve as a lord nr. 10-11. Great idea running it with the Survival engine though! I never really liked the Sliver Control list, but loved the tribe, so I had tried to make a more aggro list, but couldn't really make it work. I'm definately going to try this though;)

[Tru3z3rox]

You're not giving him enough credit. He is a beast. Seriously and the advantage he gives against other tribal decks that affect all of a type as opposed to just your own.

Sliver control is necessary in our current meta. What will you do against all of these combo decks? Or against sweepers?

We also run swords and have shroud so we're fairly immune to much of the aggro hate out there. Merfolk cannot say the same. They struggle against zoo constantly. I should know..I play both decks ;)

[Aadz0r]

I know, that's why I recommended running him more than once;) I run him in my Elf-Survival deck, and he often wins the game for me. That's why I believe that even though you would run a survival list, run at least 2-3 Mirror Entity's. In a regualr countersliver deck, I would recommend running him three times...

[Tru3z3rox]

Ya I think he is amazing at least as a 2 of. Perhaps not 3, but definitely 2.

[Tru3z3rox]

Anyway..I've been playing slivers successfully and hopefully I can take it to my next tournament. I'm excited to see how it does with 45+ people.

[Tru3z3rox]

Is it not a good idea to run more Mirror Entity's? Seems like he serves as a game-winner and it sucks to have you single copy get countered/destroyed. I'm guessing you wouldn't mind having it in your opening hand, and it could serve as a lord nr. 10-11. Great idea running it with the Survival engine though! I never really liked the Sliver Control list, but loved the tribe, so I had tried to make a more aggro list, but couldn't really make it work. I'm definately going to try this though;)

Mirror entity is amazing, especially with winged sliver, but you don't want to run more than 2 of him. He can really clog your hand in some cases.

[reale]

Based on Vault's list, with a single copy of Eladamri's Call (post #1010 from this thread) i've been developing a new list with 2 of them.

We don't have better creatures than Merlfolk (and i think we all agree) but we have access to more control/manipulating stuff, not only blue and white spells but we're immune to removals and, for me, since Vault's post, Meathooks has a very very good getwhatyouwant- Eladamri.


("Meta cards/Open Slots" a part.)


2 Mutavault
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Plains
---
18

4 Aether Vial
---
4

4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
3 Plated Sliver (Half lord, half mana, half good but still good)
2 Winged Sliver (Search for it with Eladamri)
---
17

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
2 Eladamri's Call
---
18

* Meta/Open (more U/W control)

1 Path to Exile (Based on Zoo, Merfolk and recently Vegenvine's frequencies, i think its a good starting point. 2 will add an extra aggressive effect that may work very well)

2 Disenchant/Krozan Grip (not so meta dependant if you think closely. Helps against a miss countered Survival of the Fittest or Vial. Save counters to Standstill-style spells and counter wars. Remove the creatures with the 5 or 6 StPs. Krozan Grip is a better option to fight blue (CBTop), but it has 3CC and is in the green little side of the deck.
---
3



Side
1-2 Path to Exile
2 Disenchant/Krozan Grip)
3-4 Stiffle
.
.
.


17 blues spells, considering 3 FoW's on the count. That means sometimes you will have FoW with no other blue card in your hand. One funny thing happening is Eladamri's fixing it sometimes - I catch a Winged or Crystalline and hold it for a while, until: another blue shows up, the time to fly over and win or use it to counter a hurtful spell.

The ability to choose which Sliver you want (fly, pump, reshroud'em) for 2CC it's an incredible effect at mid-late game. Maybe 3 Eladamri's Call should be tested one day. Now I can hold hands with less mulligans too, since the ability to search for Crystalline if you dont start with him.

I'm moving to a more control role, let's see what happens. If you suggest another control that fits the mana base, i'll test it - creatures we already know that don't have much options, aside Crystalline to protect the horde until muscles start growing ;)

Final comment: One possible movement is -1 Winged, -1 Plated and +2 Meta/Control cards. A lot of removals/protection/counters until the horde has the power to finish the game. Thats my suggestion and is working fine for me.

See ya!

[Tru3z3rox]

There is no way you can only run 1 winged! Huge mistake. That is the sliver that gives me the alpha strike usually. I also believe that plated sliver isn't worth it. I much prefer sidewinder sliver as it is much more aggressive on the attack.

I think our lords are generally better than Merfolk's. We have shroud, we have 2 two mana lords. Granted LOA is better than winged as he provides a pump bonus as well as evasion, but having an army of fliers can be quite useful.

I also think it is a huge mistake not to use mirror entity. He is our lord 9-10. And he makes everyone HUGE.

P.S. - I think slivers is an aggro control deck, so unless your meta is filled with combo, I'd keep it along the aggro route. The control is worthless without a proper clock on the opponent.

[reale]

I get Winged every game i need it with 2 of them - plus 2 Eladamri's Call. With one settled Winged in game, I dont want to find another one - just muscles/sinew.

This deck is only better on shroud, giving us a powerfull weapon but that is it.

Agreed in terms about Sidewinder Sliver. The problem is the same as Winged: doesn't stacks. Play together with Plated would be a choice....

Mirror Entity is non sense to me.

If you don't remove tons of creatures on various fields, you will lose easily to the big monsters that pump much faster than us. You are not considering that. Also, a lot of combos are creature combos. Against control I didn't play tested yet. I think control is the way to go.

[Tru3z3rox]

I get Winged every game i need it with 2 of them - plus 2 Eladamri's Call. With one settled Winged in game, I dont want to find another one - just muscles/sinew.

This deck is only better on shroud, giving us a powerfull weapon but that is it.

Agreed in terms about Sidewinder Sliver. The problem is the same as Winged: doesn't stacks. Play together with Plated would be a choice....

Mirror Entity is non sense to me.

If you don't remove tons of creatures on various fields, you will lose easily to the big monsters that pump much faster than us. You are not considering that. Also, a lot of combos are creature combos. Against control I didn't play tested yet. I think control is the way to go.

Mmmm, but I always want myself finding a winged. WORST case is it pitches to FOW.

Shroud is a huge deal in legacy...that is why merfolk has so much trouble.

Actually sidewinder sliver DOES stack. If you have 4 out and they decide to block their creature gets -4/-4 before any damage is dealt.

Mirror entity is a huge beater especially with winged in play. It makes your dudes enormous. Do you know how he works?

[sporenfrosch1411]

Imo you can NOT play Slivers without Mirror Entity.
It is you finisher and it is your edge over Firespout. Usually if you can get a Crystalline Sliver and an Entitiy on the board, your in a pretty damn good position. If you then manage to get a Winged Sliver, it can allready be a win....

But that idea with Eladamri's Call -> i really like it. Considering the 3 open slots you have right now (which you entitled to "meta"), i would put in a single Harmonic Sliver and 2 Mirror Entity :)


Now to the harsh part:
I don't think there is any reason to play Slivers in competitive play if you plan to win.
Don't get me wrong , i got a playset of all relevant slivers, and almost all of them are foil ( i think im just missing 1 Sinew and 1 Winged in foil) and i just love Slivers, but they just loose the fight with most of today's good Legacy creatures in other Aggro Decks. Tarmogoyf is bigger, Qasali Pridemage is bigger when attacking, Nimble Mongoose gets bigger faster, Wild Nacatl is bigger, Serra Avenger flies and has vigilance - and now im only talking 1-2 mana, cause it would be unfair to compare to Knight of the Reliquary, Terravore and such. Slivers rely on swarming the board but don't have a Ringleader (like Goblins and Elves have).
IF you have Mirror Entity you can balance these points out more or less, but still i found the deck to have a lot of trouble.
Sure slivers have Shroud (with Crystalline in play), but i would go so far to say that more and more decks can adept to this problem. Merfolk has its Engineered Plague, any Black Deck has their sacrifice effects and good control decks have Firespout.

But my point of view might be a bit outdated.....i think i will go for some testing these days....

[Tru3z3rox]

Very good points I must say. I view slivers more as U/W merfolk. We have all the necessary control with the removal as well.

The other thing slivers has as a positive is amazing artifact/enchantment destruction (Harmonic Sliver).

Aside from that I'd say our evasion is slightly better, but our pump and secondary abilities are worse compared to merfolk.

There are obviously positives and negatives, but overall I still feel this is a solid, fun deck.

[sporenfrosch1411]

The following thing came to mind while testing:

Slivers should be aggressive, hence the term "AggroControl"
So i wonder if Sidewinder Sliver would be the better Choice over Plated Sliver. Sidewinder gives a bigger advantage (when we attack) than Plated provides.
What do you think?

Slivers, as i stated before, absolutely lack the "regain" of power, like Ringleader provides for Goblins. What can be done to fix that?
Standstill? I somehow don't like standstill.....
It is so situational and has zero aggression (unlike Ringleader, who after all, still is a 2/2 dude with haste and ALLWAYS is an advantage for you, either you get rid of lands or you get goblins, its just nice)

[Tru3z3rox]

The following thing came to mind while testing:

Slivers should be aggressive, hence the term "AggroControl"
So i wonder if Sidewinder Sliver would be the better Choice over Plated Sliver. Sidewinder gives a bigger advantage (when we attack) than Plated provides.
What do you think?

Slivers, as i stated before, absolutely lack the "regain" of power, like Ringleader provides for Goblins. What can be done to fix that?
Standstill? I somehow don't like standstill.....
It is so situational and has zero aggression (unlike Ringleader, who after all, still is a 2/2 dude with haste and ALLWAYS is an advantage for you, either you get rid of lands or you get goblins, its just nice)

I mentioned sidewinder two posts above you. I love him and he IS very aggressive. It makes people thing twice about blocking.

As for the CA that other decks have...I know it sucks. I play Elves, Soldiers (Best CA), slivers (Worst CA), and Vampires. All have some sort of CA, but by far I think that Slivers has the worst. All we have is basically brainstorm. Standstill has been thought of, but we cannot hope to play under it nearly as well as Merfolk. We have removal we need to cast, less manlands, and no wastes for opposing manlands.

However, the redeeming quality is that we do have a better combo match than goblins and elves. We also have a better aggro match than merfolk (in my opinion). This puts us right in the middle. There are slivers that can give CA themselves, but are way too pricy to run. If you do choose to run standstill let us know how your playtesting goes. As far as I remember I didn't like it most of the time.

Our best CA is invalidating cards in their hand (removal), etc.

[reale]

Mmmm, but I always want myself finding a winged. WORST case is it pitches to FOW.

Shroud is a huge deal in legacy...that is why merfolk has so much trouble.

Actually sidewinder sliver DOES stack. If you have 4 out and they decide to block their creature gets -4/-4 before any damage is dealt.

Mirror entity is a huge beater especially with winged in play. It makes your dudes enormous. Do you know how he works?


About Winged, you are right, unless you get 2 and no Muscle. Or 2 winged and 1 muscle, when it may be 1 and 2 muscles, 1 of them found through Eladamri. When you have a lot of Muscles and NO Winged, but 1 Eladamri, you also get Winged. It works like the Joker.

Sorry my mistake about Sidewinder, actually, I thought it was Quilled Sliver's ability that we were talking about. When I read that it stacks, i had to confirm what the hell you were talking about and search for Sidewinder, LOL.

Now, i'll get Sidewinders up to test them. They turns the deck to an aggressive way that may work and I like the idea.

About Mirror Entity, i'll test it. Both of you are probably right. The reason that I was against it is that usually i didn't need such effect to win - searching for Muscles (Eladamri) plus removing more creatures/enchantment/artifacts is working fine (Bye CB/Top, Survival of the Fittest...). Actually I don't play in a VERY competitive meta, but the decks are ALMOST there, with some cheaper cards replacements by my enemies.

See ya!

[Tru3z3rox]

Sorry my mistake about Sidewinder, actually, I thought it was Quilled Sliver's ability that we were talking about. When I read that it stacks, i had to confirm what the hell you were talking about and search for Sidewinder, LOL.

Now, i'll get Sidewinders up to test them. They turns the deck to an aggressive way that may work and I like the idea.

About Mirror Entity, i'll test it. Both of you are probably right. The reason that I was against it is that usually i didn't need such effect to win - searching for Muscles (Eladamri) plus removing more creatures/enchantment/artifacts is working fine (Bye CB/Top, Survival of the Fittest...). Actually I don't play in a VERY competitive meta, but the decks are ALMOST there, with some cheaper cards replacements by my enemies.

See ya!

Try him as a 2 of and I guarantee that you'll like him. I also run 2 mutavaults just for the extra beaters. Eladamri's Call is good, but I feel it slows the deck down a bit. If you run a tool box of harmonic, etc then I guess it is OK.

[0dysseus]

Hey guys, I'm new to this thread and I'm trying to devise a sliver deck aggro oriented. It would be nice if we had a Sliver equivalent to Ringleader/Messenger. But since we lack it, and because the aggro list runs white and green, shouldn't 3-4 Horizon Canopy be a good idea for some extra card drawing?

Also, about the non-sliver spell part of the aggro version. Can we really hope to run any Sliver deck without a minimum of 4 counterspell/removal/disruption pieces? I think not...slivers can do many tricks, and I'd love to run a land-sliver-only version someday, but for now we can't survive only playing Survival and not jamming the opponent a little. Survival is very good btw! But what if it just gets countered, etc..? Do you just wait for the other 3 while not messing with the other's plan at all? I've made that mistake some days ago. Sneak and Tell, Reanimate and combo decks mostly beat you for good:D

Something that eluded me all this time.. Does the +1/+1 of Muscle/Sinew/Sedge stack with Mirror Entity's pump?? If I have a Crystalline, 2 Muscle and a ME and I pay 3 mana for the latter's ability, does that mean that all my creatures are 5/5 or 3/3? If they are 5/5 then maybe Horizon Canopy isn't so synergistic, but still, it seems one of the best solutions to me for card drawing. Harmonize is a little expensive and has double green.

By the way, Land Grant x2 anyone instead of 2 Fetchlands? The list I'm experimenting with is UWGR and contains Gemhide, Muscle, 1 Root and 1 Harmonic -mainboard. So far LG was almost the same to me. The bad thing with 4 colours is manabase trouble which can be solved with some life-loss from City of Brass, Gemhide Sliver and Vial. 1-2 Ancient Ziggurat / Thran Quarries can help too. No space for more than 1-2 Mutavaults though, but the creature count is higher in the aggro lists.

On the bright side, the three reasons I'm picking up Red are: 1) Sedge sliver (requires 1 Swamp that must be fetched/granted to give the +1/+1), 2)Heart sliver's haste (speedy, and lets you play 1-4 extra slivers at once if paired with Gemhide), and 3) Frenetic sliver (in the slots of Hybernation), which is surprisingly strong against Wrath/Firespout effects. Half your people live -statistically- and you attack right away after the sweep without re-casting them. Another option with Red is to use Homing Sliver as a threat, which is also uncounterable as a cycler, and it's really neat if you face lots of counterdecks (you bring Root=>gg). Probably Survival is generally better than Homing, and surely it is faster but most established lists pack Force of Will. I enjoy it if I can turn counterspells into dead cards.

As you see, I'm taking out the swords, force of will, daze and brainstorm/ponder. Which sounds like a newbie's plan. But 4 Spell Pierce in the place of Daze work well; I can play 4 Duress(tried Cabal Therapy but it was bad sacrificing for the flash back, especially here), and Leylines of the Void+Sanctity in the sideboard (runed Halos or Meddling Magi are some of the rest). Plus, the extra 1-2 Lords with regenerate have proven to be good so far. I don't know yet if I'm gonna trash the list in the end, but it is quite fast.

[Tru3z3rox]

Hey guys, I'm new to this thread and I'm trying to devise a sliver deck aggro oriented. It would be nice if we had a Sliver equivalent to Ringleader/Messenger. But since we lack it, and because the aggro list runs white and green, shouldn't 3-4 Horizon Canopy be a good idea for some extra card drawing?

Also, about the non-sliver spell part of the aggro version. Can we really hope to run any Sliver deck without a minimum of 4 counterspell/removal/disruption pieces? I think not...slivers can do many tricks, and I'd love to run a land-sliver-only version someday, but for now we can't survive only playing Survival and not jamming the opponent a little. Survival is very good btw! But what if it just gets countered, etc..? Do you just wait for the other 3 while not messing with the other's plan at all? I've made that mistake some days ago. Sneak and Tell, Reanimate and combo decks mostly beat you for good:D

Something that eluded me all this time.. Does the +1/+1 of Muscle/Sinew/Sedge stack with Mirror Entity's pump?? If I have a Crystalline, 2 Muscle and a ME and I pay 3 mana for the latter's ability, does that mean that all my creatures are 5/5 or 3/3? If they are 5/5 then maybe Horizon Canopy isn't so synergistic, but still, it seems one of the best solutions to me for card drawing. Harmonize is a little expensive and has double green.

By the way, Land Grant x2 anyone instead of 2 Fetchlands? The list I'm experimenting with is UWGR and contains Gemhide, Muscle, 1 Root and 1 Harmonic -mainboard. So far LG was almost the same to me. The bad thing with 4 colours is manabase trouble which can be solved with some life-loss from City of Brass, Gemhide Sliver and Vial. 1-2 Ancient Ziggurat / Thran Quarries can help too. No space for more than 1-2 Mutavaults though, but the creature count is higher in the aggro lists.

On the bright side, the three reasons I'm picking up Red are: 1) Sedge sliver (requires 1 Swamp that must be fetched/granted to give the +1/+1), 2)Heart sliver's haste (speedy, and lets you play 1-4 extra slivers at once if paired with Gemhide), and 3) Frenetic sliver (in the slots of Hybernation), which is surprisingly strong against Wrath/Firespout effects. Half your people live -statistically- and you attack right away after the sweep without re-casting them. Another option with Red is to use Homing Sliver as a threat, which is also uncounterable as a cycler, and it's really neat if you face lots of counterdecks (you bring Root=>gg). Probably Survival is generally better than Homing, and surely it is faster but most established lists pack Force of Will. I enjoy it if I can turn counterspells into dead cards.

As you see, I'm taking out the swords, force of will, daze and brainstorm/ponder. Which sounds like a newbie's plan. But 4 Spell Pierce in the place of Daze work well; I can play 4 Duress(tried Cabal Therapy but it was bad sacrificing for the flash back, especially here), and Leylines of the Void+Sanctity in the sideboard (runed Halos or Meddling Magi are some of the rest). Plus, the extra 1-2 Lords with regenerate have proven to be good so far. I don't know yet if I'm gonna trash the list in the end, but it is quite fast.

Yes the pumps stack with ME's ability and that is why he is sooo good for slivers.

Your list is interesting, but wasteland owns your deck. More so than 2-3 color slivers because we can at least fetch basics. Frankly Root Sliver, Frentic, and Gemhide are subpar and not that aggressive. Sedge would be the only reason for R/B. If you're really scared of CT then board Roots. I much prefer my Harmonics in my board and spell pierces in my board. The dazes can hit creatures as well which is important.

I don't think they will reprint slivers for a while, so that Sliver ringleader is a long time coming.

[Tru3z3rox]

So I've been play testing against merfolk and TES and I've come to realize that both MUs are abysmal. Out of 6-8 games I barely stole away 2 against merfolk and lost every game against TES. I feel the sideboard can solve the TES issue, but merfolk remains a problem. Anyone have any ideas on how to improve both of these matches?

[Curby]

Sad to say, Countersliver is barely playable anymore. It still beats Goblins pretty well, but aside from that has very few good matchups, especially in the current environment. I actually dismantled/retired my sliver deck a few weeks ago, to the shock of my friends.

And that was over a year ago. Things have changed since then, but I don't think things have improved for slivers. I wonder if it isn't time to let go. =)

[Tru3z3rox]

And that was over a year ago. Things have changed since then, but I don't think things have improved for slivers. I wonder if it isn't time to let go. =)

I don't let go of decks that I enjoy playing. :)

I've come to realize that Merfolk is the only bad match that the sideboard cannot fix. I've not come up with ANYTHING that could be done..

Edit:
We could run a few Llawan Cephalid Empress...

[Curby]

Re: letting go: things change, and decks become more or less effective vs. the other decks that are played. It doesn't mean that the less effective decks aren't fun, or that they shouldn't be played. But to expect any deck to forever maintain its potency in competitive play is a little naive.

Countersliver was the first competitive Legacy deck I ever built, and I've had a ton of fun (and some success) with it. That said, I'm a fan and not a fanatic. The difference is knowing when to move on, and I think that further effort at this point is largely wasted. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I doubt it will happen without the printing of other playable slivers.

Re: Llawan, she doesn't stop their Vials, but at least bouncing their critters is a good start.

[Tru3z3rox]

Re: letting go: things change, and decks become more or less effective vs. the other decks that are played. It doesn't mean that the less effective decks aren't fun, or that they shouldn't be played. But to expect any deck to forever maintain its potency in competitive play is a little naive.

Countersliver was the first competitive Legacy deck I ever built, and I've had a ton of fun (and some success) with it. That said, I'm a fan and not a fanatic. The difference is knowing when to move on, and I think that further effort at this point is largely wasted. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I doubt it will happen without the printing of other playable slivers.

Re: Llawan, she doesn't stop their Vials, but at least bouncing their critters is a good start.

Good points. I guess I may put the deck down for a while unless the meta becomes more zoo/aggro heavy. When that happens I will pick it up again.

[Curby]

When that happens I will pick it up again.

That's exactly where I'm at. In fact half of the deck is still in sleeves, cause I haven't needed the duals (and obviously the slivers) for anything else. =)

[Ozymandias]

Maybe Talon Sliver would be good in the merfolk matchup. I noticed that in more than a few games we traded and then I CAed you out with standstill and silvergill. Talon keeps that from happening and moreover keeps me from even doing things like double-blocking for exact. Plus, while a lot of opponents might be prepared for a muscle or sinew pump, they will get blown out by first-strike. The obvious cut is the analogous Sidewinder Sliver. The deck ends up looking like:

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Winged Sliver
4 Talon Sliver
4 Mutavault
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Flooded Strand
1 Plains
1 Island
1 Forest
3 Tundra
1 Savannah
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Tropical Island

The mana is just an educated guess, but canopy seems like a good choice.

[Tru3z3rox]

Maybe Talon Sliver would be good in the merfolk matchup. I noticed that in more than a few games we traded and then I CAed you out with standstill and silvergill. Talon keeps that from happening and moreover keeps me from even doing things like double-blocking for exact. Plus, while a lot of opponents might be prepared for a muscle or sinew pump, they will get blown out by first-strike. The obvious cut is the analogous Sidewinder Sliver. The deck ends up looking like:

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Winged Sliver
4 Talon Sliver
4 Mutavault
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Flooded Strand
1 Plains
1 Island
1 Forest
3 Tundra
1 Savannah
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Tropical Island

The mana is just an educated guess, but canopy seems like a good choice.

Good call. I used to play Talon, but he just wasn't aggressive enough and I supposed that flanking was scarier for an opposing aggro deck, but perhaps it is time to bring him back. Would you really run him as a 4 of? I was thinking him as a 2-3 of and optimizing my control with maybe 2 spell pierce in the main? Extra blue cards to pitch to force wouldn't be a bad call either.

[Ozymandias]

Yeah, that seems reasonable. I still think that Standstill is a good call, and I would try a few out if you can find room.

[Tru3z3rox]

Over brainstorm or in addition to?

[slaughtercult]

I've been currently running this list with good results...

4 Sinew Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Plated Sliver
2 Winged Sliver

4 Force Of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Swords To Plowshares
2 Living Wish
4 Preordain

2 Tundra
1 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
3 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Forest
2 Plains
3 Island

SB
1 Mirror Entity
1 Winged Sliver
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1 Meddling Mage
1 Ethersworn Cannonist
2 Null Rod
2 Krosan Grip
2 Pithing needle
3 Tormod's Crypt

Idon't have vials yet, but as soon as i get them i'm cutting 2 land and 2 Preordain for them. The deck seems to run fine without them but better with...

[Tru3z3rox]

Vials are absolutely a MUST, especially since our mana base is so vulnerable.

[maximumcarnage]

I'm kind of new so I'm sorry if this is a bad idea that's already been covered and thrown away. How do we feel about trying to fit Dark Confidant in here somewhere? Something like this for a creature base maybe?

4x Dark Confidant
4x Muscle Sliver
4x Sinew Sliver
4x Crystalline Sliver
3x Winged Sliver

We could maybe even try to throw Thoughtseize or Duress in there somewhere too. We'd be able to sideboard things like Innocent Blood to deal with Emrakul/Progenitus. The manabase would obviously become more difficult to optimize and, like I said, sorry if this idea's already come about and been proven wrong.

[Purgatory]

Vials are absolutely a MUST, especially since our mana base is so vulnerable.

Agreed, and also, there is no way I'd ever play CounterSliver without Mutavault, despite it being just colourless. Savannah is also not that awesome in the deck, and more than one of each basic land seems wasteful to me.

Further, when you add Vial, I'd up the creature count to at least 20, but preferably 22-24. I find that the deck works better with a more aggressive gameplan, with more creatures.

[Tru3z3rox]

I'm kind of new so I'm sorry if this is a bad idea that's already been covered and thrown away. How do we feel about trying to fit Dark Confidant in here somewhere? Something like this for a creature base maybe?

4x Dark Confidant
4x Muscle Sliver
4x Sinew Sliver
4x Crystalline Sliver
3x Winged Sliver

We could maybe even try to throw Thoughtseize or Duress in there somewhere too. We'd be able to sideboard things like Innocent Blood to deal with Emrakul/Progenitus. The manabase would obviously become more difficult to optimize and, like I said, sorry if this idea's already come about and been proven wrong.

Confidant is good CA, but we have access to brainstorm and standstill already. Slivers want synergy so the more slivers the better. I think Bant slivers is the optimum, but if another list does well with differentl colors, then who am I to argue?

[Sturtzilla]

Greetings,

I have been experimenting with the Countersliver/Meathooks build for a little while now. I have noticed a trend as I have been reading this thread. That trend seems to point out the desire for different slivers at different times or in different match ups. Now I have noticed that some builds are trying out Eladamri's Call. The question I will pose is, "Why not focus the deck while creating a toolbox in the sideboard with Living Wish?" It would allow a bit more free space in the deck and would allow for the tutoring of the "right" sliver right when you need it. I think the following list could work.

Land 18
2 Mutavault
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Plains

Creatures 20
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
3 Plated Sliver
3 Winged Sliver
2 Mirror Entity

Spells 22
4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Brainstorm
3 Living Wish

Sideboard 15
1 Sidewinder Sliver
1 Winged Sliver
1 Talon Sliver
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Mirror Entity
3 Spell Pierce
3 Graveyard Hate (Tormod's Crypt, Jotan Grunt, Relic, etc.)
2 Pithing Needle
2 Krosan Grip

The sideboard could be changed based on what your particular meta contains and your exact decklist. The number of Winged Slivers main deck might be a bit high, but I have found when you drop him you basically begin to roll face and if you don't need him, pitch him for a free Force of Will. I also would like to work a Sidewinder into the main but I wasn't sure if it was really worth it. I would also like to fully endorse the use of Mirror Entity. He is the bomb that this deck needs to power through in many cases. I also have considered running 1-2 Horizon Canopy but I am not sure what to cut for them and if that little extra amount of drawing s actually necessary.

I would love to hear thoughts on the inclusion of living wish, the sideboard, changes to the main deck, or basically any thoughts my fellow sliver players might have. Thanks.

[Curby]

Living Wish was tried and abandoned years ago. Unless you have new wish targets (you aren't using any) or the meta has changed sufficiently to make it relatively less clunky and slow (unlikely), there's probably little reason to revisit the idea now. The same could be said for the archetype overall, but I've said that recently too. I'm sure searching this thread for Living Wish will show some results. sigh

[Sturtzilla]

Thanks. I might have missed the suggestions in earlier posts. Further point of inquiry, if it was found that Living Wish was not worthwhile, then how do other feel about Eladamri's Call? I get that it is an instant which gives it a slight edge over Living Wish in some respects. However the Wish gives you less of a color requirement while allowing for more space to fit the tutorable targets. In both ideal cases you would have an Aether Vial with which to dump the tutored target onto the table.

@kirbysdl: I guess it might be somewhat clunky. I think however it could give you edge in some cases. Would you be opposed to running either the Call or Wish?

[reale]

Just a brainstorm, may sounds a little bit crazy. Have anyone tested 1 Sliver Legion (getting with Eladamri's) and put into play with 5 counters on Vial? Slower than Mirror Entity but immune to removal (Crystalline). If I play slivers for shroud, i wanna do this until the end.

Maybe more fun to see it working than an actual finisher.

Talon Sliver works fine against aggro for me, slightly better than Sidewinder on blocking. If you don't attack until a lethal damage in one flying attack, it works.

[The Big Ragu]

Just a brainstorm, may sounds a little bit crazy. Have anyone tested 1 Sliver Legion (getting with Eladamri's) and put into play with 5 counters on Vial? Slower than Mirror Entity but immune to removal (Crystalline). If I play slivers for shroud, i wanna do this until the end.

Maybe more fun to see it working than an actual finisher.

Talon Sliver works fine against aggro for me, slightly better than Sidewinder on blocking. If you don't attack until a lethal damage in one flying attack, it works.

Without any Gemhide Slivers, it would be way too clunky. By the time your vial hits 5 counters, you should have already won, or at least be well in the lead. If not, then something has gone horribly awry.

[reale]

I agree with you. Just trying to explore some movements to this deck, until new slivers appear.

One thing i've been struggling is mid late game against pure aggro. Sometimes me and my opponent are tied in creature's power and no one attacks until someone draws better. I need to reload my hand quickly, remove the lands from my way, as goblins does. The question is: fact or fiction may fit here? Another option? Just accept the fact and that's it?

Best regards

[maximumcarnage]

I'm not sure what came over me or why, but I've decided to run this at my weekly tournament this weekend. I've just always loved this deck and I guess I started to miss it.

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

4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial

4 Mutavault
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island

I don't have a concrete sideboard yet except for I know Harmonic Sliver will be a 4-of because I'm fairly certain I'll see some counterbalance and some Stoneforge packages. I'll probably fit in 2-3 Paths as well as Goblins and Merfolk are not uncommon in my meta.

Anyone have any suggestions other than "Well, you probably shouldn't play this if you want to win." lol

[reale]

In your list I would replace 2 Mutavault for 2 Horizon Canopy to improve starting hands and mid/late game.

My meta requires a main deck artifact/enchantment removal. I'm using 2 Harmonic Slivers and testing 2 Eladamri's Call, to get them any time (actually, to adjust the needs while in a match - fly, pump, etc).

Standstill over Fact or Fiction is a good discussion! This deck needs to win the CA battle.

[unemployer]

Im still a noob when it comes to countersliver so pardon my ignorance... Would green sun zenith work in this deck other than eladamris call or living wish?

[cyberjar]

GSZ only searches green creatures, no Crystalin/Winged ->bad

[jackbohlen]

Speaking of Green Sun's Zenith:
Maybe the existence of Zenith means it's time to fundamentally alter the deck: specifically, maybe we should reconsider the exclusion of Virulent Sliver.
Think about it: GSZ means we have effectively 8 copies in the deck. PLUS it makes Vial much more efficient, because it gives us something to do with Vial on 1 (it even occasionally gives you something to do with Vial on 0 if you take the probably wise decision to include a Dryad Arbor or 2 with your Zenith to add flexibility).
Once we add GSZs and Virulent Slivers, we have a blisteringly fast deck: I've been testing it, and it's capable of very consistent Turn 3 kills.
I can't help but feel that in a metagame dominated by combo, maybe we should consider making the list as consistently fast as possible, so that we actually stand a chance against all the High Tides and Belchers of the worlds.

(Also, think of all the goodies New Phyrexian is going to bring Poisonous Slivers ;) )

[necrowil]

So this is my first post on the Countersliver (I refuse to call it Meathooks) thread. Right now this is my main Legacy deck. The other deck I’m working on for Legacy is a Hatred deck posted on the Suicide Black thread. Hatred is not popular now but I think this could change with some new cards it just gained. Whenever a new set is released, it’s a good thing to see if it helps older or previous decks.

Anyway, my Countersliver deck as I was reading is very different from what you guys have been posting, however it is more similar to what appeared when the deck originally appeared. As mentioned the deck fell out of favor after Demonic Consultation was banned. After that, it did not have the chops really for the most part. However, I believe I have found a replacement for Demonic Consultation. It’s Tainted Pact. Bear with me for a minute.

Countersliver

Sideboard
3 etheresworn canonist
3 phyrexian revoker
3 darkheart sliver
2 faerie macabre
2 extirpate
1 swords to plowshares
1 path to exile

Main Deck

3 underground sea
3 city of brass
3 tundra
2 gemstone mine
2 bojuka bog
1 undiscovered paradise
1 volcanic island
1 tropical island
1 flooded strand
1 polluted delta
1 scalding tarn
1 mystic rain

4 force of will
4 aether vial
3 swords to plowshares
3 path to exile
3 tainted pact
3 spell snare

4 qasali pridemage
4 hibernation sliver
4 crystalline sliver
2 winged sliver
2 muscle sliver
2 sinew sliver
2 acidic sliver

One thing to keep in mind is a lot of the numbers are what they are so you don’t get doubles with Tainted Pact. While Pact is clearly not Consult, it is not uncommon for me to look at 10 cards to get to one I want. While I can’t always get THE card I am looking in this deck Pact gets you a whole lot closer.

Also, I’m not a fan of Daze or Mutavault. I don’t think Daze does enough and Mutavault is mana intensive. When I play this deck it does feel like the old Countersliver deck albeit slightly watered down now that Consult is banned. Pact makes it a pretty strong deck. The cards you want to get to like Crystalline or Hibernation are in higher numbers, the ones you don’t are in lower numbers. Also the board is very strong graveyard hate and the Dark Heart is great vs Burn and Canonist is great vs combo. What more do you want in a deck really?

Also, Pridemage is such a good card I can’t see not starting it in this deck. So basically, this deck is ready for just about any deck in the format in my opinion. Sure it will lost game 1 to burn but who plays that? Darkheart is strong to bring in.

Just food for thought.

Peace.

Necrowil

“I have seen the true path. I will not warm myself by the fire—I will become the flame.”
—Lim-Dûl, the Necromancer

[ivanpei]

Back from the dead and out of merfolk's shadow? Adaptive automation is a vialable lord, unlike gsz and is exactly what meathooks needs!

Sample list:

3 Plated
4 Muscle
4 Sinew
4 Crystalline
4 Adaptive
3 Winged

4 Vial
4 STP
4 Force
4 Misstep
4 Brainstorm

18 lands

[from Cairo]

Adaptive Automaton doesn't strike me as that much better than Mirror Entity is/was for Slivers.

Honestly I think M10 butchering Hibernation Slivers' "damage on the stack" trick buried this deck.

[Bignasty197]

Adaptive Automaton doesn't strike me as that much better than Mirror Entity is/was for Slivers.

Honestly I think M10 butchering Hibernation Slivers' "damage on the stack" trick buried this deck.

I agree. Also, you never had to move past 2 counters on Vial. Automaton kind of sticks out in a clunky, bad way. I don't see this deck making a comeback anytime soon because Merfolk is the same deck, but better all-around.

[GGoober]

Main problem for Slivers was not the Lord issue. Having 8 definitely doesn't beat Merfolks playing with 16, but the main issue was the manabase. If you played 8 lords, you are forced GW, and you had to play U for Crystalline, and if you splashed b for Hibernation, you end up with 4-colors (aka terrible). Most builds go for UGW and still have issues with mana consistency (if you're running combination of Wastelands/Mutavaults).

[evanmartyr]

Why play Hibernation Sliver at all then, if you're playing Crystalline and no longer can abuse Hibernation as a combat trick?

The core is GW, with Sinew and Muscle. Aether Vial is likely a given. Forget that Automaton costs three, just leave your Vial on 2 like Merfolk does and use Automaton as your 3 drop or something. What else are you going to be doing with your mana?

4x Plated/Sidewinder Sliver
4x Sinew Sliver
4x Muscle Sliver
4x Adaptive Automaton
4x Crystalline
3x Winged Sliver
1x Might Sliver

4x Aether Vial
4x Path to Exile
4x Mental Misstep
4x Green Sun's Zenith

20x lands

This is just off the top of my head, and you could easily mess with the numbers to fit a few more lands in. I think as long as you're relying on the Lord plan, Green Sun's Zenith is too good to pass up. It fetches out your regular lords, gives you access to absurd sideboard crap like Harmonic Sliver, and gets you Might Sliver, which is frankly just a goddamn house.

Another option is to ditch blue altogether, use Blade Sliver and/or Sedge Sliver since they're lords the only way lords tend to count, and Sedge even gives you cheap regeneration which is somewhat intense. I realize you'd have to ditch all your countermagic other than possibly Mental Misstep, but Slivers has been garbage for so long that I think a more radical approach might be called for. Maybe run artifact-based disruption like Chalice and Thorn of Amethyst?

[Greenpoe]

I played against a Sliver deck on MWS that used Green Sun's Zenith, Living Wish and Eldamari's Call alongside Gemhide Slivers to try and power out one of the 5-color sliver legends. Maybe the 5-color plan (UBW with BR for Sedge) could work with Gemhides to smooth the mana issues out.

[GGoober]

The only time I felt Slivers was truly competitive was when Merfolks wasn't popular yet (Counterslivers was really the Merfolks back in the days). The other time was when I was tinkering with a Sliver Survival deck with Vials and forgo the Counterbalance package in favor of Survival. The deck was super explosive and played like RGBSASurvival, getting anything it needed (gemhide/lifelink/first strike/haste/flying/harmonic/win-with-entity). Too bad Survival is banned :(

But my opinion is: as long as Merfolks is around, Meathooks isn't going anywhere. Slivers would almost always lose to Merfolks (since you are forced to play blue) and you can only probably beat Merfolks if you had Essence Sliver. Against control, Slivers is especially prone to EE@2 and Counterbalance@2. However, with both EE and Counterbalance falling out of favor in today's meta, Slivers can have a slightly better chance tha before

[evanmartyr]

But my opinion is: as long as Merfolks is around, Meathooks isn't going anywhere. Slivers would almost always lose to Merfolks (since you are forced to play blue) and you can only probably beat Merfolks if you had Essence Sliver. Against control, Slivers is especially prone to EE@2 and Counterbalance@2. However, with both EE and Counterbalance falling out of favor in today's meta, Slivers can have a slightly better chance tha before

The only reason you're "forced" to play blue is that people consider Crystalline/Winged Sliver and free counterspells a mandatory part of the package. GWR would let you run good slivers, Green Sun's Zenith to find scary silver bullets, and removal. You can side into some random crap against combo. Or something.

OR stay GWU, run four of the slivers you care about, and ditch some countermagic (which you're not as good as Merfolk at anyway) in favor of more creatures or equipment or something. Just make it creatures, Aether Vial, and maybe some sideboard answers to combo.

[matamagos]

did someone test phantasmal image from magic 2012???

Phantasmal Image
1u
Creature - Illusion Rare
You may have Phantasmal Image enter the battlefield as a copy of any creature on the battlefield, except it's an Illusion in addition to its other types and it gains "When this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it."
Illus. Nils Hamm #72/249 0/0


In think we should give it a try. In addition to the possibility of copying sinew and muscle sliver, we can also copy one of the bombs of our opponent. With crystalline on the board it will be protected, and if not usually the spells that target a creature will get rid of it even if it didn't had the last sentence of the text. It's blue (and I always need more blue cards in my deck to feed FOW) and it fits the natural curve of aether vial.

The bad news are that without another sliver lord it looses a lot of potential.

[Bignasty197]

did someone test phantasmal image from magic 2012???

Phantasmal Image
1u
Creature - Illusion Rare
You may have Phantasmal Image enter the battlefield as a copy of any creature on the battlefield, except it's an Illusion in addition to its other types and it gains "When this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it."
Illus. Nils Hamm #72/249 0/0


In think we should give it a try. In addition to the possibility of copying sinew and muscle sliver, we can also copy one of the bombs of our opponent. With crystalline on the board it will be protected, and if not usually the spells that target a creature will get rid of it even if it didn't had the last sentence of the text. It's blue (and I always need more blue cards in my deck to feed FOW) and it fits the natural curve of aether vial.

The bad news are that without another sliver lord it looses a lot of potential.

I have to admit that it looks really good on paper. Also, you don't always have to copy a sliver. It would give you a main deck out to those stupid Show and Tell decks. Copying Bob seems good as well.

[from Cairo]

The only reason you're "forced" to play blue is that people consider Crystalline/Winged Sliver and free counterspells a mandatory part of the package. GWR would let you run good slivers, Green Sun's Zenith to find scary silver bullets, and removal. You can side into some random crap against combo. Or something.

OR stay GWU, run four of the slivers you care about, and ditch some countermagic (which you're not as good as Merfolk at anyway) in favor of more creatures or equipment or something. Just make it creatures, Aether Vial, and maybe some sideboard answers to combo.

People consider Crystalline mandatory because group shroud is literally the only thing the tribe offers over playing just good creatures. Slivers is a bunch of bears, in 2011 that's garbage (imo even if they're untargetable).

Why would one want to run GWR Slivers when they could run Wild Nacatl, Qasali Pridemage, Tarmogoyf and Knight of the Reliquary?

Or GWU Slivers with an equipment package - when you can just run good Bant guys and Stoneforge Mystic?

You're stuck trying to assemble a combination of creatures for any one of them to be descent threats. It's different for Merfolk because each of their +1/+1 Lords are also their evasion providers and opposition triggerers. Lord of Atlantis is virtually Muscle Sliver and Winged Sliver in one dude. Not to mention that the entire deck is one color and the non-Lords Silvergill Adept and Cursecatcher provide powerful effects. If you're going to play 3-4 colors, why not just play cards that are actually threats on their own? This archetype has been outclassed. Unless new "power creeped" Slivers are printed I don't see it making any sort of move to even being a middle tier deck. More vanilla +1/+1 Lord effects isn't going to help.

[Warma]

A couple of weeks ago I gave a UWgb countersliver to a friend to take into a legacy tournament. He placed third out of fourty-something contestants. This was a field filled to the brim with real decks, not just some scrubs playing precons. The only match (and only games) he lost was to Affinity due to serious mana screw.

I also think that Slivers are not as powerful as they used to be, but recently Legacy has become dominated by creature decks, and CounterSlivers has an advantage here. People are playing a ton of spot removal, which is negated by 8 creatures in the deck.

In all honesty, I do have to admit that many of his opponents played like shit against the deck. Walked straight into vial traps, tried to Wasteland Mutavaults and so on. I've also played the deck in bigger events and this happens at all levels. Nobody has a strategy for beating the deck and you can take advantage of it.

[ThoSha]

Would you mind to post the decklist? This seems interesting :)

[Curby]

recently Legacy has become dominated by creature decks, and CounterSlivers has an advantage here. People are playing a ton of spot removal, which is negated by 8 creatures in the deck.

Countersliver was built to defeat Goblins, which is increasingly rarely seen. I'm not sure how well it deals with Progenitus for example, rather than Lackey. What were the matchups that day?


In all honesty, I do have to admit that many of his opponents played like shit against the deck. Walked straight into vial traps, tried to Wasteland Mutavaults and so on. I've also played the deck in bigger events and this happens at all levels. Nobody has a strategy for beating the deck and you can take advantage of it.

As a rule of thumb, never assume that your opponent will be a bad player, or kid yourself that a deck is good because it faced unprepared or otherwise bad opponents. There's certainly an element of surprise that's relevant and significant, but eventually you lose the element of surprise and any weaknesses that were hidden will shine through.

All that aside, it's a nice placement for the deck in a reasonably sized event. Having the deck list and more details about the event/matchups/etc. would be nice though. Thanks!

[Schembo]

Warma's decklist

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

4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
2 Mental Misstep

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Mutavault

sideboard:
3 Engineered Plague
4 Journey to Nowhere
4 Harmonic Sliver
4 Relic of Progenitus

[Warma]

As a rule of thumb, never assume that your opponent will be a bad player, or kid yourself that a deck is good because it faced unprepared or otherwise bad opponents. There's certainly an element of surprise that's relevant and significant, but eventually you lose the element of surprise and any weaknesses that were hidden will shine through.

I am aware of this. I posted that line as a concession to the fact, that it was not the deck's pure power, but the unpreparedness of the opponent that allowed him to win. I think I will play the deck again in the near future, and post results (if any).

The matchups encountered were:
2x Merfolk (WIN and WIN)
1x GW Stoneforge/Tarmogoyf/Reliquary beats (WIN)
1x [I can't remember this one] (WIN)
2x Tie into top8

In top8:
The GW again (WIN)
Affinity (LOSS)

3rd-4th place match (prizes were different)
NO RUG (WIN)

Schembo already posted the decklist. I've been thinking about cutting all of the Dazes (quite unimpressive against all the creature and Jace decks) for another two Mental Misstep and two Phantasmal Images.

[Hof]

2x Merfolk (WIN and WIN)
One would think that opposing Mutavaults would be slightly annoying, being Slivers and all. Was that ever a problem?

[Curby]

Thanks for the info, folks. Re: bad opponents, I wasn't trying to accuse you of anything. Just wanted to reiterate that as a sanity check. =)

Have you not found yourself wanting another Winged Sliver? When I used to play Meathooks I ran the then-accepted 3.

I'm interested in the Merfolk matchup. Crystalline should be largely moot against them (reduces the utility of Reejery and Jitte, but they have no dedicated removal). That leaves them with more useful lords, including the deadly LoA. We've got some card advantage in the Brainstorm/Fetchland engine, but they've got single-color consistency and Wasteland against the 3-4 color manabase. Bad opponents aside, do you have any thoughts on this MU? Do you think it would have been so easy against better pilots?

What specifically is your concern with Daze? It loses a lot of power after the first few turns and whenever you're on the draw, but landing that Vial can be so important to the deck, especially when you go four colors with only 16 color-producing land and 4 cantrips.

EDIT: Also, old tech from Volt: change a fetch, Tundra, or Sea to Scrubland. Trop and Scrubland lets you cast any sliver with only two land.

[Warma]

I'm interested in the Merfolk matchup.


Yes. The Merfolk matchup is way uphill. Lord of Atlantis is so ridiculous here, and you lose any opposing mutavault fights. I have no clue how he won those, as I arrived late into the scene. In my experience, the only thing that Slivers has going for it is, that it runs removal. You can ocassionally get a lord advantage that way.

Someone said earlier that Merfolk is essentially like Slivers, except better, and I'd say that he is pretty much correct. Against some decks (Burn, any that run Lavamancer, Affinity, Enchantress), Slivers have an advantage through Crystalline/Harmonic, but Merfolk is much more stable. I don't know whether the stability is really worth losing to Lavamancer, though, as he is played in a lot of decks nowadays.

And yes, I know that Burn is not a deck, but you face it ocassinally anyway.



What specifically is your concern with Daze? It loses a lot of power after the first few turns and whenever you're on the draw, but landing that Vial can be so important to the deck, especially when you go four colors with only 16 color-producing land and 4 cantrips.


I've noticed that the manabase screws you over less often than expected. Even if Daze is very good in the first few turns, it becomes completely useless quickly. Considering that everybody here plays these stoneforge/jace piles, games go long and you end up having a few extra blanks in your deck. I'd much rather have more removal, answers to removal or simply creature replacements.

Of course, this is in Finland. Your meta may be different.



EDIT: Also, old tech from Volt: change a fetch, Tundra, or Sea to Scrubland. Trop and Scrubland lets you cast any sliver with only two land.

I used to have a Scrubland, but removed it for some reason. Don't remember why. Have to think about this.

[Curby]

I used to run 18-19 color-producing land back before Mutavault, and I was still mulling a lot because of unusable hands. Perhaps the net increase in land is able to offset the reduced number of color producers, but I'm still a little surprised if you're starting with a lot of usable openers. (Perhaps because of that experience, I now run decks with 22-25 land, heh.)

[grafflo]

Hello

i want to know what you think about my List, i removed green, so that it is 2colored and take use of the some new cards.

// Lands 21
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Savannah
4 Tundra
1 Island
1 Plains
4 Mutavault

// Creatures 21
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Adaptive Automaton (http://magiccards.info/m12/en/201.html)
3 Winged Sliver

3 Phyrexian Metamorph (http://magiccards.info/nph/en/42.html)
3 Phantasmal Image (http://magiccards.info/m12/en/72.html)

// Spells 18
4 AEther Vial
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
4 Brainstorm
3 Swords to Plowshares

So we have 14 Lords and flying and shroud for all.

[Curby]

Why get rid of green (and why are Savannahs still in the list)? Just about the only good reason to run Countersliver over Merfolk is if you can take advantage of its colors*. In addition, Muscle costs less than the Automaton and Metamorph, isn't susceptible to targeting like Image (you don't always have a Crystalline), and keeps your Vial at 2. You may still want to run some of the pseudolords and clones, but start with the real ones.

* Crystalline is great, but Merfolk has a ton of other tricks as well as Kira. You've got flying, but Merfolk has Islandwalk, flying, and unblockable via Sovereign. Aside from Merfolk having about twice as many real lords, the only real difference is the colors. Having more colors increases your possibilities, but it also handicaps your consistency. Without green, you might as well splash white into Merfolk for StP and call it a day.

[Purgatory]

I think you should actually test the list a couple of times on MWS/Cockatrice, or at least enough to realize that the 3 Savannahs do not belong in there. Overall, I think the list looks kinda iffy, and I can imagine that many starting hands will be awkward with any number of Automatons and Clones, but no real Slivers to go with them. Automaton overall is slow, and doesn't fit into the curve, you'd never want to tick a vial to three in the deck.

I think it's best to stick with green, though if you really want to add non-sliver creatures, I'd probably only stick to Image. I haven't played this deck for a long time, but (since we're pulling lists out of the air), I think I'd start with this:

4 Crystalline
4 Sinew
4 Muscle
3 Winged
4 Image
X Plated (if you feel that there are too few Slivers)

4 StP
4 Brainstorm
4 Mental Misstep
4 Force of Will
4 Aether Vial

and then the correct number of lands, filling up with Mutavault before even considering Wastelands.

[Jeff]

Decided to take Bant countersliver to a small 4 round legacy tournament last night, went 3-1 beating NO RUG, Enchantress, and Mono Red Burn, losing to Merfolk.

I was running 15 colored sources, 3 Mutavaults, and 2 Wastelands, and the merfolk matchup was just awful. I mulled to 4 in game 2, so that was a big part of the lost match, but we played a few more matches afterward, and it was really horrible. His mutavaults were amazing, and I couldn't really ever do anything against him. Since Merfolk is really just a better version of this deck, it makes the mirror match awkward.

Has anyone had any success beating merfolk with slivers? The only thing I could really come up with would be siding in Essence Sliver is racing situations, where I seriously doubt they'd ever be able to keep up. I'm also probably going to be bringing Plated Sliver back, since we're losing misstep and I have a little more space, and goblin lackey might be showing his face again.

J

[Curby]

Since Merfolk is really just a better version of this deck

Every so often I chime in to say the same thing. The question is: why not just play Merfolk? You own every expensive card in Merfolk if you already play Slivers.


I was running 15 colored sources, 3 Mutavaults, and 2 Wastelands


Your proposed manabase will lead to a lot of dangerous or unkeepable opening hands. Two colorless lands is an auto-mulligan. Savannah + colorless land is terrible. Tropical Island + colorless land is slightly less terrible, but still terrible. You'll end up keeping a lot of hands with Tundra + colorless land, and praying that your opponent doesn't rout you with a single Wasteland. It is absolutely vital to our strategy to play Crystalline Sliver on turn 2 as often as possible. Merfolk can generally afford to be a little more patient with getting Lord of Atlantis into play, as it is often played as an enabler for a finishing strike (similar to Winged Sliver in Meathooks).

To answer your question about the mirror, there's Llawan and there's extra removal. If you find yourself trading alpha strikes because of evasion, Ensnare gives you a free attack. But really, just play the better deck.

[Jeff]

Every so often I chime in to say the same thing. The question is: why not just play Merfolk? You've already got every expensive card in Merfolk if you already play Slivers.

Heh. I'm actually just a Team America player taking a week or two off to play something silly. The answer to "Why not just play merfolk" is "Slivers makes me smile, and I was happy all night to be casting Slivers". I'm not at all making any claim that this is better than merfolk, nor am I making any attempt to make this a competitive deck. I just want to play our weekly 4 round legacy events with something silly when there isn't a major tournament coming up, and Slivers is my silly deck of choice.

Yesterday my board had 1 Llawan, 1 Essence, and 2 Eladamri's Call which all came in against Merfolk, but as I said in the only post board game I mulled to 4 so I wasn't really in it. Will Llawan really be all that good in a world without Misstep to stop their Vial though? I feel like I could play llawan and everything gets vialed back in, and bringing in Harmonic for this matchup isn't really realistic. That's why I was considering going to 2 Essences and ditching Llawan.

The other thing I had yesterday was additional Wastes in the board, taking me up to 4 wastes post board, to deal with mutavaults, but I didn't play enough matches to find out if that was relevant. Not sure if that's the right call but losing to incredibly badass mutavaults seems rough.

EDIT: Also, I'm pretty sure I'm cutting some number of colorless sources to get more colored mana in the deck, but I haven't decided on what exactly yet. Losing Vaults seems like it hurts with the low sliver count, but losing wasteland means i'm just gonna get killed in the merfolk match.

J

[Curby]

This is what fighting an uphill battle is like. If you have a bad matchup, either devote more of your sideboard to it or consider it an autoloss and devote the board to helping your other MUs.

Re: Llawan, they might have a Vial but bringing in one creature per turn still gives you breathing room to go in and do damage.

As for the colorless land, it's hard to say. You can't run four of each and Merfolk can, so is this a battle you'll ever win? Note that if you try Wasting their Mutavault and you have a Crystalline out, all they have to do is turn it into a creature and your Waste was wasted.

[Jeff]

I'm perfectly content to devote more of my sideboard to it, I'm just trying to figure out exactly HOW to devote more of my sideboard to it. I guess the question at this point is: If I was willing to devote all 15 slots in my board to beating merfolk, what would I bring in?

I'd like to start there, and then work back to find the most effective way to do it with fewer cards. I honestly don't feel like the deck needs that many sideboard slots for most matchups, so I'm comfortable devoting significant space to beating merfolk, but I'm not certain what the appropriate cards to actually accomplish that would be.

EDIT: Re: Wasteland, does it make sense to cut waste and then just bring in more removal to combat them? I'm maindecking 4 Swords, but I could bring in Paths if I felt it was necessary, and that might be better because sometimes it'll be able to kill mutavault the same way a waste would, but sometimes it'll actually kill a lord, which would be nice.

I really want Fire Imp the Sliver, can we arrange for that?

J

[Curby]

At once point Volt had 4 Swords main and 2-4 PtE in the side for times when you need more. That's an option, though I'd also make sure you stick a Llawan on the field. You can swords/path the single guy he Vials out every turn, but you need big moves to get back when you're behind. You can also consider Pithing Needle (on Vial) in conjunction with Llawan. Surgical Extraction on their lords may help, but in a deck with exile effects it's hard to land something in the yard.

[Tru3z3rox]

I've personally been running a more AGGRO control version of slivers with sidewinder sliver as my 1 drop. He is a pseudo evasion in his own right next to winged as most will choose NOT to block a double flanking dude.

The extra dudes and the bit of removal as well as perhaps talon sliver (first strike) help this deck get there against merfolk. I devoted a lot of time trying to improve that MU. Also slivers is quite better against zoo than merfolk as well as other aggro decks. In addition mirror entity is a beast and can get there on many occasions thanks to lord of atlantis. It is true that opposing mutavaults are tough...

[Warma]

Has anyone had any success beating merfolk with slivers? The only thing I could really come up with would be siding in Essence Sliver is racing situations, where I seriously doubt they'd ever be able to keep up. I'm also probably going to be bringing Plated Sliver back, since we're losing misstep and I have a little more space, and goblin lackey might be showing his face again.

Even though I consider the MU bad, I've won it more than lost. The trick is that (this was before Mental Misstep, which is analogous to the present situation) my sideboard had these cards:

4x extra unconditional removal (I ran Journey to Nowhere because of Emrakul, but Smother/Path will also do).
3x Engineered Plague

My plan in the MU was to side out all of my countermagic and put in plagues and removal. Force sucks here, as does daze, so why not replace them with cards that actually do something after turn 1. Merfolk is often MonoU, so it cannot side in anything relevant, and your MU improves while theirs does not. 1-2 Harmonics replace the last daze and something else in case they have a sword or Jitte.

Doing this, you usually end up keeping more threats in the table than they do, while your creatures still nullify their spot removal. The same actually applies to all other creature-based matchups.

[Curby]

That's a good strategy. Totally plays to:


Just about the only good reason to run Countersliver over Merfolk is if you can take advantage of its colors.

[0dysseus]

Mr. Warma. That is most interesting. Journey to Nowhere > Emrakul, I hadn't realised that. I think Dismember could be better than Smother. Could you please post that list of yours?

Have you guys used Landstill or Horizon Canopy in this deck of late, or space is that tight? A more aggro approach seems intriguing.

I have a casual version of this deck, but generally I'm interested in playing slivers. Any current competitive lists with more ideas, especially about fighting combo and Show and Tell strategies would be appreciated.

[oblivion4560]

Alright guys, here's the deal. I went to SCGO in Indy a few weeks ago. This is the Slivers deck that made 33rd (1 place below prizes ;w;) out of 289-ish. I got a lot of support from people I've never met, and even Gerry Thompson liked what I was doing. I played like shit, though, on account of little food and 4 hours of sleep.

Lands 19
4 Flooded Strand
3 Windswept Heath
3 Tundra
1 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland
3 Mutavault
1 Island
1 Plains

Creatures 19
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Winged Sliver
3 Phantasmal Image

Spells 22
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
3 Daze
3 Spell Snare

Sideboard 15
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Pithing Needle
3 Path to Exile
4 Spell Pierce
2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress

My loses were Reanimator twice and Little Zoo. Reanimator should be a piece of cake, but sometimes it is simply too fast to keep up with. Daze didn't do enough, as people quickly learn to play around it. I'm probably going to go -1 Daze +1 Tundra. I never needed color fixing, but the majority of my mulligans were from not having colors at all (Mutavault and Wasteland).

[lebarion]

oblivion4560 ,congratulations on the finish!

I really like your list, but I'd cut the Wastelands - not that they're bad, but I think running 6 "brown" lands in a 3-color deck without a very high land count would indeed cause colored mana problems.

Against what archetypes did you win?

[lebarion]

oblivion4560 ,congratulations on the finish!

I really like your list, but I'd cut the Wastelands - not that they're bad, but I think running 6 "brown" lands in a 3-color deck without a very high land count would indeed cause colored mana problems.

Against what archetypes did you win?

[Curby]

I really like your list, but I'd cut the Wastelands - not that they're bad, but I think running 6 "brown" lands in a 3-color deck without a very high land count would indeed cause colored mana problems.

I was wondering about that myself.


Your proposed manabase will lead to a lot of dangerous or unkeepable opening hands. Two colorless lands is an auto-mulligan. Savannah + colorless land is terrible. Tropical Island + colorless land is slightly less terrible, but still terrible. You'll end up keeping a lot of hands with Tundra + colorless land, and praying that your opponent doesn't rout you with a single Wasteland. It is absolutely vital to our strategy to play Crystalline Sliver on turn 2 as often as possible. Merfolk can generally afford to be a little more patient with getting Lord of Atlantis into play, as it is often played as an enabler for a finishing strike (similar to Winged Sliver in Meathooks).

Just to put things in perspective, Merfolk runs 12-13 colored land with 7-8 colorless land, and it's just ONE color. I applaud your high finish, but I wonder if you wouldn't have done even better with a more forgiving manabase.

[necrowil]

I have Crystalline Sliver in play and Mutavault. My opponent attempts to use Wasteland on my Mutavault. In response to Wasteland, I make Mutavault a creature. So it has shroud now. Question is does Wasteland still affect it and if so, why?

[Curby]

Wasteland's activated ability fizzles (has no effect) because the ability's sole target is illegal upon resolution.

[Sek'Kuar]

And then a necro happened. Ok, here's the deal. Along with every other tribal deck in this format, Meathooks can benefit from this:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=130155&stc=1&d=1334651697

The card translated reads:

Cavern of Souls
Land
As Cavern of Souls enters the battlefield, choose a creature type.
T: Add to your mana pool.
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells of the chosen creature type. If this mana is spent on a spell, that spell can't be countered.

I'm just saying it should be considered. Discussion?

[Curby]

Countersliver can benefit from this card. Countersliver will not magically become usable with only this card.

The problem with Slivers is not mana fixing.

The problem with Slivers is not countermagic thrown at Slivers.

The problem with Slivers is that we need better Slivers.

Slivers are great at ground-pounding. No other tribe can run eight +1/+1 lords for 2 mana. They also have Shroud. But that's it.

Elves have card draw and cheating things into play via ramp. Goblins have library manipulation and cheating things into play via Lackey. Merfolk have countermagic, three forms of evasion, and other utility all built into their creatures.

Slivers, by and large, just win in combat... and that's when you have many of them out at once. Meanwhile, Mom+Knight wins fights with just two cards and four mana, all while providing a ton of utility via a land toolbox.

If you're going to win on the back of just being big, you need to be efficient with card slots. You can't spend 20 cards of your deck on an army that just beats, because you'll be outclassed by a deck that can spend just 8 cards on attackers, and have an extra 12 cards for utility.

The land makes Countersliver a better pet deck. It doesn't vault it into the top tier.

[Aggro_zombies]

To further those points, Merfolk is really the heir to Slivers, and still is even with this land. Yeah, Cavern of Souls makes your mana marginally less shitty, but you're still running a deck whose creatures are either lords or shroud guys but which don't do anything for you otherwise. Compare this to, say, Lord of Atlantis, which grants unblockability, or Merrow Reejerey, which allows for all kinds of tricks.

It also doesn't help that Maverick is putting pressure on decks to move towards more board control, which is precisely the sort of thing Slivers doesn't want to see. When EE for two = actual Wrath, and your opponent can find it with Trinket Mage and recur it with Academy Ruins, you have some problems.

I don't see this deck going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

[Sek'Kuar]

I know it isn't more than a pet deck, I just keep hoping. Although, honestly, with allies around, what's the likelihood that slivers will EVER come back to the game?

[Dzra]

I know it isn't more than a pet deck, I just keep hoping. Although, honestly, with allies around, what's the likelihood that slivers will EVER come back to the game?

Slivers was my first love, so naturally I'd find my way to this thread in light of Cavern of Souls... ;p It seems fairly likely to me that they'll eventually reprint some Slivers. WotC have been doing a lot of resurrecting old popular themes and Slivers have always been very popular. Really though, outside of printing some Slivers with card draw (ie Silvergill.sliver) and other relevant abilities, I doubt Slivers will see a come back as a deck. Slivers falls right into the trap that all tribal decks have of overextending, except without the ability to recover like Elves and Goblins. It has no Silvergill, no LoA, no Reejery, no Lacky, no Ringleader, etc and most importantly, it has none of the mana stability of the other tribal decks.

[Fizzeler]

I have been testing recently with a Countersliver deck and I think I have found the keys to resurrect this deck it needs refining, but in my testing I have found it has good match-ups against fair decks (tested against Canadian Thresh, Junk, and Goblins so far need a lot more testing to confirm)

So far the deck has shown promise and I think the key to that is being only UW

[theillest]

I have been testing recently with a Countersliver deck and I think I have found the keys to resurrect this deck it needs refining, but in my testing I have found it has good match-ups against fair decks (tested against Canadian Thresh, Junk, and Goblins so far need a lot more testing to confirm)

So far the deck has shown promise and I think the key to that is being only UW
list?

[Fizzeler]

list?

4 Crystalline Sliver
4 AEther Vial
2 Winged Sliver
2 Plated Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Phantasmal Image
2 Talon Sliver
2 Mutavault
2 Armageddon
4 Flooded Strand
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Tundra
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Daze
3 Spell Pierce
3 Force of Will
3 Wasteland
2 Island
2 Plains
3 Ponder
3 Brainstorm
SB: 3 Path to Exile
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Spell Pierce
SB: 2 Daze
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 2 Armageddon

It needs refining, I am still unsure on Armageddon

[DarkAkuma]

I still have my CounterSlivers deck together from 4 years ago. It's interesting to see green removed, and image used instead of Muscle. I may try that myself since I always had to borrow 4 Trops, and getting 4 images would be a ton easier. 1 less color for the deck always sounds nice if it could handle it.

Armageddon is old tech. It may not be bad. But I might personally go more for Brainstorm and Ponder #4's.

Hows wasteland working out? With the UGW versions, it just wasn't feasible.

[Fizzeler]

I still have my CounterSlivers deck together from 4 years ago. It's interesting to see green removed, and image used instead of Muscle. I may try that myself since I always had to borrow 4 Trops, and getting 4 images would be a ton easier. 1 less color for the deck always sounds nice if it could handle it.

Armageddon is old tech. It may not be bad. But I might personally go more for Brainstorm and Ponder #4's.

Hows wasteland working out? With the UGW versions, it just wasn't feasible.
Wasteland is great against decks it is weak to, it can slow down your opponent enough to get your vial on 2 and start beating face

I am surprised how consistent the 2 color build is I will likely cut the geddons for another wasteland and brainstorm. The advantage to dual color is you get consistency, a stable manabase, and more removal. I have found once Crystaline Sliver hits the table and you get even one lord out (heck even Talon Sliver) the game swings drastically in your favor

[Fizzeler]

Did some more testing (I did cut the 2 geddons for a Wasteland and a Brainstorm), beat a Reanimator deck in games 2 and 3 (after boarding of course) and a MUD deck of which we only played 1 game

I'll continue my testing, but so far I have concluded the following:

Aether Vial is just to powerful in this deck, resolving a turn 1 vial can just outright win you the game since almost all the creatures are 2 drops by turn 3 you can just counter all problem spells and remove threats. Vial also makes Wasteland really good in this deck as denying your opponent mana while you can just drop threats lets the deck just take control of the game. Vial allows for you to keep up both Spell Pierce and Swords To Plowshares amd can lead to your opponent walking their creatures (like a 1/1 Delver for instance when you turn 1 Tundra > Vial) into your Slivers (like a Plated Sliver for instance)

Daze and Spell Pierce make combo match-ups decent pre-board, but after boarding will just help you a ton resolving your hate cards :smile:

[Dark Ritual]

If you're not running 4 brainstorm's in a blue deck you're doing it wrong. Brainstorm is the only thing that can give you the edge over merfolk, as they have 8 creatures that grant their board unblockability. Also, splashing for muscle sliver seems completely necessary. I don't know about you, but you want every lord you can get your hands on in this deck. The manabase becomes a little worse to be sure but is it significantly worse? I doubt it, especially when we still have vial to cheat on mana and cavern of souls is a 3 color land that you aren't running 4 of. Cavern is literally vial 5-8, I suggest you run 4 so you aren't getting any creatures sans image countered.

Although image + crystalline is incredibly powerful. Clone at 2 mana without a drawback is broken. Plated sliver is a card that I'm on the fence on, curious to see whether that card can pull its weight.

Also, armageddon? I really don't see the point to running a 4 mana card like geddon in here. I would be more keen on running jace before geddon and I'm not even close to considering jace in meathooks.

[Fizzeler]

If you're not running 4 brainstorm's in a blue deck you're doing it wrong. Brainstorm is the only thing that can give you the edge over merfolk, as they have 8 creatures that grant their board unblockability. Also, splashing for muscle sliver seems completely necessary. I don't know about you, but you want every lord you can get your hands on in this deck. The manabase becomes a little worse to be sure but is it significantly worse? I doubt it, especially when we still have vial to cheat on mana and cavern of souls is a 3 color land that you aren't running 4 of. Cavern is literally vial 5-8, I suggest you run 4 so you aren't getting any creatures sans image countered.

Although image + crystalline is incredibly powerful. Clone at 2 mana without a drawback is broken. Plated sliver is a card that I'm on the fence on, curious to see whether that card can pull its weight.

Also, armageddon? I really don't see the point to running a 4 mana card like geddon in here. I would be more keen on running jace before geddon and I'm not even close to considering jace in meathooks.

I already cut the geddons for brainstorm and wasteland #4

As for muscle sliver, I decided to go dual colors as to run wasteland, more counter magic and removal, that is also the reasoning for 1 cavern

So far I have found the deck to be weak to control decks which is why I am still tuning the list, but great against fair decks, the deck is a UW tempo deck

Plated Sliver is a lot better than it looks, early game it can chump mongeese and late game it makes your slivers big enough to chump batterskull germs

[DarkAkuma]

When I have more time I'll have to comb over the thread to see how the UGW version has evolved since my last build. But I honestly would tend to agree about Muscle Sliver. Having 8 Muscle Slivers has always been awesome for this deck. With the UW version I'd think that ideally image was cloning Sinew most of the time, but that only works out in theory and in reality probably happens far less. Considering it as Sinew 5-8 seems nice on the surface in that you don't lose anything by dropping green, but there's the fact that keeping green and playing image would give you Muscle 9-12 which also very well may be as good as it sounds on paper.

I don't want to dismiss the UW version just yet. But maybe since its so different it should have its own thread. I could see it diverging in more directions enough to warrant it. Maybe mods would agree.

Still, the next chance I get I'm going to try tweaking my own Sliver deck into a UW variant and see how I like it.

[Fizzeler]

Ideally yes Image is Sinew 5-8 and Plated is are psuedo lords

I am not sure if my UW build will warrant it's own thread, but I'll see how it develops

Edit: another avenue I have yet to examine is Sakashima's Student as another clone effect

[Fizzeler]

So I tested the deck today in a tourney went 1-3, learned a lot about the deck and discussed with some people on how to make it better, besides changing the board I am cutting Plated Sliver for 2 more mutavaults or 2 Vapor Snags and cutting 2 basics for more caverns

The people inquired why not Muscle Sliver? when I answered they agreed, three colors is harder to support and Wasteland is great for the deck

Nic Fit and CounterTop are easily the worst match-ups for Slivers in general, I got paired against both also lost to Maverick and beat Dredge

The impression I got is this is definitely shaping up to be a good deck and Winged Sliver and Talon Sliver are amazing. Also, the current Legacy format just can't deal with Crystaline Sliver, every game where he stuck around for a few turns I was able to just out tempo my opponent

Weaknesses for the deck are board sweepers, I need to learn to hold back and not overextend with the deck, mutavaults are being added to help with this

Image also I have found is insane with Vial

[Fizzeler]

I have once again refined the deck and I think I have found the last few things Slivers were missing, a way to deal with cluttered boards and a way to recover from board wipes, turns out the answer to the second is more on "don't overextend" and add more Mutavaults, but the first I found in 2 unusual slivers

4 Crystalline Sliver
4 AEther Vial
2 Winged Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Phantasmal Image
1 Talon Sliver
3 Mutavault
4 Flooded Strand
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Tundra
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Daze
2 Spell Pierce
3 Force of Will
4 Wasteland
1 Island
1 Plains
3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Quilled Sliver
2 Sidewinder Sliver
SB: 2 Path to Exile
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Daze
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 3 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Stony Silence

So why has no successful list incorporated Sidewinder Sliver or Quilled Sliver? Flanking is a very nice combat trick (especially because like exalted it stacks!) and Quilled Sliver adds some really nice board advantage

[Curby]

I'd caution against a toolbox without the box. Without some way of organizing your tools and picking out what you need for the job at hand, you're left with a jumbled mess.

If you have singletons of utility creatures, you need to have a way of drawing into them reliably. By virtue of only running 1-2, you reduce the chances of drawing them when you don't want them. By the same token, you also reduce the chances of drawing them when you do want them.

Meathooks isn't Maverick. There is no toolbox framework within which to put 1-ofs and 2-ofs. Much like Merfolk, we just choose the best creatures and run many copies of them. Much like Merfolk, doing anything else reduces the consistency of our deck.

Re: Sidewinder in particular, it's a bit easier to explain. The only thing Sidewinder does is to discourage blocks. If you wanted to avoid combat, just run a third Winged Sliver. Or compare to Plated, which always works and saves you from damage-based sweepers.

[Fizzeler]

I'd caution against a toolbox without the box. Without some way of organizing your tools and picking out what you need for the job at hand, you're left with a jumbled mess.

If you have singletons of utility creatures, you need to have a way of drawing into them reliably. By virtue of only running 1-2, you reduce the chances of drawing them when you don't want them. By the same token, you also reduce the chances of drawing them when you do want them.

Meathooks isn't Maverick. There is no toolbox framework within which to put 1-ofs and 2-ofs. Much like Merfolk, we just choose the best creatures and run many copies of them. Much like Merfolk, doing anything else reduces the consistency of our deck.

Re: Sidewinder in particular, it's a bit easier to explain. The only thing Sidewinder does is to discourage blocks. If you wanted to avoid combat, just run a third Winged Sliver. Or compare to Plated, which always works and saves you from damage-based sweepers.

This is a fair argument, another thing is with library manipulation it is more likely you will hit the Sliver you are looking for and some slivers you really don't want to hit multiples of (like Talon, Winged, and Quilled Sliver), they are there as singletons so you don't draw multiple and while not tutorable can be found through ponder/brainstorm. Save the enlightened tutor toolbox post board the deck is not a toolbox deck without reliable ways to tutor

the Sidewinders were Plated Slivers, but I realized that Plated Sliver, while good, did nothing for the deck where as Sidewinder Sliver acts as Talon Sliver + Winged Sliver in most scenarios

I guess to summarize I am trying to increase the effectiveness of the slivers while not having a bunch of creatures that just sit there and do nothing, but add another Sliver to the board because I already have that effect in place (with the exception of Crystalline Sliver)

Although I may test 3 winged sliver and leave the last 4 slivers as singletons as, while I do consistently draw him I need more to help recover from board wipes

So -1 Sidewinder Sliver +1 Winged Sliver

[Jeff]

In my experience Plated actually does a lot for the deck. Goblins is on the way back, and it profitably blocks Lackey. It also gets your slivers out of range of Fire/Ice and Forked Bolt very quickly.

I actually had good results in the past with 2 Plateds main, and 2 more in the board that came in against Goblins and against Combo (oddly enough) when I really just wanted a clock faster and already had a lot of disruption main. (basically I was siding out 4 StP and bringing in 2 Spell Pierce and 2 Plated)

Plated >>>>> Sidewinder

[Caspid]

http://mythicspoiler.com/m14/

Slivers being printed soon. I don't see any ones worth playing yet, but perhaps this deck could see a resurgence?

[Aggro_zombies]

http://mythicspoiler.com/m14/

Slivers being printed soon. I don't see any ones worth playing yet, but perhaps this deck could see a resurgence?
Considering Merfolk isn't making waves right now and is basically this deck plus a stable manabase, I'd think not.

[phazonmutant]

Considering Merfolk isn't making waves right now and is basically this deck plus a stable manabase, I'd think not.

I dunno, depends if a relevant cantriping or 1cmc sliver get printed. I think that's the problem now - the Slivers lords are actually much better with Crystalline Sliver.

[alphastryk]

I dunno, depends if a relevant cantriping or 1cmc sliver get printed. I think that's the problem now - the Slivers lords are actually much better with Crystalline Sliver.

Yeah, that and the mana is awkward for meathooks.

[TsumiBand]

I wouldn't get excited about Slivers unless they print something that lets you drop a color (or two) and leverage it against Crystalline Sliver's shroud. Even then, cards like Geist of Saint Traft make me wonder why it's worth overextending into a Terminus or similar non-targeted removal, when in the same colors I could just play one bamf and win the day with card drawing and control.

It's a well traveled sentiment, but I agree with Aggro-zombies - until they print a thing that actually makes Slivers more attractive, anyone seriously considering rocking a Counter-Sliver deck should take a hard look at Merfolk first, it does virtually everything Slivers ever did that was worth doing but in one color. More p/t boosting guys, easier control; you might make an argument for Swords to Plowshares/Path to Exile versus Dismember, but there's a bunch of intangibles to get into and at that point you may as well start asking whether or not it's just stronger to play Tundra in Merfolk, because it's still the better deck.

[Aggro_zombies]

Here's my issue with Slivers:

There are two ways for a deck to become bad: the Affinity way, or the Rifter way. The Affinity way is where your deck is a linear based around an uncommon theme; your deck gets bad over time because you only get new cards for it once in a blue moon while other decks get good cards more often. The Rifter way is where your deck is an answer to a specific metagame, making your deck bad as soon as that metagame no longer exists. Slivers is more of the latter kind of deck than the former, despite the fact that it has a strong linear theme. It arose as a creature-heavy answer to Goblins at a time when no other such answer existed; today, Goblins is not nearly popular enough to spawn such specific answer decks, and there are a plethora of other swarm-based aggro decks that do not suffer from Slivers’ twin weaknesses of terrible mana and needing to assemble a huge mass of individually low-quality creatures.

If Slivers were bad in the Affinity sense, there’s a chance that new printings in M14 could temporarily rescue it, but I don’t think that will be the case even if you set aside the unlikelihood of there being a sliver good enough. The problem is that there’s just no push in the current metagame for a deck like Slivers – you can tell because Merfolk is not making serious headway despite the omnipresence of blue decks and its supposed ability to hold its own versus combo and control. Since Merfolk is Slivers with better mana, I can’t imagine what new printings they could do to sufficiently differentiate the metagame function of this deck from the function of Merfolk. The vigilance sliver isn’t really it because you’re probably not holding your own on defense for a long time anyway: Batterskull requires either a lord and a Talon Sliver or three lords to beat in combat, while a typical 4/5 Tarmogoyf (land, instant, sorcery, creature) requires a whopping three lords or a lord and a Talon Sliver to kill. I mean, granted, in any of these scenarios you could just put what guys you have in front of those cards and accept the loses you take, but your deck is predicated on having a lot of dudes on the board to work so that’s not really something you want to be doing too often. You could run your own Tarmogoyfs, of course – but once you start cutting Slivers for real creatures, why not just go all the way and not run any Slivers at all?

[.dk]

Yeah, that and the mana is awkward for meathooks.

Well it did get a lot better when Cavern of Souls was printed...

[Wincheee]

Coff..coff..

http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=10147&iddeck=73937

[Claymore]

No Caverns?

[Wincheee]

No Caverns?

Nop,and no Wasteland, i know the caverns is highly needed,but that manabase looks really strong...

I like the Relic of Progenitus in main. it cantrips in the worst case escenario. help a lot vs Reanimator,Dredge,Shut down Nimble Mongoose,Tarmogoyf,Deathrite Shaman.Snapcasters,Lingering souls...seems pretty strong.

[zulander]

take a look at this baby:
Predatory Sliver 1G
Sliver creatures you control get +1/+1
2/2

Seems nice to have 12 "lords" at the 2cc slot. I've been thinking about this potential:

4 Vial
4 Brainstorm
3 GSZ

12 Sliver lords
4 Crystlline Sliver

20-22 lands
4 Mutavault
8-11 fetches
7-8 other lands

But now I'm drawing a blank after that. Are winged, plated, and virulent sliver worth the slots? How much disruption do you want 8 free counters? Do you run a 4th color? Do you run StP or PtE? What about Ponder and Library?

I really like GSZ if you're running Virulent Sliver, but I'm not sure if the poison ability stacks or not.

[Aggro_zombies]

I really like GSZ if you're running Virulent Sliver, but I'm not sure if the poison ability stacks or not.
Yes, it stacks.

Not having any form of evasion is pretty weak. I mean, right now you are running around the same number of lords a Merfolk deck could run, except two of those lords grant a form of evasion and none of yours do.

Plated is less important in a format where Goblin Lackey is no longer king.

EDIT: To be clear, a poison-focused Sliver deck probably does not run any lords at all, since Poisonous is a triggered ability and doesn't gain anything from a power boost (unlike Infect). That deck probably just focuses on getting a bunch of hasty Virulent Slivers in play and then connecting with them as quickly as possible, although I'm not sure it's any better than a mono-green or green-blue Infect deck.

[Mirrislegend]

I actually brewed up CounterSliver back when Deathrite and LSouls convinced me that graveyard hate may become a Legacy maindeck item. It was pretty balanced, but nothing special.
With more lords, I think it has a chance just due to it's enormous clock and power. Here's how I'd build it now.

4 Muscle Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Phantasmal Image
2 Winged Sliver

4 Aether Vial

4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder

4 Force of Will
4 StP

3 Mutavault
17 other Lands (including plenty of fetches and a few Caverns)

I'm all for Relic of Progenitus in the maindeck. But the only flex slots in this list, in my opinion, are 4x FoW and 2x Ponder.

[zulander]

Yes, it stacks.

Not having any form of evasion is pretty weak. I mean, right now you are running around the same number of lords a Merfolk deck could run, except two of those lords grant a form of evasion and none of yours do.


Okay then, maybe no reason to run VS. Btw there is evasion in the form of Winged Sliver. 12 sliver lords + 4 Wing Sliver sounds like fun to me.

Also I think it's correct to play 2 GSZ in the main so that you can board in 2x harmonic sliver and fetch them up.

[Aggro_zombies]

Btw there is evasion in the form of Winged Sliver. 12 sliver lords + 4 Wing Sliver sounds like fun to me.
I meant that as a response to, "Is Winged Sliver still worth the slots?"

I would honestly not cut Ponder from your list, Mirris. You really, really need to hit a Winged Sliver in a timely manner to start doing damage. Your creatures get stonewalled by Tarmogoyf until you have 4+ lords in play, so taking to the skies is really the only way you can win.

[zulander]

I don't know if I like Phantasmal Image in this deck. Also, are creature tutors worth it? And I think Sliversmith warrants a SB slot (maybe 2x) to board in against other aggro-rush lists as well as control decks.

[Aggro_zombies]

I don't know if I like Phantasmal Image in this deck. Also, are creature tutors worth it? And I think Sliversmith warrants a SB slot (maybe 2x) to board in against other aggro-rush lists as well as control decks.
A card-disadvantage guy with a tap ability that is not itself a Sliver? No bueno.

You'd be better off with Talon Sliver or the flanking Sliver versus aggro, and you are pretty much always going to fold vs. control because your deck only works when you over-commit.

[zulander]

A card-disadvantage guy with a tap ability that is not itself a Sliver? No bueno.

You'd be better off with Talon Sliver or the flanking Sliver versus aggro, and you are pretty much always going to fold vs. control because your deck only works when you over-commit.

lol didn't realize he was a creature... #RTFC

[Mirrislegend]

For those wondering about Phantasmal: he helps to set up double crystalline as well as the obvious role of acting as another lord.

For those concerned about evasion or viability of the deck outside of super beatdown plan, I give you the more balanced version:

2 Muscle Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
2 Phantasmal Image
3 Winged Sliver

4 Aether Vial
3 Relic of Progenitus

4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder

4 Swords to plowshares

4 Force of Will

3 Mutavault
2 Caverns
15 other lands

[Aggro_zombies]

Why do you need to double Crystalline Sliver? They can't target it anyway and if they Wrath you, they Wrath you. I would think you'd run it just to have an effective 16 lords.

[Mirrislegend]

Why do you need to double Crystalline Sliver? They can't target it anyway and if they Wrath you, they Wrath you. I would think you'd run it just to have an effective 16 lords.

Oops I coulda sworn it was Lord style, with all OTHER slivers. Huh, well in that case, it's just for extra lords and FoW fodder.

[Maverick676]

Hey I was just dropping in and thought I would chime in on phantasmal image. My main problem with it is that you need to have a sliver to copy and it will only ever copy a muscle sliver, double winged is pointless, and the only reason to want more than one crystaline on the board is in the mirror match for the bigger body. So with the new muscle being printed you would have 12 muscle slivers in the deck, 4 Crystaline and 3 winged which in my pretty extensive experience with slivers is the perfect number of creatures for this deck. While having 16 of the lords sounds good, and probably would be in some matchups (i.e. gobs, aggro / anything with creatures and no boardsweep) it is worse against control decks with boardsweep as it would force you to cut protection. which is generally your most difficult matchup. I'd say it should really only be run in the board if at all, probably not even there as it doesn't really improve any of the problem matchups. Also quick question I notice no daze? I have been out of legacy for awhile so maybe it isn't as good as it used to be, but back in the day I wouldn't have cut that card for anything. Free counters are that decks bread and butter.

[bondafong]

Even with 12 sliver lords, I fail to see why Slivers should be better than Merfolk. The deck is basically the same, but just a bit worse because you can't remove slivers to FoW like you can with merfolk.

Crystalline Sliver is basically the only thing slivers have going for them. And Winged sliver just sucks - a 1/1 for 2 is simply not good enough for legacy.

I think this decklist is the best so far:
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Phantasmal Image

4 Aether vial
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to plowshares
4 Force of Will
4 Daze

20 Lands


With 20 blue spells it should be ok with fow. Alternatively you could play Plated Sliver over Images to have a one-drop sliver. The blue spell count will be low again because of this though. :/

[IrishLegend]

Predatory Sliver 1G

Creature - Sliver
Sliver creatures you control get +1/+1.
1/1

w00t w00t! Lord 9-12

[Maverick676]

Honestly merfolk is probably better, the deck was built to excel in a goblins dominated meta. If you were to run it today though, not running winged sliver would be a serious problem as flying is rather critical, also not running ponder or top along with brainstorm really hurts your draw engine to the point of making the deck unplayable. As far as phantasmal image he just doesn't help any matchup you don't already dominate.


Even with 12 sliver lords, I fail to see why Slivers should be better than Merfolk. The deck is basically the same, but just a bit worse because you can't remove slivers to FoW like you can with merfolk.

Crystalline Sliver is basically the only thing slivers have going for them. And Winged sliver just sucks - a 1/1 for 2 is simply not good enough for legacy.

I think this decklist is the best so far:
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Phantasmal Image

4 Aether vial
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to plowshares
4 Force of Will
4 Daze

20 Lands


With 20 blue spells it should be ok with fow. Alternatively you could play Plated Sliver over Images to have a one-drop sliver. The blue spell count will be low again because of this though. :/

[Claymore]

The early flavor text references put out by Wizards seems to hint that another Crystalline Sliver could be released, probably hexproof due to recent targeted sliver abilities.

What would Slivers need then, a Ringleader effect?

[evilGod]

Slivers need a Ringleader effect or a Silvergill Adept effect that you can play without neutering your army. These things are highly unlikely to happen.

[nedleeds]

Why would they "need" a ringleader if they have no Lackey? Why would you ever run a sliver deck where you'd tick your vial past 2? why do slivers "have to" have a goblin counterpart? Goblins is a resource denial deck, slivers makes no attempt to do that. Slivers is about evasion and stacking lords ... and with a vial that never moves past 2 - that's a massive advantage.

[Dark Ritual]

Why would they "need" a ringleader if they have no Lackey? Why would you ever run a sliver deck where you'd tick your vial past 2? why do slivers "have to" have a goblin counterpart? Goblins is a resource denial deck, slivers makes no attempt to do that. Slivers is about evasion and stacking lords ... and with a vial that never moves past 2 - that's a massive advantage.

QFT. Merfolk has a ringleader effect, but they haven't run that card in years since they have discovered how terrible it is in there.

The reason ringleader is amazing in goblins is because they literally run 30+ goblins in their deck. How many dudes do we run? Oh right, around 20 tops and that's pushing it.

We really want a silvergill adept effect, but that will probably never happen. Brainstorm is our adept basically in terms of smoothing out our draws.

Winged sliver isn't remotely bad. It is this decks lord of atlantis/unblockable slivers. Also of note, it ups the blue count for FoW as drawing a second winged sliver is bad short of it being pitched to FoW.

If a hexproof sliver is printed in oncolor mana for 2, this deck be a force. We'll have to wait and see on that one, but I hope they do it.

Why is it a problem that phantasmal image has to copy another creature? That isn't remotely bad. If you have zero other creatures, bravo you are going to lose most likely. Card is amazing against sneak and show and heck you can copy opponents creatures in case you need a goyf or something or another that might be useful. I wouldn't run less than 4 in this deck, the only bad thing about it is not being uncounterable off of cavern of souls.

[phazonmutant]

What lands are typically run? Can you even afford to run more than 4 colorless lands with a 3-color manabase, and if so, is it Wasteland or Mutavault?

Merfolk played Standstill for a long time, why isn't it a consideration for Meathooks? It seems like it would be a good way to power through sweepers.

Also, if mana-denial is a plan for this deck, is Judge's Familiar right out? It's not an irrelevant clock and Death & Taxes does sometimes run a couple.

[nedleeds]

If you can't run wasteland I think mana denial is out the window ... the only thing Slivers have going for them (besides awesomeness) is Shroud and Evasion. You are stuck in 3 colors which also hinders any mana denial strategy you may want to employ. When I ran meathooks pre-Cavern but post image I ran 4 Mutavaults ... and yes I vialed Crystalline in in response to Wasteland for ultimate victory. Maybe with Cavern I would cut to 3.

8 x fetches
3 x cavern
3 x vault
3 x tundra
3 x trop
1 x island

21?

4 x vial
4 x brainstorm

I played daze and force as well ... only non 2CC sliver I played was Sidewinder because he's awesome and people don't understand Flanking. He probably leaves for new Muscle.

[nudon]

I played daze and force as well ... only non 2CC sliver I played was Sidewinder because he's awesome and people don't understand Flanking. He probably leaves for new Muscle.

I'm surprised no one else mentioned sidewinder sliver until now. He comes down on turn 1, helps the aggro plan, and his ability stacks. The deck would welcome a cmc-1 creature in my opinion to curve into the plethora of options at cmc-2. As far as silvergill adept sliver is concerned, unfortunately it's already been printed as dormant sliver. I'm not a sliver expert by any means but is it possible to drop green for red? The new first strike sliver comes down on turn 1 and curves pretty nicely into heart sliver.

[phazonmutant]

I'm surprised no one else mentioned sidewinder sliver until now. He comes down on turn 1, helps the aggro plan, and his ability stacks. The deck would welcome a cmc-1 creature in my opinion to curve into the plethora of options at cmc-2. As far as silvergill adept sliver is concerned, unfortunately it's already been printed as dormant sliver. I'm not a sliver expert by any means but is it possible to drop green for red? The new first strike sliver comes down on turn 1 and curves pretty nicely into heart sliver.

It seems like red doesn't really stack well, so it sucks to draw multiples. Green gets you 2 pump lords. Maybe the correct way to build it is only play Slivers that stack well and like 2-ofs of the other ones?

Cavern helps cast the Slivers, but it makes me nervous to play a bunch of lands that don't play nice with Daze, Brainstorm, and Swords. Nedleeds, was it a problem when you ran them?

[nudon]

It seems like red doesn't really stack well, so it sucks to draw multiples. Green gets you 2 pump lords. Maybe the correct way to build it is only play Slivers that stack well and like 2-ofs of the other ones?

Cavern helps cast the Slivers, but it makes me nervous to play a bunch of lands that don't play nice with Daze, Brainstorm, and Swords. Nedleeds, was it a problem when you ran them?

I understand the concern about drawing multiple red slivers but maybe a 2/2 split would be ok. Red also gives access to boros charm in order to protect the slivers from sweepers. Lightning bolt would give the deck a much faster clock than merfolk too. Of course, this comes at the expense of FoW and daze. Wasteland also seems like a potential liability regardless of which 3 colors are being used.

Edit: actually, boros charm might be difficult to cast due to the mana base.

[Aggro_zombies]

Assuming there's a Hexproof sliver, and assuming it's mono-green, this deck might be better off ditching blue and just going Naya Aggro. It would be sufficiently different from most current incarnations of Zoo or Maverick to be worth exploring. You could run enough cheap removal to get small blockers out of the way and Sidewinder, Spined, and Striking Slivers would allow you to dominate combat against other creature-based decks.

Staying in the Bant/blue-based model just means you have a deck that compares very unfavorably to Merfolk no matter how you build it, and the golden rule of playing decks is to never play Deck-X-But-Worse.

(Also, I'm fairly certain that Slivers will only be in Naya this time around. When WotC revisits mechanics, one of the things they do is put them in different colors, or narrow the colors they show up in - see Scry in M12, for example. This makes them more interesting as far as draft is concerned.)

[Pinder]

My thoughts:

Phantasmal Image
It's a neat idea, but as others have already mentioned it would really only ever copy either Muscle or Sinew Sliver because Shroud and Flying don't stack. That might have been useful before but now that we know we're getting Predatory Sliver it's just a moot point. The ability to make it copy creatures your opponent control could be situationally useful, but without shroud, Phantasmal is just so fragile. It might be neat to play alongside Virulent Sliver, but at that point it's honestly just a different deck.

Sidewinder Sliver
The deck originally ran Plated Sliver because it needed a 1-mana answer to a turn one Lackey (we designed the deck from the ground up to be a foil for a Goblin-heavy metagame; it originally ran Stifle for that reason as well). Now that that's not a major concern, I could see conceivably cutting Plated for Sidewinder instead but again, we're getting another lord so there likely isn't room and it's probably better to just find Winged Sliver so you don't have to interact with your opponent's creatures much at all.

Cavern of Souls
You would never name anything other than slivers, it taps for all colors, and it doesn't really make your manabase weaker than it already was. A solid include.

Running/Splashing Red
Nope. The cons far outweigh the pros in every conceivable case. The manabase is already the deck's biggest weakness, pushing it into 4 colors just so you can have another 1-drop with an ability that doesn't stack is just bad for you, especially when you already have an on-color first strike sliver that plays nicely with leaving Aether Vial at 2 counters. You can't drop blue because the deck IS blue, and you can't drop white because the deck needs Crystalline Sliver. If (and it's a big if) they print a shroud/hexproof sliver that isn't white, you could conceivably drop white for red but then you have to justify losing Swords/Path and not just running 6-8 shroud guys, and red doesn't give you enough to justify that.

Possible New Shroud/Hexproof Sliver
Highly unlikely, but if it happens I can assume that it would be on-color as hexproof is typically in green, white or blue. A 2/2 "your Slivers get hexproof" for :w::u: or :u::g: would be a godsend for this deck, but the creature slots are already crowded so it would require a lot of testing to get the numbers right. Again though, it's really really really unlikely that they'll do it at all or that if they do, it will be costed anywhere near competitively.



Assuming there's a Hexproof sliver, and assuming it's mono-green, this deck might be better off ditching blue and just going Naya Aggro. It would be sufficiently different from most current incarnations of Zoo or Maverick to be worth exploring. You could run enough cheap removal to get small blockers out of the way and Sidewinder, Spined, and Striking Slivers would allow you to dominate combat against other creature-based decks.


I toyed around with RGW slivers a lot while playing Countersliver. If they print a Hexproof sliver that doesn't require blue, it could be really good. You would want to run at least a couple Hunter Sliver as well. Provoke is just nuts when combined with flanking and Spined Sliver. It's effectively targeted removal at that point.

[nudon]

Assuming there's a Hexproof sliver, and assuming it's mono-green, this deck might be better off ditching blue and just going Naya Aggro. It would be sufficiently different from most current incarnations of Zoo or Maverick to be worth exploring. You could run enough cheap removal to get small blockers out of the way and Sidewinder, Spined, and Striking Slivers would allow you to dominate combat against other creature-based decks.

Staying in the Bant/blue-based model just means you have a deck that compares very unfavorably to Merfolk no matter how you build it, and the golden rule of playing decks is to never play Deck-X-But-Worse.

(Also, I'm fairly certain that Slivers will only be in Naya this time around. When WotC revisits mechanics, one of the things they do is put them in different colors, or narrow the colors they show up in - see Scry in M12, for example. This makes them more interesting as far as draft is concerned.)

Assuming you're correct about naya slivers in m14, I think there's still 1 more chance at a hexproof/shroud sliver at uncommon. Both white and red have 2 commons, 1 uncommon, and 1 rare sliver-related card so far. Meanwhile, the green sliver uncommon is missing. That said, I really think there will be black and blue slivers as well since very few cards have been spoiled in those colors. If that's the case, there's 4 more chances in blue for a hexproof sliver. Ideally, there would be something along the lines of U/G,1 1/1 hexproof sliver. In black, the best thing to hope for is a EtB discard(non-pinpoint)/raise dead sliver at cmc-2.

[Sturtzilla]

While the idea of a "Shroud Sliver" would be nice effectively giving Crystalline Slivers 5-8, I think a card advantage or card selection sliver would be even better. Something along the lines of "whenever you cast a sliver, draw a card" or "whenever a sliver comes into play under your control, you may look at the top 2-3 cards of your library and put them back in any order." An effect like either of these would really help at pushing this deck forward.

[Giles]

What has happened to this deck, is that it was build for a c2005 Legacy Metagame based around a Goblins (or at least an aggro metagame) as the foil to these decks; as stated in earlier posts. However, if this deck is going to make in a '13 and beyond metagame is to either do two things. The first, which is what it did in the formation of the deck, is to provide a solution to the contemporary metagame. Or secondly, have an own identity of its gimmick; which might mean it is becomes on what it was foiling in the past: Goblins.

It might have been a midrange deck of the past; but right now can it be? Can it out midrange: Shardless; RUG; ect?

What needs to happen is deck to find its own identity; not be in the Good 'ol Days of 2005 and use all philosophies of the past.

[Aggro_zombies]

What has happened to this deck, is that it was build for a c2005 Legacy Metagame based around a Goblins (or at least an aggro metagame) as the foil to these decks; as stated in earlier posts. However, if this deck is going to make in a '13 and beyond metagame is to either do two things. The first, which is what it did in the formation of the deck, is to provide a solution to the contemporary metagame. Or secondly, have an own identity of its gimmick; which might mean it is becomes on what it was foiling in the past: Goblins.

It might have been a midrange deck of the past; but right now can it be? Can it out midrange: Shardless; RUG; ect?

What needs to happen is deck to find its own identity; not be in the Good 'ol Days of 2005 and use all philosophies of the past.
Everything Slivers can do, another deck can do better. Want a tribal blue deck that can pack Force of Will to keep your opponent from interfering with your plans? Try Merfolk. Want an aggressive G/W/x deck? Try Zoo or Maverick. Want a controlling Esper deck with a strong creature component? Stoneblade has got your back.

The reason these decks are all better is because creature power creep has completely invalidated the Sliver model. Why would you want to play a deck that must get a critical mass of often different cards into play when you can play a deck where every individual creature is a legitimate threat on its own? Why be forced into over-committing because otherwise your dudes all suck when you can play one or two dudes and have them be awesome? There is no reason to try to play Slivers anymore aside from personal preference and a desire to waste a tournament entry fee.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Everything Slivers can do, another deck can do better. Want a tribal blue deck that can pack Force of Will to keep your opponent from interfering with your plans? Try Merfolk. Want an aggressive G/W/x deck? Try Zoo or Maverick. Want a controlling Esper deck with a strong creature component? Stoneblade has got your back.

The reason these decks are all better is because creature power creep has completely invalidated the Sliver model. Why would you want to play a deck that must get a critical mass of often different cards into play when you can play a deck where every individual creature is a legitimate threat on its own? Why be forced into over-committing because otherwise your dudes all suck when you can play one or two dudes and have them be awesome? There is no reason to try to play Slivers anymore aside from personal preference and a desire to waste a tournament entry fee.

actually, counterslivers took legacy nats in 2008 @ GenCon. I watched it happen and you do not have to reach a 'critical mass.' All you need is to know how to control the board until you have hit them for lethal, 3, 4 slivers on board max.

-ABC

Edit: 100th post :)

[evilGod]

2008 was still 5 years ago. There have been huge changes in the game since then, and Slivers hasn't benefited from any of them except maybe Cavern of Souls, and even that's debatable since it can't cast Brainstorm or StP.

Unless there's some new Sliver out of M14 that's just crazy good this deck is going to stay something you can have fun with at a local, steal a few games with Crystalline and your opponent's lack of matchup experience but if I hear of Slivers in any larger tournament that's not Standard or Draft I'll be very surprised.

[kwis]

Slivers are getting a 3rd muscle sliver right?

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Slivers are getting a 3rd muscle sliver right?

Yeah, an asymmetrical one. That's not really what Slivers needs, though.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

So... What do you think Slivers would benefit more from besides the silly idea at the top of the page? I think Bonescythe Sliver, Hive Stirrings, Sentinel Sliver, Striking Sliver, and Predatory Sliver all have merit for discussion. So far, that is the large majority of new Slivers. I do say boy, that's a possible Naya Slivers. 4c Slivers isn't a stretch since you don't even really have to worry about anything besides Supreme Verdict, and a greedy manabase isn't even a real issue since you have access to Gemhide. You can even go toolbox and use the sliver-cycler (I call it Sliver-Bullet :smile: ).

Also, yes, Cavern of Souls is an additional way to get your slivers in without the worry of Vial Dead Draws (I feel that to be a HUGE plus). Please note, I'm not saying don't run Vial, I'm saying as a 4-of it is no longer necessary. It's not insanely important to be able to play your non-slivers off of the Cavern, as this deck isn't exactly mana hungry with the emphasis in tempo more than control (no Counterbalance), and with it, Sword of Feast and Famine is at your disposal.

Even if it's not a candidate for teir 1, getting some conversation with people who share a love for this archetype would be nice instead of only the token naysayers replying with a token sardonic remark.

I have a buddy who has done some interesting things with Bant Stoneforge Slivers. NOT Tier One: FUN!

-ABC

[Aggro_zombies]

So... What do you think Slivers would benefit more from besides the silly idea at the top of the page? I think Bonescythe Sliver, Hive Stirrings, Sentinel Sliver, Striking Sliver, and Predatory Sliver all have merit for discussion. So far, that is the large majority of new Slivers. I do say boy, that's a possible Naya Slivers. 4c Slivers isn't a stretch since you don't even really have to worry about anything besides Supreme Verdict, and a greedy manabase isn't even a real issue since you have access to Gemhide. You can even go toolbox and use the sliver-cycler (I call it Sliver-Bullet :smile: ).
Bonescythe Sliver: Costs four for a 2/2, doesn't immediately win the game. Unplayable.

Hive Stirrings: Makes two vanilla 1/1s at sorcery speed for three mana. Competes for space in a limited number of spells slots with cantrips and counters (Bant) or removal and draw (Naya). Unplayable.

Sentinel Sliver: Potential sideboard material against aggro decks...but then, so is Talon Sliver.

Striking Sliver: Talon Sliver but in the wrong color. First strike does not usefully stack and Aether Vial versions of the deck would rather have Talon to maximize Vial at two. Not particularly playable.

Predatory Sliver: The only obviously playable new sliver shown to date.

[KakerWhitekok]

Holy crap, the best winged sliver ever....

U
Galerider Sliver
All slivers you control have flying.
1/1
Rare
M14

Seriously? With Predatory Sliver....is this enough to resurrect the deck?

[Aggro_zombies]

Holy crap, the best winged sliver ever....

U
Galerider Sliver
All slivers you control have flying.
1/1
Rare
M14

Seriously? With Predatory Sliver....is this enough to resurrect the deck?
Probably not. While it's an improvement on Winged Sliver, it doesn't actually solve any of the deck's problems.

EDIT: To elaborate:

As discussed previously, Slivers was designed as a metagame answer to Goblins ages ago when anti-Goblins aggro decks basically didn't exist. It died because Goblins lost its Tier 0.5 status and then because Merfolk became a deck. Slivers' current problems are as follows:

All of Slivers' creatures are individually terrible (1/1s or 2/2s for two);
Slivers has to overextend in order to compensate for its weak creatures;
Slivers needs to be in three colors in order to have a critical mass of lords.

The new Winged Sliver doesn't address any of these: a Flying Men is not really a great improvement on Sea Eagle because neither are actually playable in this format. Similarly, none of the other Sliver cards previewed thus far address these issues; the new Muscle Sliver means you can shed white if you want and still have eight lords, but that means abandoning Crystalline, Talon, and potentially Sidewinder Slivers, depending on whether you want aggro or aggro-control Slivers.

[Tao]

Merfolk are also all terrible on their own and they still work. Reducing the mana cost of a card from 2 to 1 is a gigantic improvement and a 3rd Lord helps a lot, too.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Merfolk are also all terrible on their own and they still work. Reducing the mana cost of a card from 2 to 1 is a gigantic improvement and a 3rd Lord helps a lot, too.

Merfolk just has more in the way of utility and flexibility in its creatures (draw, countering, and tapping in addition to the pump and evasion that it shares with Slivers). Slivers really needs at least some of that, or similarly useful additional mechanics.

[HPB_Eggo]

Merfolk are also all terrible on their own and they still work. Reducing the mana cost of a card from 2 to 1 is a gigantic improvement and a 3rd Lord helps a lot, too.

Difference being that Merfolk gets all of its lords in one color. Considering Slivers only really have one advantage on Merfolk - Shroud - it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to destroy your manabase just to play a different sort of creature.

[Tao]

Not saying it is competitive yet, but simply dismissing an improvement because it doesn't fit a certain category seems bad.

[nedleeds]

Slivers aren't as good as Merfolk :eek: :eek: :eek:

[Aggro_zombies]

Not saying it is competitive yet, but simply dismissing an improvement because it doesn't fit a certain category seems bad.
Well, okay, now your Winged Sliver costs one less. Your deck is still Tier 5.

Marginal improvements that don't fix your deck's underlying problems are not going to make your deck any more competitive than it was. Winged Sliver was really more of a finisher anyway since the card does very little for you unless you can (1) attack profitably, and (2) you have enough lords in play to do actual damage when you swing. Of all the Slivers that this deck would like to see cheaper, Winged was not really one of them.

[Tao]

I don't care what Tier this deck is or will be. But you are wrong when you claim that reducing the mana cost of a card from 2 to 1 is only a marginal improvement.

[Aggro_zombies]

But you are wrong when you claim that reducing the mana cost of a card from 2 to 1 is only a marginal improvement.
Explain, please.

[Patrunkenphat7]

I think this deck would become as powerful as Merfolk if there was a Sliver Adept type of creature. How nuts would this be:

Sliver Adept
Creature-Sliver
When a sliver you control comes into play, you may reveal a sliver from your hand. If you do, draw a card.
1/1

Too good, I'm sure... Still, one can dream.

[Aggro_zombies]

I think this deck would become as powerful as Merfolk if there was a Sliver Adept type of creature. How nuts would this be:

Sliver Adept
Creature-Sliver
When a sliver you control comes into play, you may reveal a sliver from your hand. If you do, draw a card.
1/1

Too good, I'm sure... Still, one can dream.
No, because then the deck would still probably be in three colors.

What this deck needs is to be concentrated in at most two colors, to have more creatures with better base stats to reduce your reliance on overcommitting, and to have more Slivers with utility abilities that stack well (say, a Ravenous Rats sliver, or maybe a Mother of Runes sliver). As it stands right now, Merfolk's advantages in the creature department are:

- Monocolor
- Lords usually provide some other ability in addition to +1/+1 (islandwalk, Twiddle when you play a Merfolk, a 4/4 flying body)
- The deck can profitably run Mutavault (dodges removal)
- Fewer dead draws (multiples of slivers whose abilities don't stack - Crystalline, Talon/Striking, Heart, Winged/Galerider - are weak draws after the first)

[Patrunkenphat7]

No, because then the deck would still probably be in three colors.

What this deck needs is to be concentrated in at most two colors, to have more creatures with better base stats to reduce your reliance on overcommitting, and to have more Slivers with utility abilities that stack well (say, a Ravenous Rats sliver, or maybe a Mother of Runes sliver). As it stands right now, Merfolk's advantages in the creature department are:

- Monocolor
- Lords usually provide some other ability in addition to +1/+1 (islandwalk, Twiddle when you play a Merfolk, a 4/4 flying body)
- The deck can profitably run Mutavault (dodges removal)
- Fewer dead draws (multiples of slivers whose abilities don't stack - Crystalline, Talon/Striking, Heart, Winged/Galerider - are weak draws after the first)

A Silvergil Adept that makes every other creature a Silvergil Adept would certainly make the deck as good as Merfolk... Galerider is also very, very good. You are underestimating the power of the synergy of this fake card...

Also it should be noted that this deck smooths out its draws thanks to Brainstorms and fetches.

This deck isn't what I consider to be competitive, but you are definitely underestimating how similar in power level it would be to Merfolk if it had an Adept-style creature engine.

[Aggro_zombies]

A Silvergil Adept that makes every other creature a Silvergil Adept would certainly make the deck as good as Merfolk... Galerider is also very, very good. You are underestimating the power of the synergy of this fake card...

Also it should be noted that this deck smooths out its draws thanks to Brainstorms and fetches.

This deck isn't what I consider to be competitive, but you are definitely underestimating how similar in power level it would be to Merfolk if it had an Adept-style creature engine.
Well, your creature - as worded - would stack such that multiple copies of it would turn any Sliver into an Inspiration or better. There really is no way WotC would cost that to be on-curve for a sliver deck: they put the Curiosity sliver at five mana for a 3/3, for example.

I mean, sure, an Adept-style draw engine would make Slivers more competitive. So would all of its creatures costing one mana. That's not the world we live in.

As for Galerider, here are my issues with it relative to Winged:

What is the function of flying in Slivers? 95% of the time, it's to push damage through in the mid- to late-game. The remaining 5% of the time, it's to allow you to block stuff like Clique. That means a flying sliver is mostly a mid- to late-game creature, particularly when it is a base 1/1. In that context, the difference between one and two mana is slim; yes, you can cast Galerider and still have plenty of mana open, but your chances of having a Vial at two are also pretty good, so it's kind of a wash.
Currently, the only two blue Slivers worth running are Crystalline and Winged; a case can be made for Hibernation if you're going Esper, which might be interesting with the new lifelink Sliver they spoiled, but let's ignore that guy for now. Neither of these slivers stack well - that is, double flying or double shroud doesn't do anything extra for you, although Crystalline is at least a bear. In that context, the difference between one and two mana is relatively minor: you don't really want to see a ton of these guys each game anyway, which means you're realistically only saving yourself one or two mana over the course of a game. That's a lot less than, say, Aether Vial will save you.
Engineered Explosives is not a card that sees much play anymore, so the benefits of diversifying your curve are fairly minor; you still take it either way from the sweeper-du-jour, Terminus. Getting access to Winged a turn earlier means you can curve a turn one Galerider into a turn two lord and attack for two flying, but you're still getting a worse damage output than a turn one Delver, turn two Brainstorm in response to the trigger, flip Delver. Granted, you can follow up that play with a turn three lord and hit for six flying, but compare that to, say, turn one Sidewinder/the +0/+1 sliver, turn two lord, turn three Winged, or turn one Vial, turn two Vial in Galerider, cast a Sliver, and so on. The improvement in speed is probably not big enough to matter all that much. It's also worth noting that a Bant build of 4 Crystalline, 4 Muscle, 4 Predatory, 4 Sinew, 4 Galerider, 20 lands probably doesn't have much room for more Slivers if you're also going to run 4 Vial, 4 Brainstorm, 4 Force, 4 StP, which means Galerider is likely your only one-drop Sliver.

I'm really not feeling it here. Your multi-lord draws get better, sure, but your other draws are not going to be improved all that much, and you still have the same fundamental problems that have dogged Slivers for years: a reliance on overcommitting, creatures with bad base states compared to modern power creeped creatures, a tri-color manabase.

What would be interesting is if they give green a hexproof Sliver, preferably at three mana for a 2/2. That makes Zoo slivers - with a potential creature base of Sidewinder, Striking, Muscle, Predatory, Sinew, Spined, Heart, Hexproof - an interesting deckbuilding option. You could fill out the rest of your spell slots with Bolt, Chain Lightning, Helix, and Path, plus maybe GSZ or even Domri Rade. That deck would be interesting compared to Zoo: Zoo has better damage output in the short term, but once its blitzy creatures are rendered irrelevant, they tend to stay that way, whereas a Sliver deck can grow its guys back into fighting size.

[frogger42]

No love for the Syphon Sliver? It seems to me the one that might push them over the top:

3 Galerider
4 Muscle
4 Pred
4 Hibernation
2 Syphon
1 Harmonic

I think this sliver-base has 2 main things over Merfolk: that it dodges Supreme Verdict easily, and that it has lifelink for all your base. I think people don't always appreciate how vicious a Batterskull can be compared to something like a Goyf; all that extra lifegain allows you to make smarter decisions that turn, let alone bolts and other stuff. It's also in Abrupt Decay territory, instead of the usual StoPs. That said, it is 3 color with Harmonic dabbling in the 4th, and I still feel the slivers are a bit weaker than Merf overall, even with the improved removal.

EDIT: People want a draw engine, and I guess you can also run that UG2 sliver from Planar Chaos. It's a 3 card combo, that Hib and Galerider... but I feel that's a bit more win-more. Maybe SB tech for grindy matches/ the Mirror. I'd still probably rather run Jace at CMC4.

[CML]

anyone trying to rejuvenate this one with Galerider and Predatory?

[evilGod]

Having more of the same doesn't change much. It's still a 3 color deck, it still has to splash for the pump, and it's not like the big problem with Slivers was Mutavault pushing it out of the format.

[CML]

i dunno, 12 2cmc lords is way more than 8. ask fish players

[CroSS.24]

Here's my list that I will be trying out this week at my lgs


4 Muscle Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
3 Winged Sliver
3 Crystalline Sliver
4 Dark Confidant

4 Aether Vial
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Savannah
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta



Dark Confidant give the card draw that the deck lacks, just by splashing black. It is easily vialed in at 2cc
Jace is for the mid to late game to help with consistency
I have not had any issues with the land base yet while fishing the deck, but I'm sure a wasteland has the possibility to ruin my day.

I would love to hear what you guys think of the list.

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Needs moar Spell Pierce. Otherwise good list ay a glance. How does it playtest against midrange? I would lower Ponder to 2 and Force of Will to 3 and Sinew to 3 for 3 Pierce.

-ABC

EDIT::: I like Galerider Sliver over Winged for this: Adds to tempo. Even though it "only" gives flying, everything you drop is that much better, and also this: Goblins, Merfolk, Zoo, and any other vial list has a 1cc creature as well be it Lackey or Cursecatcher, Kird Ape, etc. This is no different, back when it won 2008 GenCon Legacy Nat's, 3 or 4 of the 1/1 for (w) that gives all slivers +0/+1 was played, and it helped tempo and in other ways of it's own, that Galerider now provides. It provides the secondary 1-drop while still filling the evasion of winged sliver. This gives the room for the +3 or +4 Lord Effects extra from Predatory Sliver. It's like Big CounterSlivers, as opposed to Big Zoo I suppose...

[dsck]

Why Winged Sliver over the new 1 mana version from M14?

[nedleeds]

Is bob there so they'll actually have something to use the STPs stranded in their hands on?

[Aggro_zombies]

Is bob there so they'll actually have something to use the STPs stranded in their hands on?
Bob is probably there to get you closer to having the critical mass of Sliver lords required to profitably attack around a Tarmogoyf, but yes, this is probably the practical effect of his inclusion.

Worth noting that their StPs are live before you see one of your three (!) Crystallines, though.

[CroSS.24]

I had more slivers stp'd than bobs, and as far as galerider vs winged. I was very upset a lot of times when I had winged in my hand and not galerider. As soon as I can pick some up they will be replacing winged.

Dark confidant was by far the mvp of the tournament for me. We only had 12 players and I went 2-2, big part for the record were a few big misplays and for some reason affinity just blew its load in my face round 4.

[Pherion]

So I was pointed at this thread, after I came up with this list idependanty. If you want to read all the crazyness that I wrote earlier, you can find it here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?26627-Tempo-Slivers-(Bant-UGW)&p=747082&posted=1#post747082).

Here's the list:

3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
4 Mutavault
4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
3 Misty Rainforest

4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Galerider Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
3 Sinew Sliver
2 Harmonic Sliver
1 Shadow Sliver
1 Bonescythe Sliver

4 Aether Vial
4 Standstill
4 Daze
4 Force of Will


I haven't read through this whole thread yet, but just wanted to throw my list out first to see what people thought of what I brewed by myself :)

I really like the idea of a singleton Shadow Sliver just to dodge all the ground stuff <cough>Tarmogoyf</cough>.

[CaptainTwiddle]

Here's my take on Meathooks.

CREATURES
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Galerider Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
3 Phantasmal Image
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
SPELLS
4 Æther Vial
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
2 Standstill
1 Swords to Plowshares
LAND
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Mutavault
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
3 Wasteland

I'd like to run more StPs in the main, but I think you'd need to cut Spell Pierce, which would be fine, except that you need the high blue count to support FoW. I'm a little surprised that I haven't seen Phantasmal Image in any of the recent lists above. If you happen to have a Crystaline Sliver on board, the Skulking/Illusion drawback is irrelevant, so you get 3 additional lords. This list is more or less a port of a Merfolk deck.

I feel like another option would be to cut Æther Vial, Daze, and unfortunately FoW, add 3-4 Cavern of Souls and play Virulent Sliver as a potentially powerful 1 drop. I like that Virulent Sliver still allows your Slivers to deal normal combat damage while providing poison, which threatens a very fast clock without coming undone if they happen take out the Virulent Sliver.

[Aggro_zombies]

I really like the idea of a singleton Shadow Sliver just to dodge all the ground stuff <cough>Tarmogoyf</cough>.
That's what Galerider Sliver is for. If you feel you need more of that effect, run Winged Slivers.

[Pherion]

In the vein of injecting new blood into this thread, I did some brewing and came up with two more lists. The first is a Zoo-like list. I'm not all that impressed as it suffers from the same problems as zoo - that is, running out of gas very quickly and getting stuck top decking. Zoo has access to things like Wild Nacatl and Steppe Lynx, which just tend to be better than slivers :(. Anyway, here's the list. It's fun in goldfishing, but again, lacks from mid/late game pressure.


2 Plateau
2 Taiga
2 Savannah
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Plains
3 Windswept Heath
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Marsh Flats

4 Muscle Sliver
4 Sidewinder Sliver
4 Striking Sliver
4 Virulent Sliver
3 Predatory Sliver
3 Sinew Sliver
3 Spined Sliver
2 Cautery Sliver
2 Harmonic Sliver
2 Heart Sliver
1 Bonescythe Sliver

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Lightning Helix


I like this list, it's lots of fun, but it's a worse Zoo list. I wanted to add Deathrite Shaman, but without access to black, the deck lacks the mid game effects that make him so powerful.

That leads me into my next brew, which hearkens back to control, but in the form of The Rock. I'm really in love with this deck, but with no playtesting (only goldfishing) under it, I'm not sure how good it really is.


2 Savannah
2 Bayou
1 Scrubland
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
1 Marsh Flats
4 Wasteland
1 Dryad Arbor

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
3 Necrotic Sliver
2 Gemhide Sliver
2 Manaweft Sliver
2 Syphon Sliver
1 Bonescythe Sliver
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Might Sliver
1 Sliver Legion
1 Sliver Queen

4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Swords to Plowshares


I originally had a single Natural Order in the deck as well, and I think I'd like to find a way to put one or two back in. They allow you to fetch up Legion or Might without all the mana for a Green Sun's Zenith or a mana sliver in play to hard cast them. That said: In goldfishing, I was able to consistently have gigantic slivers with plenty of removal of my own in hand.

I'd like to see a 1 CMC sliver in the deck, but non of them are good enough. If I could get a colorshifted Striking Sliver that would be amazing. I'd also like to add another Bonescythe Sliver because he's pretty insane with either Syphon Sliver or a few lords in play.

I'm not sure if Sliver Queen is all that good either. If you can land it and untap in a control match-up, then you probably win - but Swords to Plowshares is a card, and your likely to just get +7 life. I was considering replacing it with a second Sliver Legion or maybe just another lord.

I really like that the combination of Abrupt Decay, Swords to Plowshares, Necrotic Sliver, and Deathrite Shaman really make this a mid-range deck. In order for it to go long game, I think the sideboard will need planeswalkers or a number of Sylvan Library, otherwise it's stuck in topdeck with 22 lands in deck.

Well that's some brewing, and I know it moves away from "Countersliver", but I'm trying to find a way to make Slivers in general work. If these lists aren't appropriate to this thread, just let me know and I'll go start one elsewhere!

[Aggro_zombies]

I'm not sure why you keep including Bonescythe Sliver in your lists. The card is crap. It's a four mana 2/2 with a barely relevant ability that is likely win-more by the time you can cast it.

Harmonic Sliver is not exactly a maindeck card.

Not running the full suite of twelve Muscle Slivers sort of defeats the point of running Slivers in the first place.

[Pherion]

I'm not sure why you keep including Bonescythe Sliver in your lists. The card is crap. It's a four mana 2/2 with a barely relevant ability that is likely win-more by the time you can cast it.

Harmonic Sliver is not exactly a maindeck card.

Not running the full suite of twelve Muscle Slivers sort of defeats the point of running Slivers in the first place.

Bonescythe Sliver breaks the ground war. The Rock and Zoo versions above have to be able to get through Tarmogoyfs in order to get damage in. Bonescythe makes even one or two lord effects begin to trade with the average Goyf. It also trumps one of the most annoying blockers currently in the metta: Baleful Strix. In the Merfolk style decks - you are probably correct. Flying negates the need for double strike.

Harmonic Sliver very much is a main deck card (especially as a 1 of with 4 Green Sun's Zenith). It's a silver bullet that is tutor-able. I was tempted to put a Gaddock Teeg main deck as well - since this deck is obviously going to have trouble with combo.

As to the full set of 12 Lord effects - In an aggro design, it makes sense to run them all. The Zoo list above runs 10, dropping 2 in favor of utility cards, or faster creatures. The Rock list is very much a midrange deck, where you don't need to overwhelm your opponent quickly. With that kind of a game plan, you can afford to be a bit less aggressive. You're still going to kill your opponent with damage, but not until after you've removed their relevant threats and gained a superior board state. In addition, the Rock deck removes Sinew Sliver in favor of Predatory Sliver, and this brings the deck into a cleaner mana base with less reliance on dual lands (and thus less vulnerable to Wasteland). Solidifying the mana base means it's more efficient and consistent.

Your comments are welcome!

[Aggro_zombies]

I think your Zoo version is better than your Junk version, although Zoo in general is not really a viable deck type anymore. That said, I would make the following changes:

-4 Virulent Sliver
-2 Cautery Sliver
-1 Harmonic Sliver
-1 Bonescythe Sliver

+1 Predatory Sliver
+1 Sinew Sliver
+2 GSZ
+4 Chain Lightning

I want to put Aether Vial in there as well, but I don't know what to cut for it. As for the changes themselves: Virulent Sliver really doesn't make sense unless you're going to combo-kill someone with them, which usually involves dumping all four into play at once and then attacking with them and some other Sliver (usually Heart). If you're just running them as value one-drops, you are probably going to kill your opponent with damage before the poison matters - unless, of course, you're willing to suicide your Slivers into your opponent's creatures just to push through a poison counter or two (a bad plan in general). Bonescythe Sliver, as previously discussed, is crap; if you feel the need to resort to a 1-of four-drop to get around Tarmogoyf, you may wish to take a step back and look at the bigger problems with your build and with Slivers in general. Cautery Sliver doesn't do very much for you, and you don't need multiple Harmonics main, especially not over the full suite of twelve lords. Like I said, having access to twelve lords is the only reason to even consider running Slivers in the first place. Slivers are often vastly inferior as an aggro deck because their dudes are individually terrible, often vanilla, and they only overcome those flaws by severely overcommitting (often needing multiple different types of Slivers in play). GSZ gives you the ability to find more Lords, while Chain Lightning gives you some more reach and removal.

Honestly, I don't think dropping blue is a good idea. If they'd made a hexproof Sliver at two or three mana in green it would be something to consider, but without the ability to keep yourself from getting picked apart by targeted removal you really can't forsake Crystalline Slivers. I think the only two really "viable" builds of Slivers are Bant (12 lords) or possibly Esper (Crystalline and Hibernation provide maximum removal protection, plus Syphon and Galerider compensate for reduced damage output).

[jbone2016]

So...6-0 at scg seattle. On Camera.

With a pretty pimped out deck.

[evilGod]

I just like how we've seen nothing revolutionary, just the same deck no one (including me) thought was good enough to continue playing.

[Megadeus]

Me and my buddy were talking about it, and it seemed like Vial was pretty terrible. Maybe it's just that MU, but honestly it seems like you just want more threats.

[phazonmutant]

Me and my buddy were talking about it, and it seemed like Vial was pretty terrible. Maybe it's just that MU, but honestly it seems like you just want more threats.

I've seen this guy play at a bunch of locals and lost to him at the open. He's been playing the deck for a long time with reasonable success (despite owning good decks), so I guess it can't be straight terrible.
When I played against him, the Vials were absolute nightmares. I was playing Grixis Delver and it made my attacks and blocks just impossible because it forced you to play around both removal and pump, which leads to very bad trades and race math.

[Cacks]

Does anyone have a link to the video? Or know his list?

[Myelectronicdays]

Its actually the first match of the 6 hour vid.

http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/472045409

and his list.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=59976

Creatures (21)

4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Galerider Sliver
1 Harmonic Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver

Lands (20)

1 Island
1 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Mutavault
1 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
2 Windswept Heath

Spells (19)

4 Aether Vial
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares

Sideboard
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Rest in Peace
3 Envelop
4 Path to Exile
4 Spell Pierce

[Pinder]

Wow. This list is....super standard. I mean, the obvious inclusion of Galerider over Winged and the addition of Predatory Sliver aside, it's pretty much cut-and-paste what I used to play back in the day. And here even I thought this deck wasn't playable, anymore.

[Jankwolf]

Me and my buddy were talking about it, and it seemed like Vial was pretty terrible. Maybe it's just that MU, but honestly it seems like you just want more threats.


To this guy--------^
What brand of drugs are you on? Please, I would love to know. More importantly, where can I buy them! Sorry bud, just joking around.

Myself, as well as a few lingering members of "Team info-ninja" have tested the uses of vial in this deck for years. It's quite useful. When used in conjunction with Crystaline Sliver it acts as a counter spell when one of your slivers is targeted. With the mana curve of the deck's creatures you set it at two and watch your side of the field grow...QUICKLY. We have been using that coupled with cavern of souls in place of mutavault. Reason being is the only way to stop our creatures from getting bigger, aside from non-targeted removal, is by countering them. Concerning vial, we have been kicking around what the right number of them should be. We are currently stuck at ether 3-4. Multiples mid to late game they are horrible but you always want to have one as soon as possible.

Again, with my opening comment, it was a joke only. Not trying to start a flame war.

[Megadeus]

Im just saying. Maybe it was just the MU that I watched (vs Shardless) but both games that he had a vial, it seemed like he would just have been better off with more threats. I honestly do not see why you would want to cut Mutavault in this deck though. It seems INSANE. I mean not only do your lords pump it, but you can make it a dude in response to wasteland with a crystaline on board to protect it. I just was looking at Vial as a slow card disadvantage artifact that doesnt really do too much in here that you really need. I have no experience with the deck, those were just mine and my buddies observations.

[Jankwolf]

Wow. This list is....super standard. I mean, the obvious inclusion of Galerider over Winged and the addition of Predatory Sliver aside, it's pretty much cut-and-paste what I used to play back in the day. And here even I thought this deck wasn't playable, anymore.


Pinder, you jerk. Never call or write anymore....I feel abandoned.

Another little trick we have been using is Phantasmal Image. It gives your critters a bigger boost when copying one of you muscle type slivers. Also comes in handy when dealing with Emrakal shenanigans or what ever opposing creature worth copying. Works really well with Crystaline too.

[Jankwolf]

Im just saying. Maybe it was just the MU that I watched (vs Shardless) but both games that he had a vial, it seemed like he would just have been better off with more threats. I honestly do not see why you would want to cut Mutavault in this deck though. It seems INSANE. I mean not only do your lords pump it, but you can make it a dude in response to wasteland with a crystaline on board to protect it. I just was looking at Vial as a slow card disadvantage artifact that doesnt really do too much in here that you really need. I have no experience with the deck, those were just mine and my buddies observations.

Reason my list doesn't run the "Vault" is that they are horrible when you're trying to stabilize your mana base. Sure it acts as another creature, one that you have to pay for EVERY time you want to use it. I personally would rather have a stable mana base so I can keep my threats coming down. You can't always rely on Super Sliver (crystaline) to be around. It then becomes a non-color producing land that has "waste me" written all over it. I'd rather shift my focus on making things less waste-able to being more resilient in the long run.

[LeoCop 90]

I'n not an expert of this deck , but looking at the recent list my first thought is that there aren't enough creatures. 21 creatures + mutavault is not enough in my opinion, and make the deck extremely dependant on cristalline sliver to avoid removal. For sure i would play 4x phantasmal image, and also i don't understand why a deck like this don't use cavern of souls.... i mean, mana of any color to cast slivers and make them uncounterable.

[jbone2016]

I'n not an expert of this deck , but looking at the recent list my first thought is that there aren't enough creatures. 21 creatures + mutavault is not enough in my opinion, and make the deck extremely dependant on cristalline sliver to avoid removal. For sure i would play 4x phantasmal image, and also i don't understand why a deck like this don't use cavern of souls.... i mean, mana of any color to cast slivers and make them uncounterable.

I would agree with this. This seems like it would like play out like a merfolk deck if possible.

[HammafistRoob]

Holy ish. This deck did good? Pinder is alive? The sky is falling!!!

[Jankwolf]

Wow. This list is....super standard. I mean, the obvious inclusion of Galerider over Winged and the addition of Predatory Sliver aside, it's pretty much cut-and-paste what I used to play back in the day. And here even I thought this deck wasn't playable, anymore.


I would use the term "playing" loosely Pinder. You did a lot more losing than actual playing and yes there is a difference. Just saying..

Lets look at what this deck has going for it.

It's fast with potentially untargetable creatures.
It has the Tempo plan with the inclusion of the proper cards.
It has removal options and counter options.
Lets not forget that the Sliver utility creatures affect all of them.

Why aren't more people giving this a look? It's potentially a better version of Merfolk.

[Sturtzilla]

Why aren't more people giving this a look? It's potentially a better version of Merfolk.

It is greedier in the mana and color requirements departments than Merfolk. Merfolk arguably has a better end game with Reejerey and TNN (also a better combo early game with Cursecatcher). Those are my thoughts. I do like this deck. It was one of the first that I began to learn Legacy by playing. I am just not sure that it is quite there.

[Poron]

a 2cc Sliver-Meddling Mage and a 2cc Sliver-"opponent's cards can't make you sacrifice anything" would make this deck come back.

This deck has 0 strategy against combo and it requires 4 lords to deal 1-1 with a Tarmogoyf..

[Windmill]

a 2cc Sliver-Meddling Mage and a 2cc Sliver-"opponent's cards can't make you sacrifice anything" would make this deck come back.

This deck has 0 strategy against combo and it requires 4 lords to deal 1-1 with a Tarmogoyf..
Isn't the deck's strategy against combo the same as Merfolk: counter it out? It is less consistent though because you will have less blue cards to pitch to force (is it played?).

The strategy vs. Goyf would be to ignore it and fly over the bastard. Well, what if you whalegider/whatever it is called sliver gets removed? It should hopefully be much harder, given your guys have shroud. Except, obviously, that is not guaranteed at all, because there are only 4 in the deck. So it is a back-forth. I like the deck a lot and I've always had a huge fondness for slivers and would love to play a good sliver deck in a local tournament. But the comparisons to Merfolk can't be avoided, and they shouldn't be, lessons can be learned I think.

Why I love it: I love that you can give your team shroud for 2cc. Compared to Merfolk, it has access to brainstorm which it can use as a viable addition because the mana base is already greedy, whereas with Merfolk it is simply not worth it to open yourself to blood moon effects and the like. You have THREE 2cc lords, which is huge. Your slivers have flying, which would fix the folk's weakest matchups, which are things like Elves which we can't simply goldish and win. I'd much rather have flying than islandwalk for that reason, even though you will hit decks that can't sometimes block.

What makes me skeptical: I actually think that the sliver most missing compared to Merfolk is a variation on silvergill, which is arguably the best creature in the deck. Replacing himself with a 2/1 body is absolutely huge. THIS is the card I want to see for counterslivers, it need more card advantage. It is less consistent than Merfolk because it lacks the same redundancy, so it needs the brainstorm even more. The deck also doesn't reward you for playing TNN, whereas with Merfolk they now have a mini progenitus that they can pump without equipment. It doesn't have the same consistency to pitch to FoW. And cursecatcher is just amazing, because it is so relevant in legacy, it time warps your opponents and forces them to play around, buying you time and more potential counters. Slivers lack counters and so it has a weaker match-up to combo. Merfolk can also protect their team with other cards if they wish (such as Kira).

[Poron]

I'm simply saying that Merfolk has just better matchups than this.

Unless they print a sliver Meddling Mage (for Terminus and combo) and an "unsacrificable" sliver to totally lock our board. But that wouldn't help in the merfolk matchup because they have just unbloackable creatures and 12-16 lords.

we have 12 2cc lords. ok. they have 8 and theirs are pitchable to FoW and Misdirection.

[Windmill]

I'm simply saying that Merfolk has just better matchups than this.

Unless they print a sliver Meddling Mage (for Terminus and combo) and an "unsacrificable" sliver to totally lock our board. But that wouldn't help in the merfolk matchup because they have just unbloackable creatures and 12-16 lords.

we have 12 2cc lords. ok. they have 8 and theirs are pitchable to FoW and Misdirection.
But then Slivers has flying and 2cc shroud in their tribe. That is pretty big, actually. Flying and shroud rocks. The bad match-ups that Merfolks have would be fixed if their lords gave them flying instead, and shroud was more viable than Kira. The pitching to FoW is a huge boon for Merfolk though.

I think that, if they had a blue sliver equivalent of Silvergill, that would be enough to make the deck more viable. I'd go:

CREATURES
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Galerider Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Silvergill Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
SPELLS
4 Æther Vial
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Brainstorm
LAND (up for serious debate)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Mutavault
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
3 Wasteland

[Poron]

How does this deck deal with a storm combo? with a resolved Emrakul/Griselbrand/Progenitus? (both questions you never face in legacy these days...)

how does this deck deal with elves? with a faster race than them? lol they can side in Thoughtseize for our counters and Natural Order/Progenitus on turn 3 without any sweat.

I think the only viable version of this deck (but it doesn't go anywhere upper tier4) would be a much slower one with CounterTop engine, Standstill and many more stall/tricky slivers...

but again, Merfolk is in color too for this...

[Windmill]

I'm wondering: perhaps counterslivers would rather be counterbear slivers?

Creatures (28)

4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Galerider Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Phantasmal Image
4 Spirit of Labyrinth

Lands (20 - I don't know what these should be I just copied/pasted them)

1 Island
1 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Mutavault
1 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
2 Windswept Heath

Spells (16)

4 Aether Vial
4 Daze/Spell Pierce
4 Force of Will

Probably the most ridiculous idea ever, just a thought. FOW might be sketchy with only 20 blue cards? Maybe ditch the counters altogether, and go 4 Thalia and 4 STP?

[Mortox]

How does this deck deal with a storm combo? with a resolved Emrakul/Griselbrand/Progenitus? (both questions you never face in legacy these days...)

how does this deck deal with elves? with a faster race than them? lol they can side in Thoughtseize for our counters and Natural Order/Progenitus on turn 3 without any sweat.

I think the only viable version of this deck (but it doesn't go anywhere upper tier4) would be a much slower one with CounterTop engine, Standstill and many more stall/tricky slivers...

but again, Merfolk is in color too for this...

Against Storm-type decks you can bring in Ethersworn Canonist which also works well against Elves or any deck trying to power out a bunch of spells in one turn. I get your point though, but if you're not running FoW it's a risk you take.

I like the idea of Windmills list above, Spirit of the Labyrinth could be a maindeck option since we aren't running any card draw and it would have an effect on the majority of popular decks out there, and being a 3-power creature it presents a decent clock which is what we're trying to do, plus we run Vial which makes it that much sweeter to cheat into play in response to a Brainstorm or the like.

16 blue cards + 3 or 4 FoW might be enough, we could also consider a few more counters in the sideboard, Flusterstorm, Mindbreak Trap, Spell Pierce, so we have more reliable counters (and more blue for FoW) post-board.

Another card I really like in theory is Frenetic Sliver vialing this into play in response to a sweeper (Supreme Verdict, Terminus, etc.) and attempting to save as many of your Slivers as possible sounds strong but it might be too intricate; I might still try 1 or 2 in the board and include a red source.

As people have mentioned earlier in the thread, if we had something like Silvergill Adept it would improve things for us greatly, as it stands now if we run low on fuel by attrition or getting swept it can be hard to recover. Maybe something like Lead the Stampede could fit but at that point I think our card quality is dropping too low to be anywhere near competitive.

Another consideration, if we want additional lords, is Adaptive Automaton unfortunately a 3-drop which can be a problem for Vial since most of our stuff 2cmc, but still possible to run a couple of this monster if that's the direction you're looking to go.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Top 4-d my local with this list:

4 Galerider Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
1 Phantasmal Image

4 AEther Vial
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Daze
4 Force of Will

4 Mutavault
3 Wasteland
2 Cavern of Souls
3 Flooded Strand
1 Windswept Heath
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra

Sideboard
4 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm
4 Rest in Peace
2 Pithing Needle
2 Harmonic Sliver
2 Krosan Grip

Lost to Deadguy's Ale (game one bad hand + variance, game 2 he stabilized at 2 with Jitte on a Mirran Crusader and I had no Crystalline or second lord to prevent the 3-for-1). Beat UWR Delver, Nic Fit, and Burn. Deck performed much better than I expected, especially considering I lost all but one die roll. The manabase is terrible and I plan on cutting Wasteland entirely - more Cavern of Souls seems much better. The final slot will probably just be another fetch land. Crystalline and Galerider are both insane, nobody is ready for a flying untargetable zerg rush.

[Cire]

The manabase is terrible and I plan on cutting Wasteland entirely - more Cavern of Souls seems much better.

that plus the new sliver hive.

4 Sliver Hive
4 Cavern of souls
4 Mutavault
4 Wasteland
3 Flooded Strand
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra

Does that work?

[bakofried]

With this kind of rainbow land density, is there some way to just make a 5-color sliver aggro deck? What other disruption is available?

[Bobmans]

Fow and friends is the best to support this deck i think. Because it has a way to fight combo. i don't know what to biggest weakness of this deck is, but maybe swap StoP for something like Thougthseize or lightning bolt. Or even Punishing Fire with Groves?

[Aggro_zombies]

The question is, why five colors? Bant is fairly well-established and black gives you Hibernation Sliver and maybe Syphon Sliver, but past that there isn't much worthwhile. Also, it's worth noting that 4 Cavern, 4 Hive, x Mutavault makes it really hard to cast non-Sliver spells.

Vial + Cavern is probably fine to support four colors if you need it, but I don't see why you'd want to go full rainbow.

[lyracian]

The question is, why five colors? Bant is fairly well-established and black gives you Hibernation Sliver and maybe Syphon Sliver, but past that there isn't much worthwhile. Also, it's worth noting that 4 Cavern, 4 Hive, x Mutavault makes it really hard to cast non-Sliver spells.
Vial + Cavern is probably fine to support four colors if you need it, but I don't see why you'd want to go full rainbow.
Red has First Strike and Haste Slivers; which might make the deck a turn faster. There is also Elemental Blasts in the side; but the ability to cast them will be difficult...

Could drop StP and focus on just having one blue land for Daze/Brainstorm and have more slivers. Also an additional Phantasmal Images will help with beating Show and Tell as well as having the second card for Force. Not being able to cast Force is why I always seem to lose games with this deck.

[ManyCookies]

Any thoughts on Diffusion Sliver from M15? Not quite Hexproof Sliver (and unfortunately doesn't work against Abrupt Decay), but it does a pretty reasonable impersonation.