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The new oracle wording actually kills untargetable creatures. It worked before the new errata. That's why they made such a big deal about Drop of Honey with the new wording becuase it had a way to deal with threshold's Nimble Mongooses.Quote:
Originally Posted by xsockmonkeyx
Aye, Drop of Honey is great for the CounterSlivers mirror and for any type of Threshold, since every build uses the Mongoose.
Of course, Culling Scales targets. And it hits permanents, not just creatures. But it also costs 3, and I don't think we have room for it. Nice idea, though.
EDIT: Oh, and I updated the list again. We're pretty sure we've settled on a standard list now.
And WTF @ no more Slivers in the spoiler? There can't only be one, as Orb hits for around 50 something. Honestly, we have less than a third of the set and the prerelease is less than a week away. I want to see new Slivers in my colors :cry:.
How about Living wish over call and running a wish board? Or do you think that would dilute the sideboard too much for important slots needed in the SB?
It has been considered. Yes, it dilutes the sideboard. You would probably want to put the following in your sideboard as wish targets:Quote:
Originally Posted by Blair Phoenix
1 Crystalline Sliver (which means 1 less in the MD; not good)
1 Winged Sliver
1 Talon Sliver
1 Essence Sliver
Of those, only the Essence Sliver can't be fetched from the MD with Eladamri's Call. And Eladamri's Call is an instant, which means you can cast it during your opponent's EOT. That's a BIG advantage over Living Wish, which is a sorcery.
EDIT: And yes, I suppose you could put a Wasteland and a couple other creatures in your SB that could be useful as Wish targets. There really isn't room in the sideboard for all that, though.
I def agree that Living wish isn't the way to go. Wishes seem to work best in a deck that has a lot of mana to abuse and has a need versitile answers (i.e. Rock, Solidarity, Survival). This deck is neither mana packed nor starved for answers (thanks to counters).Quote:
Originally Posted by Volt
I agree that wish is generally too slow. It really isn't worth taking 3-4 Slivers out of the main as wish targets when you can just run them maindeck with Call and leave to sideboard open for improving your problem matchups. Also, Call can be cast at the end of your opponents turn, which is fairly important here as this deck is light on land and Wishing/Calling for and playing a Sliver in the same turn almost never happens. Calling at the end of their turn so you can untap and use the same lands to play the Sliver is key.
There is one thing that me and Mav have been discussing, however. We want to put Chain of Vapor back in the main. We tested the most recent list extensively today, and found that, while it has a better matchup against Thresh, our Gobs matchup had gone soft. We threw in Chains to see what sort of difference it made, and it was huge, bringing the matchup from about 50/50 to our more familiar 65/35. Oftentimes it acted as StP 5-8, and it's absolutely spectacular against Vial. Even without a Crystalline in play, it was still generally helpful, and actually works pretty well either as a combat trick, or as a way to save your dudes if you don't manage to drop a Crystalline early on. And while I'll agree that EE is probably better against Thresh, Chain definitely has its merits there as well. It's dead against Solidarity, but then again, so is StP, and our Solidarity matchup is more like a healthy round of butt sex at this point anyway.
In the main list we cut EE, Call, a Talon and a Plated Sliver for them, and they seem to be working just fine. Of course, I want to keep EE in the board against Thresh, but I think that Chain maindeck might actually be the better choice overall. It has a lot more going for it as a tempo card than EE does, at any rate, and we've found that Chains usually help us gain enough tempo to stabilize before most decks can recover.
We've also considered (not decided, considered) pulling Plated Sliver out of the main, in favor of more cantrips/permission or perhaps to make room for Call/EE alongside Chain. I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out. If we count chain, we have 12 maindeck answers to a turn 1 Lackey on the draw (StP, Chain, and Stifle) without Plated Slivers, and that's not even counting Force of Will. If we're on the play, then just about everything in the deck answers a turn 1 Lackey. As for the toughness bonus, I've noticed lately that that isn't really game breaking on many occasions, as a 4/4 first striker is generally just as good as a 4/5 first striker anyway. There are instances where the toughness boost comes in handy, but it's never really necessary. In most instances Muscle Sliver does roughly the same job, as the deck usually just wants to resolve Crystalline and Muscle Slivers, then sit on them until you have enough of an advantage to win. More cantrips would help you find Crystalline/Muscle faster anyway, and perhaps more hand sculpting in the early game can help make up for going down to only 12 creatures. It would make us a little weaker to Pyroclasm and friends, I suppose, but those aren't really present in the format at large anyway. And if we see one from some rogue deck, we do have counterspells.
On the note of adding more cantrips, Mav also brought up a debate between Portent and Sleight of Hand. I'm still not thoroughly conviced, but he raises some good points for Portent. Even though you don't get to draw the top card until your opponents upkeep, typically it's some sort of permission or reactive tempo card you'd play during their turn anyway. How often do we cantrip and play a Sliver on the same turn, with only an average of 3 lands on the table? Usually we're holding mana for something anyway. The fact that it digs for 3, and is another shuffle effect alongside fetches (hell, you can shuffle their library, even) might make it the better choice for keeping up card quality. Sleight of Hand fetches you the card right away, but since it usually sits there anyway, waiting for it might not be that much of a drawback in exchange for digging deeper and acheiving better card selection.
Given the suggestions above, the decklist could looks something like this:
//Land
4 Tundra
4 Tropical Island
3 Windswept Heath
3 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Plains
//Creatures
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
2 Talon Sliver
2 Winged Sliver
//Spells
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
3 Portent (or possibly Sleight of Hand)
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Chain of Vapor
We haven't done a whole lot of testing with these ideas, so for now the standard list remains the same, but we'll see. It might end up that the lack of Slivers makes all that cantripping less effective, but we're not just searching for Slivers, either. If we gain access to our tempo cards early game, we can disrupt them enough to draw into the Slivers later anyway.
On a slightly unrelated note, Mav also suggested siding Jotun Grunt against Thresh. He's not a Sliver, sure, but he is a 4/4 beatstick for 2 that bends their graveyard over backwards. At the very least he can trade with Wearbear. Thoughts?
I'm going to say flat out that I don't like these new changes. I don't understand why you think the Goblins matchup is only 50/50 all of a sudden. I just playtested the "standard" list we agreed upon earlier today against Goblins all night, and I was winning 70%. It dominates goblins. I just spent the last couple hours working on a primer/writeup to post in the Open forum, too.
Well, the reason I thought Goblins was 50/50 was that I just lost about half the games I played tonight with Goblins. Of course, perhaps I was just unlucky, as the games I lost were generally to mana screw and lack of slivers, and Mav (playing goblins) seemed to fall into some severe lucksackery now that I think about it (3 Aether Vials in the first 4 turns one game!) However, I still think we could use more cantrips in the main to get answers and tempo cards faster. After some thought, I'll agree with you that taking out Plated Sliver probably hurts us more than it helps us, but I still think we need to re-evaluate Chain of Vapor in the main. At any rate, these were just suggestions, and I still agree that the list we have now is one of the most solid we've had so far. For now we can keep the discussion on that list, but I'm still going to test out the list I posted above on the side. It could be that I'm just blowing smoke out of my ass, but hell, it couldn't hurt to test out some new ideas.
I appreciate this. It saves me a lot of time :wink:. I was wondering if you would send me a copy?Quote:
Originally Posted by Volt
I think you just had one bad play-testing session. These things happen. I've played enough games of Counter Sliver vs. Goblins now to feel certain that it is a pretty strong matchup for us. Sometimes, though, Goblins will go on little streaks, where it will win 4 of 6 or something like that. As I've said before, the games they tend to win are when they get out an early Aether Vial or two, catch you with a so-so hand, and explode on you. Pretty much every deck in the format loses to that sometimes. If you're really concerned about it, I would go back to 2 or 3 EE in the maindeck as a way to deal with the Vials.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pinder
Btw, I'm really sorry I jumped the gun and posted a Counter Sliver thread in the Open forum. In retrospect, that was a spasdic, uncool thing for me to do. I've asked for it to be deleted. Let's go ahead and try out these new changes, and let this deck evolve as it will. When we ALL feel that it is ready, I'll let you guys have the honor of presenting it on the Open forum.
Im wary to mess with the overall number of MD slivers too much because like we decided before there is a critical mass of slivers (3-4) necessary to put up a decent clock or defense. This is not only due to the added affects your meat hooks give but also the number of meat hooks you have in play.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pinder
I was concerned when the MD Sliver count was at 15. So 12 creatures, even suplimented with more draw, doesnt look good to me. Adding more draw might dig you to the same amount of slivers with better individual quality but you sacrifice tempo in that you lack a 1 drop and youre digging for your hooks.
Think of it like this: 2x 3/3 (2x muscle sliver) is the same clock as 3 x 2/3 (2x plated, 1 muscle), but only 2 bodies for your opponant to deal with is not as effective as 3.
I would not take the Plated Slivers out of the maindeck list altogether but rather sub them out in a matchup where clock and defense isnt going to matter as much as draw and disruption.
EDIT: Im glad CoV is back in the list but it never left mine. That card is assinine.:wink:
Don't worry about it. I wholly agree that the list as it stands now is more than ready for the Open Forum. Sure, it could get some tweaking in certain variable slots, but as for the core (which should definitely include Plated Sliver because I'm an idiot), including the mana base, is largely agreed on. Chain vs EE or Call is almost just a metagame choice anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by Volt
And you're right, I shouldn't let a bad night of testing get to me. I have a tendency to do that, getting discouraged by a random occurence over proven results. I still think that CoV should take its rightful place in the main, though. We can cut the Portents (8 Cantrips should be enough) and put in 3 MD Plated Slivers, bringing the count back up to 16 (the list as it stands right now runs 17). I think we can safely move EE to the board against Thresh (we can side out Chains for them because they makes Chains less useful anyway), and I thinkt that, given the choice, I would take CoV over Call. Call is good, but I agree with sockmonkey that the tempo Chain gives you is probably better for the deck.
And Mav is getting increasingly fond of the name 'Meat Hooks' for the deck, simply because you can say that you brought Meat Hooks to a tourney and beat everyone. Sick little bastard :wink:.
EDIT: I noticed this as well:
I think we're pretty close to having this thing in the Open :).Quote:
Originally Posted by frogboy
And in honor of me realizing that taking out Plated Sliver is dumb, I updated my avatar. I'm also thinking of making one of a Talon Sliver stabbing Piledriver :laugh:
I must admit Meat Hooks is a pretty catchy name. It definitely captures the flavor that Talon Sliver brings the deck, which is one of the things that distinguishes our deck from previous Counter Sliver builds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pinder
Okay, I guess it's time to re-evaluate CoV. To be honest, I never really tested it in the first place. I'm going to try out your suggested changes and see how I like it. One thing I'm concerned about is that we're continually weakening our game 1 matchup vs. storm combo. I don't want to always have to rely on winning games 2 and 3 vs. Iggy Pop and Solidarity, even though we would be favored to do so. But, we'll see how it goes.
I'm going to hope that by 'suggested changes' you mean 'putting CoV back in the main'. The other suggestions I made were fairly dumb. Sure, I suppose more cantrip could be nice, but not at the expense of the things we ought to be cantripping for. Silly me. My suggestion would be to take the Call and EE out and cut either a Plated or Talon Sliver for 3 MD CoV (or Plated and Talon, if you feel like 4 MD).Quote:
Originally Posted by Volt
Yes, those are the 'suggested changes' to which I was referring. And I'd take out a Plated before a Meat Hoo... er Talon Sliver. :wink:Quote:
Originally Posted by Pinder
I like "Meat Hooks" cause its Meat(muscle sliver) + Hooks(talon sliver) and it describes the way those little buggers look.Quote:
Originally Posted by Volt
One thing about CoV is that you can bounce a 0 turn drop Leyline of the Void vs. Iggy Pop, so its not entirely dead against all combo.
EDIT: IMO the number of slots that are up for debate has gone down to 6.
Lands(17) everyone's list is slightly different but its usually 17 lands.
1 Plains
2 Islands
1 Forests
4 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
1 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
Meat Hooks(16) 16+ Hooks is the minimum with only 8 draw
3 Plated Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
2 Winged Sliver
3 Talon Sliver
Remove(4)
4 Swords to Plowshares
Counter(9)
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
Draw/Quality(8)
4 Serum Visions
4 Brainstorm
Maindeck Meta Choice(4)
4 Chain of Vapor/Stifle (other one goes in the SB)
Left Over(2)
2 Something (Another land, Counterspell #3, Daze#4, Plated Sliver #4, Eladmari's Call, EE,etc.)
Thats 4 slots either/or, and 2 left over meaning 90% of the deck is set, 7% is a meta call, and 3% is miscillaneous. I think that qualifies as a generally agreed upon deck list. As for optimised, that part can be debated.
I might try a 3/3 split of Chain of Vapor/Stifle to shore up the left over slots. I wonder if the split would be benefitial pre SB.
Also COV can deal with defense grid, Worship not to mention it bounces Aether Vial. Not that worship is much of an issue except for game 1 when you don't expect it.
8 cantrips will prove to be the correct number I think. Thresh differs from this deck's style of play in one very big way. Meathooks needs to play out multiple threats to win. Thresh can drop everyone's favorite mongoose turn one and then sit back sculpting its hand while still having a clock. As much as I love plated sliver, he can't pull off the same shinanigens. So we can't use as many cantrips as thresh without severly hampering our tempo.
IMO, Stifle is an auto 4-of. I'd cut Plated Sliver before I'd cut Stifle, and I'm not cutting Plated Sliver (shame on me for thinking of it). However, I'd like to see CoV in the main alongside Stifle. Both of them are spectacular tempo cards. I think that the core of the deck essentially looks like this:Quote:
Originally Posted by xsockmonkeyx
//Lands (17)
4 Tundra
4 Tropical Island (or you can run 3 trop 1 savannah)
3 Windswept Heath
3 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island
//Dudes (16-17)
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
3-4 Plated Sliver
2-3 Talon Sliver
2 Winged Sliver
//Draw (8)
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
//Removal (8)
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Chain of Vapor
//Permission (8)
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
//Other Stuff (2-3)
...
Which leaves us with 2 slots open, 3 if we're only running 16 Slivers. These could really be much of anything, and we've toyed with more cantrip, EE, Eladamri's Call, and Counterspell in those slots before.
I honestly think that if nything is going to be metagame dependant, it's the sideboard (because that's what it's there for). What we need to do is iron out the last few slots for a standard list, and focus on our metagaming in games 2 and 3 after boarding.
...That decklist is Stifle-less.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pinder
Its also 56 cards, meaning....doh, its 60.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blair Phoenix
EDIT:
How about a 3 Stifle, 3 CoV split for game 1? How about 16 lands?