[Deck] CounterSliver 2.0 (MeatHooks.dec)

I have a thought on the way this deck is going...

It seems to me that its closest relative is Threshold. It is one of several Threshold-esque decks running around these days. Theshold is in three (or four) colors because its creatures are Green while all the actual good cards are in other colors. Don't you think that Threshold would be playing two colors if it could? Consider the following:

1. The mana base would be easier to smooth out in two colors leaving room for something like Wasteland or Ancient Tomb or whatever.

2. If you guys are going to play three colors, it should be UWR for maximum exposure to the same cards Threshold wants to have - Lightning Bolt, STP, Fire//Ice, etc, not for more creatures.

Bottom line, the hard work for this deck is done. It was done with Threshold. Keep the U and W Slivers you already have and if you look to a third color it is only for the control elements that we all know.

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Originally Posted by Finn

2. If you guys are going to play three colors, it should be UWR for maximum exposure to the same cards Threshold wants to have - Lightning Bolt, STP, Fire//Ice, etc, not for more creatures.

Bottom line, the hard work for this deck is done. It was done with Threshold. Keep the U and W Slivers you already have and if you look to a third color it is only for the control elements that we all know.

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Actually, my first pick for a third color would still be green. Why? 8 Muscle Slivers. It's just that good.

@ Finn

But Finn, this deck doesn't splash for nearly as much green as Threshold does (8-10 sources MD in Thresh vs 5 sources MD in Slivers) and doesn't splash for nearly as much black (in place of red or white) as Threshold does (4-8 sources MD in Thresh vs 2 sources MD in Slivers). Thusly, the deck isn't nearly as weak to LD as 4c Threshold is, even with all of their cantrip. In fact, you can play a 3c deck with a much more restrictive manabase based on splash (UWR Scepter for example wants to run Lightning Helix, Fire//Ice, Meddling Mage MD or SB, etc). Instead of arguing mana issues, has anyone actually ran 4c Slivers through a gauntlet of LD including Goblins? I have.

Why would this deck need the same cards as Threshold? I realize it's blue-based control with a very similar blue based package + StP but that's pretty much where the similarities end. Why would this deck need Fire//Ice or Lightning Bolt? The deck runs an increased threat density which can deal with threats by outsizing them and blocking them. The big reason UGw Thresh wants to add red in addition is to increase it's matchup against Goblins (which is put through checks and balances with its manabase)... a matchup which is already great for Slivers. Again, this deck isn't built on the same creature idea as Threshold. Why would this deck want more removal and less Slivers? Each Sliver increases in strength from every other Sliver on the table, not from filling the graveyard. The more Slivers you put into play, the stronger your creature base is.

The UW shell now is stronger than it was in the previous UWg due to less dependance on the green Muscle Sliver and instead of attempting to build a rock solid manabase, I decided to go with 1337 tech in the form of Hibernation Sliver. Board control is typically a hard/bad matchup for aggro/control and Hibernation Sliver ableviates that. Not only that, it gives you 2 more sources of Crystalline Sliver (which is probably the most important Sliver). You want to make sure your threats don't die; undying threats creates virtual card advantage. The reason Slivers can lack actual card draw is due to all the virtual card advantage that the Slivers themselves provide.

@ Everyone else

Take this list through a gauntlet of LD including Goblins and if your not impressed, don't run it. The deck is so sick though...

UWgb 4c Slivers

Lands (18)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Plains

Creatures (19)
4 Plated Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
3 Muscle Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
2 Hibernation Sliver
1 Winged Sliver
1 Harmonic Sliver

Spells (23)
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
1 Eladamri's Call
3 Stifle
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares

Sideboard (15)
3 Duress
2 Extirpate
4 Meddling Mage
2 Winged Sliver
2 Hibernation Sliver
2 Harmonic Sliver

If anyone wants to ask/discuss why I'm running Daze and not Counterspell, the manabase, only 1 Winged Sliver MD, only 3 Stifle, or whatever else, feel free to do so. My sideboard is still in the development process, as I've been changing it back and forth for now. I think the maindeck is pretty strong though.

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Originally Posted by Hanni

Take this list through a gauntlet of LD including Goblins and if your not impressed, don't run it. The deck is so sick though...

UWgb 4c Slivers

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Of course it's sick. What have we been talking about? However, it's not sick because you threw in a couple of black duals and a couple of Hibernation Slivers. UWg with 8 muscle slivers is plenty sick already.

I will once again concede that Hibernation Sliver is handy when going up against decks with mass removal. That is the only legitimate reason to start splashing black.

As well as gaining Crystalline Sliver #6 against decks with tons of spot removal, where you want increased chances of seeing one. As well as using it as psuedo-first strike to stack block larger creatures (replacing Talon). As well as using it as psuedo-vigilance. What I am saying is, it is very versatile. The manabase is not wrecked going 4c. Before Planar Chaos, you had 4 Crystalline 4 Muscle. After Planar Chaos, you have 6-8 Crystalline and 6-8 Muscle Sliver. That's what I find sick.

Having tested against Hanni the other day, I can say that Hibernation sliver is what wins matches that crystalline doesn't. Despite what should have been a favorable matchup for me, Hibernation won him games 1 and 3. I had spot removal, mass removal, and land destruction to attack his manabase, but hibernation made sure he didn't run out of threats.

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Originally Posted by Hanni

As well as gaining Crystalline Sliver #6 against decks with tons of spot removal, where you want increased chances of seeing one.

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I always thought that's what Eladamri's Call was for. I gotta agree with Volt here, unless your meta has lots of board sweepers, splashing just for hibernation doesn't seem especially worthwhile. It makes some some nice combat tricks but with 7-8 muscle and 4 plated your slivers have pretty good survivability in combat anyway.

That said, there are other reasons to run black as well. Duress/Therapy and Extripate in the board vastly improve the matchup against most combo and some other decks.

I think I'll stick with UWg but mostly cause I don't wanna spring the cash for an Underground Sea or two :laugh:

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Originally Posted by Hanni

As well as gaining Crystalline Sliver #6 against decks with tons of spot removal, where you want increased chances of seeing one. As well as using it as psuedo-first strike to stack block larger creatures (replacing Talon). As well as using it as psuedo-vigilance. What I am saying is, it is very versatile. The manabase is not wrecked going 4c. Before Planar Chaos, you had 4 Crystalline 4 Muscle. After Planar Chaos, you have 6-8 Crystalline and 6-8 Muscle Sliver. That's what I find sick.

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Okay. Perhaps I am being overly obstinate. I'm going to give it a fair shake. I'm not going to run exactly the same list you're running, but I'm going to squeeze in a couple Hibernation Slivers and see how I like them.

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

4 Crystalline
2 Hibernation
4 Sinew
4 Muscle
2 Winged
4 Plated

4 StP
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
4 Force of Will
4 Stifle
2 Counterspell

It's also kinda cool to bounce a blue Sliver to hand to pitch to FoW if you need to, however rare that situation may occur.

Well Hanni, as much as i dont like the mana base...It seems as if you may have broken the deck and given it the boost it needed to become tier one. Congrats!

Yes, Hibernation cleans up this deck only major weakness, board sweepers. But are those sweepers common enough to justify this change. Or might we be better off sideboarding a single Underground Sea and 2-3 Hibernation Slivers. I guess that answer is meta dependent.

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Originally Posted by Volt

4 Crystalline
2 Hibernation
4 Sinew
4 Muscle
2 Winged
4 Plated

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I actually like this creature base more than Hanni's.

What I still disagree with you guys on is Stifle. I've tested this card a lot, as have others in Threshold. And people have always opted for Daze + Counterspell over it bc it's the better combination.

This deck has a different creaturebase than thresh sure, but it's not mechansistically that different. The only situation I could see Stifle being neceesary before is vs Deed and Disk, but Hiberantion changes this as well.

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Originally Posted by Clark Kant

What I still disagree with you guys on is Stifle. I've tested this card a lot, as have others in Threshold. And people have always opted for Daze + Counterspell over it bc it's the better combination.

This deck has a different creaturebase than thresh sure, but it's not mechansistically that different. The only situation I could see Stifle being neceesary before is vs Deed and Disk, but Hiberantion changes this as well.

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CounterSliver and Thresh are mechanistically quite different. Daze works well in Thresh because you can go turn 1, lay a land, play Nimble Mongoose, pass the turn, Daze something during your opponent's turn, and you're in good shape. You don't mind starting over with land drops on the 2nd turn, because the only 2-drop in your deck is Werebear, which you usually don't want to play until you have threshhold anyway. With CounterSliver, you really, really want to drop Crystalline Sliver on turn 2, or failing that, Muscle/Sinew Sliver. Picking up that first land to Daze something is almost never worth it. We can almost always deal with whatever our opponent plays in the first couple of turns by simply playing out slivers and making him worry about dealing with our threats. Also, I abhor having dead cards in my hand later in the game, and there's nothing worse than drawing a Daze late in the game when you're in a topdecking race with your opponent.

As far as Stifle goes, it has been in the deck since the beginning, and the only debate at this point is whether to run 3 or 4. It is very, very good against a wide variety of decks.

Call me crazy, but against decks packing board sweepers, wouldn't you want to hold back at least one counterspell to stop your board from getting wrecked? Or am I not doing it right?

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Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies

Call me crazy, but against decks packing board sweepers, wouldn't you want to hold back at least one counterspell to stop your board from getting wrecked? Or am I not doing it right?

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Of course. That's why I run 3 Counterspells, and Hanni runs 2 Hibernation Slivers. Not to mention Force of Will.

If you're implying that Daze would be useful as protection from board-sweepers, it isn't, at least not if your opponent has any sense.

I actually run 4 Counterspell MD. And as far as Stifle goes, it's good, but sometimes I do find it dead in my hand. However, it's not nearly as dead as Daze in the mid to late-game, and only slightly less useful in the early game. To be quite honest, I think the deck could run with either Stifle+Counterspell or Daze+Counterspell. If you want to use the latter, go ahead.

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Originally Posted by CrunchBite

I think I'll stick with UWg but mostly cause I don't wanna spring the cash for an Underground Sea or two

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Well, I do have Underground Seas :tongue:, and while I'm not completely sold on Hibernation, it also lets you bounce your Crystalline (I know, crazy right?) if you need to Swords one of your own dudes to gain life. And with how huge our dudes get, this can actually save you from dying.

I'll still need to do more testing, though.

Daze doesn't necessarily need to be used on turn 1. I can't think of any problematic turn 1 drops beyond Lackey, which this deck has a ton of answers for. Daze is a bit less amazing on the draw, but it's still early game protection (turn 2+). Many decks curve out all the way up to turn 4, where Daze is still impressive, and I've had Daze work in the lategame before too because my opponent simply tapped out to play a few things (some decks have mana activation costs, etc and tend to curve out constantly). If none of that seems impressive, it's also a way to combat Sinkhole or Vindicate on a land, which seems to be one of the decks worst matchups (for the 4c version). It can be dead late game but Counterspell is dead early game so I guess it's really a matter of where you think you need countermagic the most. Both pitch to FoW at either stage of the game so that they are less dead and both can be cantripped back into the deck.

Let me explain it this way. Counterspell is good in Thresh because they have a low threat density which is also very low in cc. Thresh spends it's time playing cantrips and will occasionally drop a low cost threat, where leaving UU open is extremely easy. In Slivers, you are constantly curving out to drop creatures... turn 1 Plated, turn 2 Crystalline, turn 3 Muscle Sliver, so on and so forth. During this time period, you cannot support Counterspell... leaving UU open isn't possible. This is also the time period where your most vulnerable. Against Threshold specifically, you need Daze. If they FoW or Daze your turn 2 Crystalline Sliver, your going to be in a bad position. Daze secures the early game dominance, which is where you need to establish yourself. Once the game progresses to the mid-late game, you no longer need countermagic protection nearly as much... you will have Crystalline/Hibernation Sliver to provide virtual protection, Harmonic Sliver to provide virtual removal against problematic artifacts/enchantments, and your threats will typically outsize your opponent's. You still have FoW if you truly need it.

The way Counterspell was argued before was that this deck wants to go the late game and Counterspell was useful there. The deck now has up to 4 more Muscle Slivers which shortens the clock immensely, with the game not needing to be drawn out nearly as long.

I still run Stifle because, even though the Goblins matchup is good, it's not an autowin. Stopping Ringleader and Matron is extremely strong. It also gives more answers to a 1st turn Lackey. Maybe even more important than any of these points, it protects the landbase from Wasteland, regardless of what deck is playing it. It answers randomness that you simply can't answer with countermagic, like Decree of Justice. It also is a much larger tempo boost than Counterspell against things like Deed and Engineered Explosives, with the addition of being 1cc cheaper. Stifle works well in Legacy, there are many activated and triggered abilites that Stifle is good against. I prefer Daze/Stifle over Counterspell/Stifle and Counterspell/Daze.

At any rate, I'm not trying to question people's motives for running Counterspell and not Daze, I'm just explaining my reasoning for running FoW/Daze/Stifle. This deck has an even larger threat density than UWb Fish and I had already tested Counterspell in there and ended up with the 4/3/3 FoW/Daze/Stifle base. I've tested that base an assload of times and it's proven most effective for me so far. However, I won't push the move to my counterbase because it might just be something that suits my playstyle and not others.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I don't necessarily think it's important to come to a common agreement on the exact decklist. The deck itself, the shell of the deck, is already fine-tuned. The little details between 1 or 2 Winged Sliver maindeck, etc seems more like playstyle differences and possibly even metagame differences. As far as development goes, I'd like to see the deck go 4c with Hibernation Sliver. That's about the only thing I'm trying to push.

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Originally Posted by Pinder

Well, I do have Underground Seas :tongue:, and while I'm not completely sold on Hibernation, it also lets you bounce your Crystalline (I know, crazy right?) if you need to Swords one of your own dudes to gain life. And with how huge our dudes get, this can actually save you from dying.

I'll still need to do more testing, though.

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I believe that your fears are somewhat existential in nature. Hibernation Sliver allows you to do things that you couldnt do before. If you have to pay life to bounce and choose slivers to save then why wouldnt you make a prudent decision at the time? Of course you would try save your valuable slivers in the face of board sweep and of course you would pay an appropriate amount of life depending on your current position. Without Hibernation you dont have to make any of these decisions which makes things easy. Humans like things that are easy, no? Dont fall into that trap and give Hibernation at least a fair shake.

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Originally Posted by xsockmonkeyx

I believe that your fears are somewhat existential in nature. Hibernation Sliver allows you to do things that you couldnt do before. If you have to pay life to bounce and choose slivers to save then why wouldnt you make a prudent decision at the time? Of course you would try save your valuable slivers in the face of board sweep and of course you would pay an appropriate amount of life depending on your current position. Without Hibernation you dont have to make any of these decisions of course, which makes things easy. Humans like things that are easy, no? Dont fall into that trap and give Hibernation at least a fair shake.

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Fair enough. However, on the flip side of that coin, I think some people are leaping to the conclusion that a black splash is somehow better and/or necessary without really giving the new UWg build a fair shake. As I indicated yesterday, I'm going to give Hibernation Sliver a fair shake. However, I already know from experience that it is difficult to consistently support 4 colors in a deck with only 18 lands. This debate reminds me a a bit of the old debate about UGWb Thresh (i.e. 'Bob Thresh') vs UGW Thresh. That debate is pretty much dead now. Guess who won?

I actually think there is some merit to Clark Kant's suggestion of running 1 Underground Sea, with Hibernation Sliver and other black cards in the sideboard.

For those attempting to try the 4c list, run 1 Underground Sea and 1 Scrubland rather than 2 Underground Sea. This enables you to do Tropical Island -> Scrubland to get all 4 colors if you need to. It also gives you an extra white source, since the manabase is already predominantly blue (8 fetches to get the lone Island with Tundra's and Tropical Island's producing blue also).

This is the manabase I constructed and it seems to be doing well. It's might not be the best combination since I haven't tried anything else.

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

Including fetchlands, the deck has:
16 blue sources
13 white sources
11 green sources
10 black sources

I don't really want to go any lower with black since I also have black sideboard cards. I also don't want to drop a Tropical Island for another Tundra since the deck has a basic Plains and no basic Forest. However, going up to 14 white sources might be a good idea. I'll keep testing the manabase but it's been working well thus far.

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Originally Posted by Hanni

For those attempting to try the 4c list, run 1 Underground Sea and 1 Scrubland rather than 2 Underground Sea. This enables you to do Tropical Island -> Scrubland to get all 4 colors if you need to.

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Good idea.


I would try and make room for two basic Islands in the manabase you listed above, though, because it's very nice to be able to fetch unwastelandable UU.