[Deck] CounterSliver 2.0 (MeatHooks.dec)

I chose Wonder over Winged Sliver because it's easier to develop... it doesn't require you're creature drop for the turn (since you discard it to get another creature), and it's 1cc less. This is why I'm running 1 Talon Sliver rather than 1 Valor. Right now, I'm still testing the merits of Wonder vs Winged and I'm not entirely sure which one works better in more situations. This could go either way, I still need more testing.

Well, I think Harmonic is still a great option, but I don't see the deck needing the virtual artifact/enchantment answers maindeck, and if it does, I'd still want to keep Sex Monkey. The Sex Monkey answers the maindeck Pithing Needles of Threshold, while Harmonic Sliver defeats the purpose. It also blows up Vial against Goblins without destroying your own Survival. Harmonic shines against decks with a higher density of artifacts/enchantments, like Affinity and Faerie Stompy. Against these decks, I think sideboarding in Harmonic Sliver will be suffcient (although this needs tested).

I never found myself ever wanting Genesis in playtesting but he may still be a good option vs 4c Landstill with Pernicious Deed... but I think he'd be more appropriate in the sideboard (again, this needs tested).

Talon Sliver is important because it allows you to combination block large creatures while you develop your board position. Playing Survival on turn 2 slows your tempo down a bit early on and it takes a few turns to establish a creature base that will outsize Werebears and such. Talon Sliver allows you to block with 1/1's and 2/2's to keep them from attacking. This won't always be the case but it has helped me to survive a few situations where I would have died because my opponent had too much of a tempo advantage. It may not be extremely important, but as a 1-of, it's not bad (again, needs testing).

Essence Sliver and Ward Sliver, much like Sliver Queen, seems like overkill. I may be wrong, and Essence Sliver may in fact be a great idea, I'm just not quite sure if it's necessary. Talon Sliver and Crystalline Sliver > Ward Sliver (for sure), but Essence Sliver could be a very good option for recovering from an early game ass whooping. I had considered Dark Heart Sliver in the board but Essence Sliver seems like it would be a stronger option vs things like Burn (again, needs testing).

Does anyone even run Psychogenic Probe? I mean, even if in some rare circumstance they did, Sex Monkey would answer it if my countermagic didn't.

Probe was meant as a joke. I thought of it after I realized my hands were tired from shuffling :p

And also I didn't mean to imply Winged OVER Wonder, but rather in addition to. Wonder is an amazing card with Survival, but not having any alternative can lead to trouble. I might be worrying about nothing since GY hate isn't overly great against the deck and you only need a couple uses out of Survival to get it into the yard, but still...

Ok you guys, enough clogging of the thread. Survival does seem like an interesting and possibly powerful variant of the deck. If you want to keep developing it why don't you start a new thread to address the subject.

Yeah, this thread is hopelessly long and messy as it is. It would probably be worthwhile to start a new thread for the Survival variant. As long as I'm here, though, what do you think of this list, Hanni? :)

Lands ( 18 )
4 Flooded Strand
3 Windswept Heath
4 Tundra
4 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest

Creatures ( 24 )
4 Plated Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
2 Meddling Mage
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Gemhide Sliver
1 Talon Sliver
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Mystic Snake
1 Winged Sliver

Spells ( 18 )
4 Brainstorm
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares


The 2 Meddling Mages are in there to be tutored up against combo. I chose Winged Sliver over Wonder because Wonder is a terrible draw without an active Survival. The Mystic Snake is in there as a tutorable counterspell on legs (so to speak), but is perhaps the iffiest choice in my list.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Volt

Yeah, this thread is hopelessly long and messy as it is. It would probably be worthwhile to start a new thread for the Survival variant. As long as I'm here, though, what do you think of this list, Hanni? :)

Lands ( 18 )
4 Flooded Strand
3 Windswept Heath
4 Tundra
4 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest

Creatures ( 24 )
4 Plated Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
2 Meddling Mage
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Gemhide Sliver
1 Talon Sliver
1 Uktabi Orangutan
1 Mystic Snake
1 Winged Sliver

Spells ( 18 )
4 Brainstorm
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
4 Swords to Plowshares


The 2 Meddling Mages are in there to be tutored up against combo. I chose Winged Sliver over Wonder because Wonder is a terrible draw without an active Survival. The Mystic Snake is in there as a tutorable counterspell on legs (so to speak), but is perhaps the iffiest choice in my list.

---

I would say its bad, has no mana acceleration, and is slower than a lava flow. But then I realize its a joke, and in that case I think its the awsome sauce. :wink: Of a more constructive nature...I would fear EE at 2 :eek: . And a one of Witness would probably help more than the Meddling Mage.

I had a deck like this (slivers + survival) when gemhide came out. It might actually be playable with 8 muscle slivers now. Pure aggro with disruption is the way to go; trying to make it aggro-control and survival is like slapping 30 cards from two decks together.

"Chia Pets"

(mana)

4 Plated Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
3 Gemhide Sliver
3 Heart Sliver
1 Talon Sliver
1 Quick Sliver
(other slivers)

3-4 Pyroclasm
4 Cabal therapy/duress
4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Survival of the Fittest
2 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Aether Vial

2 Jitte

Or something like that. It was all about pumping out like 3-4 muscle slivers and then going to town.

Quote:

---

As long as I'm here, though, what do you think of this list, Hanni? :)

---

Looks fine to me, though I'm still partial on leaving Daze in.

Quote:

---

I would say its bad, has no mana acceleration, and is slower than a lava flow. But then I realize its a joke, and in that case I think its the awsome sauce. Of a more constructive nature...I would fear EE at 2 . And a one of Witness would probably help more than the Meddling Mage.

---

No mana acceleration? I think you're forgetting about Gemhide Sliver... or the fact that the creature base has 2cc creatures and not 4cc creatures like typical Surival builds. Also, EE at 2 can meet Force of Will or the sideboard Stifles... or simply Orangutan if they can't pop EE in the same turn it's cast. I didn't think he was joking, but maybe he was. I guess no one likes Survival at all, huh? Then again, no one has probably tried it.

Quote:

---

Pure aggro with disruption is the way to go; trying to make it aggro-control and survival is like slapping 30 cards from two decks together.

---

Why does the deck have to go pure aggro to make Survival work? The control portion helps protect Survival if nothing else and it still gets to retain its good combo matchup. The only thing Survival does is add a draw engine to the deck that tutors up exactly the creature you need, whether it be Crystalline or Talon, or simply back-to-back Muscles to win. How is it slapping 2 decks together? It's almost exactly the same deck minus Visions and the multiples of Winged Sliver, basically.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hanni

How is it slapping 2 decks together? It's almost exactly the same deck minus Visions and the multiples of Winged Sliver, basically.

---

...and Squee, and gemhides, and wonder, and sex monkeys, etc.

I dont know, it always seems to degenerate into a RGSA/Sliver hybrid that does many things good but nothing well. Its probably more viable with sinew now but it still looks like a pile.

If you could keep it as UWG slivers with the Survival engine to power it out then it might be good, but adding crap to exploit SotF seems greedy.

I wasn't joking, but I've also done zero testing. To be honest, I have my doubts that adding Survival is really an improvement. My UWg list (sans Survival) already goes 70-30 against Goblins, and I have a hard time believing that spending my 2nd turn to play a Survival instead of a sliver is a good play in that matchup. Also, I don't have to do any playtesting to know that Survival is not going help me beat Iggy or Solidarity; the only use it could really serve in those matchups is as a tutor for Meddling Mage. Thresh typically runs 3 maindeck Pithing Needles, and I don't think 1 sex monkey is going to keep your Survival safe.

However, Hanni seems pretty insistent that it's worth it, so I'm not going to dismiss it out of hand.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by xsockmonkeyx

If you could keep it as UWG slivers with the Survival engine to power it out then it might be good, but adding crap to exploit SotF seems greedy.

---

After playing around with it the last couple evenings, this is exactly right. The more stuff you shove in to try to exploit Survival, the weaker the deck overall gets. At this point I've essentially cut everything but Squee who is too insane with Survival to not include. Even Wonder makes the deck weaker in my experience. If you think of Survival as a reusable tutor rather than a card to build around, then it's an amazing addition. Its a card quality improver in a deck that sorely needs it but the deck doesn't buckle to hate targeted at the Survival any more then hate targeted at Eladamri's Call would.

Volt's assessment of the effect on the top 3 decks is pretty accurate as they don't really help there for various reasons, but they don't really hurt either. It's against the misc other decks people play that Survival really helps. I feel like it really smoothes out how the deck plays and makes it more consistent, much more then Call or Serum Visions does.

For reference, here's what I'm testing now. I did leave in the singleton Essence, but he's nice even without Survival so I don't feel like he weakens the deck like other Survival targets did. I also upped the land count a smidge since Survival doesn't help you dig for lands like SV.

Land (19)
4 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
2 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
1 Savannah
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest

Spells (21)
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
3 Daze/Stifle (whichever makes you happy)
4 Brainstorm
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Swords to Plowshares

Creatures (20)
4 Plated Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
2 Winged Sliver
1 Essence Sliver
1 Squee, Goblin Naboo

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CrunchBite

After playing around with it the last couple evenings, this is exactly right. The more stuff you shove in to try to exploit Survival, the weaker the deck overall gets. At this point I've essentially cut everything but Squee who is too insane with Survival to not include. Even Wonder makes the deck weaker in my experience. If you think of Survival as a reusable tutor rather than a card to build around, then it's an amazing addition. Its a card quality improver in a deck that sorely needs it but the deck doesn't buckle to hate targeted at the Survival any more then hate targeted at Eladamri's Call would.

Volt's assessment of the effect on the top 3 decks is pretty accurate as they don't really help there for various reasons, but they don't really hurt either. It's against the misc other decks people play that Survival really helps. I feel like it really smoothes out how the deck plays and makes it more consistent, much more then Call or Serum Visions does.

For reference, here's what I'm testing now. I did leave in the singleton Essence, but he's nice even without Survival so I don't feel like he weakens the deck like other Survival targets did. I also upped the land count a smidge since Survival doesn't help you dig for lands like SV.

Land (19)
4 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
2 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
1 Savannah
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest

Spells (21)
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
3 Daze/Stifle (whichever makes you happy)
4 Brainstorm
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Swords to Plowshares

Creatures (20)
4 Plated Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
2 Winged Sliver
1 Essence Sliver
1 Squee, Goblin Naboo

---

Now this is a build I can get on board with. Nice work, Crunch.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Volt

Now this is a build I can get on board with. Nice work, Crunch.

---

Yay, doesnt look half bad.

Does SotF clog your opening mana resources? When do you want to drop Survival? Is the engine worth opening yourself up to graveyard hate and Pithing Needle?

The deck still needs 1 Gemhide Sliver regardless. Without 1 Gemhide in the maindeck, turn 2 Survival sucks.

Since your build is only running 4 cantrips I don't think you can cheat on the manabase anymore, 19 lands just won't cut it. You should up you land count to 20 or maybe even 22.

@Mav You're probably right. I'm still up in the air, but 19 seems to be working decently at the moment...

@Hanni I disagree. Certainly you can speed things up a bit with him, but I find that there's very few games I'd rather play Gemhide over a pump Sliver, nor do I really want to be tapping my Slivers instead of attacking or saving for defense. Can you expand on him a little bit? Maybe I'm missing something.

@SockMonkey Yes it does mess up mana a little bit. With SoTF it's no longer a green splash in the deck, and 3 is a good number of mana to hit since it lets you Survival and play a Sliver. It also cuts down the number of Cantrips, so keepable starting hands are a little more rare without more land in the deck. That's why I upped the mana count and will probably do it again.

As far as when to play, it depends what's in your hand, the board situation and what deck you're up against. I generally find it's best to stay aggressive and only play it either when you don't have a better Sliver to play or have the mana to really exploit it. Generally I'll only play it second turn if I don't have a Crystalline to play. It's almost always a mistake to play Survival out before Crystalline and Pump Slivers (depending on the amount of removal in the deck you're against) in my experience.

As far as dealing with hate, it depends. GY hate is mostly worthless and I'd be happy to see people boarding it against me since it wastes their deck space. It's nothing but a knee-jerk reaction against Survival. The only GY target left in my build is Squee and losing Squee doesn't make Survival useless, just less insane. It just changes Survival from Card Advantage and Card Quality to Card Quality. If you're worried about it, you can always play a second Squee in the board.

Pithing Needle is the only piece of hate that worries me, mostly because there are no previously good Pithing targets in the deck, so a useless card for them suddenly becomes good card for them. If they run them, I'd actually consider boarding out the Survival, especially against Thresh. Thresh doesn't play well at all with Survival. With Daze, Force, Needle and Mage, it'll never hit play, but if you board them out, they'll be wasting hate against a card you aren't playing any more. I'm still uncertain how best to deal with Needles.

@Volt Thank you :)

Despite my misgivings about survival in this deck, I am going to give it a shot. With squee it is savage card advantage, as well as a great tutor. Results to follow.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CrunchBite

Pithing Needle is the only piece of hate that worries me, mostly because there are no previously good Pithing targets in the deck, so a useless card for them suddenly becomes good card for them. If they run them, I'd actually consider boarding out the Survival, especially against Thresh. Thresh doesn't play well at all with Survival. With Daze, Force, Needle and Mage, it'll never hit play, but if you board them out, they'll be wasting hate against a card you aren't playing any more. I'm still uncertain how best to deal with Needles.

---

I think it would be hilarious to find opponants boarding in hate to remove 1 squee or in knee-jerk reaction to survival. It could be secret anti-sideboard tech for a while ;)

As for needles, Harmonic Sliver is obviously less viable. Sex Monkey seems underwhelming, but it does counter chalice at 1, 2. Theres always Dienchant/Natualize or its big brother Krosan Grip. EDIT: EE is also an option which hits chalice.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CrunchBite

Volt's assessment of the effect on the top 3 decks is pretty accurate as they don't really help there for various reasons, but they don't really hurt either. It's against the misc other decks people play that Survival really helps.

---

It might be nice to tutor up mutiple mages out of the board to fight combo, but it might be too slow to be a viable strategy. Against goblins your manabase is now more suspect but none more than going 4 colors i suppose.

I did some playtesting over the weekend against UGw Thresh. I was playing the following decklist:

// land
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
4 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Plains

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

// instants
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Counterspell

// sorceries
4 Serum Visions

// sideboard
4 Harmonic Sliver
4 Meddling Mage
4 Stifle
3 Talon Sliver

My playtest partner (Nick a.k.a. Nightshade81) was playing Hatfield Thresh (the same list that Jesse piloted to 2nd place at the 10/7/06 D4D, except we tweaked the sideboard to include 4x Meddling Mage, since there was really nothing in Jesse's list to help against slivers).

Pre-sideboard: Meat Hooks won 9-3. Slivers have inevitability, with 12 pump slivers and 3 Winged Slivers to dominate the board. Getting a Crystalline into play garners a ton of virtual card advantage, but isn't strictly necessary to win. After a few games, Nick realized he pretty much had to play 'The Beatdown' role, hoping to drop 2 or 3 quick threshed Mongeese/Werebears into play and try to rush me. Generally, he couldn't pull it off.

Post-sideboard: Meat Hooks won 8-6. Nick sided out 3 Pithing Needles (which are essentially dead cards anyway) and 1 other card to make room for 4 Meddling Mages. The Meddling Mages helped him out quite a bit. The first one he played would usually name Crystalline Sliver (if I hadn't already managed to get one into play). This was a great play for him, as it not only made my Crystallines unplayable, but also kept his removal good. It was a huge swing in virtual card advantage. I changed my sideboarding strategy a few times during the set, and I'm not sure I found the correct one. Talon Slivers should certainly be sided in, as First Strike is *very* good against Thresh. Meddling Mages are also pretty decent against Thresh, but I'm not sure they're worth it. The hard part is deciding what to side out. If you're going 2nd, you can easily side the Dazes out. Beyond that, though, it gets tough. Serum Visions are about the only other semi-obvious choice. Counterspells could possibly be sided out as well.

Conclusions: Based on this play session, I would have to say that Meat Hooks is favored about 2-1 against UGw Thresh sans Meddling Mage. However, the matchup against UGW Thresh with Meddling Mage is much tougher. I would say it's roughly even or perhaps slightly favorable for Meat Hooks.

Hi! Bit of a newbie here, but was hoping for some feedback on a deck of mine since everyone here seems so experienced and knowledgeable.

Some things I've been considering after a little playtesting(very little. Not many people around to play Magic with):

1) I used to run Arcane Denial, but switched it out after a fair amount of criticism against it. However with Winter Orb, it now seems to have less of a drawback than before(plus it being a hard counter is always nice)

2) I've been thinking of putting in two Sedge Slivers into the mainboard and an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth into the sideboard. Good/Bad idea?

Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

Waffle Controller

Creatures(20):
3x Crystalline Sliver
3x Gemhide Sliver
4x Muscle Sliver
4x Sinew Sliver
3x Winged Sliver
4x Birds of Paradise

Sorcery/Instants(13):
4x Living Wish
3x Memory Lapse
3x Remand
2x Swords to Plowshares

Enchantments/Artifacts(10):
4x AEther Vial
3x Winter Orb
2x Worship

Lands(18):
4x City of Brass
4x Gemstone Mines
4x Reflecting Pool
4x Thran Quarries
1x Temple Garden
1x Breeding Pool

Sideboard(15):
1x Crystalline Sliver
1x Frenetic Sliver
1x Fury Sliver
1x Gemhide Sliver
1x Harmonic Sliver
1x Necrotic Sliver
1x Plague Sliver
1x Psionic Sliver
1x Pulmonic Sliver
1x Root Sliver
1x Shadow Sliver
1x Sliver Overlord
1x Sliver Queen
1x Ward Sliver
1x Meddling Mage

Hi, Rasen. I'll give you a few of my thoughts about your build.

Positives:
1. I like the synergy of Winter Orb/Aether Vial/Gemhide Sliver. Very nice.

2. Crystalline Sliver + Worship will auto-win you some games.

3. The Living Wish toolbox strategy is interesting.


Negatives:
1. No Force of Will = bad times vs. combo

2. Your choice of counterspells in general is a little odd. Why play Memory Lapse or Remand over Counterspell?

3. The manabase is really asking for trouble. Running 4 Reflecting Pools and 4 Thran Quarries is courting disaster. Whatever experiences you may have had in casually testing this deck, you're going to find yourself getting landscrewed quite often if you use this manabase at a high level tournament. You might be able to get away with running 1 Reflecting Pool, but I'd ditch the Thran Quarries altogether. I'm guessing you don't have any of the old dual lands, which would explain Temple Garden + Breeding Pool. However, for the purposes of discussion in this forum, you should disregard whatever 'real life' cardpool limitations you have, and include stuff like fetch lands and original duals in whatever decklists you share.

4. It looks like your strategy is to eventually get Sliver Queen into play, which might explain your risky manabase, in part. However, it's just not worth it. Sliver Queen is too slow, and would generally just be a "win more" card anyway.