[Deck] Countersliver (MeatHooks)

[claudio.r]

Any possibility of building a good UW counterslives list ???

Shure, hibernation and muscle are big losses, and the possibility of a better sideboard too. But with only 2 colors the deck becomes more consistent and can support waste and standstill.

Any UW slivers decklist we can get into and tune ??

Edit:

like aggro_zombies list:

4 Plated Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Winged Sliver
2 Mirror Entity

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

3 Mutavault
3 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
3 Island
1 Plains

[Humphrey]

If u run Wastes, i would also include Stifle, also i wouldnt run entity

so it would be:

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


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


4 Mutavault
4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
1 Maze of Ith
3 Tundra
3 Island
1 Plains

[Volt]

I've messed around with UW slivers before. Sorry to say, I never could find a build that didn't suck.

[BreathWeapon]

Isn't Aether Vial and Mutavault enough to support Standstill? With out Stifle or Vindicate, Wasteland is ineffectual; so why bother with Wasteland when Aether Vial and Mutavault, or even just Mutavault, let's you play Standstill? The only time it's problematic is when you're facing Mutavault + Wasteland, which is more or less just Merfolk and maybe Faeries, and it's a rare occurrence.

[Volt]

Isn't Aether Vial and Mutavault enough to support Standstill? With out Stifle or Vindicate, Wasteland is ineffectual; so why bother with Wasteland when Aether Vial and Mutavault, or even just Mutavault, let's you play Standstill? The only time it's problematic is when you're facing Mutavault + Wasteland, which is more or less just Merfolk and maybe Faeries, and it's a rare occurrence.

Aether Vial + Standstill will often win you the game, but Mutavault + Standstill is a risky proposition. Mutavault dies to Wasteland and can't go head to head with Mishra's Factory.

[RoddyVR]

I got top 4 in the Hadley Mox Ruby tourny this weekend with an UW slivers list.
Definetly felt like having either green for muscle or black for hibernation would have helped. The mana base "stability" helped in one match (had plains for swords), but being able to survive a "3 to all flyers firespout" would have helped alot in the two matches i actualy lost.

Added more Homing slivers yesterday to have a UW way to get to the sinews faster. It worked alright, but still had the same problem. Needs either more muscles or a way to save slivers. Harm's Way was prety usefull in having a way to save slivers that are about to die.

3/4th Roddy Ruban (RoddyVR) Slivers
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted delta
4 tundra
1 Volcanic Island
2 plains
2 island
4 mutavault
4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to plowshares
4 FOW
4 Standstill
2 Daze
2 Spellsnare
2 Brainstorm
4 Plated Slivers
4 Sinew Slivers
4 Crystalline Slivers
3 Winged Sliver
1 Talon Sliver
1 Quill Sliver
1 Homing Sliver

SB:
4 Burrenton Forge tender
4 Annul
3 Relic of progenitus
4 Aura of Silence

The sideboard sucked, got to the tourny later then i hoped, and had to rebuild/resleave and then register the deck there, so didnt realy have enough time to do the sideboard right.
Quill should probably not have made it to the main... just felt like i needed something to help combat with the absense of muscles.
Tourny report (from memory, so might get some things wrong)
Got bye round 1,
Won against Ichorid round 2. Game one i wont prety much on the back of landstills (which he broke with therapys) for the most part and countering all his dread returns. Game two i won cause his dredging was bad enough that my turn 1 Relic didnt get popped till like turn 6, and even then i popped it to get rid of 3 of his ichorids (no bridges i think).
Lost to Eric (all but white countertop) round 3. As always this match i can only win if i get a top turn 1.
Won round 4 against Josh on the back of an insane number of crystaline slivers (had 3 each game i think). He was playing... i guess its thresh with red, i think... unless i'm mixing the memory up with yesterday's tourny... dam.
ID round 5 into top 8.
Won top 8 against what Alan called "black zoo". Had a bunch of discard, and then magus of moon with goyfs... i'm still not realy sure what that deck was. Having two basic plains in the deck definetly helped here.
Lost top 4 to Eric again. man i hate his deck. He did the Firespout all flyers thing again. i think i might start siding out winged sliver against him, atleast then his firespouts will kill his bobs too.

[NiRVeS]

I have a sliver deck lying around for ages, but now I'm dusting it off for a friend to use at a small tournament this sunday. Could anyone help me build a sideboard for this?

Maindeck:
Creatures (19)
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
3 Winged Sliver
2 Harmonic Sliver
2 Essence Sliver

Artifacts (4)
4 Aether Vial

Instants (18)
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Leak *
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Fact or Fiction **

Lands (19)
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island
4 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
4 Flooded Strand
3 Windswept Heath
2 Mutavault

* Debatable: Counterspell? 2 Daze/2 Spell Snare split? Would do you think?
** Just wanted some instant-speed carddrawing. Should this be Standstill?

So, what to sideboard? Expected metagame:
1) Zoo / GoyfSligh
2) Merfolk
3) TempoTresh
4) CounterTopGoyfs
5) Ichorid
6) More Tribal

Contenders for SB-slots: Harm's Way, Burrenton Forge-Tender, Path to Exile, Abolish, Krosan Grip, Relic/Crypt, Rule of Law, Chill, Mind Harnass, Propaganda, Disrupt/Divert, Bouncespells, Annul, Negate, Standstill, Reveillark, Ethersworn Canonist, Sacred Ground, Trygon Predator, Meddling Mage, Gaddock Teeg.

If anyone could propose me some sideboard configurations, it would be greatly appreciated.

Grtz, Tom

[NiRVeS]

I've fiddled with my list some more and this is where I'm currently at:

Maindeck:
Creatures (19)
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
3 Winged Sliver
2 Harmonic Sliver
2 Essence Sliver

Artifacts (4)
4 Aether Vial

Instants & Sorceries (18)
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Snare
2 Daze
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Ponder

Lands (19)
1 Forest
1 Plains
2 Island
4 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
4 Flooded Strand
3 Windswept Heath
2 Mutavault

Sideboard:
4x Harm's Way
4x Relic of Progenitus
2x Tormod's Crypt
3x Krosan Grip
2x Sower of Temptation

Any thoughts on this, anyone? See my previous post for the expected metagame.

Thx,

Tom

[Silent Requiem]

Hello, I'm a Solidarity player looking to build an aggro or aggro-control deck. I love playing blue, but I dislike playing black or red. I'm hoping for something more competitive than my UG Madness deck, but still something funky (more than straight up beats).

How competitive is Countersliver? What are the matchups like? Why should I play this over Merfolk or Fairies?

I appreciate that these questions have undoubtedly been raised before, but the initial post does not cover them, and 40+ pages is a little daunting when I have not decided on whether to build the deck.

Thank you.

-Silent Requiem

[Volt]

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.

[AngryTroll]

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.

What pushed it out of playability? It seems like a couple of the white Slivers should be able to deal with the Zoo decks running around (Lifelink and First Strike). Lifelink stops the Merfolk decks, even if they do Islandwalk.

Thresh was never a terrible matchup, and Thresh is still the dominant deck in the format. What changed?

[Volt]

What pushed it out of playability? It seems like a couple of the white Slivers should be able to deal with the Zoo decks running around (Lifelink and First Strike). Lifelink stops the Merfolk decks, even if they do Islandwalk.

Thresh was never a terrible matchup, and Thresh is still the dominant deck in the format. What changed?

The Zoo matchup is bad because you need Crystalline Sliver just to have a chance. Even if you have it, the deck is slow compared to just dropping Nacatls and Goyfs. By the time you stabilize the board, you're in danger of getting burned out.

Merfolk is a 50/50-ish matchup. Thresh is also 50/50-ish. Basically, most of this deck's current matchups are 50/50 or worse. It's too much of a struggle to play a deck like that in a competitive field.

[matamagos]

I think playing slivers is more a personal election than a competitive choice. This deck will win you some games and is funny to play, but to win a tournament there are better aggrocontrol options.

I think the greatest weakness is the need of 2 or 3 slivers in play to become effective. In thresh, for example, every creature you play is a big threat to your opponent, while here a single sliver will hardly win you anything.

[Pastorofmuppets]

Couldn't you pick apart a Tempo Thresh list and finagle in the Slivers?

[matamagos]

Couldn't you pick apart a Tempo Thresh list and finagle in the Slivers?

it's a good idea, but there are two big problems:

1. we need white mana for sinew and crystalline.
2. CanadianThresh has only 8-12 creature slots. We need a strictly minimum of 15 (4 sinew+ 4 crystalline + 4 muscle + 3 winged)

And we will have to forget our mutavaults in benefit of the wastelands. With so few creatures the tribal effect will be reduced but... maybe anyways we should give it a try, just to check the idea.

[Pastorofmuppets]

Here's a UGr Tempo Thresh list that got 2nd at Gencon 2009. Cards with hashes next to them are cards that can go out.

Creatures (10)
4 Nimble Mongoose-
4 Tarmogoyf-
2 Vendilion Clique-

Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Fire / Ice-
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt-
4 Spell Snare
4 Stifle
4 Ponder

3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland (I really wouldn't want to cut it for Vaults, I might try cutting some duals and see what happens.)

Red becomes white...
So that's 18 open slots, yes? Minimum of 15 creatures, right? If so you can cut a Brainstorm or Ponder for Vial #4. So now here's the list.

Tempo Meathooks (Name patent pending)

Creatures (17)
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
3 Winged Sliver
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Opaline Sliver

Spells (25)
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
4 Stifle
4 AEther Vial
3 Swords to Plowshares

Lands (18)
I'm terrible at manabases.
Needs Wastelands, probably...

EDIT: so far on MWS the deck laid the smackdown on Elves! on turn 6. I'm getting a REALLY good feeling already. I know Opaline Sliver and Crystalline don't mix... Keep it or no?

[matamagos]

EDIT: so far on MWS the deck laid the smackdown on Elves! on turn 6. I'm getting a REALLY good feeling already. I know Opaline Sliver and Crystalline don't mix... Keep it or no?

Once I read in an article that we should only try one experiment at a time in a deck. So if you try to introduce slivers in canadian, better to concentrate in this idea and forget untested slivers like opaline.

And red is what makes tempo thresh a tempo deck. This seems more a classic uwg thresh list than a canadian. A canadian thresh can win a game when the opponent has cleaned the board by burning him. This is one of the difference this deck has from the old thresh.

[Pastorofmuppets]

Once I read in an article that we should only try one experiment at a time in a deck. So if you try to introduce slivers in canadian, better to concentrate in this idea and forget untested slivers like opaline.

And red is what makes tempo thresh a tempo deck. This seems more a classic uwg thresh list than a canadian. A canadian thresh can win a game when the opponent has cleaned the board by burning him. This is one of the difference this deck has from the old thresh.

The big thing I wanted from Thresh was the mana denial (Stifle and Wasteland)
Also, I want to use Necrotic Sliver somewhere, but I know I never will.

EDIT: Can I get some people to test this with? MWS is having one of its bad days. Scrubs everywhere.

[matamagos]

Sorry to change the subject of discussion. Has anyone tried this?



It has been played in some merfolk's decks, and I wonder why it would work there and not here.

The bad news are that we play crystalline, so we can not copy our sinew or muscle slivers while crystalline is on the board. On the other hand merfolk is more mana intensive than counterslivers, since our mana curve stops at 2, so we can easily have 3 open mana to play the changeling's hability.

the strenghts of the card are:

1. copy tarmo, dreadnought or tombstalker
2. get rid of legendary creatures
3. copy sinew or muscle sliver if we are able to

In addition it is a blue sliver, so we can pitch it with fows

[IXEquilibrium]

I run a UW sliver deck and I find that Mirror Entity serves the same purpose as Shapesharer, but it works better. There are no conflicts with copying your creatures with crystalline on the board either.

It's interesting to use as a removal for a resolved dreadnought though (i'd use swords, but then i give the opponent 12 life). Still don't know that it is worth it.