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?
GSZ only searches green creatures, no Crystalin/Winged ->bad
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 ;) )
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-Dűl, the Necromancer
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
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.Originally Posted by from Cairo
Asylum EDH: Foil or go home.
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).
Decks that I care about:
Steel Stompy
UWx Landstill
Dreadstalker
DDFT (10% practice)
Mangara on MWS? You must be masochistic. -kiblast
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?
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.
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
Decks that I care about:
Steel Stompy
UWx Landstill
Dreadstalker
DDFT (10% practice)
Mangara on MWS? You must be masochistic. -kiblast
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.
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.
Asylum EDH: Foil or go home.
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.
Last edited by from Cairo; 07-06-2011 at 05:08 AM.
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.
Would you mind to post the decklist? This seems interesting :)
True strength lies in action. Let the weak react to me! -Kamahl, Pit Fighter
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?
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!
Most people blindly suggest new cards for decks. True contributors also suggest what to remove. It's not about what's good, but rather what's better than the current selections.
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
Opinions are like assholes, everybody's got one
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.
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