[Deck] Countersliver (MeatHooks)

[Curby]

I really like your list, but I'd cut the Wastelands - not that they're bad, but I think running 6 "brown" lands in a 3-color deck without a very high land count would indeed cause colored mana problems.

I was wondering about that myself.

Your proposed manabase will lead to a lot of dangerous or unkeepable opening hands. Two colorless lands is an auto-mulligan. Savannah + colorless land is terrible. Tropical Island + colorless land is slightly less terrible, but still terrible. You'll end up keeping a lot of hands with Tundra + colorless land, and praying that your opponent doesn't rout you with a single Wasteland. It is absolutely vital to our strategy to play Crystalline Sliver on turn 2 as often as possible. Merfolk can generally afford to be a little more patient with getting Lord of Atlantis into play, as it is often played as an enabler for a finishing strike (similar to Winged Sliver in Meathooks).

Just to put things in perspective, Merfolk runs 12-13 colored land with 7-8 colorless land, and it's just ONE color. I applaud your high finish, but I wonder if you wouldn't have done even better with a more forgiving manabase.

[necrowil]

I have Crystalline Sliver in play and Mutavault. My opponent attempts to use Wasteland on my Mutavault. In response to Wasteland, I make Mutavault a creature. So it has shroud now. Question is does Wasteland still affect it and if so, why?

[Curby]

Wasteland's activated ability fizzles (has no effect) because the ability's sole target is illegal upon resolution.

[Sek'Kuar]

And then a necro happened. Ok, here's the deal. Along with every other tribal deck in this format, Meathooks can benefit from this:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attac...1&d=1334651697

The card translated reads:

Cavern of Souls
Land
As Cavern of Souls enters the battlefield, choose a creature type.
T: Add to your mana pool.
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells of the chosen creature type. If this mana is spent on a spell, that spell can't be countered.

I'm just saying it should be considered. Discussion?

[Curby]

Countersliver can benefit from this card. Countersliver will not magically become usable with only this card.

The problem with Slivers is not mana fixing.

The problem with Slivers is not countermagic thrown at Slivers.

The problem with Slivers is that we need better Slivers.

Slivers are great at ground-pounding. No other tribe can run eight +1/+1 lords for 2 mana. They also have Shroud. But that's it.

Elves have card draw and cheating things into play via ramp. Goblins have library manipulation and cheating things into play via Lackey. Merfolk have countermagic, three forms of evasion, and other utility all built into their creatures.

Slivers, by and large, just win in combat... and that's when you have many of them out at once. Meanwhile, Mom+Knight wins fights with just two cards and four mana, all while providing a ton of utility via a land toolbox.

If you're going to win on the back of just being big, you need to be efficient with card slots. You can't spend 20 cards of your deck on an army that just beats, because you'll be outclassed by a deck that can spend just 8 cards on attackers, and have an extra 12 cards for utility.

The land makes Countersliver a better pet deck. It doesn't vault it into the top tier.

[Aggro_zombies]

To further those points, Merfolk is really the heir to Slivers, and still is even with this land. Yeah, Cavern of Souls makes your mana marginally less shitty, but you're still running a deck whose creatures are either lords or shroud guys but which don't do anything for you otherwise. Compare this to, say, Lord of Atlantis, which grants unblockability, or Merrow Reejerey, which allows for all kinds of tricks.

It also doesn't help that Maverick is putting pressure on decks to move towards more board control, which is precisely the sort of thing Slivers doesn't want to see. When EE for two = actual Wrath, and your opponent can find it with Trinket Mage and recur it with Academy Ruins, you have some problems.

I don't see this deck going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

[Sek'Kuar]

I know it isn't more than a pet deck, I just keep hoping. Although, honestly, with allies around, what's the likelihood that slivers will EVER come back to the game?

[Dzra]

I know it isn't more than a pet deck, I just keep hoping. Although, honestly, with allies around, what's the likelihood that slivers will EVER come back to the game?

Slivers was my first love, so naturally I'd find my way to this thread in light of Cavern of Souls... ;p It seems fairly likely to me that they'll eventually reprint some Slivers. WotC have been doing a lot of resurrecting old popular themes and Slivers have always been very popular. Really though, outside of printing some Slivers with card draw (ie Silvergill.sliver) and other relevant abilities, I doubt Slivers will see a come back as a deck. Slivers falls right into the trap that all tribal decks have of overextending, except without the ability to recover like Elves and Goblins. It has no Silvergill, no LoA, no Reejery, no Lacky, no Ringleader, etc and most importantly, it has none of the mana stability of the other tribal decks.

[Fizzeler]

I have been testing recently with a Countersliver deck and I think I have found the keys to resurrect this deck it needs refining, but in my testing I have found it has good match-ups against fair decks (tested against Canadian Thresh, Junk, and Goblins so far need a lot more testing to confirm)

So far the deck has shown promise and I think the key to that is being only UW

[theillest]

I have been testing recently with a Countersliver deck and I think I have found the keys to resurrect this deck it needs refining, but in my testing I have found it has good match-ups against fair decks (tested against Canadian Thresh, Junk, and Goblins so far need a lot more testing to confirm)

So far the deck has shown promise and I think the key to that is being only UW

list?

[Fizzeler]

list?

4 Crystalline Sliver
4 AEther Vial
2 Winged Sliver
2 Plated Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Phantasmal Image
2 Talon Sliver
2 Mutavault
2 Armageddon
4 Flooded Strand
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Tundra
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Daze
3 Spell Pierce
3 Force of Will
3 Wasteland
2 Island
2 Plains
3 Ponder
3 Brainstorm
SB: 3 Path to Exile
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Spell Pierce
SB: 2 Daze
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 2 Armageddon

It needs refining, I am still unsure on Armageddon

[DarkAkuma]

I still have my CounterSlivers deck together from 4 years ago. It's interesting to see green removed, and image used instead of Muscle. I may try that myself since I always had to borrow 4 Trops, and getting 4 images would be a ton easier. 1 less color for the deck always sounds nice if it could handle it.

Armageddon is old tech. It may not be bad. But I might personally go more for Brainstorm and Ponder #4's.

Hows wasteland working out? With the UGW versions, it just wasn't feasible.

[Fizzeler]

I still have my CounterSlivers deck together from 4 years ago. It's interesting to see green removed, and image used instead of Muscle. I may try that myself since I always had to borrow 4 Trops, and getting 4 images would be a ton easier. 1 less color for the deck always sounds nice if it could handle it.

Armageddon is old tech. It may not be bad. But I might personally go more for Brainstorm and Ponder #4's.

Hows wasteland working out? With the UGW versions, it just wasn't feasible.

Wasteland is great against decks it is weak to, it can slow down your opponent enough to get your vial on 2 and start beating face

I am surprised how consistent the 2 color build is I will likely cut the geddons for another wasteland and brainstorm. The advantage to dual color is you get consistency, a stable manabase, and more removal. I have found once Crystaline Sliver hits the table and you get even one lord out (heck even Talon Sliver) the game swings drastically in your favor

[Fizzeler]

Did some more testing (I did cut the 2 geddons for a Wasteland and a Brainstorm), beat a Reanimator deck in games 2 and 3 (after boarding of course) and a MUD deck of which we only played 1 game

I'll continue my testing, but so far I have concluded the following:

Aether Vial is just to powerful in this deck, resolving a turn 1 vial can just outright win you the game since almost all the creatures are 2 drops by turn 3 you can just counter all problem spells and remove threats. Vial also makes Wasteland really good in this deck as denying your opponent mana while you can just drop threats lets the deck just take control of the game. Vial allows for you to keep up both Spell Pierce and Swords To Plowshares amd can lead to your opponent walking their creatures (like a 1/1 Delver for instance when you turn 1 Tundra > Vial) into your Slivers (like a Plated Sliver for instance)

Daze and Spell Pierce make combo match-ups decent pre-board, but after boarding will just help you a ton resolving your hate cards

[Dark Ritual]

If you're not running 4 brainstorm's in a blue deck you're doing it wrong. Brainstorm is the only thing that can give you the edge over merfolk, as they have 8 creatures that grant their board unblockability. Also, splashing for muscle sliver seems completely necessary. I don't know about you, but you want every lord you can get your hands on in this deck. The manabase becomes a little worse to be sure but is it significantly worse? I doubt it, especially when we still have vial to cheat on mana and cavern of souls is a 3 color land that you aren't running 4 of. Cavern is literally vial 5-8, I suggest you run 4 so you aren't getting any creatures sans image countered.

Although image + crystalline is incredibly powerful. Clone at 2 mana without a drawback is broken. Plated sliver is a card that I'm on the fence on, curious to see whether that card can pull its weight.

Also, armageddon? I really don't see the point to running a 4 mana card like geddon in here. I would be more keen on running jace before geddon and I'm not even close to considering jace in meathooks.

[Fizzeler]

If you're not running 4 brainstorm's in a blue deck you're doing it wrong. Brainstorm is the only thing that can give you the edge over merfolk, as they have 8 creatures that grant their board unblockability. Also, splashing for muscle sliver seems completely necessary. I don't know about you, but you want every lord you can get your hands on in this deck. The manabase becomes a little worse to be sure but is it significantly worse? I doubt it, especially when we still have vial to cheat on mana and cavern of souls is a 3 color land that you aren't running 4 of. Cavern is literally vial 5-8, I suggest you run 4 so you aren't getting any creatures sans image countered.

Although image + crystalline is incredibly powerful. Clone at 2 mana without a drawback is broken. Plated sliver is a card that I'm on the fence on, curious to see whether that card can pull its weight.

Also, armageddon? I really don't see the point to running a 4 mana card like geddon in here. I would be more keen on running jace before geddon and I'm not even close to considering jace in meathooks.

I already cut the geddons for brainstorm and wasteland #4

As for muscle sliver, I decided to go dual colors as to run wasteland, more counter magic and removal, that is also the reasoning for 1 cavern

So far I have found the deck to be weak to control decks which is why I am still tuning the list, but great against fair decks, the deck is a UW tempo deck

Plated Sliver is a lot better than it looks, early game it can chump mongeese and late game it makes your slivers big enough to chump batterskull germs

[DarkAkuma]

When I have more time I'll have to comb over the thread to see how the UGW version has evolved since my last build. But I honestly would tend to agree about Muscle Sliver. Having 8 Muscle Slivers has always been awesome for this deck. With the UW version I'd think that ideally image was cloning Sinew most of the time, but that only works out in theory and in reality probably happens far less. Considering it as Sinew 5-8 seems nice on the surface in that you don't lose anything by dropping green, but there's the fact that keeping green and playing image would give you Muscle 9-12 which also very well may be as good as it sounds on paper.

I don't want to dismiss the UW version just yet. But maybe since its so different it should have its own thread. I could see it diverging in more directions enough to warrant it. Maybe mods would agree.

Still, the next chance I get I'm going to try tweaking my own Sliver deck into a UW variant and see how I like it.

[Fizzeler]

Ideally yes Image is Sinew 5-8 and Plated is are psuedo lords

I am not sure if my UW build will warrant it's own thread, but I'll see how it develops

Edit: another avenue I have yet to examine is Sakashima's Student as another clone effect

[Fizzeler]

So I tested the deck today in a tourney went 1-3, learned a lot about the deck and discussed with some people on how to make it better, besides changing the board I am cutting Plated Sliver for 2 more mutavaults or 2 Vapor Snags and cutting 2 basics for more caverns

The people inquired why not Muscle Sliver? when I answered they agreed, three colors is harder to support and Wasteland is great for the deck

Nic Fit and CounterTop are easily the worst match-ups for Slivers in general, I got paired against both also lost to Maverick and beat Dredge

The impression I got is this is definitely shaping up to be a good deck and Winged Sliver and Talon Sliver are amazing. Also, the current Legacy format just can't deal with Crystaline Sliver, every game where he stuck around for a few turns I was able to just out tempo my opponent

Weaknesses for the deck are board sweepers, I need to learn to hold back and not overextend with the deck, mutavaults are being added to help with this

Image also I have found is insane with Vial

[Fizzeler]

I have once again refined the deck and I think I have found the last few things Slivers were missing, a way to deal with cluttered boards and a way to recover from board wipes, turns out the answer to the second is more on "don't overextend" and add more Mutavaults, but the first I found in 2 unusual slivers

4 Crystalline Sliver
4 AEther Vial
2 Winged Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Phantasmal Image
1 Talon Sliver
3 Mutavault
4 Flooded Strand
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Tundra
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Daze
2 Spell Pierce
3 Force of Will
4 Wasteland
1 Island
1 Plains
3 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Quilled Sliver
2 Sidewinder Sliver
SB: 2 Path to Exile
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Daze
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 3 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Stony Silence

So why has no successful list incorporated Sidewinder Sliver or Quilled Sliver? Flanking is a very nice combat trick (especially because like exalted it stacks!) and Quilled Sliver adds some really nice board advantage