[Deck] CounterSliver

[Pinder]

Alrighty, since it was getting so confusing to keep the list updated with so much junk clogging the first post, I'm starting from scratch and just posting the most recent list here. If you don't understand the card choices already, odds are you don't know enough about the deck to start posting right away anyway. Give it a few test runs if you don't understand.

The List:
Last Updated: 10/5

//Land (17)
4 Tundra
4 Tropical Island
2 Windswept Heath
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Plains

//Creatures (16)
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
3 Plated Sliver
3 Talon Sliver
2 Winged Sliver

//Draw (8)
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions

//Countermagic (10)
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Counterspell
3 Stifle

//Removal (7)
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Engineered Explosives

//Sideboard
4 Meddling Mage
3 Pithing Needle
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Jotun Grunt
3 Chain of Vapor/Disenchant/Naturalize/Something else to deal with enchantments and artifacts.

[Togit460]

I like your post!
It's an interesting idea, and one that's viable since rifter is dying out more due to iggy pop's recent uprise. Unfortunatly everyone and their brother will play Iggy pop, so you need to find a respectable way to beat this game 1. I remember counter-slivers back in the day, was a fun deck. The reason I like this decklist over all other versions of it is that it's stream-lined. It's not trying to look like the tribal deck with the queen and overlord, it's trying to win games. Thresh looks like a bad matchup game 1, since they can make bigger creatures quicker, thus overrunning you, but since there isn't any evidence either way i can't prove it. I'd like to see this deck in action, need's a tourney report and some suggested changes at the end. For the moment I'd say stifle should swing iggy-pop heavily in your favor. especially since many iggy-pop players just picked up the deck and won't know how it works well enough to outplay you. -peace, j.j.

[The Rack]

I don't think you will ever ever se the mirror.....ever. I hope you were being sarcastic. :P
Now I pose a question.:

Does E Plague hurt you? It is in a loyt of SB and that could pose a problem.

[Pinder]

I like your post!
It's an interesting idea, and one that's viable since rifter is dying out more due to iggy pop's recent uprise.

lol, I completely forgot about Rifter. It would be tough. Of course, if you can keep humility off the table (FoW, Chain of Vapor), you should be okay. Stifle is also fantastic here. But yeah, Rifter would be bad for us, since the entire deck is creature abilities.

I'd like to see this deck in action, need's a tourney report and some suggested changes at the end. For the moment I'd say stifle should swing iggy-pop heavily in your favor. especially since many iggy-pop players just picked up the deck and won't know how it works well enough to outplay you. -peace, j.j.

Why thank you :).

We should have a tourney report by this Friday when we take it to the weekly tourney, but it should also be noted here that our meta is seriously fucked up. Our meta is pretty much 7-8 versions of Gobs (hence the heavy testing), ranging from optimal to jank, a few builds of thresh, and random ass jank. We should clean up nicely, but it probably won't yeild terribly conclusive results.

I don't think you will ever ever se the mirror.....ever. I hope you were being sarcastic. :P
Now I pose a question.:

Does E Plague hurt you? It is in a loyt of SB and that could pose a problem.

I don't think E. Plague would hurt us that much. Between Muscle and Plated Sliver, you get enough of a toughness boost to keep your dudes from dying, and to be honest, only 2 of your slivers (Winged and Talon) die to E. Plague anyway. And those aren't even the 4-ofs. Every other sliver in the deck has 2 toughness, so they won't die to a single E. Plague. And the deck runs Chain of Vapor to deal with problem enchantments anyway. Sure, they'll replay it, but if you make sure you have counter backup, you can keep it from hitting the table again.

You're probably right about the mirror, though. We're not really taking this to any really big tourneys, so it probably won't gain popularity very fast, if at all. If someone else wanted to pilot it, though...

[Clark Kant]

I love slivers.

But wouldn't you be better off playing UGBR Thres's manabase over UGWs?

You can play some burn.

You can play Dark Confidant.

You can play Blade Sliver and the new Sedge Sliver which is the best sliver ever printed.

Magma Sliver can be a good win condition if you need.

All the gold 2 mana for 2/2 slivers are very strong and you can run all of those but the veyr worst one.

Heart Sliver's haste is awesome

Just saying, you have a ton of better options than White gives you.

Just play a bunch of cantrips like thres instead of one drops.

Also, have you thought about Living Wish over Eldamarie's Call for it's versatility. You could run Talon Sliver along with Meddling Mages in the side.

[MasterBlaster]

I love slivers.

But wouldn't you be better off playing UGBR Thres's manabase over UGWs?

If you lose white you lose STP, and Armageddon and Meddling Mage in the sideboard.

All the gold 2 mana for 2/2 slivers are very strong and you can run all of those but the veyr worst one.

You're right that Victual Sliver sucks, but Crystaline Sliver is possibly the best ever.

[MattH]

Aether Vial didn't make the cut? And instant-speed slivers, too, oh my.

[Goblin Snowman]

[QUOTE=Pinder;88026][*]Piledriver. Sure, you can run your 1/2 into my dudes

Pro Blue for the lose. Does Worship have any consideration?

[Togit460]

engineered plague won't kill this deck for the same reasons it doesn't kill goblins decks, they have options to get rid of it or nullify the effects, hence mainboarded disenchants, naturalizes, goblin kings, etc.... slivers can do all of that except that muscle sliver is a cheaper more needed king anyways, which makes the plague a whole lot less effective, remember him saying how it helps nullify cards like pyroclasm, well, engineered plague works like that in this situation. of course 2 engineered plagues is GG without multiple muscle slivers are on the board, and if you can't keep it off with your wall of counters. I'd like the admin. for this board to rename this counter-sliver, since it's got the same idea, and i love that name. Thresh so far looks like the toughest matchup for this deck, with goblins being rather simple, and iggy-pop simply about playskill. B/W deadguy ale might be more interesting though, i think that the main reason to stay with UGW manabase and not go with exotic slivers should mainly be due to the presence of wasteland/sinkhole/rishadan port. all of these cards shut down that manabase more effectively than the UGW manabase. I certainly think that aether vial would be a decent inclusion if there's more slivers. it solves the counter-war over your creatures with thresh, and helps you save mana for counters/ability's. thoughts? -peace, j.j.

[Maverick676]

First off I wanted to thank everyone from their feedback, (im helping with the deck too btw).

Now, in regards to the suggestion to cut white, weve actually been trying out a BGR version, but its a totally different deck thats needs more testing.

Cutting white in this deck is basically out of the question. Crystaline sliver is the backbone of the deck. Not STP is the MVP of removal, plus plated sliver is pyroclasm protection with muscle sliver or himself.

[MasterBlaster]

Now, in regards to the suggestion to cut white, weve actually been trying out a BGR version, but its a totally different deck thats needs more testing.

Thats funny that you say that. As soon as I first read this thread I started brainstorming a BGR sliver deck with duress and bolt. Anyways, such a deck would need its own thread once a list is perfected.

[Pinder]

[*]Piledriver. Sure, you can run your 1/2 into my dudes

Pro Blue for the lose. Does Worship have any consideration?

Wait, Piledriver's triggered ability has pro blue too? Oh NOES! Seriously, Stifle targets the ability, not the creature. We thought that at first too, though. It's just that Stifle is so awesome

Vial was in the original build, but we cut it because we'd rather just run more slivers (and it makes Chain of Vapor a little worse). It's honestly still a consideration, even if it's just SB against control, though.

As for Worship, we used to run 1 in the main, but it ended up being a little bit of a win-more card. Also has poor synergy with Chain of Vapor, but that honestly doesn't matter too much. I could see it in the sideboard as well, or possibly in the Talon Sliver slot, as Talon sliver is mostly there against Gobbos.

Honestly I'm just waiting for the white flanking sliver .

EDIT:

Thats funny that you say that. As soon as I first read this thread I started brainstorming a BGR sliver deck with duress and bolt. Anyways, such a deck would need its own thread once a list is perfected.

I agree. The RGB version would be straight Aggro though, as opposed to this Aggro Control shell. All I can say is that T2 Muscle Sliver followed by T3 Sedge Sliver is the sexy.

[Volt]

Counter-Sliver is one of my all-time favorite decks. Your list seems really solid. I love the fact that you're running Eladamri's Call, btw. I was using that tech years ago, but I've never seen anyone else running it. UGW is definitely the way to go if you want to make a competitive sliver deck. RGB would never be anything more than a "fun" deck.

[Maverick676]

RGW is definitely the way to go if you want to make a competitive sliver deck.

Did you mean UGW or are you serious about the deck dropping blue for red, if so I would be interested in what you would add in, specifically which slivers, to make up for the loss of crystaline sliver and counterspells.

[Volt]

Did you mean UGW or are you serious about the deck dropping blue for red, if so I would be interested in what you would add in, specifically which slivers, to make up for the loss of crystaline sliver and counterspells.

Oops. Yeah, I meant UGW. Sorry. I'm going to edit my post to fix it...

[Pinder]

EDIT: Wow, Volt's last edit made my original post entirely irrelevant. UGW FTW!

On that note I've been thinking that this deck already has an impressive matchup with Gobs, so it's probably okay to cut a few cards to improve the Thresh/Gro matchup, even if it would soften the Gobs matchup a little. Take Stifle for example. I know I've been singing this card's praises ever since I posted this list (I mean, it is great), and it definitely fits, but mostly it's only great against Goblins and Storm. With the Thresh matchup, it doesn't really hit much except fetchlands, with Thresh being static and all. Maybe shaving a few of our cards down to 3-ofs to improve our Thresh matchup wouldn't be a bad idea. Maverick was suggesting MD Counterspells, which I agree would help with Thresh, but might be too mana intensive. Aether Vial could also fit in this slot to help against Thresh, I suppose. It would probably look something like:

-1 StP
-1 Chain of Vapor
-1 Stifle
+3 Counterspell/Aether Vial/Other card to help improve problem matchups

Further testing will ensue.

[Volt]

//Land
4 Tundra
4 Tropical Island
3 Windswept Heath
4 Flooded Strand
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Plains

//Creatures
4 Crystaline Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Plated Sliver
2 Winged Sliver
1 Talon Sliver

//Spells
4 FoW
4 Daze
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
4 Stifle
2 Eladamri's Call

Wait... I just realized you have 63 cards maindeck. You gotta cut something. How important are the Chain of Vapors?

[EDIT: Also, I agree a couple of hard counterspells would be good. How about:

-4 Chain of Vapor
-1 Stifle
+2 Counterspell ]

[Volt]

There's a player in my area who plays Slivers regularly. He runs Aether Vial. Personally, I don't see the point of using up slots for an artifact that will only be used to cast a 2cc creature for free two turns later.

[Maverick676]

Pinder actually got the main deck a little wrong, the actual list is
- 1 serum visions
- 1 flooded strand

so there is actually 61 cards (oops), but im hesitant to say what card gets cut until i discuss with pinder. My guess is that it will either be 1 land or stifle possibly. Since chain of vapor is so freakin great in this deck.

at least two more cards need to be cut to make room for counterspells though, Ill test without chain probably but i still really like it, its a great way to answer engineered plague, aether vial ect.

[Volt]

Pinder actually got the main deck a little wrong, the actual list is
- 1 serum visions
- 1 flooded strand

so there is actually 61 cards (oops), but im hesitant to say what card gets cut until i discuss with pinder. My guess is that it will either be 1 land or stifle possibly. Since chain of vapor is so freakin great in this deck.

at least two more cards need to be cut to make room for counterspells though, Ill test without chain probably but i still really like it, its a great way to answer engineered plague, aether vial ect.

I wouldn't go below 17 land. I think we can take a lesson from UGW Gro, since this is basically the same deck except with slivers instead of thresh creatures. Gro always plays 17-18 lands.