Um, yeah.
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Originally Posted by Slay
Surprisingly good deck!
I'm having good results with your posted list. However, there is one point I want to discuss some more: Aether Vial.
Your reasoning for its exclusion are good, but I'd like you to elaborate a bit more.
I have been also testing your version with 4 Aether Vials thrown in, and it has been really golden.
While Aether Vial doesn't have the same power as in Goblins, it has multiple advantages that are hard to ignore:
1) It fixes your mana in a three-color deck. Your manabase is very good, but Wasteland sometimes throws a huge wrench in your gameplan. Vial can circumvent this.
2) It makes your creatures uncounterable (which I have found to be huge in the Threshold matchup) and gives pseudo-haste.
3) You can make some pretty nasty combat tricks with it.
4) It is a big counter target, opponents will often waste a Force for it first turn.
5) It frees up your mana, so you can keep it open to counter spells.
6) If you suspect your opponent boarding in Needle, you can board it out to create dead-cards. You can do this because it is less reliant on Vial than Goblins.
I think the positive points outweigh the negative ones by far. Also, Needle can be handled by Explosives or Disenchant (you can even counter it).
I find it specifically worth noting that in a deck like Slivers, Vial's power is amplified by the variety of effects your Slivers offer; +1/+1 with a Vial at 2 might make opponent VERY reluctant to block your 2/2 with theirs, a Vial at 2 with the danger of Hibernation or Crystalline makes opponent consider twice about their removal and when calculating racing sitiuation, they might have difficulties taking that EoT Winged into account and might not stay back to block even if they should. I think those factors make it really potent here, even though the manacost-scaling power isn't quite what it is in Goblins.
No need to be so harsh, I was merely giving a suggestion.
The argument that a Vial list didn't too well in the past is not a valid argument for its exclusion. I can understand why Vial isn't included, but it would be cool if you could give more rational arguments as to why it is suboptimal.
Multiple Aether Vials can be shuffled back via Brainstorm/Fetch, so that point is kinda moot.
The combat tricks can't be underestimated, but the real selling point of Vial are the uncounterability and the relief on your mana. The fact that you can keep your mana open for countering and digging is huge.
I can't provide conclusive results as I haven't played as many games yet, but so far, Vial really shines in the Gro matchup and turned it from even to favorable.
Needle isn't as bad as it is against Goblins, because you're far less reliant on it. Also, you can simply counter/disenchant it if you really want that Vial.
So far, I have found that Vial fits very well into the gameplan of CounterSlivers.
How did your response get inserted before my post? Weird. Anyways...
I didn't mean to seem harsh. I'm just trying to convey that Aether Vial has been considered, tested, and discarded. In fact, it has never really been successful in a CounterSliver deck, despite people's dogged insistence on playing it in pretty much every CounterSliver deck built since 2004.
I will concede that Gro might be one of the matchups mildly improved by adding Aether Vial. That's the only Tier 1 matchup where I will make that concession. Against Goblins, you are often spending your first turn responding to a Lackey, stifling a Wasteland, cantripping to dig for Crystalline Sliver or land, or whatever. After the 1st turn, playing Aether Vial is usually not a very good play. Against combo, I would rather be playing a Plated Sliver, cantripping on the 1st turn, or perhaps stifling one of their fetch-lands.
Also, Aether Vial is a terrible top-deck.
Another weird thing is that my post wasn't reported as 'the next post' in the thread or didn't appear in the post-count, but clearly is on the thread...
I can kinda see that the deck doesn't want cards that do nothing by themselves. Vial is not a threat (against decks without counters anyways) nor an answer, it's an enabler, so it raises the number of cards that do nothing by themselves in the deck (same problem as Pikula.dec has, it plays 26 enablers and only 34 business spells and tries to do insanely much with those 34 spells too) and is essentially a land for most intents and purposes, but can't sub for lands as it doesn't actually tap for mana.
I'm also going to point out that Aether Vial isn't so hot in a deck where you're popping engineered explosives for 1 most of the time. Also, we only run 16 creatures. I wouldn't want to take out engineered explosives for aether vials either. I don't think using aether vial will be enough of an advantage over casting the slivers in most matchups to warrant taking something else out for them. And, as Volt pointed out, it's a terrible topdeck.
Just looking at the deck list, the build is more of a control style, and I don't think aether vial will add to the deck's win percentage substantially. If you add vials, people will needle engineered explosives first over vial, to protect their needles. Although the this leaves vials free to be used, the deck has now lost a good selective board sweeper, and this then leaves your opponent open to put a needle on the vial if they need to. In a deck with the ability to select to some extent what your opponent plays, the added speed of vial isn't needed, because you will often be winning a game under your conditions of play.
Team ICBE - We're so good at playing Threshold, we don't even play it.
Team Keg Stand - If only the kegs weren't empty...
Personally, I find your inability to correctly spell 'personally' and 'offensive', coupled with your innapropriate use of a comma before the word 'offensive' amusing. This deck is called MeatHooks. You can also call it CounterSliver if you want to, we don't mind. But stop insulting the name.
Major props to kicks_422 for the name and togit460 for nearly memorizing the N&D thread. Major slops to the boards post editing function, for processing endlessly every time I hit 'save'.
And on to the Aether Vial discussion. Yeah, it makes your dudes uncounterable. Yeah, it makes them instant speed. Yeah, it makes them free. Yeah, it's good. If you have slivers in your hand. With only 16 maindeck, my main frustration with Vial is that in quite a few games, I would Vial in a couple of Slivers to do spiffy things, then I would sit there until I find another Sliver to Vial in. And most of the time, it was a Sliver I had the mana for anyway. Vial has a lot of novelty appeal, but once the novelty wears off it's not that spectacular. We simply don't have a high enough threat density to make it truly great.
If you wanted to cut daze for Counterspell, and then use Vial to play your Slivers so you could hold mana open for your spiffy new hard counters, I can see Vial being a little more useful than it is now. A little. But honestly, what would you cut for Vial?
Now, on to Volt's neverending last post!
Team Info-Ninjas: Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
My Videos: Chiron Beta Prime, Flickr, Re: Your Brains
Those are good observations, especially the one about this deck having "more of a control style." While this is definitely an aggro-control deck, it is a bit slower than most other aggro-control decks. Unless you are playing against a true control deck, you are usually the control. A point that some people miss is that the slivers themselves act as a form of control and even virtual card advantage (Crystalline Sliver makes their targeted removal useless). In the early stages of the game, you often don't do much attacking. You just keep playing out slivers - hopefully of varying types - until you have a clear advantage, and then you start swinging.
Wow its great to finally see this thing in open HURRAY.
As to aether vial's exclusion from the deck. Vial was thoroughly tested in my intial build and was dismissed because of the previously stated reasons. Those being that it is generally too slow since all of the decks creatures are costed under two mana, it is a terrible topdeck, does nothing by itself, and would take the spot of a much more useful card.
EDIT: LOL Volt's post keeps getting pushed down.
Team Info-Ninja.
If you act now we'll ship you an extra order of ShamHawks. THATS 8 ShamHawks FOR $19.99, you'll spend that much on falcons every month anyway.
I know why it keeps getting pushed down: look at the post time - 7:28 PM. You must be a time-traveler or something....
The only way I can see Aether Vial being truly useful is if we ran more hard counters and needed to keep mana open for them. If someone wanted to take out Daze for Counterspell and find something to cut for Aether Vial, and then systematically prove that it is significantly better than running Daze + whatever card (probably Stifle, as the people here haven't realized how awesome it is) in a majority of matchups, then you might have something truly compelling. Hell, if you wanted to you could cut Daze for Voidslime and Stifle for Aether Vial, and you'd still have another hard counter and a way to counter abilities, but I can tell you right now that that wouldn't be nearly as potent as the Daze and Stifle combination, simply because it's a lot slower, and therefore not as great in the early game.
Team Info-Ninjas: Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
My Videos: Chiron Beta Prime, Flickr, Re: Your Brains
Yeah, I'm done talking about Aether Vial. Moving on...
I think it bears mentioning that if you're going into a metagame where you expect a fair amount of combo and/or control, it is worth considering fitting a couple of Counterspells into the deck. You could cut a Daze and an Engineered Explosives to make room.
Also, there are different directions you can go with the sideboard. Lately, I've been running the following:
4 Hydroblast
4 Meddling Mage
4 Serenity
3 Tormod's Crypt
Although Goblins is a positive matchup before sideboarding, Sligh and Burn are somewhat problematic. Hydroblast (or BEB) helps shore up those matchups. And it never hurts to have extra insurance against a deck like Goblins, which you're likely to run into multiple times in a large tourney.
Serenity is there to crush stuff like rAffinity, Enchantress, and Stax-type decks, and just generally clear the board of any and all equipment and enchantments that may be annoying you.
Fixed my previous post some to make the Grammar Nazi happy.
Anyway. I tried vial in my Counter Sliver build several months ago, and i loved it. But i still agree with the major contributer's to this thread, in that it shouldnt be included.
It doesnt do anything by itself. You would have to take out some creatures, draw or control to include it, all of which are more helpful. Realy, you would have to adjust alot of the deck make better use of the vials. Like more counters, less lands, etc. So much so, that it would be a different deck. Which is why I didnt play vials for very long, cause I liked the deck the way it was.
So for the sake of these guys sanity, if you want to play vial in counter sliver, post it as a seperate deck type in the new and development forum. Like:
"[Deck] Vial Sliver (a.k.a. Hooked Meat.dec)"
or something...
[EDIT: Due to wacky server shenanigans, this post was time-stamped incorrectly. It should be post #24. It would be swell if one of the moderators would fix this.]
Ever since Aether Vial was printed, every Counter Sliver deck ever posted on the net or played at a tournament has included it. Yet none of those decks has ever done squat or been considered more than a Tier 3 "fun" deck, with the exception of Noah Freed's deck, which only ran 2 (!) Aether Vials. Our deck beats every deck currently considered Tier 1 (Thresh is listed as an "even" matchup, but in reality, it's mildly positive for CounterSliver), and crushes most randomness, yet people still keep wanting to come back to Aether Vial.
Yes, Aether Vial allows you play some nifty tricks, and may even slightly improve a couple of matchups. Note the word "slightly." Overall, though, it just adds more randomness to the deck, which means more mulligans and more hands that just crap out on you. You only have 16 slivers in the deck, and that's assuming you don't take 1 or 2 out to make room for the Aether Vials (what are you going to take out, btw? Let me guess, Stifles. That's a non-starter). A lot of times, Aether Vial is going to be sitting around doing nothing. Sometimes, you'll have 2 or 3 Aether Vials sitting around doing pretty much nothing, and that's really annoying. And those combat tricks that people keep mentioning really don't amount to much. You don't need combat tricks to win. Just play out your slivers until you have a dominating position, and then win! And, yes, by playing Aether Vial, you're making your opponents Pithing Needles good. Bardo's Thresh list runs 2 maindeck Pithing Needles. Affinity decks run maindeck Pithing Needles. And if you're so willing to side out the Aether Vials in anticipation of your opponent possibly siding in Pithing Needles, may I suggest that the Aether Vials really didn't need to be in there in the first place?
At this point, someone is going to have to really convince us that Aether Vial deserves a spot in the deck. That means a rigorously play-tested deck list with statistically significant game results against a variety of Tier 1-2 decks.
Thanks. Heil Grammar!
On that note, it wasn't the grammar I didn't like, it was your attitude towards the deck name. But since you agree with us on Aether Vial, I can let it slide.
As to what Volt mentioned about the sideboard, there are enough possible includes that it's hard to make a 'standard version'. You don't have to run the board we stuck up there if it doesn't fit your meta, that board is specifically geared to beat the Tier 1 consistently. If you see other decks in your meta, feel free to run other cards.
As to shoring up the matchup against Burn, though, I think that Disrupt might be even better than BEB here, just because it cantrips. Of course, it's not a hard counter, and I'm not sure how often Burn taps out for its spells, but it draws you card, which is worth noting. Disrupt is also a great SB option against mass removal (Wog et al) and discard (Hymn? Nah, I'll draw a card) because they typically tap out for those more often than Burn taps out for anything.
Also on the Burn matchup, Mav and I have been discussing Vitcual Sliver as a board option against Burn. We've found that when Burn ever beats us, it usually does so a turn before we win. The lifegain on Victual Sliver is sort of meh on its own, but against Burn it would provide you with that extra turn to seal the win. Also, it's a 2/2 body for 2 mana, which helps speed up your clock against Burn by a fair amount. You can side out Talon/Winged Sliver for them, as niether First Strike or Flying is very relevant against Burn.
EDIT: Whoa! This post is after Volt's post! I certainly didn't expect that.
Team Info-Ninjas: Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
My Videos: Chiron Beta Prime, Flickr, Re: Your Brains
I still think our best bet against burn is worship lock, trying to race them using victual sliver is just an inferior way to beat them.
On a seperate topic, what does everyone think of harmonic sliver from timespiral? It seems like definite sideboard material.
for reference:
1GW
Harmonic Sliver
All slivers have "when this creature comes into play destroy target artifact or enchantment"
1/1
At worst It's a sex monkey on crack, since by the time we play it muscle will probably be already out, not to mention it turns all of our slivers into sorcery speed disenchants. It seems like it could at least replace disenchant in the board (if your running it).
Team Info-Ninja.
If you act now we'll ship you an extra order of ShamHawks. THATS 8 ShamHawks FOR $19.99, you'll spend that much on falcons every month anyway.
Harmonic Sliver is a definite sideboard inclusion, especially since it triggers itself when it comes into play. And it stacks! I love the fact it gets around Chalice: 0-2. It might be worth running a couple in the maindeck, and a couple more in the sideboard.
Also, I think the Engineered Explosives can go away, since their main purpose was to blow up Chalices and Aether Vials, and now we have Harmonic Sliver to do that.
Last edited by Volt; 10-16-2006 at 04:18 AM.
Harmonic in the main is a real interesting idea, I think it could easily take the place of explosives. Being that explosives main job is to handle problem artifacts and enchantments.
As for going up to 18 land, I don't think it is really necessary, but that's just from my experience. I rarely seem to get manascrewed with this deck. If anything I get mana flooded more often than not (it's weird I know).
Just one quick question about the board. Why hydroblast? gobs is by far our best matchup, so why is that thing taking up space? If it's in there for the burn matchup worship would be alot better, against gobs and burn.
Team Info-Ninja.
If you act now we'll ship you an extra order of ShamHawks. THATS 8 ShamHawks FOR $19.99, you'll spend that much on falcons every month anyway.
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