[Deck] CounterSliver 2.0 (MeatHooks.dec)

[swordoffireandice]

Great going Kokusho17!

Against Gobos:
game 1: plated sliver first turn and second turn crystalline third Muscle

This is game against Goblins! I have tested last week again against Goblins and the Crystalline is very important. Every game were i had a Crystalline on the table i won the match.

As for the Eladamri's call, i have put in two more Slivers instead of the Call. I feel i want to be more agressive. This way i can play a Sliver instead of waiting a turn and find a Sliver. The Brainstorms and Visions should be enough to find the Sliver i want.

(In general)
I have another suggestion for the sideboard against Goblins, the Tivadar's Crusade didn't work out as i hoped they would. I am thinking of:
Honorable Passage (hp)

They are a great finisher as the can redirect a Piledriver.....

Two HP in the SB makes sure that when they have a huge piledriver, a HP is almost always in our hand. They cannot counter it with a Red Elemental Blast!
It is just a suggestion guys, so let me know what you think.

[Volt]

(In general)
I have another suggestion for the sideboard against Goblins, the Tivadar's Crusade didn't work out as i hoped they would. I am thinking of:
Honorable Passage (hp)

They are a great finisher as the can redirect a Piledriver.....

Two HP in the SB makes sure that when they have a huge piledriver, a HP is almost always in our hand. They cannot counter it with a Red Elemental Blast!
It is just a suggestion guys, so let me know what you think.

Honorable Passage is solid, no doubt. Samite Ministration might be better, though.

Not to sound like a broken record, but... Have you tried maindeck Worships? You have to bump up the land count to 18 to make it work, but I've found that Crystalline + Worship wins a lot of games, especially against goblins.

EDIT: Btw, I have a couple other fairly radical suggestions for changes to the deck, but I want to wait until I've tested them more thoroughly before discussing them here.

[mikekelley]

I just played some guy with maindeck worships.

You should do that if you want people to hate you.

[Kokusho17]

Eladamri's call is something that i usually play at the end of my opponents turn i dont generally play it during my turn unless i need to or have the mana to cast it and the creature plus it fetches the lone MD Harmonic. visions and brainstorm most of the time get me what i need. having 2 calls in the MD just insures that you can get what you need faster if your draws arent helping you.

as for my sideboard i think im getting rid of the counterspells and adding worship. i dont have a lot of people playing goblins any more where im from its just that one guy came in that hasnt been at the store in over a year.
i like honorable passage better than the samite but i dont plan to use either cause of my no golbins meta. i tried worship MD but i like better as SB cause i would need to cut the calls in order to add workship but that aint gonna happen cause of the way calls have been a MVP for the last 20 games testing and the last 4 in the tournement. i should have more tournement reports in the next couple of weeks if you all want more

[Volt]

Eladamri's call is something that i usually play at the end of my opponents turn i dont generally play it during my turn unless i need to or have the mana to cast it and the creature plus it fetches the lone MD Harmonic. visions and brainstorm most of the time get me what i need. having 2 calls in the MD just insures that you can get what you need faster if your draws arent helping you.

as for my sideboard i think im getting rid of the counterspells and adding worship. i dont have a lot of people playing goblins any more where im from its just that one guy came in that hasnt been at the store in over a year.
i like honorable passage better than the samite but i dont plan to use either cause of my no golbins meta. i tried worship MD but i like better as SB cause i would need to cut the calls in order to add workship but that aint gonna happen cause of the way calls have been a MVP for the last 20 games testing and the last 4 in the tournement. i should have more tournement reports in the next couple of weeks if you all want more

Sure, bring on the tournament reports! I've only made it to my own local tournament a couple times within the last month, but I went 6-1 in matches, losing only to a RGB survival deck.

Regarding maindeck Worships... If I were taking this deck to a big tournament, I would expect to see a lot of Goblins and Threshold. Worship is terrific against those decks, particularly in game 1. Of course, you should always tweak the deck for your local metagame.

We keep coming back to Eladamri's Call. To rehash previous discussions, I like to run a single EC, but I don't think it's hugely important to the deck. You can run anywhere from 0-2 of them and do fine.

[Kokusho17]

I love Eladamri's Call. thats why i have 4 between MD and SB.

I just have to work on my Sideboard more as i dont think the deck im running needs to be changed as my win percentage is over 80% (keeping in mind no gobos/solidarity/iggy yet....). I believe that i only need to change my sideboard a bit such as adding Needles but this is such a fun deck to get under peoples skins

[Pinder]

I could go either way on EC. I've honestly found them to be less than great, but then again, that was before we ran a very toolbox-ish 1 Harmonic in the main (I actually run 2, but whatever).

And it's great to see people start picking this deck up. Keep the tournament reports coming! I should have one this coming friday, because last friday I split for first playing Friggorid (it was wierd, I know). I'll be back to Meathooks later in the week.

I just played some guy with maindeck worships.

You should do that if you want people to hate you.

True, but we're aiming to win, not for people to like us a whole bunch .

[TheDarkshineKnight]

Don't you know that victory is infintinely more important than any sort of friendship is? Honestly, some people...

[swordoffireandice]

Honorable Passage is solid, no doubt. Samite Ministration might be better, though.

Not to sound like a broken record, but... Have you tried maindeck Worships? You have to bump up the land count to 18 to make it work, but I've found that Crystalline + Worship wins a lot of games, especially against goblins.

EDIT: Btw, I have a couple other fairly radical suggestions for changes to the deck, but I want to wait until I've tested them more thoroughly before discussing them here.

I am going to try maindeck worship Volt. I will put one in. I am starting with one. I have read the following and i think one will do:

Adrian Sullivan wrote an article some time ago about singletons in Tog.
>He inserted a small piece of paper into a card sleeve and noted how
>soon he saw that singleton just using regular draw of Brainstorm plus
>Fetchland and Intuition/AK. What he discovered was that by turn 5 he
>always found the singleton. That's how powerful Brainstorm plus
>Fetchland is as a draw engine.


I will keep taking this deck to tournaments here in Holland.
see you.

[Maverick676]

I am going to try maindeck worship Volt. I will put one in. I am starting with one. I have read the following and i think one will do:

Adrian Sullivan wrote an article some time ago about singletons in Tog.
>He inserted a small piece of paper into a card sleeve and noted how
>soon he saw that singleton just using regular draw of Brainstorm plus
>Fetchland and Intuition/AK. What he discovered was that by turn 5 he
>always found the singleton. That's how powerful Brainstorm plus
>Fetchland is as a draw engine.


I will keep taking this deck to tournaments here in Holland.
see you.

No that shows the power of Intuition/AK as a draw engine. Seriously folks, singletons without tutors to fetch them are bad. Especially in a deck with no actual card draw. So people, stop being retarded and run 2 worships if you are going to have them in the main.

EDIT: as for a sideboard against gobs, the two best options would be absolute law (because the only thing better than untargetable slivers are untargetable invincible slivers) or chill. Although I don't see why we need much of a sideboard against gobs, they are easily our best matchup. Also Hydroblast is another good option.

[Nytemare]

Last sunday i went to a monthly german Legacy Tournement with 63 players.
Well, I think my results were not very good, I went 2-1-3 and made no real notes about the matches, but I will try to tell something about all of them.

First my list.
It was a little bit suboptimal because I didnt have some Duals and no Pithing Needles but I was very suprised about the fact that I never got color screwed and wanted the Needles only in one match.

//Land
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Windswept Heath
2 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Forest

//Creatures
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Plated Sliver
2 Talon Sliver
2 Winged Sliver
1 Harmonic Sliver

//Counterspells
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Stifle

//Cantrips
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions

//Other
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Eladamri's Call


///Sideboard
4 Engineered Explosives
1 Talon Sliver
2 Angel's Grace
4 Meddling Mages
2 Harmonic Sliver
2 Worship

For those who don't know, the german meta is very very random. We have a hand full of Tier 1 decks, many Tier 2 plus a few Tier 3/Fun decks so it is hard to prepare for..


Ok, now the games.

Round 1 - Terrageddon

That was a pretty tough but in my opinion winnable matchup. I never played against the deck b4 (i think the decklist was pretty much the same as the dutch champs winner)

I went 2-1 and don't remember very much of the game. I sworded some Terravores and stiffled some Fetchis and Wastelands which gained me enough tempo advantage to finally kill him.

1-0

Round 2 - Rifter

I never got paired against a Rifter before at one of our bigger events and I wasn't very happy about the fact that I have to play against it with this deck.
The matchup is just horrible. Our greatest enemy game 1 is humility.
If you get down a crystalline early in the game and start beating it is maybe winnable but still hard.
Game 1 he got down an early lightning rift but I managed to bring down some slivers to beat him down a bit. I stifled 2 DoJs and had to counter 2 Humilitys but then he hardcasted a Slice or Dice (sp? ^^) for the win. I never came back into the game and some minutes later we started g2.
Well..game 2 was even worse. Because rifter fears Solidarity/Spring Tide, his Sideboard is completely anti-blue. Now I had to manage his Boils and REBs, too.
Well..that one was jsut bad and I lost pretty fast.

After this round I thought the first time that I want to add Disenchants to the SB. Man I HATE Humility... ^^

1-1

Round 3 - U/B Reanimator

Well..I don't remember much about this. I won both games at one life because of some stupid blocking with Talon/Winged/Muscle Sliver against Akrome and Spirit of the Night..Would have been not that close if I hadn't forgotten to stiffle his fetchis twice.. ^^

2-1

Round 4 - Rw Vial Goblins

I lost this Round horrible to some mistakes + his answeres. He could StoP my first turn Plated Slivers against his Lackey, I thought Piledriver had haste and killed the wrong one and got shooted down from his Ringleader in the end.
Game two I got no counters and he got Engineered Explosives.... -.-

2-2

Round 5 - NQGwr (with Dryad)

Game 1 was pretty close but he managed to get enough creature/card advantage to win. Game 2 it was nearly the same, but a little favored for me. We layed down several Meddling Mages, some creatures, I managed to beat him down to 1 while I was at 15 or so and then we layed down creatures for several turn because the creature count was even, I had no winged/talon sliver and he had Meddlings for both of them. Well..I drawed into a StoP and targeted his Winged stopping Mage. He tapped 2 lands and Dazed, in response I hardcasted Force which he responded with an hardcast Force, too. I Dazed it (I had 2 mana open at that time for the winged on my hand) and he dazed again. Well, I showed my seccond Daze and he his 3rd one..I just felt f*cking bad in this moment but then I realised that I didnt play a land this turn so I payed the Mana for the Daze with one of my 2 open Lands.
Sword resolved -> Mage dead -> I wantd to lay down a Land and he just said NO!
"You dropped a land already and can't do that!"
Well, I knew that I didn't because we discarded for several turns OR dropped lands if we drew them and I knew that I got my Swords from the top of the library. After some discussing we called for a judge and he decided in my favor.
He was pissed, we had only one minute left and so no third game.
The funny thing is, if he hadn't hardcasted the force he just could have payed all my Dazes and I hadn't won in this Round.. ^^

2-1-2

Round 6 - Rw Vial Goblins again

Match 1 I started damn fast. First turn Plated, seccond turn Crystalline, thirs winged, 4th muscle or something like that. That got him down really fast.
Game 2 I saw some early explosives again while I had no answer.. -.-
Game 3 I drew just one land (plains) and some cantrips so I took mulligan to 5 -> the new hand had a Fetchi and some Cantrips again so I kept it.
I dropped it, searched some blue nonbasic, casted Serum Visions and found no land. He dropped Wasteland, killed my land and I never found a land again.


There was a round 7 but I dropped because it was a long way home and I was pretty tired.

After all, I think I could have been much better, made some mistakes but overall I don't think the Deck is competitive in the german meta without several changes. At first I want to took out the explosives, I found them not really usefull against any deck. I clearly have to get my hands on a playset of needles and I really want to play Disenchants in the Sideboard.
I didn't foudn the meddling Mages that impressive too. Most decks where I needed them, my op had enough answers to just make them useless..
Plated Sliver agaisnt Goblins is very nice, but sucks without counterbackup because they have Stop very very often.
Worship in the Sideboard sucky, too, because all my opps boarded in Enchantment hate against the fact that they didn't see any at my side.
I'm thinking about AEther Vial again because its damn hard to play around counters and Meddling Mages so they might be viable at least in our meta.

[Maverick676]

While I do appreciate people taking this deck to tournaments, It doesn't help our testing results at all if people won't play ideal lists. For example, why is eladamri's call in any of these decklists? We have already tested and discussed this card to death. It is much better to play more slivers instead of calls. With the number of cantrips this deck runs finding slivers should never be a problem.

Also I see some really odd cards in people's sideboards, like Angel's Grace. WTF!? is that card for? It won't stop a solidarity player unless they are incompetent (in which case you should win anyway), It does diddly squat against any tendrils based combo deck. The only deck this card really hampers is a deck such as 2 land belcher, in which case needle is infinitely more desirable. Also 2 disenchants should be played in the board to deal with problem enchantments like humility and the like.

[Nytemare]

Well..if you had really read what I wrote you would have noticed why I used 2 Angel's Grace. The next point is that I looked through the whole damn thread and didn't saw any discussion about Disenchants. The same goes for the Call, some ppl say it sucky, some say its cool. I found it pretty usefull sometimes where I definately needed a special sliver and not "any random extra sliver".

[Pinder]

Alrighty, I'm going to try and put this whole Call vs. No Call thing to rest.

Nytemare, most of the discussion of Eladamri's Call is from the old list in N&D. Check it out if you want Mav to seem slightly more sane. No guarantees, though.

The thing with Call is, it's good. We had it in the list for the longest time (and Volt still runs them) because of that. We're not saying that it's useless, or bad. However, when you start getting down to the really fine tuning of a deck, it doesn't become a question of what's good or bad for the deck, but what's better or best for the deck. When you get down to the nitty gritty, sometimes you have to take out something good for something better. Eladamri's Call is good, but is it better than, say, Engineered Explosives, or Worship, or Stifle? I would say no, but ultimately that's up to whoever is playing the deck. Also, a bit of custimization for the meta never hurt anyone. If Worship in the main isn't working out or if you don't see a lot of Goblins in your meta, then by all means put it in the board and run Call. And don't mind Mav, he hasn't had his pills yet today .

But seriously man, Angel's Grace? I'm not sure if there's an excuse for that one .

[Jankwolf]

Now for the finishing blow...Meathooks seems like a deck that has been carefully balanced between creatures and control. Call only screws it up, seriously. Look at it this way, All the list i have seen that ran call run less of a creature base(creatures are as much needed as the control). This will leave you defensless when the creatures run low, or you wont have the creature base to finish the game as quickly as possible...No there is the flip side to this as well. Take out the control aspect for a tutor. That seem bad from the start. You are takeing one of the few edges that this fine tuned deck has and limiting it. Now a third view. You are useing call to get critters yes, but with a limited mana supply that slivers has, it is only setting you back a turn thus, slowing down your clock. Slivers has enough draw/counters/removal/creatures to get the job done when piloted right. Trust me ive played against it countless times, and there is no need for a tutor slot...If you go to a tourni with your own homebrew of slivers dont bother posting it unless you take mav's and pinder's decklist...That is the only way to help them improve their prodigy. The only thing these homebrew decklists have proven from results is that we shouldnt use a few named cards. Which has already been discussed in the thread and the ideas have been thrown out.(Said cards being...i dont know...ELDAMRI'S CALL for instance) If they dont run it in their build, THEY HAVE GOOD REASON FOR IT, AND MAYBE YOU ALL SHOULD LISTEN TO THEM BECAUSE THEY CREATED THE DAMN DECK!!!!)

[Volt]

I don't like the tone of the last few posts. Let's not discourage people from posting results or trying deck lists that differ slightly from the Mav/Pinder version.

I'll say it again... I think running precisely 1 EC is a good thing, but not crucial to the deck.

Earlier, I hinted that I had a couple of other fairly radical suggestions for changes to the deck. They're not really suggestions at this point, so much as theories that I am working to prove/disprove. I'm going to share them now for (calm, rational) discussion:

Theory #1: This deck doesn't need Daze. We already have cheap/free counterspells in the form of Stifle and FoW with which to disrupt our opponent's game plan.

Theory #2: Talon Sliver is unnecessary. Plated Sliver serves largely the same purpose, while being cheaper. Also, maindeck Worship answers the same sort of things that Talon Sliver answers, only more effectively.

Let the fun begin. Only, please don't regurgitate the standard explanations that we have been giving for these cards to this point. I'm aware of the original reasoning for the inclusion of these cards. I would like to prove or disprove these theories through actual testing.

[Nytemare]

Well..for Theory 1:

In t emost Metagames it is pretty good to have Daze. Only if you won't face many other countering decks and only very few Goblins/Goblins without early Swords (i no white splash) Daze would be a card to cut in my opinion.

Theory 2:

Well..the only time I really used Frist Striking Slivers was agaisnt the reanimator Deck but it wasn't really neccessary at all.
But whic slivers could we run instead?


And for the few posts b4..I really like the deck, the reason because I play a rather suboptimal Decklist is because I couldn't get some cards that fast and I really have read this whole thread. I didn't know about another one somewher else.
One comment to Angel's Grace: I played them to have a legal SB (15 cards) and never used them ;)

@Jankwolf:

Calm down man..I justwant to help a bit.
And for your last few words -> I think that is really a stupid way of thinking. Nothing against the decks' creators but where in the whole damn world is written down, that the ppl who invent something are the best to make it perfect??

[Kokusho17]

i agree with volt about the tone of the last few posts.

@ jankwolf: ive found out that you dont need more than 16 creatures in this deck, more than that seems like overkill(to me anyways).

@ mav: no one really cares (aside from u) about the call(s) in the deck its just for meta preferances(in my case) cause at the moment i have no goblins or combo or even thresh in my meta and i see no need for worship in my maindeck. and pinder was saying that if you dont like dont play it. its just a metagame thing. so stop wining about it and move the hell on. however i do agree with angels grace. i mean come on.

[Volt]

Theory 2:

Well..the only time I really used Frist Striking Slivers was agaisnt the reanimator Deck but it wasn't really neccessary at all.
But whic slivers could we run instead?

I would suggest something like the following:

4 Crystalline
4 Muscle
4 Plated
3 Winged
2 Harmonic

[Jankwolf]

There wasnt any tone behind what i said...
If you knew my personality, like mav and pinder do, you'd understand that i wasnt mad or angery or serious in anyway...i was simply stateing a fact...I'm sorry if someone took what i said the wrong way...But my main focus here is to help mav/pinder succeed in their goal. I really want to see them go all the way with this. And With all the tourni reports, it shows the good and the bad...whether its optimal or not...But seriously...copy their decklist card for card and possibly add 2 worships and then test it out...