Hi again! I have a couple Sliver Queens, Sliver overlords, and Sliver legions laying around and want to build a multiplayer sliver deck! Being new to slivers and the game in general, I came here for advice :). Obviously these 3 legendary slivers don't all need to be in there, in-fact none of them do if it makes the deck less efficient and/or I don't need to go 5 colors.
As for draw, I don't know. I am in blue, so Rhystic Study seems great
So what would the core of the deck be? There are plenty of options to go from there. I mostly came here because there are so many options and i'm lost on what to choose. Advice?
P.S. I have no budget. Our Ban-list is mostly the Legacy ban-list and no infinite combos.
Yay for Sliver decks with no budget! Prepare to be hated!
It's perfectly possible to build a Rainbow Green Sliver deck (by which I mean a five-colour deck where green is the main colour, and the other four are in support).
Green gives you four Gemhide Slivers and Descendants' Path at the least. The WotC foil Sliver deck used Wild Pair, which is also effective.
After that, I'd run one each of the three big guys.
The other key guys to run are Crystalline Sliver (which keeps all your dudes on the table) and Acidic Sliver (which gives you a non-attack-based alt-win-con for times when your Slivers can't breach defenses... I have won more games with this Sliver than I've had hot dinners).
From there, you probably can't go too wrong - there are plenty of other good Slivers to choose from that you could throw on the pile (I could probably argue that Winged Sliver needs to be in too, simply so you have flying defense), but really, if you've got a few good tutors and a decent landbase underneath it, you can't go wrong (and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why people haaate Slivers... to quote Agent Smith, "Do you hear that? Inevitability, Mr. Anderson!").
Yay for Sliver decks with no budget! Prepare to be hated!
Haha, my meta is pretty tough and has lots of strong decks, i'm sure they can deal with it.
It's perfectly possible to build a Rainbow Green Sliver deck (by which I mean a five-colour deck where green is the main colour, and the other four are in support).
Green gives you four Gemhide Slivers and Descendants' Path at the least. The WotC foil Sliver deck used Wild Pair, which is also effective.
Completely forgot about Descendants' Path, that seems very strong in this deck.
Acidic Sliver (which gives you a non-attack-based alt-win-con for times when your Slivers can't breach defenses... I have won more games with this Sliver than I've had hot dinners).
Acidic Sliver huh? The 2 colorless mana you have to pay to sacrifice them seemed a little lack-luster to me. I'm by no means an expert, but you really think hes worth running over other slivers?
As for the mana base, I'm not sure exactly how to go about it. Ancient Ziggurat and Gemstone Mine seem like auto-includes unless someone can convince me otherwise. Next to that would I just add in 8 or so forests and a couple of each color? With gemhide slivers it seems good to me. I don't know whether or not to include both Gemhide Slivers AND manaweft slivers, would both be over doing it?
As you can see my land base seems kind of odd. As for slivers, I only added 3 crystalline sliver because targeted removal seems light in my meta, and they provide no protection against mass removal. I'm also in the need of some recursion, so the deck will surely change once I get some more questions answered.
On a side note: Do multiple Descendants' Paths allow me to look at more than one card? (Sorry if this is a dumb question, still getting used to rulings)
Edit: I did some testing with this exact deck, and it already seems super fast (often getting a legendary on turn 3-5).
The way I see it, you must include 4 Gemhide Sliver/Mana-who-its, and 4 Homing Sliver in any Sliver deck. That way you can get your mana fixed ASAP and then find/play any sliver in your deck ASAP. You really only need 1 of every other sliver, because after that it's all about tool boxing your deck together; at that point you can get multiples of what you want to make it more consistent. Once you acquire Haste the mana ramp gets to be pretty insane.
The way I see it, you must include 4 Gemhide Sliver/Mana-who-its, and 4 Homing Sliver in any Sliver deck. That way you can get your mana fixed ASAP and then find/play any sliver in your deck ASAP. You really only need 1 of every other sliver, because after that it's all about tool boxing your deck together; at that point you can get multiples of what you want to make it more consistent. Once you acquire Haste the mana ramp gets to be pretty insane.
I've also added Gavony Township to the land base. The +1/+1 counters can really go along way to beef up the slivers if I need something to pump mana into. Reflecting Pool also seems nice...
It depends on your win condition. If you're going to attack, then yes, pack in the lords, but don't forget to add Sinew Sliver for 12. If you're attacking, I also recommend Magma Sliver though he doesn't work at all with Crystalline Sliver, but then you can swap in Opaline Sliver for your card draw instead; now if your opponent decides to use removal, you just get more Slivers.
It depends on your win condition. If you're going to attack, then yes, pack in the lords, but don't forget to add Sinew Sliver for 12. If you're attacking, I also recommend Magma Sliver though he doesn't work at all with Crystalline Sliver, but then you can swap in Opaline Sliver for your card draw instead; now if your opponent decides to use removal, you just get more Slivers.
If you want to stick to attacking and Crystalline Sliver, go for lords and either of the Double Strike Slivers. Trample, Lifelink are obvious auto includes as well.
Just find what you need from here. There is a Sliver for very nearly everything.
Sweet, thanks for your help! Now I need to get to bed.
Twilight's Call is almost strictly worse than Patriarch's Bidding. Costs more and helps your opponents more. All you get in return is the instant option.
Unless your meta is heavy with tribal decks, and casting Bidding is going to be better for someone else than it is for you, I would absolutely be running it. I might even run it in a tribal-heavy meta, because Slivers are so powerful that it's hard to imagine someone else benefiting more than you on a consistent basis. Living Death is a solid card, too, but obviously has some drawbacks if you're trying to keep the board full of creatures after every wipe. Still, Like Xyx says, if you've got some sac outlets that you can trigger in response, it can get pretty out of control. I usually prefer it with a bunch of sweet ETB effects, though, because it helps maintain your advantage over your opponents.
The only problem I see with running Patriarch's Bidding and Living Death as answers to a sweeper is that post-sweep you're not going to have any Gemhide or Manaweft slivers on the board. That could potentially make the double black for both of those spells hard to obtain.
What about Frenetic Sliver. Overall it makes enemy removal 50% less effective which seems pretty dam good. While only being able to save half your board in the event of a sweeper isn't great, it's a hell of a lot better than losing everything.
I think the best sliver deck plays the combo of Dormant Sliver, Gemhide Sliver/Manaweft Sliver, and Firewake Sliver (similar to what Arkmer said). This engine lets you convert cards into mana and vice versa. Add in Intruder Alarm to effectively vomit your deck onto the table. Then sac all your Dormant Slivers to Firewake Sliver and attack with a bunch of hasted, flying, poisonous slivers for the win. Generally you're drawing so many cards that you can beat wrath effects, but Frenetic Sliver and Sedge Sliver can be decent answers.
The sliver lords are not very important because 1. you won't be blocking and 2. attacking for the win is easier to set up with the flying sliver and poison slivers than with lords. Though a couple Might Slivers aren't bad if you're afraid of Pyroclasm.
Acidic Sliver huh? The 2 colorless mana you have to pay to sacrifice them seemed a little lack-luster to me. I'm by no means an expert, but you really think hes worth running over other slivers?
Yes, absolutely - it's direct damage, which is something no other Sliver is going to provide you with (well, unless they snuck one into M14 that I can't remember). 2 is actually a pretty fair cost, really. If it was any lower, people would probably be using Acidic as their primary finisher in a Sliver deck (you know, spam the board with Slivers, and then throw them at everyone... imagine if it just granted "Sac me: Deal 2 damage"). I find that by the time I've done as much damage as I can beating faces and someone's stalling me out or controlling the board, I have enough mana lying around to take the win with Acidic (especially if there's a Gemhide out too).
Psionic Sliver is a million time stronger than any alternative. It's bar none the most powerful sliver in my experience. With Dormant Sliver some Lords and some mana producing Slivers you can basically just kill anyone who tries to Wrath immediately. Any Awakening effect allows you to win almost as soon as you stick a Dormant Sliver. Also makes Syphon Sliver a total beating but I mean you should always run him anyways. Yes, that is 5 life per activation. You literally ignore attackers (your health is usually insanely high) and just ping anyone who tries to play mass removal.
Good point - I neglected to mention the benefits of running Amoeboid Changeling (which is probably the main one to run... maybe Mirror Entity too). They stuck a copy of this in the foil Sliver precon, and it's a sickeningly cute little combo.
(For those who've never seen it... 1) Grant something across the table Changeling with the Amoeboid, 2) nick it with Sliver Overlord, because it's a Sliver now... added benefits being that the Amoeboid gets all the Sliver bonuses)
Anyways, the most notable slivers to me are:
Shifting Sliver-Because unblockable slivers can be insane
Talon Sliver+Toxin Sliver=All creatures without first strike lose in combat.
Winged Sliver and Galerider Sliver-Flying slivers is always nice
Predatory Sliver and Muscle Sliver-Sliver lords!
Manaweft Sliver and Gemhide Sliver-Great for mana production, especially if i'm going 5 colors
Spined Sliver-Seems nice for attacking
Horned sliver-Trample is always great, especially with all the boosts they will be getting.
Homing Sliver-Tutoring up a legendary sliver? Seems sweet if i'm running one of them.
Crystalline Sliver-Protection from removal is also nice.
As for draw, I don't know. I am in blue, so Rhystic Study seems great
So what would the core of the deck be? There are plenty of options to go from there. I mostly came here because there are so many options and i'm lost on what to choose. Advice?
P.S. I have no budget. Our Ban-list is mostly the Legacy ban-list and no infinite combos.
It's perfectly possible to build a Rainbow Green Sliver deck (by which I mean a five-colour deck where green is the main colour, and the other four are in support).
Green gives you four Gemhide Slivers and Descendants' Path at the least. The WotC foil Sliver deck used Wild Pair, which is also effective.
After that, I'd run one each of the three big guys.
The other key guys to run are Crystalline Sliver (which keeps all your dudes on the table) and Acidic Sliver (which gives you a non-attack-based alt-win-con for times when your Slivers can't breach defenses... I have won more games with this Sliver than I've had hot dinners).
From there, you probably can't go too wrong - there are plenty of other good Slivers to choose from that you could throw on the pile (I could probably argue that Winged Sliver needs to be in too, simply so you have flying defense), but really, if you've got a few good tutors and a decent landbase underneath it, you can't go wrong (and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why people haaate Slivers... to quote Agent Smith, "Do you hear that? Inevitability, Mr. Anderson!").
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Haha, my meta is pretty tough and has lots of strong decks, i'm sure they can deal with it.
Completely forgot about Descendants' Path, that seems very strong in this deck.
Acidic Sliver huh? The 2 colorless mana you have to pay to sacrifice them seemed a little lack-luster to me. I'm by no means an expert, but you really think hes worth running over other slivers?
As for the mana base, I'm not sure exactly how to go about it. Ancient Ziggurat and Gemstone Mine seem like auto-includes unless someone can convince me otherwise. Next to that would I just add in 8 or so forests and a couple of each color? With gemhide slivers it seems good to me. I don't know whether or not to include both Gemhide Slivers AND manaweft slivers, would both be over doing it?
4 Gemhide Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
3 Predatory Sliver
4 Winged Sliver
3 Crystalline Sliver
3 Toxin Sliver
2 Might Sliver
2 Brood Sliver
2 Manaweft Sliver
1 Shifting Sliver
1 Spined Sliver
1 Horned Sliver
1 Talon Sliver
1 Homing Sliver
1 Sliver Legion
1 Sliver Queen
1 Sliver Overlord
4 Descendants' Path
Land:
4 Ancient Ziggurat
4 Gemstone Mine
7 Forest
2 Plains
2 Mountain
2 Island
As you can see my land base seems kind of odd. As for slivers, I only added 3 crystalline sliver because targeted removal seems light in my meta, and they provide no protection against mass removal. I'm also in the need of some recursion, so the deck will surely change once I get some more questions answered.
On a side note: Do multiple Descendants' Paths allow me to look at more than one card? (Sorry if this is a dumb question, still getting used to rulings)
Edit: I did some testing with this exact deck, and it already seems super fast (often getting a legendary on turn 3-5).
The way I see it, you must include 4 Gemhide Sliver/Mana-who-its, and 4 Homing Sliver in any Sliver deck. That way you can get your mana fixed ASAP and then find/play any sliver in your deck ASAP. You really only need 1 of every other sliver, because after that it's all about tool boxing your deck together; at that point you can get multiples of what you want to make it more consistent. Once you acquire Haste the mana ramp gets to be pretty insane.
My Sliver deck uses Dormant Sliver, Gemhide Sliver, and Heart Sliver to basically play the deck out in a Flash. Since I can't attack with with my deck, I use Psionic Sliver as my win condition and Screeching Sliver as my alternate. And to be really annoying I use Enchanted Evening with Harmonic Sliver to blow up boards. But my deck doesn't attack.
Pulmonic Sliver in case of board wipe. And yes, Quick Sliver + Homing Sliver makes this instant speed board "save". Ghostflame Sliver + All is Dust for style points.
Add Basal Sliver to your deck for infinite Sliver tokens with Gemhide + Basal + Heart + Queen.
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Hmm, good insight. However, shouldn't the lords (Muscle Sliver and Predatory Sliver) be more than just 1-of's?
I've also added Gavony Township to the land base. The +1/+1 counters can really go along way to beef up the slivers if I need something to pump mana into. Reflecting Pool also seems nice...
So maybe something like this:
4 Gemhide Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Manaweft Sliver
4 Homing Sliver
1 Sinew sliver
1 Winged Sliver
1 Crystalline Sliver
1 Toxin Sliver
1 Might Sliver
1 Brood Sliver
1 Shifting Sliver
1 Spined Sliver
1 Horned Sliver
1 Talon Sliver
1 Pulmonic Sliver
1 Bonescythe Sliver
1 Sentinel Sliver
1 Sliver Legion
1 Sliver Queen
1 Sliver Overlord
Land:
4 Ancient Ziggurat
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Reflecting Pool
2 Forest
2 Gavony Township
If you want to stick to attacking and Crystalline Sliver, go for lords and either of the Double Strike Slivers. Trample, Lifelink are obvious auto includes as well.
Just find what you need from //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?output=spoiler&method=visual&page=0&type=+[Sliver">||subtype%3d+[Sliver]"]here. There is a Sliver for very nearly everything.
"Reveal a Dragon"
Sweet, thanks for your help! Now I need to get to bed.
If the board hates you you might as well add Debtor's Knell...
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
And the Knell of course.
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
Unless your meta is heavy with tribal decks, and casting Bidding is going to be better for someone else than it is for you, I would absolutely be running it. I might even run it in a tribal-heavy meta, because Slivers are so powerful that it's hard to imagine someone else benefiting more than you on a consistent basis. Living Death is a solid card, too, but obviously has some drawbacks if you're trying to keep the board full of creatures after every wipe. Still, Like Xyx says, if you've got some sac outlets that you can trigger in response, it can get pretty out of control. I usually prefer it with a bunch of sweet ETB effects, though, because it helps maintain your advantage over your opponents.
What about Frenetic Sliver. Overall it makes enemy removal 50% less effective which seems pretty dam good. While only being able to save half your board in the event of a sweeper isn't great, it's a hell of a lot better than losing everything.
The sliver lords are not very important because 1. you won't be blocking and 2. attacking for the win is easier to set up with the flying sliver and poison slivers than with lords. Though a couple Might Slivers aren't bad if you're afraid of Pyroclasm.
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Yes, absolutely - it's direct damage, which is something no other Sliver is going to provide you with (well, unless they snuck one into M14 that I can't remember).
2 is actually a pretty fair cost, really. If it was any lower, people would probably be using Acidic as their primary finisher in a Sliver deck (you know, spam the board with Slivers, and then throw them at everyone... imagine if it just granted "Sac me: Deal 2 damage"). I find that by the time I've done as much damage as I can beating faces and someone's stalling me out or controlling the board, I have enough mana lying around to take the win with Acidic (especially if there's a Gemhide out too).
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Door of Destinies & maybe Shapeshifters (like Taurean Mauler, Cairn wanderer, Shapesharer etc.) are two things I would consider in addition to everything everyone has suggested.
One thing I will add, Slivers attract huge attention in my group, so much so that our resident sliver-er runs heavy on the Syphon Sliver.
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Good point - I neglected to mention the benefits of running Amoeboid Changeling (which is probably the main one to run... maybe Mirror Entity too). They stuck a copy of this in the foil Sliver precon, and it's a sickeningly cute little combo.
(For those who've never seen it... 1) Grant something across the table Changeling with the Amoeboid, 2) nick it with Sliver Overlord, because it's a Sliver now... added benefits being that the Amoeboid gets all the Sliver bonuses)
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