Here is my list for Legacy Slivers. I still don't have the Forces and unlike a lot of cards printed in Eternal masters, they prices keep rising. I am hoping they get down to a $50 range, but I doubt it. I might have to bite the bullet.
The biggest problem with legacy is that I don't know the decks or what to use or not use. However, this is what I am thinking at the moment. I am hoping it is decent. It is based off older lists of David.
I'm testing something along these lines. Merfolk tribal will dump lords and disrupt better. Goblin tribal will grind value better. Elves will ramp mana better. Slivers can do a little bit of each of those, though.
I really feel like this should be explored and revisited. i think the deck has room to play chrome mox as well to get a turn 1 gemhide/manaweft out, and to help pump out lords when aether vial wasn't drawn/played early on. something like:
Alright I FINALLY got to play this deck tonight, didn't have all the pieces for my full shardless list. Went 4-0!! actually had 8 straight wins in matches, winning all of them 2-0. I'm delighted by the results. Heres the list I used:
2-0 BR Reanimator
G1 - The guy plays unmask turn 1 on the draw to remove one of my 2 Forces, I top deck a crystalline sliver for my blue source, and swing in with mutavault, he plays unmask targeting himself to discard a grisel, then plays exhume in which i FoW. He has no hand and doesn't recover while I beat away lord after lord.
G2 - brought in rest in peace, containment priest, swords to plowshares, I ditch sylvan, syphon, phantasmal, brainstorms
- I get turn 1 vial which he smashes to smitherines on his turn 2. I play into turn 2 library, and he unmasks himself to pitch ioona and then exhumes and I daze it, i play turn 3 vial, then i drop rest in peace (top decked) on turn 4 and he concedes with no hand
2-0 Death and Taxes
G1 I win the die roll and drop vial. He does land go. T2 I play second vial and vial in gale rider, he wastelands me and drops mom. T3 I play libary then vial in a lord and swing. He plays land then jitte and passes. I then use sylvan libary to draw a land and put crystalline back on top, play shardless agent which cascades into crystalline which was third from the top before using sylvan library) and win from there as I start dropping lord after lord.
G2 T1 He plays karakas n passes, I play land into vial and pass. He does T2 thalia and passes in which i vial in gale. T2 I play lord and swing. T3 He then plays jitte and wastelands me, swings for 2 with thalia (unequiped). I play lord and swing in and pass, he attempts to StP my lord in which i respond by vialing in crystalline on his T4, and i go for the beats til I win. I brought in StPs and harmonics which i never saw
2-0 Shardless BUG
G1 i win the die roll (I won all of them tonight >:3), and i play fetch, land, vial go. He plays deathrite which i daze. I play land and pass. T2 He plays creeping tarpit tapped, i vial in gale rider EoT. T3 I play land, fetch, then play hibernation sliver. T3 he hymn's me and passes, i lose my hand of 2 lands. T4 I topdeck a library and I play it, swing for 3 n pass. He plays deathrite and passes. I play lord, then swing for 5 (after drawing lord and crystalline off library) and he attempts to decay the lord, which i responded by vialing in crystalline. Next turn i library 2 more lords n go for the kill. EDIT: realized i sequenced this whole match wrong and re wrote it.
G2 I bring in RIP and StPs. He plays a land tapped (creeping tar pit?) and passes. T1 i play galerider and pass (praying he doesnt abrupt it). T2 he plays land-deathrite and passes. T2 I play crystalline sliver and pray he doesn't have toxic deluge for the rest of the game, and my prayers were answered as I kept the beats up and dropping lords while his shardless agents hit brainstorms (2 of them hit BS, 1 hit ancestral
visions).
2-0 C Eldrazi
G1 I win the die roll and play gale rider after a mull to 6. He plays mimic n passes (tapping tomb). T2 I play lord and swing for 2, he plays matter reshaped and swings with mimic for 3. I then play a lord and swing for 6. He attempts to play TKS (tapping 2 tombs), which I FoW in response. He then concedes.
G2 He plays tomb, lotus petal, into matter reshaper. I play galerider and pass. T2 He plays another reshaper and swings for 3. I play lord and swing for 2. T3 He plays land and swings for 6. T3 i topdeck a land which allowed me to play syphon sliver, I swing for 4 and gain 4. T4 he taps out to drop endbringer using cavern so that my daze in hand was dead. however my opener had StP which I use on it on T4 and swing in for 7 . He draws nothing and concedes after the next turn. i brought in StPs and harmonics cutting crystallines and library. EDITpost game i realized that dropping crystalline was a bad idea because the opponent plays end bringer and jitte, but luckily it didn't matter in this match
Overall impression, sylvan library helped a ton in my matches. I was pretty lucky today hitting my syphon sliver (it was in my opener with 2 cavern of souls, daze, StP, gale rider sliver, and a lord) against eldrazi which turned the game around for me game 2. This deck happens to be great in the current meta. I only saw shardless once and it hit crystalline for me 2 turns early which was sweet and ultimately helping me win that matchup against Dnt. Sorry for the borish and poorly written read! I'm mega hungry and its close to midnight haha cheers!
Generally i kept hands with disruption+ vial/galeriders/lords. I only mulled once, so my openers were pretty good.
I wanted to test out the list with 3x shardless agents and ended up going 2-2 overall. Here are the match ups:
2-0 Shardless Bug Won game 1 by out racing the opponent, I played 3 lords and just kept bashing in with them for the win (he played 2 deathrites which blocked early turns and died, and a goyf that could block enough to prevent lethal). The opponent also misplayed and used abrupt decay on vial (when i had 1 card in hand) instead of on a lord which made his blocks inefficient. Game 2 I brought in RIP which shrank his goyf and made his 2 deathrites useless. He ended up playing toxic deluge (turn after i tap out to play rip and swing with mutavault), which i was fine with because I had 3 slivers in hand still, which also cleared his board of goyfs and deathrites. He wasn't able to recover from there.
1-2 UR Delver Basically won game 1 after a mulligan to 5 with no lands (kept a cavern on top with scry), but had aether vial, gale rider, and lords, and 1 STP. Got there game 1 by drawing into lands and swinging in hard and fast. Lost game 2 which would've been a win if i just drew a galerider, numerous times i had lethal but no evasion (perhaps i should play the 1 winged sliver). Game 3 he flipped 3 delvers and killed me quite quickly.
0-2 Miracles Game 1 was a loss, really good miracles player got his monk tokens huge and swung in while keeping lots of tokens up for blocks. Game 2 i put huge pressure on the board and again just needed flying to get lethal, even after he engineer exploded 2 aether vials and nearly my library + ethersworn canonist (i brought 2 canonist in, turns out it is BAD in the match up). Here shardless shined by allowing me to recover after numerous terminus's (he played 3!!!!), hitting STP for mentor (which he FoW'd), and hitting sideboard cards (like thalia, which he also fow'd), but once he got his tokens going I couldn't keep up (he would chain 2 tops over and over again with 2 monks out, generating 8 tokens a turn on 4 lands). Game 2 he FoW'd and terminus'd me 3 times each, and played 2 EE's, like wow. He was at 6 life before his mentor tokens over ran me, i really wish i hit a flying sliver for the win.
2-1 Thoughtlash Control Game 1 i ended up milling him by just swinging in for 20ish damage for 2-3 turns in a row. G2 He ended up getting his lab maniac win con on me as i had no counter spells or STP's to deal with it. Game 3 I played harmonic sliver off of cavern on turn 3 which crushed all his tops and thoughtlashes.
Overall Impressions: I felt that 3 shardless agents felt clunky. I ran into a string of bad luck as well, often drawing into my wastelands without having targets (delver, miracles, thoughtlash), but I'm not convinced I would've liked mutavault instead in those situations. Sylvan library proved again to be an amazing card in this deck, giving me game against every deck i played with. I do believe a lot of my losses were due to side board errors, and accidentally siding out useful cards for non impact cards. I'm planning on cutting 1 shardless agent for 1 winged sliver because flying would have been huge for all my game losses.
I am more of a forum follower than a contributor but will try and post my legacy Slivers deck for feedback as it is my only legacy deck and I love the archetype.
I don't currently play the version of CounterSliver with black in it for Hibernation Sliver.
And I am following the testing of Sylvan Library and Shardless Agent with interest. Based on your recent results fewer Agents is better.
Would you mind posting some examples of where the Hibernation ability is/has been crucial?
Specifically it would be which slivers are worth the life loss to save. I am assuming the Galerider, a Crystalline and a lord.
I am more of a forum follower than a contributor but will try and post my legacy Slivers deck for feedback as it is my only legacy deck and I love the archetype.
I don't currently play the version of CounterSliver with black in it for Hibernation Sliver.
And I am following the testing of Sylvan Library and Shardless Agent with interest. Based on your recent results fewer Agents is better.
Would you mind posting some examples of where the Hibernation ability is/has been crucial?
Specifically it would be which slivers are worth the life loss to save. I am assuming the Galerider, a Crystalline and a lord.
Cheers.
Hey Beavis_NZ, Hibernation I've found is very effective in many situations. It helps to swing into a blocking baleful strix, just to bounce back the one he blocks and vial it back in (if its a lord) to still get damage through. Its also effective at dodging wraths such as toxic deluge and terminus or all is dust, all of which are a common sight at my LGS. It's also fantastic if you are behind in board presence to block a big tarmogoyf or thought-knot seer or a beefed up eldrazi mimic since the bounce life loss is much less. I also keep it in hand for aether vial tricks to whiff a swords to plowshares or abrupt decay. In terms of protecting my slivers, I like to think of hibernation sliver as pseudo-copies of crystalline 5-8. Also, having a 2/2 body is super relevant. It's also great if the opponent may wasteland your mutavault, you can respond by turning it on and bouncing it back to your hand.
Galerider is essential for our win-con, as there are tons of creatures out there that make it hard to swing into, so definitely saving it is a priority. With regards to saving lords, it really depends on the situation. If I'm sitting with no lords in hand, then just saving 1 or 2 might be good enough depending on the opponent's life total, always remember you want to put them on a clock, and wrapping things up sooner is in your favor because it gives them less opportunity to come back. If I have a sylvan library out, I'm less inclined to save 2 or more lords since the drawing engine it provides you is more than strong enough to apply pressure, I absolutely love that card. Against non-monastery miracles decks, I'd just bounce everything back to my hand because my own life total is pretty much irrelevant to my opponent.
Saving crystalline hasn't often come up, mostly because at that point, the only thing it needs protection against is larger creatures in combat, or wraths. Protection in combat doesn't often come up since crystalline often gets to a 4/4 or 5/5 since your lords are not being removed due to the shroud, again bouncing crystalline will probably most often occur against a strix. With regards to wrath effects, I would probably bounce it back since those decks also tend to run point removal which we need protection against (they probably have a bunch of dead removal cards in their hand from your turn 2 crystalline).
So what do we think of recruiter of the guard in slivers? It'll be a possibly better homing sliver in terms of tutoring sliver bullets (see what i did there? :P), without the benefit of being a sliver itself. I definitely see it being beneficial for the Full Slivers list, but not too sure for the counterslivers strategy.
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Modern: C Serum Eldrazi Legacy: CEldrazi C Mud W Soldier Stompy R Bread (big red stompy) WU Spirit Blade WUG Meat Hooks WUBGR Blue Dredge
So, the trend of every recent sliver deck creature being a non-sliver continues.
FWIW Homing Sliver is a thing (and something I play in my Pauper Slivers deck). On the upside it's a sliver that can search at instant speed for colorless mana. On the downside, it doesn't lead to card advantage and requires a Vial or red mana to cast. I might still prefer Homing Sliver, because the added advantage of a vanilla non-sliver 1/1 in a sliver deck is really meager.
just going to throw this out there, I think that Leovold, Emissary of Trest can have a spot int he 75. He stops brainstorm decks while also giving us card advantage against decks that are stack with removal. Maybe just as a 1-of, but what do you think?
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I don't want to be mean, but why would this help? Crystalline and Hibernation already make removal near-useless against us, including global removal like Terminus which is much more impactful and which Leovold doesn't help against. Also, adding one in the 75 with no way to tutor for it and little library manipulation (only Sylvan-fetch interaction) means you're highly unlikely to see it in the few cases where it would actually help. The fact that it's not a sliver means you can't protect it with Crystalline and Hibernation, nor pump/jump it so it can attack profitably against Legacy beaters. At 3 colored mana that doesn't benefit from Cavern (on Sliver), it's also extremely difficult to cast unless you have Vial on 3, which itself is a problem because we want vial to stay at 2. I see pretty much zero upside to this.
I don't want to be mean, but why would this help? Crystalline and Hibernation already make removal near-useless against us, including global removal like Terminus which is much more impactful and which Leovold doesn't help against. Also, adding one in the 75 with no way to tutor for it and little library manipulation (only Sylvan-fetch interaction) means you're highly unlikely to see it in the few cases where it would actually help. The fact that it's not a sliver means you can't protect it with Crystalline and Hibernation, nor pump/jump it so it can attack profitably against Legacy beaters. At 3 colored mana that doesn't benefit from Cavern (on Sliver), it's also extremely difficult to cast unless you have Vial on 3, which itself is a problem because we want vial to stay at 2. I see pretty much zero upside to this.
helps against burn (draws us gas so we can outrace them), helps against shardless match up (lili, abrupt, hymn), stops miracles from finding terminus by blanking brainstorm/top, stops elves from drawing with glimpse. We find it with brainstorm and library. I do agree it'll be hard to cast, but you must be blind if you can't see it's upside.
EDIT: might be better in builds running multiple chrome moxs
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As I like to say, the benchmark isn't whether something is good, but whether something would be better than the other available options. Most cards have flavor text that benefits the person controlling the card, but that isn't enough to justify running the card. Planeswalkers like Lili and Jace are great, but we don't run them. Similarly, I don't see sufficient justification here. Burn isn't a problem with Syphon. Terminus isn't a problem with Hibernation and Cavern/Vial to rebuild. Elves is admittedly a problem, but perhaps easier post-sideboard and with flying lifelinkers if you live long enough. I'd be tickled if you found a way to make Leovold work, but I wouldn't bet on your chances of doing so.
Hi, I was re watching a game back in 2014, a CounterSlivers match up and I found one situation in which it seems like the Sliver player might have cast a cantrip on the first turn, which seems to have lead to a game loss
I know it's a bit of a open question but, about early cantripping, but what would I cantrip for in the first turn? shouldn't I just mulligan instead? what if you already know what you're playing against?
Blake's T1: Drop Flooded Strand, at the end of the opponents turn Blake crack his own fetchland
for a basic Island and cast Brainstorm on the same turn revealing:
Maybe Blake could have kept Hibernation Sliver instead of Harmonic Sliver so he could counter Crop Rotation or if Blake had not cast Brainstorm at all and pitch it for Force of Will to counter Crop Rotation probably winning the match, since all the most relevant cards in this match up was among the three cards on top of his deck or already in Blake's first seven.
Important!: This is just my opinion on the match up, and as far as I have read about and tested, cantripping on the first turns seems to tend to a mistake, of course he didn't know the top cards (no one should) hence the Brainstorm cast. What is the sideboard strategy for Slivers against Lands? But I think the question was what Blake was searching for so early with Brainstorm. I mean, I'm clealy not a expert on CounterSlivers or even Aggro-Control/Tempo decks all together, but wasn't that first seven good enough for not cast a Brainstorm at that point?
We've used eladamri's call before, as it hits all targets. GSZ pretty much only hits the Muscle/Pred Slivers that we're going to be running a ton of in the deck anyway. In particular, it doesn't grab the Crystalline Sliver that as you note is important. It also misses the Hibernation Sliver that protects against Terminus. To be honest, if you need more library manipulation, I'd go with more fetches + Sylvan Library, or more cantrips. These options also help with getting spells or land as needed.
I mean it really just seems like a slightly more consistent soldier/human deck except it doesn't have actual removal. Is just bunch of creatures that boost each other alone enough for the meta? And have you considered collected company?
I mean it really just seems like a slightly more consistent soldier/human deck except it doesn't have actual removal. Is just bunch of creatures that boost each other alone enough for the meta? And have you considered collected company?
a recent deck topped with 2 Coco's and 2 eladamri's call. Coming from modern, collected company does cause huge deck building restrictions in that it's not advised to run less than 28 creatures in order to consistently hit 2 creatures with it. That said, if you are fine with that, you should go for it. My problem is that it leaves little to no room for a disruption package of force or daze
its not just more consistent, shroud and flying are both game winning buffs that other tribal strategies do not have
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Modern: C Serum Eldrazi Legacy: CEldrazi C Mud W Soldier Stompy R Bread (big red stompy) WU Spirit Blade WUG Meat Hooks WUBGR Blue Dredge
I've cut the aether vials and replaced them with Deathrite Shamans in this list. I know that this breaks the Cardinal Rules of Slivers to always play vial, but I've lately been unimpressed with the card. My initial testing actually included a list with both vial and DRS but I've found that having both wasn't necessary to pump out slivers quickly (and I've found that DRS was still able to get my slivers out at roughly the same rate as aether vial, without the benefit of making every sliver uncounterable). This of course makes our control match up worse, but I think its reasonable that cavern is enough to get there against those types of decks. To further support DRS and Brainstorm, I bumped up the fetch-land count to 8, but it can be 9 if we cut the scrubland.
I'm also aware that DRS is not a sliver, but I couldn't for the life of me find a sliver that I would want to play over it. The utility it has is very powerful and supports the hive too much for me not to test it out. Not sure why I hadn't explored this idea earlier when I thought shardless was a good idea (it was meh, library was just better).
I also cut hibernation sliver down to 2. I might throw 2 in the side board for the miracles match up. I just haven't really had a situation where I was dying to have one, but that might just be due to local meta changes recently.
Interesting, it'd be nice to know how DRS does. I'd note that avoiding countermagic and providing acceleration are just two benefits of Vial for the deck. DRS helps with acceleration, Cavern with countermagic, but instant-speed tricks aren't possible with just DRS and Cavern. Pumping, protection (Crystalline doesn't work, Hibernation and Muscle do), evasion, etc. Just 2c to be aware of as you test the different options.
Hey ya'll, wanted to report about my night playing death hooks (death rite meathooks)
it was a 4 round 17-man legacy night
2-1 vs UW Bomberman (ft. meddling mage and git. probe, this deck was actually really tough to hedge a win against)
2-0 vs Grixis Vial Smasher Delver
1-2 vs Lands
1-2 vs Lands
Lands is a terrible match up, and the only games where I missed vials terribly (because of wasteland-loam locks from the early game). Since this was a super small sample size, and my wins against other decks were good, I'll have to continue to assess how this deck is. I intend to throw 2-3 pithing needles into the sideboard instead of abrupt decays to deal with the lands match up or just concede that it is an auto-lose. It should be noted that 4 of the 17 players tonight were playing lands, 2 were on eldrazi, 3 were on delver, 1 on burn, 1 on aluren, and some others that I can't remember.
My first win against lands was actually because of delver deathrite life gain, both of my wins were due to crystalline sliver offering shroud shutting off punishing fire / maze of ith, and mulling into surgical extractions to deal with loam/wasteland engine.
Thanks for the reports, Mambosong. I've been following Meathooks for years, but haven't had an opportunity to finish the deck myself. Updates like yours keep me motivated, so I wanted to let you all know your work and posts aren't going unappreciated.
I just wanted to post the new list that I'll be testing in the upcoming new meta now that terminus/miracles match up is gone. The direction I'm going is bant for a fluid mana base. Here's the list:
You'll notice that I removed daze/STP from the main deck (taking a page from the full slivers list) but threw in some card advantage through collected company. 4 mana is expensive, and I agree that anything that cost's 4 "should just win the game", a sentiment that has been previously repeated. However, this build circumvents that by playing some manaweft slivers to help ramp into it (also helps to hard cast force of will if you don't have a blue card in hand).
Some things I wanted to discuss include whether or not sentinel sliver should be in the main due to it's synergy with manaweft sliver, and if that also will call for the mainboard inclusion of quilled sliver to deal with the potential rise of delver decks that we may see. The synergy of quilled sliver with sentinel sliver is obvious in that it provides us with extra removal while still allowing us to attack. Quilled sliver also offer us a method of fighting through any baleful strixs that might start seeing play as it is one of the few great defensive control creatures in the format. Also, quilled sliver helps us fight through block-boomerang shenanigans that elves present, as we can respond to their activated ability by shooting it down. Also, it kills thalia (or allows us to attack through one ie they choose not to block to prevent it from dying). Additionally, the interaction it'll have with venom sliver is that it'll kill most creatures in the format. Holy cow I think I just convinced myself to play the damn card.
I think Diffusion sliver is there as a flex slot, many times when we don't draw our crystalline sliver we just lose so much tempo in the face of removal. It's also there to bump up the blue count for force of will. I'm pretty much going to test this card as a functional replacement for hibernation sliver as it allows us to stick to fewer colors a little bit better. Also, in the absence of terminus, hibernation sliver's utility does drop, maybe just by a tiny bit, but the card just hasn't impressed me recently.
I dropped Deathrite shaman from my previous deathhooks list because I found that the deck just couldn't support the manabase DRS needed as much as I wanted it to. I did however LOVE the ramp it provided, so another card i started thinking about was noble hierarch, but a buddy had convinced me that it was better suited in a deck that goes tall rather than going wide (stoneblade decks vs slivers) which I had to agree with.
edited for grammar
edited for some after thought on the efficacy of quilled sliver
I see you dropped down to 18 lands, is that in response to adding the Manaweft Sliver? Also, I've noticed you dont use Sliver Hive, what are your thoughts there?
containment priest, ethersworn canonist, thalia, meddling mage are all good hate pieces
C Serum Eldrazi
Legacy:
C Eldrazi
C Mud
W Soldier Stompy
R Bread (big red stompy)
WU Spirit Blade
WUG Meat Hooks
WUBGR Blue Dredge
4 Sliver Hive
4 Mutavault
4 Mana Confluence
4 Ancient Ziggurat
4 Galerider Sliver
2 Winged Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Hibernation Sliver
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Striking Sliver
2 Venom Sliver
4 Force of Will
2 Containment Priest
3 Meddling Mage
2 Syphon Sliver
2 Hunter Sliver
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Warping Wail
2 Pithing Needle
The biggest problem with legacy is that I don't know the decks or what to use or not use. However, this is what I am thinking at the moment. I am hoping it is decent. It is based off older lists of David.
I really feel like this should be explored and revisited. i think the deck has room to play chrome mox as well to get a turn 1 gemhide/manaweft out, and to help pump out lords when aether vial wasn't drawn/played early on. something like:
4 aether vial
2 chrome mox
Creatures (30)
4 predatory sliver
4 sinew sliver
4 muscle sliver
4 crystalline sliver
4 galerider sliver
3 hibernation sliver
4 manaweft sliver
3 gemhide sliver
4 armageddon
2 swords to plowshares
Lands (18)
4 wasteland
4 cavern of souls
2 tundra
2 tropical island
1 underground sea
3 polluted delta
2 flooded strand
C Serum Eldrazi
Legacy:
C Eldrazi
C Mud
W Soldier Stompy
R Bread (big red stompy)
WU Spirit Blade
WUG Meat Hooks
WUBGR Blue Dredge
Creature (25)
4x Crystalline Sliver
4x Galerider Sliver
3x Hibernation Sliver
3x Muscle Sliver
4x Predatory Sliver
1x Shardless Agent
4x Sinew Sliver
1x Syphon Sliver
1x Phantasmal Image
Instant (9)
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
3x Brainstorm
4x AEther Vial
Land (20)
3x Polluted Delta
1x Misty Rainforest
4x Cavern of Souls
3x Flooded Strand
3x Mutavault
1x Wasteland
2x Tropical Island
2x Tundra
1x Underground Sea
Enchantment (2)
2x Sylvan Library
2x Containment Priest
2x Rest in Peace
2x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Harmonic Sliver
3x Swords to Plowshares
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Heres the report
2-0 BR Reanimator
G1 - The guy plays unmask turn 1 on the draw to remove one of my 2 Forces, I top deck a crystalline sliver for my blue source, and swing in with mutavault, he plays unmask targeting himself to discard a grisel, then plays exhume in which i FoW. He has no hand and doesn't recover while I beat away lord after lord.
G2 - brought in rest in peace, containment priest, swords to plowshares, I ditch sylvan, syphon, phantasmal, brainstorms
- I get turn 1 vial which he smashes to smitherines on his turn 2. I play into turn 2 library, and he unmasks himself to pitch ioona and then exhumes and I daze it, i play turn 3 vial, then i drop rest in peace (top decked) on turn 4 and he concedes with no hand
2-0 Death and Taxes
G1 I win the die roll and drop vial. He does land go. T2 I play second vial and vial in gale rider, he wastelands me and drops mom. T3 I play libary then vial in a lord and swing. He plays land then jitte and passes. I then use sylvan libary to draw a land and put crystalline back on top, play shardless agent which cascades into crystalline which was third from the top before using sylvan library) and win from there as I start dropping lord after lord.
G2 T1 He plays karakas n passes, I play land into vial and pass. He does T2 thalia and passes in which i vial in gale. T2 I play lord and swing. T3 He then plays jitte and wastelands me, swings for 2 with thalia (unequiped). I play lord and swing in and pass, he attempts to StP my lord in which i respond by vialing in crystalline on his T4, and i go for the beats til I win. I brought in StPs and harmonics which i never saw
2-0 Shardless BUG
G1 i win the die roll (I won all of them tonight >:3), and i play fetch, land, vial go. He plays deathrite which i daze. I play land and pass. T2 He plays creeping tarpit tapped, i vial in gale rider EoT. T3 I play land, fetch, then play hibernation sliver. T3 he hymn's me and passes, i lose my hand of 2 lands. T4 I topdeck a library and I play it, swing for 3 n pass. He plays deathrite and passes. I play lord, then swing for 5 (after drawing lord and crystalline off library) and he attempts to decay the lord, which i responded by vialing in crystalline. Next turn i library 2 more lords n go for the kill. EDIT: realized i sequenced this whole match wrong and re wrote it.
G2 I bring in RIP and StPs. He plays a land tapped (creeping tar pit?) and passes. T1 i play galerider and pass (praying he doesnt abrupt it). T2 he plays land-deathrite and passes. T2 I play crystalline sliver and pray he doesn't have toxic deluge for the rest of the game, and my prayers were answered as I kept the beats up and dropping lords while his shardless agents hit brainstorms (2 of them hit BS, 1 hit ancestral
visions).
2-0 C Eldrazi
G1 I win the die roll and play gale rider after a mull to 6. He plays mimic n passes (tapping tomb). T2 I play lord and swing for 2, he plays matter reshaped and swings with mimic for 3. I then play a lord and swing for 6. He attempts to play TKS (tapping 2 tombs), which I FoW in response. He then concedes.
G2 He plays tomb, lotus petal, into matter reshaper. I play galerider and pass. T2 He plays another reshaper and swings for 3. I play lord and swing for 2. T3 He plays land and swings for 6. T3 i topdeck a land which allowed me to play syphon sliver, I swing for 4 and gain 4. T4 he taps out to drop endbringer using cavern so that my daze in hand was dead. however my opener had StP which I use on it on T4 and swing in for 7 . He draws nothing and concedes after the next turn. i brought in StPs and harmonics cutting crystallines and library. EDIT post game i realized that dropping crystalline was a bad idea because the opponent plays end bringer and jitte, but luckily it didn't matter in this match
Overall impression, sylvan library helped a ton in my matches. I was pretty lucky today hitting my syphon sliver (it was in my opener with 2 cavern of souls, daze, StP, gale rider sliver, and a lord) against eldrazi which turned the game around for me game 2. This deck happens to be great in the current meta. I only saw shardless once and it hit crystalline for me 2 turns early which was sweet and ultimately helping me win that matchup against Dnt. Sorry for the borish and poorly written read! I'm mega hungry and its close to midnight haha cheers!
Generally i kept hands with disruption+ vial/galeriders/lords. I only mulled once, so my openers were pretty good.
C Serum Eldrazi
Legacy:
C Eldrazi
C Mud
W Soldier Stompy
R Bread (big red stompy)
WU Spirit Blade
WUG Meat Hooks
WUBGR Blue Dredge
Creature (26)
4x Crystalline Sliver
4x Galerider Sliver
3x Hibernation Sliver
3x Muscle Sliver
4x Predatory Sliver
3x Shardless Agent
4x Sinew Sliver
Instant (9)
4x Force of Will
2x Daze
3x Swords to Plowshares
4x AEther Vial
Land (20)
3x Polluted Delta
1x Misty Rainforest
4x Cavern of Souls
3x Flooded Strand
2x Mutavault
2x Wasteland
2x Tropical Island
2x Tundra
1x Underground Sea
2x Sylvan Library
2x Containment Priest
2x Rest in Peace
2x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Harmonic Sliver
1x Syphon Sliver
4x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
I wanted to test out the list with 3x shardless agents and ended up going 2-2 overall. Here are the match ups:
2-0 Shardless Bug Won game 1 by out racing the opponent, I played 3 lords and just kept bashing in with them for the win (he played 2 deathrites which blocked early turns and died, and a goyf that could block enough to prevent lethal). The opponent also misplayed and used abrupt decay on vial (when i had 1 card in hand) instead of on a lord which made his blocks inefficient. Game 2 I brought in RIP which shrank his goyf and made his 2 deathrites useless. He ended up playing toxic deluge (turn after i tap out to play rip and swing with mutavault), which i was fine with because I had 3 slivers in hand still, which also cleared his board of goyfs and deathrites. He wasn't able to recover from there.
1-2 UR Delver Basically won game 1 after a mulligan to 5 with no lands (kept a cavern on top with scry), but had aether vial, gale rider, and lords, and 1 STP. Got there game 1 by drawing into lands and swinging in hard and fast. Lost game 2 which would've been a win if i just drew a galerider, numerous times i had lethal but no evasion (perhaps i should play the 1 winged sliver). Game 3 he flipped 3 delvers and killed me quite quickly.
0-2 Miracles Game 1 was a loss, really good miracles player got his monk tokens huge and swung in while keeping lots of tokens up for blocks. Game 2 i put huge pressure on the board and again just needed flying to get lethal, even after he engineer exploded 2 aether vials and nearly my library + ethersworn canonist (i brought 2 canonist in, turns out it is BAD in the match up). Here shardless shined by allowing me to recover after numerous terminus's (he played 3!!!!), hitting STP for mentor (which he FoW'd), and hitting sideboard cards (like thalia, which he also fow'd), but once he got his tokens going I couldn't keep up (he would chain 2 tops over and over again with 2 monks out, generating 8 tokens a turn on 4 lands). Game 2 he FoW'd and terminus'd me 3 times each, and played 2 EE's, like wow. He was at 6 life before his mentor tokens over ran me, i really wish i hit a flying sliver for the win.
2-1 Thoughtlash Control Game 1 i ended up milling him by just swinging in for 20ish damage for 2-3 turns in a row. G2 He ended up getting his lab maniac win con on me as i had no counter spells or STP's to deal with it. Game 3 I played harmonic sliver off of cavern on turn 3 which crushed all his tops and thoughtlashes.
Overall Impressions: I felt that 3 shardless agents felt clunky. I ran into a string of bad luck as well, often drawing into my wastelands without having targets (delver, miracles, thoughtlash), but I'm not convinced I would've liked mutavault instead in those situations. Sylvan library proved again to be an amazing card in this deck, giving me game against every deck i played with. I do believe a lot of my losses were due to side board errors, and accidentally siding out useful cards for non impact cards. I'm planning on cutting 1 shardless agent for 1 winged sliver because flying would have been huge for all my game losses.
C Serum Eldrazi
Legacy:
C Eldrazi
C Mud
W Soldier Stompy
R Bread (big red stompy)
WU Spirit Blade
WUG Meat Hooks
WUBGR Blue Dredge
I am more of a forum follower than a contributor but will try and post my legacy Slivers deck for feedback as it is my only legacy deck and I love the archetype.
I don't currently play the version of CounterSliver with black in it for Hibernation Sliver.
And I am following the testing of Sylvan Library and Shardless Agent with interest. Based on your recent results fewer Agents is better.
Would you mind posting some examples of where the Hibernation ability is/has been crucial?
Specifically it would be which slivers are worth the life loss to save. I am assuming the Galerider, a Crystalline and a lord.
Cheers.
Hey Beavis_NZ, Hibernation I've found is very effective in many situations. It helps to swing into a blocking baleful strix, just to bounce back the one he blocks and vial it back in (if its a lord) to still get damage through. Its also effective at dodging wraths such as toxic deluge and terminus or all is dust, all of which are a common sight at my LGS. It's also fantastic if you are behind in board presence to block a big tarmogoyf or thought-knot seer or a beefed up eldrazi mimic since the bounce life loss is much less. I also keep it in hand for aether vial tricks to whiff a swords to plowshares or abrupt decay. In terms of protecting my slivers, I like to think of hibernation sliver as pseudo-copies of crystalline 5-8. Also, having a 2/2 body is super relevant. It's also great if the opponent may wasteland your mutavault, you can respond by turning it on and bouncing it back to your hand.
Galerider is essential for our win-con, as there are tons of creatures out there that make it hard to swing into, so definitely saving it is a priority. With regards to saving lords, it really depends on the situation. If I'm sitting with no lords in hand, then just saving 1 or 2 might be good enough depending on the opponent's life total, always remember you want to put them on a clock, and wrapping things up sooner is in your favor because it gives them less opportunity to come back. If I have a sylvan library out, I'm less inclined to save 2 or more lords since the drawing engine it provides you is more than strong enough to apply pressure, I absolutely love that card. Against non-monastery miracles decks, I'd just bounce everything back to my hand because my own life total is pretty much irrelevant to my opponent.
Saving crystalline hasn't often come up, mostly because at that point, the only thing it needs protection against is larger creatures in combat, or wraths. Protection in combat doesn't often come up since crystalline often gets to a 4/4 or 5/5 since your lords are not being removed due to the shroud, again bouncing crystalline will probably most often occur against a strix. With regards to wrath effects, I would probably bounce it back since those decks also tend to run point removal which we need protection against (they probably have a bunch of dead removal cards in their hand from your turn 2 crystalline).
I hope that helped!
C Serum Eldrazi
Legacy:
C Eldrazi
C Mud
W Soldier Stompy
R Bread (big red stompy)
WU Spirit Blade
WUG Meat Hooks
WUBGR Blue Dredge
C Serum Eldrazi
Legacy:
C Eldrazi
C Mud
W Soldier Stompy
R Bread (big red stompy)
WU Spirit Blade
WUG Meat Hooks
WUBGR Blue Dredge
FWIW Homing Sliver is a thing (and something I play in my Pauper Slivers deck). On the upside it's a sliver that can search at instant speed for colorless mana. On the downside, it doesn't lead to card advantage and requires a Vial or red mana to cast. I might still prefer Homing Sliver, because the added advantage of a vanilla non-sliver 1/1 in a sliver deck is really meager.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
C Serum Eldrazi
Legacy:
C Eldrazi
C Mud
W Soldier Stompy
R Bread (big red stompy)
WU Spirit Blade
WUG Meat Hooks
WUBGR Blue Dredge
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
helps against burn (draws us gas so we can outrace them), helps against shardless match up (lili, abrupt, hymn), stops miracles from finding terminus by blanking brainstorm/top, stops elves from drawing with glimpse. We find it with brainstorm and library. I do agree it'll be hard to cast, but you must be blind if you can't see it's upside.
EDIT: might be better in builds running multiple chrome moxs
C Serum Eldrazi
Legacy:
C Eldrazi
C Mud
W Soldier Stompy
R Bread (big red stompy)
WU Spirit Blade
WUG Meat Hooks
WUBGR Blue Dredge
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
I know it's a bit of a open question but, about early cantripping, but what would I cantrip for in the first turn? shouldn't I just mulligan instead? what if you already know what you're playing against?
about the that match up:
Blake's CounterSlivers List [2014]:
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Mutavault
3 Sliver Hive
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Galerider Sliver
4 Hibernation Sliver
3 Muscle Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
1 Winged Sliver
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Relic of Progenitus
4 Æther Vial
3 Darkheart Sliver
2 Flusterstorm
3 Harmonic Sliver
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sower of Temptation
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Leaf's Lands List [2014]:
2 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Glacial Chasm
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Maze of Ith
4 Rishadan Port
3 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Thespian's Stage
3 Tranquil Thicket
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Gamble
4 Life from the Loam
4 Punishing Fire
4 Exploration
2 Manabond
4 Mox Diamond
1 Crop Rotation
2 Dark Depths
1 Karakas
3 Krosan Grip
1 Pithing Needle
1 Primeval Titan
1 Ray of Revelation
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Thorn of Amethyst
Lists source: http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=8383&d=248176&f=LE
The video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz3qkkEDuIQ
the following cards are those I could see in the video
SCGMINN - Legacy - Round 5 Blake Patraw Vs Nick Leaf
CounterSlivers Vs Lands
1st Match
Blake's one lander against Rishadan Port + Wasteland + Life from the Loam = GG
2nd Match
Blake's hand:
Blake's T1: Drop Flooded Strand, at the end of the opponents turn Blake crack his own fetchland
for a basic Island and cast Brainstorm on the same turn revealing:
Blake puts Hibernation Sliver and Misty Rainforest back on top of the deck.
Blake's T2: draw the Misty Rainforest he put back with Brainstorm and crack it for a Tundra
and Cast Sinew Sliver.
Some turns later:
-Blake 20
Hand:
Field:
-Nick 11
Hand:
?
Field:
Blake's T~6: Blake drop a second Mutavault and Tap it to activate the first Mutavault and waits to give the opportunity for the opponent to do something before he attack (maybe tap his Mutavault with Rishadan Port, but he didn't) attack with
Sinew Sliver, Sinew Sliver, Predatory Sliver and Mutavault. Nick is at 11 life and cast Crop Rotation for Glacial Chasm which Blake can't counter due to the lack of blue cards in hand for Force of Will.
Two turns later, blake fails to find Winged Sliver or Galerider Sliver and loses to Marit Lage.
Maybe Blake could have kept Hibernation Sliver instead of Harmonic Sliver so he could counter Crop Rotation or if Blake had not cast Brainstorm at all and pitch it for Force of Will to counter Crop Rotation probably winning the match, since all the most relevant cards in this match up was among the three cards on top of his deck or already in Blake's first seven.
Important!: This is just my opinion on the match up, and as far as I have read about and tested, cantripping on the first turns seems to tend to a mistake, of course he didn't know the top cards (no one should) hence the Brainstorm cast. What is the sideboard strategy for Slivers against Lands? But I think the question was what Blake was searching for so early with Brainstorm. I mean, I'm clealy not a expert on CounterSlivers or even Aggro-Control/Tempo decks all together, but wasn't that first seven good enough for not cast a Brainstorm at that point?
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
a recent deck topped with 2 Coco's and 2 eladamri's call. Coming from modern, collected company does cause huge deck building restrictions in that it's not advised to run less than 28 creatures in order to consistently hit 2 creatures with it. That said, if you are fine with that, you should go for it. My problem is that it leaves little to no room for a disruption package of force or daze
its not just more consistent, shroud and flying are both game winning buffs that other tribal strategies do not have
C Serum Eldrazi
Legacy:
C Eldrazi
C Mud
W Soldier Stompy
R Bread (big red stompy)
WU Spirit Blade
WUG Meat Hooks
WUBGR Blue Dredge
I was going to refer to my sig, but you've already done so.
@mtgaccount: Many cards would be useful in any given deck. Merely being useful is not enough. Instead of proposing a card, consider proposing a list.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
3x Cavern of Souls
3x Flooded Strand
1x Misty Rainforest
2x Mutavault
4x Polluted Delta
1x Scrubland
2x Tropical Island
2x Tundra
1x Underground Sea
Enchantment (2)
2x Sylvan Library
Creature (26)
4x Crystalline Sliver
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Galerider Sliver
2x Hibernation Sliver
3x Muscle Sliver
4x Predatory Sliver
4x Sinew Sliver
1x Winged Sliver
4x Brainstorm
3x Daze
4x Force of Will
2x Swords to Plowshares
2x Abrupt Decay
1x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Harmonic Sliver
2x Mindbreak Trap
3x Surgical Extraction
1x Swords to Plowshares
2x Syphon Sliver
1x Venom Sliver
I've cut the aether vials and replaced them with Deathrite Shamans in this list. I know that this breaks the Cardinal Rules of Slivers to always play vial, but I've lately been unimpressed with the card. My initial testing actually included a list with both vial and DRS but I've found that having both wasn't necessary to pump out slivers quickly (and I've found that DRS was still able to get my slivers out at roughly the same rate as aether vial, without the benefit of making every sliver uncounterable). This of course makes our control match up worse, but I think its reasonable that cavern is enough to get there against those types of decks. To further support DRS and Brainstorm, I bumped up the fetch-land count to 8, but it can be 9 if we cut the scrubland.
I'm also aware that DRS is not a sliver, but I couldn't for the life of me find a sliver that I would want to play over it. The utility it has is very powerful and supports the hive too much for me not to test it out. Not sure why I hadn't explored this idea earlier when I thought shardless was a good idea (it was meh, library was just better).
I also cut hibernation sliver down to 2. I might throw 2 in the side board for the miracles match up. I just haven't really had a situation where I was dying to have one, but that might just be due to local meta changes recently.
C Serum Eldrazi
Legacy:
C Eldrazi
C Mud
W Soldier Stompy
R Bread (big red stompy)
WU Spirit Blade
WUG Meat Hooks
WUBGR Blue Dredge
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
it was a 4 round 17-man legacy night
2-1 vs UW Bomberman (ft. meddling mage and git. probe, this deck was actually really tough to hedge a win against)
2-0 vs Grixis Vial Smasher Delver
1-2 vs Lands
1-2 vs Lands
Lands is a terrible match up, and the only games where I missed vials terribly (because of wasteland-loam locks from the early game). Since this was a super small sample size, and my wins against other decks were good, I'll have to continue to assess how this deck is. I intend to throw 2-3 pithing needles into the sideboard instead of abrupt decays to deal with the lands match up or just concede that it is an auto-lose. It should be noted that 4 of the 17 players tonight were playing lands, 2 were on eldrazi, 3 were on delver, 1 on burn, 1 on aluren, and some others that I can't remember.
My first win against lands was actually because of
delverdeathrite life gain, both of my wins were due to crystalline sliver offering shroud shutting off punishing fire / maze of ith, and mulling into surgical extractions to deal with loam/wasteland engine.Edit: deathrite not delver
C Serum Eldrazi
Legacy:
C Eldrazi
C Mud
W Soldier Stompy
R Bread (big red stompy)
WU Spirit Blade
WUG Meat Hooks
WUBGR Blue Dredge
WGDeath & TaxesGW
UWSpiritsWU
I just wanted to post the new list that I'll be testing in the upcoming new meta now that terminus/miracles match up is gone. The direction I'm going is bant for a fluid mana base. Here's the list:
4x Crystalline Sliver
3x Diffusion Sliver
4x Galerider Sliver
3x Manaweft Sliver
4x Muscle Sliver
4x Predatory Sliver
4x Sinew Sliver
1x Talon Sliver
2x Venom Sliver
1x Winged Sliver
4x Cavern of Souls
1x Forest
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Mutavault
3x Tropical Island
2x Tundra
Instant (7)
3x Collected Company
4x Force of Will
Enchantment (1)
1x Sylvan Library
Artifact (4)
4x Aether Vial
2x Containment Priest
2x Harmonic Sliver
1x Krosan Grip
2x Quilled Sliver
3x Rest in Peace
2x Swords to Plowshares
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
You'll notice that I removed daze/STP from the main deck (taking a page from the full slivers list) but threw in some card advantage through collected company. 4 mana is expensive, and I agree that anything that cost's 4 "should just win the game", a sentiment that has been previously repeated. However, this build circumvents that by playing some manaweft slivers to help ramp into it (also helps to hard cast force of will if you don't have a blue card in hand).
Some things I wanted to discuss include whether or not sentinel sliver should be in the main due to it's synergy with manaweft sliver, and if that also will call for the mainboard inclusion of quilled sliver to deal with the potential rise of delver decks that we may see. The synergy of quilled sliver with sentinel sliver is obvious in that it provides us with extra removal while still allowing us to attack. Quilled sliver also offer us a method of fighting through any baleful strixs that might start seeing play as it is one of the few great defensive control creatures in the format. Also, quilled sliver helps us fight through block-boomerang shenanigans that elves present, as we can respond to their activated ability by shooting it down. Also, it kills thalia (or allows us to attack through one ie they choose not to block to prevent it from dying). Additionally, the interaction it'll have with venom sliver is that it'll kill most creatures in the format. Holy cow I think I just convinced myself to play the damn card.
I think Diffusion sliver is there as a flex slot, many times when we don't draw our crystalline sliver we just lose so much tempo in the face of removal. It's also there to bump up the blue count for force of will. I'm pretty much going to test this card as a functional replacement for hibernation sliver as it allows us to stick to fewer colors a little bit better. Also, in the absence of terminus, hibernation sliver's utility does drop, maybe just by a tiny bit, but the card just hasn't impressed me recently.
I dropped Deathrite shaman from my previous deathhooks list because I found that the deck just couldn't support the manabase DRS needed as much as I wanted it to. I did however LOVE the ramp it provided, so another card i started thinking about was noble hierarch, but a buddy had convinced me that it was better suited in a deck that goes tall rather than going wide (stoneblade decks vs slivers) which I had to agree with.
edited for grammar
edited for some after thought on the efficacy of quilled sliver
C Serum Eldrazi
Legacy:
C Eldrazi
C Mud
W Soldier Stompy
R Bread (big red stompy)
WU Spirit Blade
WUG Meat Hooks
WUBGR Blue Dredge
WUBRGCoco/Vial Slivers
WUBRGSlivers of the Void
Pioneer
WUBRGCoco Slivers
Legacy
WUBRGAll in Slivers