With the fetches + Brainstorm I can shuffle away excess lands quite easily and Compulsive Research serves to reload. The 22 lands also seem like too many with all the draw but on 21 I can end up stuck on 2-3 lands without a way to get blue mana.
The Quick Slivers in the board are just there to try and force through threats against delver though there isn't much delver being played in the practice rooms so my testing is very limited. I'm sure it could be something else more substantial.
I'm still not very happy with Thermokarst. Against cloudpost I've done quite well at playing out non pump slivers and swinging which usually prompts them to spend removal and once I hit enough lands and enough mass of pumpers, dumping my hand to try to get out of range of most removal. Unfortunately I still can't fight Temporal Fissure without wrecking some mana bases unless I try to jam Hindering Touch just for that one card, which seems horrible. I think I would like to try Sigil Blessing as an overrun effect and just go for speed against those decks.
Only had a chance to play delver twice and I won both games but it isn't a walk in the park. Typical aggro vs control play skill tester. Thankfully, we have a lot of threats that compound and main deck hate for flyers. The Quick Sliver got countered the one time I drew one so who knows.
U/R Cloudpost has been easy but the three matches seemed less red removal dependent and more fissure based and slivers without removal can eat through 20 life quick. I can see the more burn oriented Cloudpost decks being a very tough match even with Hydroblast.
Goblins is a hard match up so far. It is only because I'm able to run 4 Journey to nowhere and 4 Hydroblast. They are swinging with 2/2's on turn 2 when my slivers aren't big enough to compete and can turn favorable combat into unfavorable with a simple lightning bolt on a pump sliver. I also had one player bring in Raze against me and go after my Island. Thankfully, I had a second fetch to find my second Island.
U/R Kiln Fiend is back in force thanks to the new 4 toughness defender and they have to draw bad game one against my good draws for me to win. Game two gets better with Journey and Hydroblast but they still can win through the hate with Apostle's Blessing.
Stompy is a very easy match when they don't get the hard to block guys suited up really early. Slivers get bigger than their average quite fast and they don't have any removal.
Just a side note but there is an extort deck running around that uses Tithe Drinker, Edge of the Divinity, and Ethereal Armor. I've played against it three times and my only answer to their creatures are Journey to Nowhere but they run several other dudes that benefit from Edge and can be swinging in with bigger, life gain, first strike dudes quite quickly, while also bleeding me down with extort triggers. Cool deck.
Sometimes the Gemhides are horrible top decks when my board is wrecked and sometimes they're amazing at allowing me to resolve big turns when my opponent has tapped out. The Spinnerets are always the biggest dude on the table since it starts as a 2/2 but with 4 more pump slivers, it is probably not needed for that but more for the occasional flying defense.
Still excited about testing out GBW and GR. Although losing Sinew Sliver AND Plated Sliver in the GR version seems terrible. The deck is already very aggressive and maybe running GW base splashing blue for Brainstorm and swapping Compulsive Research for Bonesplitter Sliver so we can jam Hydroblast AND Pyroblast in the side might be amazing. I would probably run just one Mountain and one Island and change two fetches for Shimmering Grotto. Gemhide would probably have to stay at least as a 3 of but with more consistently huge slivers I could justify dropping Journey To Nowhere to the side and playing with the numbers of the less important slivers. Hitting 4 untapped lands isn't terribly difficult by turn 5 and if we're winning the race, Bonesplitter could easily end the game the turn it comes down. Alternatively, if we're back peddling, suddenly having 4+ power dudes to stand in the way is also really strong. While the deck loses the late game resilience of Compulsive Research it gains much stronger sideboard tactics and a nice curve topper to just finish.
Wish we could get access to trample for less than 6-7 damn mana. Curse you Horned Sliver.
Edit: Seriously amazed at how well I'm doing. Having the draw and deck manipulation to forge ahead in the face of counterspells, removal, opposing dudes, wrath effects, etc has been pretty interesting. I can only imagine what having 4 more lords will do. I'm contemplating more and more on a wubg deck that is slow out of the gates with removal and answers till it can just flood the board with pump slivers. I know the color fixing is a nightmare but there are no double color requirements and I already have games where I'm behind on board from hand sculpting, find an opening and flood the board prompting answers from the opposing side which usually buys me a second turn of freedom. With the meta as slow as it is... I'm definitely dreaming of a magical Christmas land but it's fun to dream!
Virulent can easily win games over life gain. Since the ability stacks but doesn't prevent normal damage like infect, you don't lose anything either. Sidewinder can be a beating against other aggro decks but it doesn't do anything if they're not blocking with bigger or equal sized dudes. With more pump slivers, flanking loses some of it's luster. Although, a single flanking sliver turns off opposing Stinkweed Imps.
I could almost never hard cast a crusher so if I don't have a gemhide in play, the crusher is completely dead.
Few things to add to this thread. Virulent sliver is the best non lord sliver in the deck it can turn a bunch of unboosted slivers into a game winner. Secondly I don't think that slivers is well positioned at the moment, it has fair matchups against other aggro decks (except auras) and very poor matchups against both MBC and UR post two fairly prolific decks in the format.
With the new lords the deck might gain some traction but the complete lack of card advantage while at the same time having not very resilient creatures and being a swarm style deck it's not well positioned in a format where two decks who prey on creature decks and decks with low amounts of card advantage.
For the record I've tested:
GW slivers
Bant slivers (for Brainstorm/fetches hydroblast and spell pierce out of the board)
Junk slivers (for sliver regeneration sign in blood removal out of the board and main deck creature retrieval with unearth ad undying evil)
GW seems like the best as a tri coloured aggro deck struggles in a format where all the fixing equates to tempo loss. I didn't splash red because all the current red slivers are quite expensive and feel a bit win more to be honest.
Cathallex; you nailed Virulent Sliver perfectly. It is easily the biggest threat at times.
MBC is difficult if they're rocking crypt rats and I could see it being nearly impossible to beat in just g/w but my testing with g/w/u running 4 Brainstorm and 3 Compulsive Research has done fairly well at drawing enough gas to keep pressure.
UR post has been easy outside of an early fissure followed by a way to buy it back. I'm easily 70% win rate over it. Especially with Hydroblast out of the side to fight their removal.
Also, running just the fetch lands allow Brainstorm to work like a champ.
Ale^^; If you can get your hands on Brainstorm and Compulsive Research, which has made the deck much better in my opinion, you should try out the bant colors. All the draw lets you play super defensive against aggro match ups and just out power them in the long game and keep a threat density over heavy removal decks.
If you are experiencing a ton of fissure storm, try Mizzium Skin on for size. It doesn't do anything for your lands but you get to keep your dudes swinging while you rebuild your land base. You might also run Careful Study instead of Compulsive Research and just punt on land drops when you hit enough to function.
I honestly don't know about dedicated g/u fissure. Even just in g/w we have access to LD to slow the turn they go off. The current slivers available can get starts that blow through 20 life without trouble and I can only assume with 4 more lords it will get more consistent. If blue is included in the deck that works, Mizzium Skin can save the dudes. If black is included in the deck that works, targeted discard is obviously available.
I'm really disappointed we haven't seen anymore slivers spoiled yet. I'm afraid the naya ones we have may be it in spite of the rumor that there is a new 5 color sliver coming. The name and number crunch thread brought up the fact that wotc spoiler page doesn't have a 5 color page. That could be a part of the trick of not spoiling a potential for 5 color cards or it could just mean the rumors aren't true.
Adding a color means slowing down significantly. Competitive Slivers decks have always relied on an absurdly low curve and a slightly janky two-color landbase; going to three isn't an option. By the time you're running slow enough for three colors, you're not running fast enough to benefit from Slivers getting out of hand quickly.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
I write a rough draft of a Bant Version, I really like winged sliver & shadow sliver with the 3 lords and the virulent sliver
I really want to play Homing sliver even if I don't run any red because it's a tutor for colorless mana that will fetch the sliver we need!
For the other spell I don't really care so I added stuff to fix my mana, I didn't try it yet but I'm sure it will be fun! I'm not sure about the other spells if you have any Idea I'll be glad to try them!
I've always liked Land Grant in slivers. The drawback isn't much of a drawback when you empty your hand by turn 3-4. The only time I've wanted a forest instead is when I've got a couple plains and no forest. But most of the early stuff is white.
I'm wondering if Hive Stirrings could be used MB to make our sideboard options better. If we have Stirrings MB, adding rootborn defenses, sundering growth, or druid's deliverance would have a decent chance of not taking a creature out of the deck. It seems a bit cutesy to me at the moment, but we need some new tech.
Is there any way to make distant melody work in a slivers deck? Possibly using gemhide slivers and something like springleaf drums/prisms/manamorphose for the blue source?
There are certainly ways to cast Distant Melody in a sliver deck. Gemhide is relatively bad if you're not playing a mass haste enabler as well because unlike elves where the number of them on the field can often increase the available amount of mana in a single turn, slivers have no such enabler. Abundant Growth is better than Prophetic Prism since we're already green based.
That being said, I worked quite a bit on a bant sliver list. The problem I experienced wasn't having a bunch of slivers but not enough to win with, it was either I was winning or I wasn't getting anywhere. I quickly moved to Compulsive Research and Brainstorm with fetchs. The problem then was that I didn't have the easy swarm starts that g/w by itself gets to enjoy. I can't imagine this being any different with another 4 lords.
I would love to have some reliable card advantage, even if it weren't hard card draw but simple virtual card advantage, in regular g/w slivers OR a way to dump my hand of lords quicker.
Commune just brings me the best sliver for the current situation, and only for one green mana.
Lotus Petal is a must for me, I have been able to vomit my entire hand on turn 2 by casting the mana sliver turn 1 and on turn 2 cast a heart sliver (I also use 4 of these for the stated reason).
I was skeptical by adding red to my deck, but red gives a very nice sharp edge.
I tried lightning bolts, but after using Hunter Sliver I decided that it was better to be able to "recur" my "removal" by provoking. Sidewinder Sliver/Striking Sliver/12 pump slivers makes them impossible to trade with the hive deck.
I removed the Virulent Slivers, they always get killed after receiving 8 poison counters. They are good, but I prefer other 1 cc drop slivers.
Bonesplitter Sliver is simply amazing as a finisher, having a bunch of small 4/2 or 5/3 dudes is almost a win, I'm using 2 though (but I'm also using 3 commune, take that in consideration).
Sigil Blessing is simply amazing on W/G versions, you can go from losing most of your slivers by your opponents chump blockers to have all or most of your slivers live for another day. In terms of damage, this will always do 6 more combat damage minimun.
Standard Bearer <----- get this if you can, it ruins so many decks
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Legacy URGBOops all my spellsBGRU URBYoung GrixisBRU
~Commander~ BUDralnu/ReanimatorUB GRUMaelstroM WanderiNgURG GBMerengue Clan of SalsaBG
WUGeist of Saint TraftUW UTalrand PolymorphishU UAzami, Lady of CAU BRWZurgo, Worldslayer BearerWRB BWUMerieke Ri Berit UWB UVendilion CliqueU
Modern:U Mono-U TroN U
I would want Commune with Nature primarily if I don't have a Sliver or a tapland I can play, and then I would want it primarily if I was heavy on so I'd be reliably able to Forest it out.
Lotus Petal seems reasonable for getting that extra early power on the table. I'm less enthusiastic about Gemhide Sliver + Heart Sliver; neither one is especially good on its own, or in multiples with itself.
I continue to be very enthusiastic about Hunter Sliver; Provoke is such a nasty trick, and did you know it works in multiples? You can really mess up someone's blocks with this guy.
I should probably bite the bullet and put this together so I have some data to work with...
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
I've been playing a RG list a bit and I'm really liking Hunter Sliver. Being able to assign blocks as the attacker is a huge advantage. Sometimes you just get to make the Grey Merchant block a 3/3 so your little guys can get in damage. But sometimes you get to eat a bunch of Squadron Hawks and Skyfishers that are racing you in the air. It gives the deck another level of interaction and even let's you play control when you need to. I really want to play Weapon Surge in the deck just for lulz but that seems pretty sketchy.
Bonesplitter Sliver has been pretty good as a 2-of. It's expensive but it's still a 4/2 on its own and can really pile on the damage.
I would also advocate protection spells in sliver decks in general. Against control decks they are great tempo plays. They don't feel amazing because you're just trading a card for a card, but whenever they kill a creature you have to spend more mana and wait another turn before you can deal damage. And against creature decks, having a Muscle Sliver killed mid combat can turn a good attack into a disaster. Vines of Vastwood is a legitimately good card and even gives you ways to interact with stuff like Sage combo and DelverFiend. Mutagenic Growth is more narrow and maybe more suited to Hunter Sliver decks where it will be useful more often.
The RG version doesn't have as much raw power as the WG version but I think it has a lot more angles to attack on. Could be worth exploring for some folks.
Looks like somebody who hasn't played pauper in a while (and I mean a while) dusted off their old slivers deck and jumped into an 8-man. A lot of old school card choices including the incredibly old school move of not playing Predatory Sliver. A good example of what places in an event is not necessarily optimal.
And wow that mana is greedy. Not only do they not run fixing but they run cycling lands, too. Guess they really hate to flood.
I've been testing out G/W Slivers with 4 Squadron Hawk in the sideboard and 3 Hive Stirrings main. I bring Squadron Hawk in against control decks that have a lot of removal because it can help me gain some card advantage. It worked quite well actually. I was topdecking against mono black control with no threats on the field, and my opponent had 2 threats on the board. I top decked a Squadron Hawk and played two more straight from my hand and that was the game.
For anybody playing G/W I have found that these two cards are decent options for gaining card advantage without having to splash into a third color.
8. -We didn´t talk about Lymph Sliver! and I just found it a couple days ago. If there's a God Sliver, it´s this one. How is it that we didn´t play it? Read it carefully again. It says, if you have a sinew sliver, a Sidewinder Sliver, a gemhide sliver and this one for example, you can block with each a 4/4 token and get under a Swirling Sandstorm without dying, in the same turn. With 3 slivers only the Lymph would survive.
This is incorrect. The reminder text is misleading; each sliver only prevents damage for itself.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
Been playing this a few months now, the only really match-up that's no fun kinds of unfair is against Legacy Burn.
He doesn't use any creatures other than Martyr of Ashes, I'm sure we can all agree that's a problem. I've been trying to get together a few ways to counter it since getting swept by this five letter word is worse than him having to trade one for one burn spells. I figure if it's aimed at my creatures, it's not aimed at me, so I'll have a few more turns to build something together.
The deck I'm running has been all kinds of GW to RBg, so I've tried quite a few combinations of colors to fight this guy. He runs Flaring Pain in the board so those who Circle to avoid his burn get blown out in two turns by Pain with Flashback. His deck is good enough at clearing creatures that he doesn't have to worry about running out of burn, likely due to being able to advantage himself with Martyr, so my assumption is that combating this card will change the match-up significantly.
The only thing I think will work is one or both of Wrap in Vigor and Rootborn Defenses in response to the Martyr popping. Then he has to trade one for one spells for Slivers until he gets another Martyr. Sadly this type of reactionary measure is not very interactive, is sideboard material, and likely will only save one creature at a time when actually used in other matches.
The other option is more proactive; burn. Hornet Sting, Lightning Bolt, etc. Proactive, can be in the deck for other matches, removal and interaction are good; however, if he has three mana, he can play it and pop it in the same turn, so he'll just respond and get +1 card advantage out of me. Not a 100% solution, maybe not even a good solution.
If anyone has thoughts on getting rid of this threat, I'm all ears and thankful.
I just wish my LGS would bump it up to Uncommons so I could roll with the heavier Sliver tech.
For those still trying to piece together the five letter word, "Angel" is a five letter word.
The traditional weapon against Pauper burn is lifegain. He can't Skullcrack or Flames of the Blood Hand, so you mainly need to mix in some life boosting to hold you together while you make the beatdowns happen.
The traditional way to do this is Armadillo Cloak, but it's obviously not an ideal solution - getting blown directly out by Lightning Bolt is some garbage. Something a little harder to blow out is Sylvok Lifestaff - you get multiple chances to equip it, and it makes removing your creatures actively bad for him rather than inconvenient.
Another option would be to bring in Crimson Acolyte, who can make your dudes VERY hard to get rid of, especially once you settle into fully-deployed topdeck mode.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
I know that it's been a while for this thread, but I don't see any other discussion about Pauper Slivers. Is this deck still viable for the current meta? I'm looking for another pauper deck (not delver) and slivers caught my eye.
Considering the ban of TC and the downgrade of Horned Sliver (trample) to common in Tempest Remastered, Is G/W slivers still viable?
Sorry for the necrothreading!
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4 Plated Sliver
4 Sidewinder Sliver
4 Virulent Sliver
4 Gemhide Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Spinneret Sliver
4 Brainstorm
3 Journey to Nowhere
3 Compulsive Research
Lands 22
6 Plains
2 Island
7 Forest
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Hydroblast
3 Gleeful Sabotage
1 Journey to Nowhere
3 Quick Sliver
4 Thermokarst
With the fetches + Brainstorm I can shuffle away excess lands quite easily and Compulsive Research serves to reload. The 22 lands also seem like too many with all the draw but on 21 I can end up stuck on 2-3 lands without a way to get blue mana.
The Quick Slivers in the board are just there to try and force through threats against delver though there isn't much delver being played in the practice rooms so my testing is very limited. I'm sure it could be something else more substantial.
I'm still not very happy with Thermokarst. Against cloudpost I've done quite well at playing out non pump slivers and swinging which usually prompts them to spend removal and once I hit enough lands and enough mass of pumpers, dumping my hand to try to get out of range of most removal. Unfortunately I still can't fight Temporal Fissure without wrecking some mana bases unless I try to jam Hindering Touch just for that one card, which seems horrible. I think I would like to try Sigil Blessing as an overrun effect and just go for speed against those decks.
Only had a chance to play delver twice and I won both games but it isn't a walk in the park. Typical aggro vs control play skill tester. Thankfully, we have a lot of threats that compound and main deck hate for flyers. The Quick Sliver got countered the one time I drew one so who knows.
U/R Cloudpost has been easy but the three matches seemed less red removal dependent and more fissure based and slivers without removal can eat through 20 life quick. I can see the more burn oriented Cloudpost decks being a very tough match even with Hydroblast.
Goblins is a hard match up so far. It is only because I'm able to run 4 Journey to nowhere and 4 Hydroblast. They are swinging with 2/2's on turn 2 when my slivers aren't big enough to compete and can turn favorable combat into unfavorable with a simple lightning bolt on a pump sliver. I also had one player bring in Raze against me and go after my Island. Thankfully, I had a second fetch to find my second Island.
U/R Kiln Fiend is back in force thanks to the new 4 toughness defender and they have to draw bad game one against my good draws for me to win. Game two gets better with Journey and Hydroblast but they still can win through the hate with Apostle's Blessing.
Stompy is a very easy match when they don't get the hard to block guys suited up really early. Slivers get bigger than their average quite fast and they don't have any removal.
Just a side note but there is an extort deck running around that uses Tithe Drinker, Edge of the Divinity, and Ethereal Armor. I've played against it three times and my only answer to their creatures are Journey to Nowhere but they run several other dudes that benefit from Edge and can be swinging in with bigger, life gain, first strike dudes quite quickly, while also bleeding me down with extort triggers. Cool deck.
+4 Predatory Sliver
+2 Sentinel Sliver
-2 Gemhide sliver
-2 Spinneret sliver
-2 Sidewinder Sliver
Sometimes the Gemhides are horrible top decks when my board is wrecked and sometimes they're amazing at allowing me to resolve big turns when my opponent has tapped out. The Spinnerets are always the biggest dude on the table since it starts as a 2/2 but with 4 more pump slivers, it is probably not needed for that but more for the occasional flying defense.
Still excited about testing out GBW and GR. Although losing Sinew Sliver AND Plated Sliver in the GR version seems terrible. The deck is already very aggressive and maybe running GW base splashing blue for Brainstorm and swapping Compulsive Research for Bonesplitter Sliver so we can jam Hydroblast AND Pyroblast in the side might be amazing. I would probably run just one Mountain and one Island and change two fetches for Shimmering Grotto. Gemhide would probably have to stay at least as a 3 of but with more consistently huge slivers I could justify dropping Journey To Nowhere to the side and playing with the numbers of the less important slivers. Hitting 4 untapped lands isn't terribly difficult by turn 5 and if we're winning the race, Bonesplitter could easily end the game the turn it comes down. Alternatively, if we're back peddling, suddenly having 4+ power dudes to stand in the way is also really strong. While the deck loses the late game resilience of Compulsive Research it gains much stronger sideboard tactics and a nice curve topper to just finish.
Wish we could get access to trample for less than 6-7 damn mana. Curse you Horned Sliver.
Edit: Seriously amazed at how well I'm doing. Having the draw and deck manipulation to forge ahead in the face of counterspells, removal, opposing dudes, wrath effects, etc has been pretty interesting. I can only imagine what having 4 more lords will do. I'm contemplating more and more on a wubg deck that is slow out of the gates with removal and answers till it can just flood the board with pump slivers. I know the color fixing is a nightmare but there are no double color requirements and I already have games where I'm behind on board from hand sculpting, find an opening and flood the board prompting answers from the opposing side which usually buys me a second turn of freedom. With the meta as slow as it is... I'm definitely dreaming of a magical Christmas land but it's fun to dream!
I like the Blue splash! It must work well.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
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EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
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I could almost never hard cast a crusher so if I don't have a gemhide in play, the crusher is completely dead.
With the new lords the deck might gain some traction but the complete lack of card advantage while at the same time having not very resilient creatures and being a swarm style deck it's not well positioned in a format where two decks who prey on creature decks and decks with low amounts of card advantage.
For the record I've tested:
GW slivers
Bant slivers (for Brainstorm/fetches hydroblast and spell pierce out of the board)
Junk slivers (for sliver regeneration sign in blood removal out of the board and main deck creature retrieval with unearth ad undying evil)
GW seems like the best as a tri coloured aggro deck struggles in a format where all the fixing equates to tempo loss. I didn't splash red because all the current red slivers are quite expensive and feel a bit win more to be honest.
2 Forest
1 Selesnya Guildgate
4 Rancor
4 Virulent Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Sidewinder Sliver
4 Armadillo Cloak
1 Talon Sliver
1 Forest
2 Plains
1 Forest
1 Quick Sliver
4 Forest
4 Sinew Sliver
3 Apostle's Blessing
5 Plains
1 Plains
4 Plated Sliver
4 Travel Preparations
1 Forest
3 Selesnya Guildgate
1 Prismatic Strands
4 Dust to Dust
4 Thermokarst
1 Naturalize
3 Circle of Protection: Red
3 Prismatic Strands
MBC is difficult if they're rocking crypt rats and I could see it being nearly impossible to beat in just g/w but my testing with g/w/u running 4 Brainstorm and 3 Compulsive Research has done fairly well at drawing enough gas to keep pressure.
UR post has been easy outside of an early fissure followed by a way to buy it back. I'm easily 70% win rate over it. Especially with Hydroblast out of the side to fight their removal.
Also, running just the fetch lands allow Brainstorm to work like a champ.
Ale^^; If you can get your hands on Brainstorm and Compulsive Research, which has made the deck much better in my opinion, you should try out the bant colors. All the draw lets you play super defensive against aggro match ups and just out power them in the long game and keep a threat density over heavy removal decks.
If you are experiencing a ton of fissure storm, try Mizzium Skin on for size. It doesn't do anything for your lands but you get to keep your dudes swinging while you rebuild your land base. You might also run Careful Study instead of Compulsive Research and just punt on land drops when you hit enough to function.
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I'm really disappointed we haven't seen anymore slivers spoiled yet. I'm afraid the naya ones we have may be it in spite of the rumor that there is a new 5 color sliver coming. The name and number crunch thread brought up the fact that wotc spoiler page doesn't have a 5 color page. That could be a part of the trick of not spoiling a potential for 5 color cards or it could just mean the rumors aren't true.
Then that would be great tech against Fissure
I really want to play Homing sliver even if I don't run any red because it's a tutor for colorless mana that will fetch the sliver we need!
For the other spell I don't really care so I added stuff to fix my mana, I didn't try it yet but I'm sure it will be fun! I'm not sure about the other spells if you have any Idea I'll be glad to try them!
Muscle Sliver x4
Predatory Sliver x4
Sinew Sliver x4
Winged Sliver x4
Shadow sliver x2
Virulent Sliver x4
Sidewinder Sliver x2
Plated Sliver x4
Homing Sliver x3 (tutor)
Rampant growth x2
Cultivate x2
Manamorphose x4
Armadillo cloak x2
Terramorphic expense x3
Selesnya guildgate x2
Azorius Guildgate x1
Simic Guildgate x1
Forest x8
Plains x2
island x2
I'm wondering if Hive Stirrings could be used MB to make our sideboard options better. If we have Stirrings MB, adding rootborn defenses, sundering growth, or druid's deliverance would have a decent chance of not taking a creature out of the deck. It seems a bit cutesy to me at the moment, but we need some new tech.
That being said, I worked quite a bit on a bant sliver list. The problem I experienced wasn't having a bunch of slivers but not enough to win with, it was either I was winning or I wasn't getting anywhere. I quickly moved to Compulsive Research and Brainstorm with fetchs. The problem then was that I didn't have the easy swarm starts that g/w by itself gets to enjoy. I can't imagine this being any different with another 4 lords.
I would love to have some reliable card advantage, even if it weren't hard card draw but simple virtual card advantage, in regular g/w slivers OR a way to dump my hand of lords quicker.
Here are things I have been using and I havent seen in your lists:
Commune just brings me the best sliver for the current situation, and only for one green mana.
Lotus Petal is a must for me, I have been able to vomit my entire hand on turn 2 by casting the mana sliver turn 1 and on turn 2 cast a heart sliver (I also use 4 of these for the stated reason).
I was skeptical by adding red to my deck, but red gives a very nice sharp edge.
I tried lightning bolts, but after using Hunter Sliver I decided that it was better to be able to "recur" my "removal" by provoking. Sidewinder Sliver/Striking Sliver/12 pump slivers makes them impossible to trade with the hive deck.
I removed the Virulent Slivers, they always get killed after receiving 8 poison counters. They are good, but I prefer other 1 cc drop slivers.
Bonesplitter Sliver is simply amazing as a finisher, having a bunch of small 4/2 or 5/3 dudes is almost a win, I'm using 2 though (but I'm also using 3 commune, take that in consideration).
Sigil Blessing is simply amazing on W/G versions, you can go from losing most of your slivers by your opponents chump blockers to have all or most of your slivers live for another day. In terms of damage, this will always do 6 more combat damage minimun.
Standard Bearer <----- get this if you can, it ruins so many decks
URGBOops all my spellsBGRU
URBYoung GrixisBRU
~Commander~
BUDralnu/ReanimatorUB
GRUMaelstroM WanderiNgURG
GBMerengue Clan of SalsaBG
UTalrand PolymorphishU
UAzami, Lady of CAU
BRWZurgo, Worldslayer BearerWRB
BWUMerieke Ri Berit UWB
UVendilion CliqueU
Modern:U Mono-U TroN U
Lotus Petal seems reasonable for getting that extra early power on the table. I'm less enthusiastic about Gemhide Sliver + Heart Sliver; neither one is especially good on its own, or in multiples with itself.
I continue to be very enthusiastic about Hunter Sliver; Provoke is such a nasty trick, and did you know it works in multiples? You can really mess up someone's blocks with this guy.
I like Striking Sliver a lot, especially with Hunter Sliver, but Sidewinder Sliver and Plated Sliver are both extremely solid openers, not ones I'd like to do without.
I should probably bite the bullet and put this together so I have some data to work with...
Bonesplitter Sliver has been pretty good as a 2-of. It's expensive but it's still a 4/2 on its own and can really pile on the damage.
I would also advocate protection spells in sliver decks in general. Against control decks they are great tempo plays. They don't feel amazing because you're just trading a card for a card, but whenever they kill a creature you have to spend more mana and wait another turn before you can deal damage. And against creature decks, having a Muscle Sliver killed mid combat can turn a good attack into a disaster. Vines of Vastwood is a legitimately good card and even gives you ways to interact with stuff like Sage combo and DelverFiend. Mutagenic Growth is more narrow and maybe more suited to Hunter Sliver decks where it will be useful more often.
The RG version doesn't have as much raw power as the WG version but I think it has a lot more angles to attack on. Could be worth exploring for some folks.
Looks like somebody who hasn't played pauper in a while (and I mean a while) dusted off their old slivers deck and jumped into an 8-man. A lot of old school card choices including the incredibly old school move of not playing Predatory Sliver. A good example of what places in an event is not necessarily optimal.
And wow that mana is greedy. Not only do they not run fixing but they run cycling lands, too. Guess they really hate to flood.
34 Creatures:
4 Sidewinder Sliver
4 Plated Sliver
4 Sinew Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Virulent Sliver
3 Hive Stirrings
2 Talon Sliver
1 Quick Sliver
4 Spinneret Sliver
Spells:
4 Sigil Blessing
22 Land:
4 Selesnya Guildgate
9 Forest
9 Plains
15 Sideboard:
4 Journey to Nowhere
4 Heroes' Reunion
3 Moment's Peace
4 Oblivion Ring
For anybody playing G/W I have found that these two cards are decent options for gaining card advantage without having to splash into a third color.
This is incorrect. The reminder text is misleading; each sliver only prevents damage for itself.
He doesn't use any creatures other than Martyr of Ashes, I'm sure we can all agree that's a problem. I've been trying to get together a few ways to counter it since getting swept by this five letter word is worse than him having to trade one for one burn spells. I figure if it's aimed at my creatures, it's not aimed at me, so I'll have a few more turns to build something together.
The deck I'm running has been all kinds of GW to RBg, so I've tried quite a few combinations of colors to fight this guy. He runs Flaring Pain in the board so those who Circle to avoid his burn get blown out in two turns by Pain with Flashback. His deck is good enough at clearing creatures that he doesn't have to worry about running out of burn, likely due to being able to advantage himself with Martyr, so my assumption is that combating this card will change the match-up significantly.
The only thing I think will work is one or both of Wrap in Vigor and Rootborn Defenses in response to the Martyr popping. Then he has to trade one for one spells for Slivers until he gets another Martyr. Sadly this type of reactionary measure is not very interactive, is sideboard material, and likely will only save one creature at a time when actually used in other matches.
The other option is more proactive; burn. Hornet Sting, Lightning Bolt, etc. Proactive, can be in the deck for other matches, removal and interaction are good; however, if he has three mana, he can play it and pop it in the same turn, so he'll just respond and get +1 card advantage out of me. Not a 100% solution, maybe not even a good solution.
If anyone has thoughts on getting rid of this threat, I'm all ears and thankful.
I just wish my LGS would bump it up to Uncommons so I could roll with the heavier Sliver tech.
For those still trying to piece together the five letter word, "Angel" is a five letter word.
"Reveal a Dragon"
The traditional way to do this is Armadillo Cloak, but it's obviously not an ideal solution - getting blown directly out by Lightning Bolt is some garbage. Something a little harder to blow out is Sylvok Lifestaff - you get multiple chances to equip it, and it makes removing your creatures actively bad for him rather than inconvenient.
Another option would be to bring in Crimson Acolyte, who can make your dudes VERY hard to get rid of, especially once you settle into fully-deployed topdeck mode.
Sorry for the necrothreading!