Diffusion Sliver is literally one of the best slivers printed.
Toms Ross threw this up on Starcity, I think I'm going to start with it and work up since cards like the Obelisk and 4 of Thorncaster seems terrible.
Creatures (32)
As Ross talks about in the article, Thorncaster Sliver is insanely powerful with Venom Sliver on the board. Thorncaster is very powerful if you have three or more slivers ready to attack when you cast it.
As Ross talks about in the article, Thorncaster Sliver is insanely powerful with Venom Sliver on the board. Thorncaster is very powerful if you have three or more slivers ready to attack when you cast it.
I just doubt you're often going to be able to assemble that engine and swing with it, not to mention that combo does nothing against control matchups which are prevalent in the meta. I'd rather be efficiently swarming with good slivers or rushing hivelords into play. And I've even played with Thorncaster before, he's cute but 5 mana for that effect is just not worth it when I can have indestructibility instead.
Battle Sliver and Megantic are just better than obelisk against everything, except board wipe and instant creature kill in responce. And they can be better to the tune of 20 points, eaily. Bonescythes and Blurs can rack up damage REALLY quickly. The deck becomes about casting everything and winning, quickly. Borad wipes = DEATH. Oh well.
but... Maybe we will be Indestructabubble.
I disagree with...
4 Diffusion Sliver
1 Obelisk of Urd
3 Chord of Calling
Bonescythe wins games, QUICK.
I think a Belligerant and a sentinel and some Megantic & Battle are just better. They Kill people.
Chord of calling is cute... but.... Megantic says die now.
Some Land colour differences, and he plays no temples.
I think I agree with everything he has to say about all of his other suggestions. Diffusion Sliver though ... just doesnt smell right.
Leech Sliver might, I say Might be a sleeper. It does have a neat effect with a kind-of-pump. but a point is often just enough. Maybe it can even be redirected onto a walker. dunno. think so.
The Sliver hive makes everything else outrageously easy to play, and there aint much that can kill it in standard. Heaven help you if you ever need to activate that final ability on the Sliver hive. Scrying to get one is probably good.
The complex manabase should work independantly of the Hive, and the Manaweft, both opf which can become pretty cumfy seat belts. 4xMutavaults are a must. Mana Confluence are probably going to be involved too. 3-4 of most likely. Elvish mystics are still so tempting, as are Carytid's , but, purity should be attempted for the moment.
Temple of Abandon is going to be a 4x
Stomping ground might get replaced with Karplu....oh. only off colour pain lands. how odd.
Yavimaya coast maybe?
.
The bits that matter...
Bonescythe wins games, QUICK.
Megantic & Battle Kill people.
I absolutely cannot understand why you dislike diffusion sliver, the format is wrought with removal, and your opponent will ALWAYS remove the best sliver you have for the situation to keep themselves ahead of you, because this is what always happened to me when I was playing the sliver deck after m14. Oh you want to fly? Nope kill gale, oh you want to play predators? Kill them before they stack. Protection against spot removal is an absolutely baller creature ability to pass on to all your guys. Especially when your slivers are all mana sources or lords themselves. Diffusion slivers effect was pretty much the one ability I was always missing and I cannot wait to smash games off D Slivers fine little set of hips. Hivelord is also fantastic, and I can't wait to pick up 2 to jam with my others.
Personally I'm not a fan of Bonescythe, it's just clunky, and i'd rather just play sliver that give actual stats. What's the point in bonescythe if I can just power out Megantics and crush. The white slivers are just abysmal in my opinion and I'd avoid them like the plague. RUG seems like the best color pie to me for standard slivers, leeching sliver is weird to me. I want that effect, but not at that time in the game, like you can't just cast it turn 2 and get anything. To me he seems more like a 2 of you drop at the last turn to help end it, like a secret copy of predatory sliver to boost all your guys by 1.
Addition: I played straight r/g back then by the way, I was pure aggro/synergy with Domris to find more slivers and it was decent, sometimes you'd just manaweft into megantics so fast people didn't know what was happening, or you'd play predator after predator and murder them with giant dorks. Personally the weakest slivers I always felt were the ones who stacked a static ability that didn't matter when stacked, a bunch of Striking Slivers aren't really that good, so I'm also leaning towards playing few Venom slivers, I want death touch, but I only really want one instance of it. I feel like at max it should be a 3 of, probably even a 2 of with sideboard ones for when you come up against creature heavy decks.
The deck plays less like Zoo and more like Delver. It plays a few, evasive, efficient creatures, then protects them and distrupts the opponent as it gets in damage. Galerider and Diffusion are the evasion, Predatory and Leeching are the power, and Manaweft is there for acceleration and fixing.
A couple of card explanations:
Cyclonic Rift is a total powerhouse here. With Manaweft Sliver on the board, it's very easy to cast and sets up blowout victories against a lot of decks. It can also just be used as a cheap removal spell.
Diffusion Sliver has gotten a lot of criticism here, but I'd say that it's easily one of the most important cards in the deck. Without it, many decks just remove the sliver that you're relying on, usually ending in a loss for the sliver deck.
I built this deck with the legacy Meathooks (Counter-Sliver) deck in mind. Compare:
I think BUG is definitely the way to go with Standard Slivers. These colors give us the best non-redundant Slivers, good kill spells, good draw spells, good counters, etc. While building my BUG Slivers deck, I looked for Slivers with abilities that stack (i.e. Predatory Sliver) and are not redundant (i.e. Striking Sliver). With that in mind, this is a list of non-redundant Slivers in BUG (Manaweft Sliver and Galerider Sliver are the only redundant exceptions):
Red does have some non-redundant Slivers like Thorncaster Sliver and Battle Sliver, but they are just way too high a cost to really be effective. All of the BUG Slivers, with the exception of Megantic Sliver, are only 2 CMC. Very, very nice.
Here's a quick list of something I quickly threw together and have had fun playing (Land and sideboard are still not completely worked out):
Like I said, this was thrown together pretty quickly, so it's definitely not finished. It's worked well so far. Sliver Hivelord was originally included, but I decided to take it out because I didn't really feel it was needed. The abilities of the other Slivers already really give the beats.
I had a match today where I got all 3 Leeching Slivers on the board and attacked with 3 Slivers (one of them being Mutavault). Hilarity ensued.
I'd like to make room in the sideboard for Golgari Charm, just not quite sure yet.
On Friday I played Sliverbeats and went 3 wins and 1 loss (In the final I lost game 3 to a bad decision on my part).
My Slivers deck is as good as any deck currently in standard.
It is strong, versatile, reliable and really quite expensive.
It is designed to try to fight after the second board wipe, but just maybe that is not actually needed any more.
And, the only thing I am unsure about at the moment is Diffusion Sliver. I am going to try it out. I think that may be the real difference. The above is a tournament Slivers deck. I know this because I have played it in so many tournaments.
I played all the original Slivers en masse, in tournament. I have kept the best ones.
I am not sure that a pure build of Slivers is actually better, but a pure build is how it wants to be built if Sliver Hive is to used to its fullest.
Shock Land is also a poor choice, I feel. Pain Land will be worse than Shockland only after it has been tapped for coloured mana 3 times. With lots of single colour Slivers that really should not happen.
Things like Abrupt Decay or X Charm are simply not right in a full on SLIVERS ! deck.....
I have my 4 Sliver Hives, and my 2xHivelords.....
Time to put 38 Slivers in Sleeves. (Well, counting Mutavaults)
The decklist I posted above, mostly.
Now to figure out the sideboard.....
Wonder if the Sideboard should have Slivers too?
(I do not currently have Mana Confluences. I am not sure I actually need them....)
Banishing Light is also SO tempting.
And Mizz Mortars ... And Cyclonic Rift
(Obelisk really is bad. and 4xMutavault is a must in any non-budget deck)
Disagree about the charms. The charms, if you're in the colors, protect your slivers. Boros Charm for indestructible, Golgari Charm for regen, or Simic Charm for mass hexproof. Also works with Mizzium Skin.
Slivers fail horribly against Control and aren't quite fast enough to beat Aggro without some sort of protection. Diffusion sliver should help with targeted removal, but you still have to get a hivelord out asap to deal with mass removal.
I disagree about the charms.
They do not protect your slivers, because Slivers will tap out to cast Slivers, and not get to cast them.
There is no good solution.
Board wipe is the problem, and just maybe Supreme Verdict is getting outclassed.
The charge version of this deck should be faster than any Aggro deck without targetted removal. Turn 5 kill will be average. Turn 4 is certainly possible. And massive overkill is very, very easy on turn 6. The amount of damage this deck unleashes is insane.
Hivelord seems like so much cream, and most likely not going to stay, but i am willing to try him out.
Really not sure about the Mana confluences.
Asingle Sliver Hive means all colour problems are solved, The confluence is just pain at that point. And two would REALLY hurt.
Asingle Sliver Hive means all colour problems are solved, The confluence is just pain at that point. And two would REALLY hurt.
This is assuming you get a Sliver Hive (Or preferably two) in your opener. Having some number of confluences on top increases the chances of having access to all colors in your opening hand significantly with very little real downside. The pain is a necessity when discussing aggressive multicolored strategies, and have 6-8 five color lands in a deck that is 3-5 colors is incredibly good, even if a few of them bring some pain.
Assume you play RUG sliver, and have a hand of Sliver Hive, Stomping Ground, and a Forest. Your color problems are not completely fixed, as your options each turn are dramatically reduced over a hand of Sliver Hive, Confluence, Stomping ground. Having access to 3 red, 2 blue, and 3 green is far better than having access to 2 Red, 1 Blue, and 3 green in the scenario given. At a relatively cheap cost of 1 life. It's the price of doing business with greedy manabases.
Sliver Hive does not solve all mana problems especially in the spell intensive builds. It's worthless when trying to cast Simic Charm or whatever. That said, I've only had a problem with that in one game--if you keep it to three colors it should be fine. (Manaweft really helps with fixing).
Asingle Sliver Hive means all colour problems are solved, The confluence is just pain at that point. And two would REALLY hurt.
This is assuming you get a Sliver Hive (Or preferably two) in your opener. Having some number of confluences on top increases the chances of having access to all colors in your opening hand significantly with very little real downside. The pain is a necessity when discussing aggressive multicolored strategies, and have 6-8 five color lands in a deck that is 3-5 colors is incredibly good, even if a few of them bring some pain.
Assume you play RUG sliver, and have a hand of Sliver Hive, Stomping Ground, and a Forest. Your color problems are not completely fixed, as your options each turn are dramatically reduced over a hand of Sliver Hive, Confluence, Stomping ground. Having access to 3 red, 2 blue, and 3 green is far better than having access to 2 Red, 1 Blue, and 3 green in the scenario given. At a relatively cheap cost of 1 life. It's the price of doing business with greedy manabases.
huh?
for my deck Sliver Hive, Stomping Ground & Forest casts everything I could desire.
Only Hivelord is missing two colours, and that would be a turn 3 cast if I got a lucky manaweft...
I do not need 3 red, 2 blue, and 3 green.
This is a Slivers deck, it requires a single coloured mana, and some X.
That is why Sliver Hive changes the world, it provides that magic Mana.
Mana Confluence suddenly becomes just trash, only providing poisoned mana, and most likely making the Sliver production ability on the Sliver Hive even weaker.
The intense mana needs you are describing are for if you want to run double colour spells, the worst of which are going to be the smallest of spells because they can not be cast by Sliver Hive at all. The worst of all of these sorts of spells would be mutli-colour, with no colourless component. This exactly describes a charm.
Manaweft & Blur can instantly dump a One cost Sliver chain.
The damage from Bonescythe is insane. If you already have a +1 sliver, a bonescythe will add +2 and first strike to everyone. If a Blur Sliver is also in play, .... thats a turn 4 win. But it wants untapped lands from turn 2 onwards. Getting 1 temple seems good. Getting 2 temples seem average. 3 is going to be slow. And by Temples, I mean, comes into play tapped lands. Temples seem to be the only ones worth playing in this deck. simple mathworks seems to say I want to play about 7-10 of them. The only time I am going to be using their coloured mana is if I have not drawn a Hive. And maybe a manaweft will get me through as well. Just maybe a Diffusion first will protect the Manaweft. Still seems way slow.
So Blue Green is more important, and Red far less since Mizzium Mortars is no longer going for overloads, and burn. leting go of red entirely is actually kinda appealling, but Blur is So good, and I just dont think there is enough good Slivers. The Five and Six Cost ones are still just a bit clunky for my liking..
Asingle Sliver Hive means all colour problems are solved, The confluence is just pain at that point. And two would REALLY hurt.
This is assuming you get a Sliver Hive (Or preferably two) in your opener. Having some number of confluences on top increases the chances of having access to all colors in your opening hand significantly with very little real downside. The pain is a necessity when discussing aggressive multicolored strategies, and have 6-8 five color lands in a deck that is 3-5 colors is incredibly good, even if a few of them bring some pain.
Assume you play RUG sliver, and have a hand of Sliver Hive, Stomping Ground, and a Forest. Your color problems are not completely fixed, as your options each turn are dramatically reduced over a hand of Sliver Hive, Confluence, Stomping ground. Having access to 3 red, 2 blue, and 3 green is far better than having access to 2 Red, 1 Blue, and 3 green in the scenario given. At a relatively cheap cost of 1 life. It's the price of doing business with greedy manabases.
huh?
for my deck Sliver Hive, Stomping Ground & Forest casts everything I could desire.
Only Hivelord is missing two colours, and that would be a turn 3 cast if I got a lucky manaweft...
I do not need 3 red, 2 blue, and 3 green.
This is a Slivers deck, it requires a single coloured mana, and some X.
That is why Sliver Hive changes the world, it provides that magic Mana.
Mana Confluence suddenly becomes just trash, only providing poisoned mana, and most likely making the Sliver production ability on the Sliver Hive even weaker.
The intense mana needs you are describing are for if you want to run double colour spells, the worst of which are going to be the smallest of spells because they can not be cast by Sliver Hive at all. The worst of all of these sorts of spells would be mutli-colour, with no colourless component. This exactly describes a charm.
Manaweft & Blur can instantly dump a One cost Sliver chain.
The damage from Bonescythe is insane. If you already have a +1 sliver, a bonescythe will add +2 and first strike to everyone. If a Blur Sliver is also in play, .... thats a turn 4 win. But it wants untapped lands from turn 2 onwards. Getting 1 temple seems good. Getting 2 temples seem average. 3 is going to be slow. And by Temples, I mean, comes into play tapped lands. Temples seem to be the only ones worth playing in this deck. simple mathworks seems to say I want to play about 7-10 of them. The only time I am going to be using their coloured mana is if I have not drawn a Hive. And maybe a manaweft will get me through as well. Just maybe a Diffusion first will protect the Manaweft. Still seems way slow.
So Blue Green is more important, and Red far less since Mizzium Mortars is no longer going for overloads, and burn. leting go of red entirely is actually kinda appealling, but Blur is So good, and I just dont think there is enough good Slivers. The Five and Six Cost ones are still just a bit clunky for my liking..
Assuming, of course, you have both Manaweft and Sliver Hive in hand you can do all that. The example I gave was simply a hypothetical; the exact color combination you choose doesn't change the problem. It's not terribly unlikely that you actually don't ever see a Sliver Hive pop up at all, constricting your mana needs. You may not even see either a Mana Weft *or* a Sliver Hive. Slivers is an aggressive deck, situated to not particularly care about a few points of damage if it means having the option to sequence everything properly and as necessary. All you "need" is not Sliver Hive specifically; all you need is access to as many sources of the colors you need *right now*. The reason I brought up having access to all those sources of mana is because it increases the *options* available to have access to more colors, and not overly restrict what you can plan on any turn. Adding Confluence in some number increases the liklihood that you will have access to all relevant colors when it comes. It's the reason that 2 color aggro runs both Shocks and Confluence, and having 5-8 sources for *all* of your colors is better than limiting yourself to 4. How many are needed is going to require testing, but with only 4 sources of 3 color it is not at all unforseeable to be screwed out of a color for no reason other than not having the color for a specific sliver. It merely increases the likelihood of having all colors available.
As for which colors are "best", I feel Green is obviously the base, and blue is practically too good to pass up with Galerider and Diffusion. Red provides some interesting ones, and the only other 1-drop in Striking (Which would likely only be a 2-of to maintain a curve and provide the utility of First Strike), and Blur is quite good. Thorncaster as a 1-of is fine methinks, no more as it's expensive. White mostly provides Sentinel and Bonescythe(The new white one is far too expensive to be worthwhile), of which only Bonescythe is truly interesting (Sentinel isn't bad, just underwhelming a combat ability that requires all combat doesn't lead to any trading). Black adds Leeching and Syphon, neither of which seem as exciting to really go black (However Leeching is strong).
Of course, this isn't considering the support spells as well, which is another reason to run Confluence on top of Hive; you can only use colored mana from the Hive on sliver, limiting anything else you can do. And trust me, you absolutely need some sort of support spells in the deck to work, whatever they are.
Of course, adding some number of confluence also allows you to more safely toolbox the best sliver from each color. You can reasonably side in any of the slivers you need without worrying about not having the mana for it. It greatly increases the options you can have at your disposal.
I agree with the selection of Slivers, but I do not agree about needing support colours.
When I get lucky and get 2xSliver Hives, a mutavault and 4xNon-Land I go Woo!
When you get lucky and get 2xSliver Hives, a mutavault and 4xNon-Land You might go Mulligan.
When I get lucky and get Sliver Hive and 2xPainland and 4xNon-Land I go Woo! No pain, and everything is castable.
When you get lucky and get Sliver Hive, and 2xMana Confluence . . . you will be taking 8-10 damage and losing to burn/rush.
Being able to ignore pain and colour is just huge.
Temples have been fanatastic in this, by the way.
They have a similar effect to the chord of calling in that they control what Slivers apprear, albeit in a much more limited way, but also a whole lot faster. This deck does not need a magic bullet though. A 5 cost dfiffusion Sliver is funky, but it is going to be at triple green. A Hivelord might be just as easy, and effective. Battle Slivers are way simpler, and goes squish now much faster.
And, if you do not get the Mana confluences?
You is stuffed. And when you do get them, you bleed..
I have been able to play 3 & 4 colour SLivers without the complex landbase. I really do not see why I need them. Substituting pain or even basic lands just doesn't seem that much of a problem. Sacred Foundry and Llanowar wastes seem to provide a whole lot of stability. Remember that only ONE coloured mana is required, unless you want to play strange, non Sliver Spells.
The deck is becoming a whole lot more obvious after some serious thought.
My full on SLivers really is outrageously fast. I no longer need to worry about pack rat. Or red.
Wait, Blinding Light is in the M15 Coreset? I can't find it. But other than that, the list looks great, the Boros Charm is great for when you have opponents using control, but what about Detention Sphere and other things that U/W have?
The sideboard is fascinating.....and what does he sideboard in and out?
3xMutavaults in the sideboard. What?
15 Green sources for GGG sounds kinda hopeful. I get concerned when I am trying to get a single G and I am running 15 sources. Manawefts sorta count.
Shocklands are just the wrong call.
And, Mana Confluence seems like the right call, but I am not certain they are. I think a painless manabase can work, but is harder.
This deck looks like it has not been thru testing.
It looks like a great start point, with ideas and tricks, but not where the deck is going to end up.
I like the utility of casting Chord of calling to get anything. It has real style. It just doesnt have enough power.
Indestructable is fine, Indestructable a second time is crap, so why would I ever want to cast Two of them?
And If I dont want 2, why is he playing 4?
I have played maybe 40 goldfish games with mine so far. My 2xLords are feeling distinctly nervous, I want to change them into a venom and the 4th Bonescythe, but I will try them out.
5 cost for 5 power is not worth it.
(WGR = 5/4 Wooly Thoctar . . . so BU is for what?)
Polukranos is tournament playable, and it has positive abilities. The Lord may be just fine for you guys with such slow versions, but in my aggro version . . . he is having trouble keeping up.
Convoke means green creatures can be used for yhe green in chord of calling, so it's not quite just 15 green sources. And, there are 19 green sources for casting slivers. But, I agree that the mana looks like it hasn't been through testing.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Because we cannot prevent draws in paper Magic we allow IDs. If we could prevent draws we would not have IDs in paper Magic. " Scott Larabee.
Ah!
So the 4xPredators & 1xVenom can tap to cast the Chord. Fair enuff.
Still dont like it.
It does add a few extra sources. And, of course, there is Manaweft Sliver, which blows things open. I tend to think if you have a big board presence with Manaweft and a few other Slivers you are probably already ahead and whatever you can do with the mana is likely overkill.
I am far from convinced it is workable...which is why I asked if anyone had put it through some testing.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Because we cannot prevent draws in paper Magic we allow IDs. If we could prevent draws we would not have IDs in paper Magic. " Scott Larabee.
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Toms Ross threw this up on Starcity, I think I'm going to start with it and work up since cards like the Obelisk and 4 of Thorncaster seems terrible.
Creatures (32)
3 Blur Sliver
4 Diffusion Sliver
4 Galerider Sliver
4 Manaweft Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Striking Sliver
4 Thorncaster Sliver
4 Venom Sliver
1 Sliver Hivelord
Lands (24)
1 Forest
4 Breeding Pool
3 Mana Confluence
4 Mutavault
4 Sliver Hive
4 Steam Vents
4 Stomping Ground
Spells (4)
1 Obelisk of Urd
3 Chord of Calling
I just doubt you're often going to be able to assemble that engine and swing with it, not to mention that combo does nothing against control matchups which are prevalent in the meta. I'd rather be efficiently swarming with good slivers or rushing hivelords into play. And I've even played with Thorncaster before, he's cute but 5 mana for that effect is just not worth it when I can have indestructibility instead.
but... Maybe we will be Indestructabubble.
Agree with Toms Ross
3 Blur
4 Galerider Sliver
4 Manaweft Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Striking Sliver
1 Sliver Hivelord
Landbase - Agreed...
4 Mutavault
4 Sliver Hive
3 Mana Confluence
Try outs. ..
4 Venom Sliver
Too Many..
4 Thorncaster Sliver
I disagree with...
4 Diffusion Sliver
1 Obelisk of Urd
3 Chord of Calling
Bonescythe wins games, QUICK.
I think a Belligerant and a sentinel and some Megantic & Battle are just better. They Kill people.
Chord of calling is cute... but.... Megantic says die now.
Some Land colour differences, and he plays no temples.
I think I agree with everything he has to say about all of his other suggestions. Diffusion Sliver though ... just doesnt smell right.
Leech Sliver might, I say Might be a sleeper. It does have a neat effect with a kind-of-pump. but a point is often just enough. Maybe it can even be redirected onto a walker. dunno. think so.
The Sliver hive makes everything else outrageously easy to play, and there aint much that can kill it in standard. Heaven help you if you ever need to activate that final ability on the Sliver hive. Scrying to get one is probably good.
The complex manabase should work independantly of the Hive, and the Manaweft, both opf which can become pretty cumfy seat belts. 4xMutavaults are a must. Mana Confluence are probably going to be involved too. 3-4 of most likely. Elvish mystics are still so tempting, as are Carytid's , but, purity should be attempted for the moment.
Temple of Abandon is going to be a 4x
Stomping ground might get replaced with Karplu....oh. only off colour pain lands. how odd.
Yavimaya coast maybe?
.
The bits that matter...
Bonescythe wins games, QUICK.
Megantic & Battle Kill people.
Personally I'm not a fan of Bonescythe, it's just clunky, and i'd rather just play sliver that give actual stats. What's the point in bonescythe if I can just power out Megantics and crush. The white slivers are just abysmal in my opinion and I'd avoid them like the plague. RUG seems like the best color pie to me for standard slivers, leeching sliver is weird to me. I want that effect, but not at that time in the game, like you can't just cast it turn 2 and get anything. To me he seems more like a 2 of you drop at the last turn to help end it, like a secret copy of predatory sliver to boost all your guys by 1.
Addition: I played straight r/g back then by the way, I was pure aggro/synergy with Domris to find more slivers and it was decent, sometimes you'd just manaweft into megantics so fast people didn't know what was happening, or you'd play predator after predator and murder them with giant dorks. Personally the weakest slivers I always felt were the ones who stacked a static ability that didn't matter when stacked, a bunch of Striking Slivers aren't really that good, so I'm also leaning towards playing few Venom slivers, I want death touch, but I only really want one instance of it. I feel like at max it should be a 3 of, probably even a 2 of with sideboard ones for when you come up against creature heavy decks.
4 Diffusion Sliver
4 Galerider Sliver
4 Manaweft Sliver
4 Leeching Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
2 Syphon Sliver
1 Sliver Hivelord
3 Chord of Calling
2 Syncopate
4 Simic Charm
4 Cyclonic Rift
2 Doom Blade
Land:
3 Forest
3 Breeding Pool
2 Mana Confluence
3 Mutavault
4 Sliver Hive
2 Island
2 Watery Grave
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Swamp
The deck plays less like Zoo and more like Delver. It plays a few, evasive, efficient creatures, then protects them and distrupts the opponent as it gets in damage. Galerider and Diffusion are the evasion, Predatory and Leeching are the power, and Manaweft is there for acceleration and fixing.
A couple of card explanations:
Cyclonic Rift is a total powerhouse here. With Manaweft Sliver on the board, it's very easy to cast and sets up blowout victories against a lot of decks. It can also just be used as a cheap removal spell.
Diffusion Sliver has gotten a lot of criticism here, but I'd say that it's easily one of the most important cards in the deck. Without it, many decks just remove the sliver that you're relying on, usually ending in a loss for the sliver deck.
I built this deck with the legacy Meathooks (Counter-Sliver) deck in mind. Compare:
4 Muscle Sliver (Predatory)
4 Winged Sliver (Galerider)
3 Plated Sliver (Leeching)
2 Essence Sliver (Syphon)
1 Eternal Dragon (Hivelord)
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Leak
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Fact or Fiction
2 AEther Vial
1 Disenchant
1 Naturalize
3 Plains
1 Forest
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Tundra
1 Savannah
1 Tropical Island
1 Brushland
1 Adarkar Wastes
1 Yavimaya Coast
1 Windswept Heath
4 Diffusion Sliver
4 Galerider Sliver
4 Manaweft Sliver
4 Leeching Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
2 Syphon Sliver
1 Sliver Hivelord
3 Chord of Calling
2 Syncopate
4 Simic Charm
4 Cyclonic Rift
2 Doom Blade
Land:
3 Forest
3 Breeding Pool
2 Mana Confluence
3 Mutavault
4 Sliver Hive
2 Island
2 Watery Grave
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Swamp
I like your creature base, though I'm not sure about so many spells. Simic charm seems interesting though, that card never gets enough attention.
Diffusion Sliver, Leeching Sliver, Megantic Sliver, and Predatory Sliver.
Red does have some non-redundant Slivers like Thorncaster Sliver and Battle Sliver, but they are just way too high a cost to really be effective. All of the BUG Slivers, with the exception of Megantic Sliver, are only 2 CMC. Very, very nice.
Here's a quick list of something I quickly threw together and have had fun playing (Land and sideboard are still not completely worked out):
4 Manaweft Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
4 Diffusion Sliver
3 Galerider Sliver
3 Leeching Sliver
2 Megantic Sliver
Instants
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Negate
Sorcery
3 Divination
4 Read the Bones
4 Breeding Pool
1 Forest
1 Island
3 Mutavault
3 Overgrown Tomb
3 Sliver Hive
1 Swamp
2 Temple of Deceit
2 Temple of Malady
2 Temple of Mystery
3 Watery Grave
3 Venom Sliver
2 Doom Blade
2 Ultimate Price
3 Essence Scatter
3 Ranger's Guile
2 Duress
Like I said, this was thrown together pretty quickly, so it's definitely not finished. It's worked well so far. Sliver Hivelord was originally included, but I decided to take it out because I didn't really feel it was needed. The abilities of the other Slivers already really give the beats.
I had a match today where I got all 3 Leeching Slivers on the board and attacked with 3 Slivers (one of them being Mutavault). Hilarity ensued.
I'd like to make room in the sideboard for Golgari Charm, just not quite sure yet.
Anyway, thoughts/questions/comments?
This is probably bad but... Yisan, the wanderer bard the pied piper of slivers!
4 galerider sliver
4 manaweft sliver
4 predator sliver
4 diffusion sliver
4 leeching sliver
4 venom sliver
4 syphon sliver
4 yisan, the wanderer bard
2 sliver hivelord
1 striking sliver
1 blur sliver
1 belligerant sliver
1 bonescythe sliver
1 thorncaster sliver
other
1 oberlisk of Urd
lands
4 sliver hive
4 mana confluence
4 yavimaya coast
4 llanowar wastes
2 shivan reef
2 mutavault
Somehow my mana base is working... I really don't like the comes into play tapped lands.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
My Slivers deck is as good as any deck currently in standard.
It is strong, versatile, reliable and really quite expensive.
It is designed to try to fight after the second board wipe, but just maybe that is not actually needed any more.
4 Temple Garden
2 Forest
4 Stomping ground
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Mutavaults
3 Temple of Triumph
4 Banishing Light
2 Elspeth
1 Xenagos, the Reveller
4 Predatory Sliver
2 Blur Sliver
2 Bonescythe Sliver
3 Elvish Mystic
2 Boon Satyr
3 Polukranos
1 Magma Jet
3 Mizzium mortars
3 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Warleader's Helix
3 Mistcutter Hydra
4 Heroes' Reunion
1 Xenagos, the Reveller
1 Magma Jet
1 Mizzium Mortars
2 Magma Spray
2 Centaur Healer
1 Warleader's Helix
And, the only thing I am unsure about at the moment is Diffusion Sliver. I am going to try it out. I think that may be the real difference. The above is a tournament Slivers deck. I know this because I have played it in so many tournaments.
I played all the original Slivers en masse, in tournament. I have kept the best ones.
I am not sure that a pure build of Slivers is actually better, but a pure build is how it wants to be built if Sliver Hive is to used to its fullest.
Shock Land is also a poor choice, I feel. Pain Land will be worse than Shockland only after it has been tapped for coloured mana 3 times. With lots of single colour Slivers that really should not happen.
Things like Abrupt Decay or X Charm are simply not right in a full on SLIVERS ! deck.....
I have my 4 Sliver Hives, and my 2xHivelords.....
Time to put 38 Slivers in Sleeves. (Well, counting Mutavaults)
The decklist I posted above, mostly.
Now to figure out the sideboard.....
Wonder if the Sideboard should have Slivers too?
(I do not currently have Mana Confluences. I am not sure I actually need them....)
Banishing Light is also SO tempting.
And Mizz Mortars ... And Cyclonic Rift
(Obelisk really is bad. and 4xMutavault is a must in any non-budget deck)
from="Magic Geek"
4 Sliver Hives
2 Battlefield Forge
3 Yavimaya Coast
4 Temple of Plenty
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Mutavaults
4 Predatory Sliver
3 Venom Sliver
2 Megantic Sliver
4 Blur Sliver
1 Belligerant Sliver
2 Battle Sliver
1 Thorncaster
4 Bonescythe Sliver
4 Galerider Sliver
3 Diffusion Sliver
2 Hivelords
is my current plan, well, sort of.
Need to check the landbase pretty seriously. Less White.
Slivers fail horribly against Control and aren't quite fast enough to beat Aggro without some sort of protection. Diffusion sliver should help with targeted removal, but you still have to get a hivelord out asap to deal with mass removal.
They do not protect your slivers, because Slivers will tap out to cast Slivers, and not get to cast them.
There is no good solution.
Board wipe is the problem, and just maybe Supreme Verdict is getting outclassed.
The charge version of this deck should be faster than any Aggro deck without targetted removal. Turn 5 kill will be average. Turn 4 is certainly possible. And massive overkill is very, very easy on turn 6. The amount of damage this deck unleashes is insane.
Hivelord seems like so much cream, and most likely not going to stay, but i am willing to try him out.
Really not sure about the Mana confluences.
Asingle Sliver Hive means all colour problems are solved, The confluence is just pain at that point. And two would REALLY hurt.
This is assuming you get a Sliver Hive (Or preferably two) in your opener. Having some number of confluences on top increases the chances of having access to all colors in your opening hand significantly with very little real downside. The pain is a necessity when discussing aggressive multicolored strategies, and have 6-8 five color lands in a deck that is 3-5 colors is incredibly good, even if a few of them bring some pain.
Assume you play RUG sliver, and have a hand of Sliver Hive, Stomping Ground, and a Forest. Your color problems are not completely fixed, as your options each turn are dramatically reduced over a hand of Sliver Hive, Confluence, Stomping ground. Having access to 3 red, 2 blue, and 3 green is far better than having access to 2 Red, 1 Blue, and 3 green in the scenario given. At a relatively cheap cost of 1 life. It's the price of doing business with greedy manabases.
huh?
for my deck Sliver Hive, Stomping Ground & Forest casts everything I could desire.
Only Hivelord is missing two colours, and that would be a turn 3 cast if I got a lucky manaweft...
I do not need 3 red, 2 blue, and 3 green.
This is a Slivers deck, it requires a single coloured mana, and some X.
That is why Sliver Hive changes the world, it provides that magic Mana.
Mana Confluence suddenly becomes just trash, only providing poisoned mana, and most likely making the Sliver production ability on the Sliver Hive even weaker.
The intense mana needs you are describing are for if you want to run double colour spells, the worst of which are going to be the smallest of spells because they can not be cast by Sliver Hive at all. The worst of all of these sorts of spells would be mutli-colour, with no colourless component. This exactly describes a charm.
Manaweft & Blur can instantly dump a One cost Sliver chain.
The damage from Bonescythe is insane. If you already have a +1 sliver, a bonescythe will add +2 and first strike to everyone. If a Blur Sliver is also in play, .... thats a turn 4 win. But it wants untapped lands from turn 2 onwards. Getting 1 temple seems good. Getting 2 temples seem average. 3 is going to be slow. And by Temples, I mean, comes into play tapped lands. Temples seem to be the only ones worth playing in this deck. simple mathworks seems to say I want to play about 7-10 of them. The only time I am going to be using their coloured mana is if I have not drawn a Hive. And maybe a manaweft will get me through as well. Just maybe a Diffusion first will protect the Manaweft. Still seems way slow.
So Blue Green is more important, and Red far less since Mizzium Mortars is no longer going for overloads, and burn. leting go of red entirely is actually kinda appealling, but Blur is So good, and I just dont think there is enough good Slivers. The Five and Six Cost ones are still just a bit clunky for my liking..
Assuming, of course, you have both Manaweft and Sliver Hive in hand you can do all that. The example I gave was simply a hypothetical; the exact color combination you choose doesn't change the problem. It's not terribly unlikely that you actually don't ever see a Sliver Hive pop up at all, constricting your mana needs. You may not even see either a Mana Weft *or* a Sliver Hive. Slivers is an aggressive deck, situated to not particularly care about a few points of damage if it means having the option to sequence everything properly and as necessary. All you "need" is not Sliver Hive specifically; all you need is access to as many sources of the colors you need *right now*. The reason I brought up having access to all those sources of mana is because it increases the *options* available to have access to more colors, and not overly restrict what you can plan on any turn. Adding Confluence in some number increases the liklihood that you will have access to all relevant colors when it comes. It's the reason that 2 color aggro runs both Shocks and Confluence, and having 5-8 sources for *all* of your colors is better than limiting yourself to 4. How many are needed is going to require testing, but with only 4 sources of 3 color it is not at all unforseeable to be screwed out of a color for no reason other than not having the color for a specific sliver. It merely increases the likelihood of having all colors available.
As for which colors are "best", I feel Green is obviously the base, and blue is practically too good to pass up with Galerider and Diffusion. Red provides some interesting ones, and the only other 1-drop in Striking (Which would likely only be a 2-of to maintain a curve and provide the utility of First Strike), and Blur is quite good. Thorncaster as a 1-of is fine methinks, no more as it's expensive. White mostly provides Sentinel and Bonescythe(The new white one is far too expensive to be worthwhile), of which only Bonescythe is truly interesting (Sentinel isn't bad, just underwhelming a combat ability that requires all combat doesn't lead to any trading). Black adds Leeching and Syphon, neither of which seem as exciting to really go black (However Leeching is strong).
Of course, this isn't considering the support spells as well, which is another reason to run Confluence on top of Hive; you can only use colored mana from the Hive on sliver, limiting anything else you can do. And trust me, you absolutely need some sort of support spells in the deck to work, whatever they are.
Of course, adding some number of confluence also allows you to more safely toolbox the best sliver from each color. You can reasonably side in any of the slivers you need without worrying about not having the mana for it. It greatly increases the options you can have at your disposal.
When I get lucky and get 2xSliver Hives, a mutavault and 4xNon-Land I go Woo!
When you get lucky and get 2xSliver Hives, a mutavault and 4xNon-Land You might go Mulligan.
When I get lucky and get Sliver Hive and 2xPainland and 4xNon-Land I go Woo! No pain, and everything is castable.
When you get lucky and get Sliver Hive, and 2xMana Confluence . . . you will be taking 8-10 damage and losing to burn/rush.
Being able to ignore pain and colour is just huge.
Temples have been fanatastic in this, by the way.
They have a similar effect to the chord of calling in that they control what Slivers apprear, albeit in a much more limited way, but also a whole lot faster. This deck does not need a magic bullet though. A 5 cost dfiffusion Sliver is funky, but it is going to be at triple green. A Hivelord might be just as easy, and effective. Battle Slivers are way simpler, and goes squish now much faster.
And, if you do not get the Mana confluences?
You is stuffed. And when you do get them, you bleed..
I have been able to play 3 & 4 colour SLivers without the complex landbase. I really do not see why I need them. Substituting pain or even basic lands just doesn't seem that much of a problem. Sacred Foundry and Llanowar wastes seem to provide a whole lot of stability. Remember that only ONE coloured mana is required, unless you want to play strange, non Sliver Spells.
The deck is becoming a whole lot more obvious after some serious thought.
My full on SLivers really is outrageously fast. I no longer need to worry about pack rat. Or red.
from="Magic Geek"
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Yavimaya Coast
2 Shivan Reef
1 Temple of Plenty
2 Temple of Mystery
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Mutavaults
4 Manaweft Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
2 Venom Sliver
2 Megantic Sliver
4 Blur Sliver
1 Belligerant Sliver
2 Battle Sliver
3 Bonescythe Sliver
4 Galerider Sliver
3 Diffusion Sliver
2 Hivelords
1 Bonescythe Sliver
3 BANISHING Light
3 Cyclonic Rift
3 Mizzium Mortars
1 Diffusion Sliver
2 venom Sliver
2 Thorncaster
2 Boros Charm
yeah....coming along
And I now have it in Sleeves !
Why am i playing Sliver Hivelord?!???!!
I am powering thru lots of very fast goldfishes.
It puts temple cards in the graveyard and draws another 7 after turn 6.
It is yet to fail.
oh my.
this thing is WAY fast
1 Blur Sliver
1 Bonescythe Sliver
1 Constricting Sliver
4 Diffusion Sliver
4 Galerider Sliver
4 Manaweft Sliver
1 Megantic Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
1 Sentinel Sliver
4 Striking Sliver
1 Syphon Sliver
1 Thorncaster Sliver
1 Venom Sliver
4 Chord of Calling
Legendary Creatures
4 Sliver Hivelord
Lands (24)
1 Llanowar Wastes
4 Mana Confluence
1 Mutavault
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Sliver Hive
2 Steam Vents
3 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
2 Watery Grave
4 Yavimaya Coast
1 Reclamation Sage
3 Dispel
3 Golgari Charm
3 Mizzium Skin
2 Negate
3 Mutavault
The mana strikes me as being a bit short on red.
4xHivelord ?
1xMutavault ?
The sideboard is fascinating.....and what does he sideboard in and out?
3xMutavaults in the sideboard. What?
15 Green sources for GGG sounds kinda hopeful. I get concerned when I am trying to get a single G and I am running 15 sources. Manawefts sorta count.
Shocklands are just the wrong call.
And, Mana Confluence seems like the right call, but I am not certain they are. I think a painless manabase can work, but is harder.
This deck looks like it has not been thru testing.
It looks like a great start point, with ideas and tricks, but not where the deck is going to end up.
I like the utility of casting Chord of calling to get anything. It has real style. It just doesnt have enough power.
Indestructable is fine, Indestructable a second time is crap, so why would I ever want to cast Two of them?
And If I dont want 2, why is he playing 4?
I have played maybe 40 goldfish games with mine so far. My 2xLords are feeling distinctly nervous, I want to change them into a venom and the 4th Bonescythe, but I will try them out.
5 cost for 5 power is not worth it.
(WGR = 5/4 Wooly Thoctar . . . so BU is for what?)
Polukranos is tournament playable, and it has positive abilities. The Lord may be just fine for you guys with such slow versions, but in my aggro version . . . he is having trouble keeping up.
So the 4xPredators & 1xVenom can tap to cast the Chord. Fair enuff.
Still dont like it.
It does add a few extra sources. And, of course, there is Manaweft Sliver, which blows things open. I tend to think if you have a big board presence with Manaweft and a few other Slivers you are probably already ahead and whatever you can do with the mana is likely overkill.
I am far from convinced it is workable...which is why I asked if anyone had put it through some testing.