Humanoids are easiest for newer players to define with.
Slivers are a hugely popular casual tribe. How did they get that way?
My first real deck that I built myself was a sliver deck with Tempest slivers. I was a new player. I guess their huge popularity was a result of their humanoid appeara- oh. Wait...
Slivers are a hugely popular casual tribe. How did they get that way?
My first real deck that I built myself was a sliver deck with Tempest slivers. I was a new player. I guess their huge popularity was a result of their humanoid appeara- oh. Wait...
I mean for newer players nowadays. I know you must have some kind of nostalgia with the older slivers. They're iconic for me too. It's just the design Wizard's has gone with. I'm sorry.
I wish my 4/4s with haste and first strike that acted as Goblin Warchiefs were better and didn't die to instants and overshadowed all other 4 drops in the format. And that they had evasion too, and some way to dodge wrath effects.
Not all of them do. When we say "they" look humanoid, we mean the ones that do- the ones that look totally out of place (Steelform and Battle are the two worst ones for this). Take a look at Blur Sliver and get back to me on that "unifying aesthetic or design". Groundshaker is also neither here nor there, it doesn't look the same species as Steelform OR Blur.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that Magic does not need it's most iconic race- from visual and design perspective- turned into yet another humanoid race.
It's not as if we are LACKING in humanoid races. We have every ****ing humanoid race imaginable from elves to goblins to Hobbits to Blue People to Albino Chalk People. We have Elephant-People, Rhino-People, and Cat-People. We even already have an abundance of "creepy looking Robot-Flesh People"- they're called Phyrexians, if you remember them.
Listen, you don't have to be condescending. I understand where you're coming from, I really do. I'm not necessarily arguing that the new look is better than the old look, I'm just saying that it's entirely consistent with Sliver lore for them to be able to look humanoid if the need arose.
I'll just point again at the similarity of the art on many of the old slivers. There's only so much that can be done given the relatively simplistic form; otherwise, there wouldn't be so many of the old slivers looking the same. There are at least a dozen new slivers coming, probably as many as twenty or thirty, and it's a safe bet most of their abilities are going to be ones that already have a classic Sliver card made around them. I'm not saying it would be impossible to generate fresh new art that kept to the old form, but I am saying that we didn't really see it in the Time Spiral block, and that was with a much larger design space to explore.
You know, on the subject of how past Slivers haven't always looked consistent, look at Muscle Sliver. No seriously, look at it. Just the art. If you didn't already know, would you ever guess that was a Sliver? And that was all the way back in Tempest! Yeah, I think it's pretty safe to say that there's precedent in the disunification of the look of the Slivers.
Muscle Sliver got drawn before they'd settled on the aesthetic design for slivers, it hardly counts.
Here is the scene I'm absolutely terrified for:
My store has an abundance of younger and newer players. So little Timmy starts playing magic and learning the game, around M14. And he finds He likes beating his friends on the playground with his sliver deck. So he goes on the internet to see if he has all of them. And there he finds....slivers. One arm, conic facial construction, body coiled. Ready to reinforce friend and foe alike, from first strike, to haste, like the ones hes seen on the cards he has, to peculiar ones that do things like give tokens upon taking damage. And what is Timmys response? "The heck are these, they aren't slivers, they don't even look like them!"
He laughes, his friends laugh, and we die a little inside. A preemptive epitaph, you read it here.
Private Mod Note
():
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I fear I won't have much time to play Magic these days.
I get to watch worlds develop around me.
I get to watch great leaders, terrible oppressors, and trend setters rise and fall.
Limited, Standard, Modern, everything is a different playing field I feel I can observe, but will not actually touch.
I look forward to the stories I will hear.
And more so to the ones I will watch unfold first hand.
Isn't the unknown exciting?
Here is the scene I'm absolutely terrified for:
My store has an abundance of younger and newer players. So little Timmy starts playing magic and learning the game, around M14. And he finds He likes beating his friends on the playground with his sliver deck. So he goes on the internet to see if he has all of them. And there he finds....slivers. One arm, conic facial construction, body coiled. Ready to reinforce friend and foe alike, from first strike, to haste, like the ones hes seen on the cards he has, to peculiar ones that do things like give tokens upon taking damage. And what is Timmys response? "The heck are these, they aren't slivers, they don't even look like them!"
He laughes, his friends laugh, and we die a little inside. A preemptive epitaph, you read it here.
Yeah, pretty much this. I think our only effective response to this is to generate such a large ****storm over not-slivers that newer players can't help but notice it.
... So, I'm guessing it's just coincidence that every single other Sliver in Tempest is easily recognizable as a Sliver from it's art?
Even though I don't have a source yet, in the olden Magic days it wasn't too rare for art to be commissioned before the design had been properly worked out, or, even worse, with the artist misreading the description given. I'm sure we all know about Hyalopterous Lemure's art making it onto the card when it was nothing like the art asked for.
Not all of them do. When we say "they" look humanoid, we mean the ones that do- the ones that look totally out of place (Steelform and Battle are the two worst ones for this). Take a look at Blur Sliver and get back to me on that "unifying aesthetic or design". Groundshaker is also neither here nor there, it doesn't look the same species as Steelform OR Blur.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that Magic does not need it's most iconic race- from visual and design perspective- turned into yet another humanoid race.
It's not as if we are LACKING in humanoid races. We have every ****ing humanoid race imaginable from elves to goblins to Hobbits to Blue People to Albino Chalk People. We have Elephant-People, Rhino-People, and Cat-People. We even already have an abundance of "creepy looking Robot-Flesh People"- they're called Phyrexians, if you remember them.
What, humanoid races can't be diverse and different?
Just because these new slivers are humanoid (heck, not all the new slivers are humanoid) doesn't mean they're suddenly the same as everything else.
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Also known as Blitzer or Romanoff Blitzer. WIXOSS wiki admin.
It's funny how people say "You want to keep Slivers exactly the same", when I and many others have simply expressed distaste for these specific "slivers". Having more limbs or other departures from the strict one claw beak head snake body two tails anatomy is fine, especially if used to draw a line between the two kinds of slivers - the visual difference is a great way to spot it at a glance.
It's fine if Slivers look different across the planes, too. Happens to all the other critters, elves, goblins, dragons, Vedalken alike. The thing, though? Despite differences, all those still look like elves or vedalken or whatnot. They are, some exceptions aside, identifiable as such at a glance (at least as long as you know it's MTG art). The new Slivers don't have that. People can go "but but change-y things so it's absolutely fine" does not cut it. That's inane, it's semantics. Change and sharing is what defines Slivers mechanically, and the new ones still do that within NWO constraints. It even leads to better Limited.
That's fine, great even. But, as in Doug's old column, Slivers are visually defined by things like the eyeless, beaked head, their scythe-like claws, a serpentine body and they tend to have split tails. You can easily make a new, more expressive body shape and not violate many of these, maybe even none of these. Especially, you can pretty easily design something that draws more from insects and reptiles with which slivers already share visual and flavourful connections rather than weird Claymore-esque wtfs or humanoids. A lot of the new art looks like Sliths. They also share a lot more visual similarity with Phyrexians and Eldrazi than with the actual goddamn slivers, which is pretty damn sad. It's the same as if you printed fluffy rabbits with flippers that breathe fire and said they're Vampires. Oh, they probably are now because you said so, and there's surely people who will defend it. That still doesn't mean it isn't godawful and dissonant as hell.
These look nothing like Eldrazi. The new slivers are clearly metallic, whereas the Eldrazi are all mana (and thus flesh-like).
Comparisons to Phyrexians are much more apt, but still the Slivers don't have the same art style. I do wonder, though, if Maze Rusher wasn't originally Sliver art.
At least they still have the "all slivers" aspect, even if it is just "you control." That's still a huge difference from both Eldrazi and Phyrexians.
Yet the new "slivers" still bear more visual resemblance to Eldrazi than they do to actual existing slivers, which is pretty bad.
The rules and the art issues wrt the new sliver cards are pretty separate. They are mechanically slivers, creature type and all, with a bit of slivery feel sacrificed for good gameplay, which is a deal-breaker for some. But I would never have even thought of any of the "slivers" (except perhaps Blur) as slivers if I hadn't seen them in frame. Visually they have almost nothing in common with other slivers.
I'm not talking about the ability, you misunderstood me. I was talking about the looks of the slivers. I don't mind the "you control" clause, that makes it less confusing. But to me, slivers will always be the claw, two-tailed menace and not these new, childish-looking things.
Notice that in my original post I was aiming my argument straight at the sliver mechanic. I understand, no, I sympathize with the frustration of seeing slivers go from weird buggy-snaky one-clawed abominations to some Predator reject.
These slivers don't look like slivers, outside of blur sliver (if you just imagine the two legs as being like a single body/tail thing that slivers normally have). Also, "you control" is going to mess me up so much when counting slivers from previous blocks.
There is nothing nice if are sliver token with legs, arms,fingers, face... all those things that slivers don't have
And now they do. Surprise! (old slivers totally had arms. They just had a whopping great claw on the end. But you can't do fine manipulation with a huge claw...)
And now they do. Surprise! (old slivers totally had arms. They just had a whopping great claw on the end. But you can't do fine manipulation with a huge claw...)
the fittest living being in earth don't have arms and not manipulate things. has not been a problem so far.
the fittest living being in earth don't have arms and not manipulate things. has not been a problem so far.
I am not sure what life form you are referring to but it does not really matter. In the natural world the idea of perfection or in this case "Fittest" is a foolish idea. The definition of what is fit and what is not is constantly changing with the environment, in other words, yesterday's unfit loser species could be king of the world with a single shift. This is why we have extinction of species, when something changes the rules on who is fit and who is unfit is redefined.
Now I will agree with something you have said about if we get sliver tokens. Honestly I think it would be best for the token art to be original slivers. This would help sell a connection between new and old, also it would help with the idea that the slivers are altering themselves to achieve the goal of survival.
you are agreeing with me without even understanding it.
vedalken HAVE A VERY SPECIFIC LOOK: "blunt-nosed, blue-skinned intellectuals". this NEVER CHANGED.
then MINOR THINGS CHANGE through the blocks, like number of arm.
now look at sliver
THEY HAVE A SPECIFIC AND SPECIAL LOOK: "Slivers have that eyeless, sharp head shape, that single claw, and that snaking body"
and while a LOT OF MINOR THINGS CHANGED, like number of tails, different shaped talons, wings and so on THE SPECIFIC LOOK REMAINED THE SAME.
now, they screwed everything. the specific look is dead. the new slivers doesn't even have a new specific look: while battle sliver and steelform sliver looks similar, blur sliver and sentinel sliver have NO ELEMENTS IN COMMON.
You're a hard man to love, you know that?
I'll try one last time to explain my position, because at this point I'm belaboring it and truth be told I'm sure no one really, truly cares about what I think about Slivers. My wife just shakes her head and smiles at me.
Your argument is that Slivers used to have a classic look that, while not always present (like on the cards I've discussed), existed on many of the cards that represented Slivers - that look being the three characteristics you keep mentioning. With the new art direction that look has been removed, and not only that, the new look itself doesn't show any defining characteristics because the new slivers don't have any bodily structures in common.
Please brother, believe me when I say I understand this argument. I know it inside and out. It's not a difficult concept to understand.
What you're not understanding is my point, and it requires a paradigm shift in order to fully appreciate it. Every other race in Magic, save two, has a defined form. An Elf looks like an Elf, a Goblin looks like a Goblin, a Rhox looks like a Rhox. They follow a certain set of guidelines when it comes to art direction, although the plane that they inhabit can certainly amend these rules to some degree - Mirrodin being the obvious one that comes to mind. The reason their form is locked is because, as far as we know, they operate under the same guidelines as real world Humans when it comes to evolution. That being: It will take a significant amount of time for new structures to become a part of that organism. If the Elvish species wants to naturally grow a third arm in the middle of it's forehead that property has to be selected for in it's population. This is a long, long process if done naturally, and we'd expect to see it develop in card art along the way. If M14 packs are cracked and we saw Elves with arms on their foreheads we would be a little miffed, and justifiably so.
Here's my point, bolded only to make it stand out: Slivers do not follow these rules.
For Slivers, evolution is instant. If they need wings, they grow them at the exact moment they need them. We've seen consistent characteristics on Sliver cards for the past ten years, the three you mention, but there is absolutely no reason in the lore why they have to be present. None.
If that eyeless, sharp head shape became a detriment to the Hive, it would change. If that single claw stopped being sufficient, it would change. If that snaking body was the thing keeping the Hive from achieving victory, it. would. change.
This is my point. This is why the six new Slivers not having a consistent feature doesn't bother me: consistency is not a trait the Hive has in spades. Slivers are constantly evolving new and different mechanisms to advance the Hive. That constant evolving nature is the exact opposite of consistency. Until M14, we hadn't seen art that changed any of the Big Three characteristics. That's fine! I know why they did that - because to a degree consistency is a good thing when it comes to art. Being able to instantly identify a Sliver based solely on the art isn't a bad thing.
Wait, stop. I know what you're doing. You think I just negated my whole argument with that statement, and you're beginning to write a quick response right now mocking me for it. Come back to me, friend. Please, let me finish.
The problem with the classic Sliver look is that it is extremely limiting. We have seventy-six Slivers, and many of them look very, very similar. The comparison I've been using is Quick Sliver and Fury Sliver. Two cards with completely different abilities that have art that is utterly interchangeable. Doug himself mentions in the article you referenced that the look is so consistent it's difficult to find new directions for how they could look. When the consistency hampers the art to that degree, it stops being a good thing. If the art of every human card was simply a bust of Random Guy A or Random Gal B standing straight, that would get old very quickly. It's boring to look at, even if the card text is different. What's the point of art if everything looks the same? And sure, you can rotate the field of view to show different aspects, but what's really the difference between a left-facing Sliver and a right-facing Sliver?
Fortunately for artists, Slivers are not confined to any one form. They can literally evolve any characteristic they need. Humanoid, avian, flying spaghetti monster. This is extremely freeing from an artistic point of view, because you can literally draw a Sliver any way you like. You hate that about them, I know you do, but unfortunately for you it's true. It hasn't been done before, so when the new art came out it was jarring because they changed that which was previously consistent. And this is the problem most people who don't like the new direction have - they want some visual characteristic to unify the species.
I get that. I really do. I'm not saying that's a dumb thing to think, or calling anyone stupid for thinking it. What I am saying is that it is allowable in the lore to depict slivers without the characteristics that had previously been present in most Sliver art. And anyone who says it simply can't be done doesn't really understand slivers. It'd be like saying you can't draw two humans wearing different shirts because every human up to that point was drawn wearing the same shirt. They may not like it - that's fine. They may wish it hadn't been done - that's fine too. I'm not judging anyone for how they feel about this change. I'm simply defending the choice to show them in different forms by attempting to point out that the lore allows them to do it.
There's also a practical aspect to this to change in art direction that was caused by NWO - it's now easy to tell the old Slivers that affect all cards apart from the new ones that only affect your cards. That's another point of contention, one that I won't go into because this post is too long as is.
Those are my thoughts on the topic. If you think I'm right, great. If you think I'm wrong, great. Thank you for reading if you read it, and if you ignored it then no harm, no foul.
Slivers are a hugely popular casual tribe. How did they get that way?
My first real deck that I built myself was a sliver deck with Tempest slivers. I was a new player. I guess their huge popularity was a result of their humanoid appeara- oh. Wait...
0 Karn
W Darien
U Arcanis
B Geth
R Norin
G Yeva
UW Hanna
RB Olivia
WB Obzedat
UR Melek
BG Glissa
WR Aurelia
GU Kraj
BRU Nicol Bolas
RGB Prossh
BGW Ghave
GUB Mimeoplasm
WUBRG Sliver Overlord
GWU Treva, the Renewer
EDH Spike:
U Azami, Lady of Scrolls
Trades
I mean for newer players nowadays. I know you must have some kind of nostalgia with the older slivers. They're iconic for me too. It's just the design Wizard's has gone with. I'm sorry.
My current decks!
http://tappedout.net/users/ThePhasewalker/
Listen, you don't have to be condescending. I understand where you're coming from, I really do. I'm not necessarily arguing that the new look is better than the old look, I'm just saying that it's entirely consistent with Sliver lore for them to be able to look humanoid if the need arose.
I'll just point again at the similarity of the art on many of the old slivers. There's only so much that can be done given the relatively simplistic form; otherwise, there wouldn't be so many of the old slivers looking the same. There are at least a dozen new slivers coming, probably as many as twenty or thirty, and it's a safe bet most of their abilities are going to be ones that already have a classic Sliver card made around them. I'm not saying it would be impossible to generate fresh new art that kept to the old form, but I am saying that we didn't really see it in the Time Spiral block, and that was with a much larger design space to explore.
Muscle Sliver got drawn before they'd settled on the aesthetic design for slivers, it hardly counts.
And where did WoTC ever say that?
My store has an abundance of younger and newer players. So little Timmy starts playing magic and learning the game, around M14. And he finds He likes beating his friends on the playground with his sliver deck. So he goes on the internet to see if he has all of them. And there he finds....slivers. One arm, conic facial construction, body coiled. Ready to reinforce friend and foe alike, from first strike, to haste, like the ones hes seen on the cards he has, to peculiar ones that do things like give tokens upon taking damage. And what is Timmys response? "The heck are these, they aren't slivers, they don't even look like them!"
He laughes, his friends laugh, and we die a little inside. A preemptive epitaph, you read it here.
I get to watch great leaders, terrible oppressors, and trend setters rise and fall.
Limited, Standard, Modern, everything is a different playing field I feel I can observe, but will not actually touch.
I look forward to the stories I will hear.
And more so to the ones I will watch unfold first hand.
Isn't the unknown exciting?
Yeah, pretty much this. I think our only effective response to this is to generate such a large ****storm over not-slivers that newer players can't help but notice it.
... So, I'm guessing it's just coincidence that every single other Sliver in Tempest is easily recognizable as a Sliver from it's art?
43/111, approximately 39% complete. Over a third done.
(calling it now; there will be a cycle of Legendary dual lands with Basic Land types in Theros block)
... AAAAAAAAND I was wrong
Now that I try and find it, I'm beginning to think I dreamed it. I'm sure I read it somewhere, so I'll just keep looking I suppose.
Even though I don't have a source yet, in the olden Magic days it wasn't too rare for art to be commissioned before the design had been properly worked out, or, even worse, with the artist misreading the description given. I'm sure we all know about Hyalopterous Lemure's art making it onto the card when it was nothing like the art asked for.
What, humanoid races can't be diverse and different?
Just because these new slivers are humanoid (heck, not all the new slivers are humanoid) doesn't mean they're suddenly the same as everything else.
Cōnservātum album delenda est.
It's fine if Slivers look different across the planes, too. Happens to all the other critters, elves, goblins, dragons, Vedalken alike. The thing, though? Despite differences, all those still look like elves or vedalken or whatnot. They are, some exceptions aside, identifiable as such at a glance (at least as long as you know it's MTG art). The new Slivers don't have that. People can go "but but change-y things so it's absolutely fine" does not cut it. That's inane, it's semantics. Change and sharing is what defines Slivers mechanically, and the new ones still do that within NWO constraints. It even leads to better Limited.
That's fine, great even. But, as in Doug's old column, Slivers are visually defined by things like the eyeless, beaked head, their scythe-like claws, a serpentine body and they tend to have split tails. You can easily make a new, more expressive body shape and not violate many of these, maybe even none of these. Especially, you can pretty easily design something that draws more from insects and reptiles with which slivers already share visual and flavourful connections rather than weird Claymore-esque wtfs or humanoids. A lot of the new art looks like Sliths. They also share a lot more visual similarity with Phyrexians and Eldrazi than with the actual goddamn slivers, which is pretty damn sad. It's the same as if you printed fluffy rabbits with flippers that breathe fire and said they're Vampires. Oh, they probably are now because you said so, and there's surely people who will defend it. That still doesn't mean it isn't godawful and dissonant as hell.
Circle of Predation, Part 1
Circle of Predation, Part 2
But that's the problem. They are. They look identical to Eldrazi and Phyrexians.
“I once had an entire race killed just to listen to the rattling of their dried bones as I waded through them.”
—Volrath
Comparisons to Phyrexians are much more apt, but still the Slivers don't have the same art style. I do wonder, though, if Maze Rusher wasn't originally Sliver art.
At least they still have the "all slivers" aspect, even if it is just "you control." That's still a huge difference from both Eldrazi and Phyrexians.
Currently Working On: Jund Ramp (RTR Block)
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The rules and the art issues wrt the new sliver cards are pretty separate. They are mechanically slivers, creature type and all, with a bit of slivery feel sacrificed for good gameplay, which is a deal-breaker for some. But I would never have even thought of any of the "slivers" (except perhaps Blur) as slivers if I hadn't seen them in frame. Visually they have almost nothing in common with other slivers.
Circle of Predation, Part 1
Circle of Predation, Part 2
燃える時計秘密めく花の香り
www.pokemoncrossroads.com
Getting sliver tokens will be nice. I figured we'd be getting some with Modern Masters, but I won't mind them in M14 at all.
Heroes and Villains Comics and Games
Watch "The Giant Sharkgate Chronicles"
Watch "Eating Made Easy"
There is nothing nice if are sliver token with legs, arms,fingers, face... all those things that slivers don't have
And now they do. Surprise! (old slivers totally had arms. They just had a whopping great claw on the end. But you can't do fine manipulation with a huge claw...)
the fittest living being in earth don't have arms and not manipulate things. has not been a problem so far.
I am not sure what life form you are referring to but it does not really matter. In the natural world the idea of perfection or in this case "Fittest" is a foolish idea. The definition of what is fit and what is not is constantly changing with the environment, in other words, yesterday's unfit loser species could be king of the world with a single shift. This is why we have extinction of species, when something changes the rules on who is fit and who is unfit is redefined.
Now I will agree with something you have said about if we get sliver tokens. Honestly I think it would be best for the token art to be original slivers. This would help sell a connection between new and old, also it would help with the idea that the slivers are altering themselves to achieve the goal of survival.
Good point. I'll be stocking up on the Modern Masters Sliver tokens, in that case.
Heroes and Villains Comics and Games
Watch "The Giant Sharkgate Chronicles"
Watch "Eating Made Easy"
You're a hard man to love, you know that?
I'll try one last time to explain my position, because at this point I'm belaboring it and truth be told I'm sure no one really, truly cares about what I think about Slivers. My wife just shakes her head and smiles at me.
Your argument is that Slivers used to have a classic look that, while not always present (like on the cards I've discussed), existed on many of the cards that represented Slivers - that look being the three characteristics you keep mentioning. With the new art direction that look has been removed, and not only that, the new look itself doesn't show any defining characteristics because the new slivers don't have any bodily structures in common.
Please brother, believe me when I say I understand this argument. I know it inside and out. It's not a difficult concept to understand.
What you're not understanding is my point, and it requires a paradigm shift in order to fully appreciate it. Every other race in Magic, save two, has a defined form. An Elf looks like an Elf, a Goblin looks like a Goblin, a Rhox looks like a Rhox. They follow a certain set of guidelines when it comes to art direction, although the plane that they inhabit can certainly amend these rules to some degree - Mirrodin being the obvious one that comes to mind. The reason their form is locked is because, as far as we know, they operate under the same guidelines as real world Humans when it comes to evolution. That being: It will take a significant amount of time for new structures to become a part of that organism. If the Elvish species wants to naturally grow a third arm in the middle of it's forehead that property has to be selected for in it's population. This is a long, long process if done naturally, and we'd expect to see it develop in card art along the way. If M14 packs are cracked and we saw Elves with arms on their foreheads we would be a little miffed, and justifiably so.
Here's my point, bolded only to make it stand out: Slivers do not follow these rules.
For Slivers, evolution is instant. If they need wings, they grow them at the exact moment they need them. We've seen consistent characteristics on Sliver cards for the past ten years, the three you mention, but there is absolutely no reason in the lore why they have to be present. None.
If that eyeless, sharp head shape became a detriment to the Hive, it would change. If that single claw stopped being sufficient, it would change. If that snaking body was the thing keeping the Hive from achieving victory, it. would. change.
This is my point. This is why the six new Slivers not having a consistent feature doesn't bother me: consistency is not a trait the Hive has in spades. Slivers are constantly evolving new and different mechanisms to advance the Hive. That constant evolving nature is the exact opposite of consistency. Until M14, we hadn't seen art that changed any of the Big Three characteristics. That's fine! I know why they did that - because to a degree consistency is a good thing when it comes to art. Being able to instantly identify a Sliver based solely on the art isn't a bad thing.
Wait, stop. I know what you're doing. You think I just negated my whole argument with that statement, and you're beginning to write a quick response right now mocking me for it. Come back to me, friend. Please, let me finish.
The problem with the classic Sliver look is that it is extremely limiting. We have seventy-six Slivers, and many of them look very, very similar. The comparison I've been using is Quick Sliver and Fury Sliver. Two cards with completely different abilities that have art that is utterly interchangeable. Doug himself mentions in the article you referenced that the look is so consistent it's difficult to find new directions for how they could look. When the consistency hampers the art to that degree, it stops being a good thing. If the art of every human card was simply a bust of Random Guy A or Random Gal B standing straight, that would get old very quickly. It's boring to look at, even if the card text is different. What's the point of art if everything looks the same? And sure, you can rotate the field of view to show different aspects, but what's really the difference between a left-facing Sliver and a right-facing Sliver?
Fortunately for artists, Slivers are not confined to any one form. They can literally evolve any characteristic they need. Humanoid, avian, flying spaghetti monster. This is extremely freeing from an artistic point of view, because you can literally draw a Sliver any way you like. You hate that about them, I know you do, but unfortunately for you it's true. It hasn't been done before, so when the new art came out it was jarring because they changed that which was previously consistent. And this is the problem most people who don't like the new direction have - they want some visual characteristic to unify the species.
I get that. I really do. I'm not saying that's a dumb thing to think, or calling anyone stupid for thinking it. What I am saying is that it is allowable in the lore to depict slivers without the characteristics that had previously been present in most Sliver art. And anyone who says it simply can't be done doesn't really understand slivers. It'd be like saying you can't draw two humans wearing different shirts because every human up to that point was drawn wearing the same shirt. They may not like it - that's fine. They may wish it hadn't been done - that's fine too. I'm not judging anyone for how they feel about this change. I'm simply defending the choice to show them in different forms by attempting to point out that the lore allows them to do it.
There's also a practical aspect to this to change in art direction that was caused by NWO - it's now easy to tell the old Slivers that affect all cards apart from the new ones that only affect your cards. That's another point of contention, one that I won't go into because this post is too long as is.
Those are my thoughts on the topic. If you think I'm right, great. If you think I'm wrong, great. Thank you for reading if you read it, and if you ignored it then no harm, no foul.
EDH is a CASUAL format. Get with the program, or GTFO.