MTG Salvation

This deck uses Sliver Queen as a Commander in a token deck. It has resisted attempts to take some of the goodstuff out, and I've just accepted that it has hard tutors that search for stuff that don't stop other people from playing their strategies.

Edit: 2/26/17 made some changes, below is current list.

Hey, pal. Your decklist feels a little all over the place to me, which makes advice a little difficult, but I'll try.
Your initial paragraph sounds like you want a consistent, interactive deck that can win games, but doesn't do it by shutting out the rest of the players. You've got some nice cards, so I'll ignore budget in my advice. If you'd like to limit that, let us know.

Land Base: You've got 5 duals; I'm guessing it's because you don't own more. They're certainly not necessary, but if you can get all 10, it'll be a nice upgrade. All 10 of the fetchlands and all 10 shocklands would also be great. Obviously that land base will run into the 4 digit numbers, cost-wise, but it's a very big improvement. Short of a Blood Moon or something similar, you'll very rarely find that you don't have the right colors with that core land base. That said, let's talk about options that won't make you sell a kidney.
I'm adamantly against Transguild Promenade and Rupture Spire. Not only do they come in tapped (which is barely acceptable by itself), but they force you to pay 1 just to keep them. Nonbasic lands are worth running if they have a good ability and only 1 (minor) drawback. In these cases, you get mana fixing, but with 2 drawbacks. Not good enough.
Shimmering Grotto is less than stellar. It only provides colored mana if you also tap a second land. I'd rather have a forest every time. Similarly, Urborg is so limited in its usefulness, that having a basic land is better if for no other reason than that it is immune to Back To Basics.
Forbidden Orchard is great for the colors, and can be strategically used politically, but usually giving your opponents free guys is bad.
For me, the transmute ability of Tolaria West is not worth running another tapped land.
Kher Keep should go. The 0/1 it makes is virtually useless in Commander unless you run a lot of effects that require you to sac things.
Exotic Orchard and Reflecting Pool is nice unless you go first and have a 1 drop in your hand. They also don't always fix your mana like you want them to.
Kessig Wolf Run and Volrath's Stronghold are great cards. Examples of abilities powerful enough to warrant losing a colored mana. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is also great, since it completely fixes black.
Thespian's Stage is great if you're running Coffers, but pretty lackluster otherwise.
The Vivid lands are great to fix your colors but coming in tapped and being limited in the amount of other colors they can produce is a pretty bad downside.
The "tapped unless you control 2 or fewer" lands are pretty decent. Color fixing and they don't stop your early game.
Arcane Sanctum and its friends are okay. Entering tapped stinks, but producing 3 colors mostly makes up for that.
City of Brass and Command Tower are groovy.

Other options include basics (because they can be tutored) and painlands. Painlands are pretty good because you get 2 colors each, but only when you really need to and they produce colorless when you don't need to. Put the Cradle back in your deck. Yes, it is super good, but it does not shut out opponents. Playing good cards is not the same as playing "unfair" cards. Additionally, you playing good cards will cause your meta to adjust their decks to deal with perceived threats, which causes the other deck jockies to evolve as Magic players. It's a win/win.

You have very little ramp. I'd remove most of the lands that I listed as not great and replace them with basics, then add Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Land Tax, and Earthcraft.

The Rest: This is where your deck focus is, but right now it's not very focused on value. It sort of looks like you just grabbed all of the cards you have that add tokens and threw them in.
REMOVE: Nest Invader, Tuktuk the Explorer, Rukh Egg, Kozilek's Predator, Deranged Hermit, Master's Call, and Timely Reinforcements. They're all neat and variably good in a vacuum, but in a multiplayer game they just don't provide enough value to be good enough to use.
VALUE ADDS: Sensei's Divining Top, Skullclamp, Nin, the Pain Artist, Sylvan Library, Phyrexian Arena, Aura Shards, Manaweft Sliver, Gemhide Sliver, Doubling Season, Parallel Lives, Eldrazi Monument, Beastmaster Ascension, Chromatic Lantern, Joiner Adept, Attrition, Purphoros, God of the Forge, Cathars' Crusade, Prismatic Omen, or generally anything that draws you cards.
I find that it is generally more useful to have fewer cards that add tokens, but to have those cards add many more tokens, and then use the extra space for mana fixing, ramp, draw, and answers.
There are many other cards that are great for this kind of deck, but this is already a wall of text. Good luck.

So leaving out the card choices even though what you suggested is totally valid since I own some of them, I'm more getting at the point with this thread that much of the criticism on this deck from other sites is the goodstuff.dec cards I had, especially tutors. With the tutors I can keep Thopter Foundry and Dark Depths combos in the deck and reliably get them. The Foundry is always my best combo if I get it out, especially in the presence of Gaea's Cradle and Xenagos.

Judging by what you are saying, at least how I'm reading it, is that I should put back in the cards that make the deck explosive and not worry so much about it. Is that correct to say that? The interesting thing is that my friends have said they don't mind me having the tutors...it's me that's worrying that I'm going in with too powerful of a deck versus the power levels in my friends' decks. I mean, this is a format that's supposed to be casual, which is why so many rail against goodstuff.dec cards in the format.

However, Skullclamp and Beastmaster Ascension are great suggestions that I will use. Beastmaster Ascension will take the place of Leonin Sunstandard, as I don't get enough white mana on the table to outpace the Ascension on buffing. I forgot that card existed and it's perfect. I also had Doubling Season, and Aura Shards in there, too, which can easily go back in. Although Cathars' Crusade is the bomb, and would quickly put this deck into the stratosphere, counters on tokens in the quantity and variety I play with is a Doctorate's level of complexity that frankly makes my head hurt too much. Great card, so not worth the math, though. I took out Ajani Goldmane for the same reason.

After play testing for a while, the deck feels like it needs the following changes.
Out:
1 Lavalanche
1 Clan Defiance
1 Death Grasp
1 Invoke the Firemind
1 Aurelia's Fury
1 Druids' Repository
1 Leonin Sun Standard

In:
1 Gaea's Cradle (please don't spit your milk out in shock...I already own this.)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Sylvan Scrying
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Thopter Foundry
1 Dark Depths

Really, I decided I wanted to play with Marit Lage again, and re-add my best token creature engine with the sword/foundry combo. Although there is less hard tutoring to search them out than I used to play with, and in most cases the tutors will be to get special lands like Volrath's Stronghold and Gaea's Cradle early game versus holding for game changers later, I'm not opposed to tutoring for half the combo if the other half is already in hand. After all, neither token play actually shuts anyone out, so no worries. And Thespian's Stage is once again justified for being in the deck list since it can cheat Marit Lage into play and still leave the Dark Depths for removing the counters with Gaea's Cradle when the first Marit Lage token bites the dust.

While the deck comes off a bit all over the place, it's effective with simply a lot of creatures in play, however they come about. No, it's not optimized, but that's fairly intentional since optimization would put it out of my friends' power levels. I also just like playing with a wide variety of token generators and trying to forge a win from the chaos. "Power-ups to the people!" - Munch's Oddysee reference. If you've played the game, then you get the idea of how I'm playing this. And so far in my group, it's played extremely well.

No more apologies, this is going to simply be as cutthroat as I go in my playgroup. This is still very much casual due to speed and lack of infinite combos but packs some combos that my group will definitely die with.

Edit: 8/7/17 made some more changes, below is current list.

Lots of tokens. You previously talked about Doubling Season, which would be great here, and someone else already suggested Parallel Lives, which again would be incredible. And because redundancy is good, Anointed Procession.

In terms of your token generators, have you considered Hornet Queen?

Quote from Outcryqq »

Lots of tokens. You previously talked about Doubling Season, which would be great here, and someone else already suggested Parallel Lives, which again would be incredible. And because redundancy is good, Anointed Procession.

In terms of your token generators, have you considered Hornet Queen?

Yep, did originally think about Hornet Queen, may take out Silklash Spider to fit, thanks for the suggestion. Green mana is not a problem with the consistency I have finding Gaea's Cradle.

I do have Doubling Season, and I was thinking of using it, so I certainly can find a card to swap. Anointed Procession and Parallel Lives will probably just replace Saproling Symbiosis and Second Harvest. These fit better now with my list as it is. Great suggestions, but will have to buy those two and the Hornet Queen.

Updated list to include most recent suggestions for token doublers. Doubling Season can now bring a number of planeswalkers in with ultimates armed, making this list even more explosive (potentially, anyway).

I have a question. If I were going to rape my use of Doubling Season effects, and add Crush of Wurms and Roar of the Wurm, what two cards would you take out? If I'm playing other wurm token generators because I'm reliably getting enough green mana with the cradle, might as well fit these in. Thoughts?

I think Master's Call and Timely Reinforcements are very cuttable: Master's Call is a one-shot effect, and most of your creatures simply do it better. Timely Reinforcements is decent, but you will usually not get the tokens because this deck intends on already having lots of creatures - so you'll likely only gain life, in which case it is not worth it.

In terms of the cards you plan on adding, Crush of Wurms is okay because at worst, by casting and recasting it, you have 6 wurm tokens. However, Roar of the Wurm, at worst, nets you only two wurms - hardly worth a slot in this list.

The "Casual" tag is so strange to see with this list, as some cards are clearly sub-optimal... But then next to clearly more powerful cards seems quite awkward.

Thopter/Sword combo is so out of place in here. There is NO synergy for Thopter Foundry in the deck past the combo...

Broodhatch Nantuko and friends seem weak, as you have few enough ways to trigger them, nor keep them around. (I would expect Blasphemous Act to be here to trigger them, as well as mass removal)

Master's Call should be Lingering Souls as tribal aspects aren't there, but the value of 4 flying bodies for 5cmc is far better. Midnight Haunting if you want it to still be an instant.

Tuktuk & Rukh both are under par, for size of token. Size or body count, these both get outclassed by a great deal of creatures that make tokens. Worldspine Wurm, for the casual aspect, but has plenty of the Timmy vibe?

Some of the powerful cards are in there simply because I own them, have owned them for some time, and wanted them to not sit in a binder, but likewise not have to bankroll a totally competitive deck. Other less-optimal cards are likewise in there because, you guessed it, I own them. The foundry/sword combo is token-based, and comes up in a game about 40% of the time, even with tutors since I tutor based on what's in hand and on board, and my friends know how to shut it down anyway (psst! target the foundry!). But it allows me to gain life and is the most efficient non-Cradle token source if it sticks around. Why not invest one slot to the uninteractive foundry under those conditions?

I do like Lingering Souls, though. I own Worldspine Wurm and am presently on the fence about putting it in. Rukh Egg is a whimsy card, and I've played with it since Legends dumped Hell's Caretaker into existence. I agree it's not strong at this point, but I do like chump blockers that then drop tokens of decent size. And that there is the challenge. I don't have to be more efficient than this for the group. To do so would actually become at odds with the other group member's decks. So I can freely play with some slots and I put some fun cards in for no reason other than liking them. If I had to tighten up the list to play in a more competitive meta, I would change a lot of things. I like posting for fun ideas, but I'm in no way looking to dominate my group. The possible loss of Gaea's Cradle in a game is one reason why I don't put in more expensive cards than 7 mana for all but the Sandwurm Convergence.

TL;DR, hopefully this explains some of the confusing card choices. My hydra deck is a much, much more focused decklist, even as a tribal. Zegana's more focused, too, as a way to oppose voltron decks in my group. This one is just fun to play even if I lose, but can have spectacular wins with the synergies that are in here.

I'm re-thinking my key spells and leaning now towards going obscenely wide for Gaea's Cradle-powered blast spells, and for overpowering bumrushes (hence putting Sarkhan Vol back in). So to take advantage of this, I'm adding more critter doublers and 5 soul sisters to interact with the Doubling Season effects. Thoughts?

Add:
1 Devout Invocation
1 White Sun's Zenith
1 Deploy to the Front
1 Nomads' Assembly
1 Sarkhan Vol
1 Saproling Symbiosis
1 Soul Warden
1 Soul's Attendant
1 Essence Warden
1 Suture Priest
1 Auriok Champion

Remove:
1 Dark Depths
1 Vampire Hexmage
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Thopter Foundry
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Penumbra Wurm
1 Armada Wurm
1 Broodhatch Nantuko
1 Saber Ants
1 Hornet Nest
1 Sandwurm Convergence

After playing two rainbow edh decks, I’ve decided to mix the two. Cromat had too many disjointed cards and no real driving idea; that ended up being more of a deal breaker than I anticipated. Sliver Queen tokens was pretty synergistic, but lacked enough defenses. I still really like the token theme, but wanted to add more defenses. I also really like the minor Superfriends theme as the only deck I use planeswalkers that still largely supports tokens.

So with that in mind, playtesting has this deck working well with mana ratios, plenty of defensive cards in hand, some big guns like Cromat, Grave Titan and Sliver Queen, and enough token generators to have a blast with in solo games and not let team members down in group games. Feel free to comment, but I’m pretty happy with this version to be honest. I couldn’t care less about goodstuff-to-other-card ratios after building eight edh decks but only keeping four, I just enjoy slinging fun cards with my best friends. Cheers.

Time for some shake-up cards, prompted in part because I realized Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek doesn’t work when Sorin, Lord of Innistrad’s emblem is in play. That, and I rarely get the tutors to get both halves of the combo. Same deal for Dark Depths and Vampire Nighthawk.
Add:
Mirror Entity
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
Nomads’ Assembly
Mana Vault
Rhys the Redeemed
Torment of Hailfire
Exsanguinate

Remove:
Vampire Hexmage
Dark Depths
Tezzeret the Seeker
Sword of the Meek
Thopter Foundry
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
Vraska the Unseen