MTG Salvation

The basics, or what makes a glass cannon
I began playing slivers in EDH with a deck using an aggro approach, but power escalation in our pod forced an evolution towards a different strategy. That need birthed this decklist. Be ye warned: when properly built and played, it's a cold-hearted merciless uncaring ***** to play against.

But since you kept reading I'll assume you don't care about that insignificant detail, so combo it is. And that is why, even if our general is the Overlord, having the Queen will never hurt. Her Ladyship is a fearsome combo machine, who will almost always mean game for you if you play her while you have both Gemhide Sliver and Heart Sliver -or their M14 equivalents- over the table.

• Given that setup, Intruder Alarm will mean you can have infinite mana of any color, and thus, crank out sliver after sliver ad infinitum. Without number indeed.
• Basal Sliver is another way to achieve the same result. Bonus points for being an all-sliver combination
• Mana Echoes will mean infinite colorless mana. Plus: you don't even need those two exact slivers on the table; any two will do.

Having infinite slivers does not necessarily win you the match, however! Something as paltry as a Fog can mean your swarm is rendered powerless, only to be obliterated the next turn by a board wipe. Since we can't let that happen, we have to pack one or more of the following:

• Acidic Sliver or Cautery Sliver to sac your slivers for damage.
• Necrotic Sliver to destroy every permanent in sight. (My personal pick)
• Psionic Sliver to tap for damage.

Of tutors and other ways of rearranging your spellbook

Gref just said: combo strategies are powerful, but fragile. And they have plenty of weaknesses, not the least of which being that you, uh, need to have all the pieces for it to work. And that means: tutors!

• At the very least, you should ship Demonic Tutor or its cheaper counterpart, Diabolic Tutor; both will fetch you a single card which you need not revealing, no questions asked.
• Vampiric Tutor is another you cannot miss.
• Finally, Wargate. A bit on the expensive side, right--but it fetches a permanent from your library straight into play. Can be counter-proofed via Boseiju. How cool is that?

Some of the staples of combo decks are cards so reviled that they're banned in certain EDH formats:

• First offender, of course, being the Top.
• In the same vein, consider Mirri's Guile.
• Also Sylvan Library.

If it seems overkill in your book, ditch any one other than the Top. (Or the Top itself if you're on 1v1 French.)

Countermagic: the fine art of ruining someone else's plan

And because you have to both protect your plays and disrupt those of your opponents, I ended up packing a lot of countermagic. Note that learning what to counter and what to let slide is quite the challenge; the more you know about the decks and overarching strategies of your adversaries, the more likely you'll make the right choice. (But that's a topic for another whole thread. I myself would welcome tips on the matter.)

• Instead of the good old Counterspell, we're fielding Voidslime. You'll never be short of green mana. And countering abilities can be crucial.
• Rewind is one of the most blatantly overpowered counterspells ever made.
• Cryptic Command is like a toolbox filled with all flavors of nasty.
• If you are either filthy rich or incurably insane (or both) you can consider both Force of Will and Mana Drain. Me, I'm beyond hope, and on top of that, without a penny to my name now.
• On the same vein of Mana Drain, now we have Plasm Capture. Imagine countering a Genesis Wave with this.
• Hinder and Spell Crumple are especially useful as tucking effects (and thus much reviled).
• Render Silent I choose because it's never a bad idea to delay an opponent's plans for an entire turn.
• Pact of Negation is unspeakably useful, but a double-edged knife--it can make the temptation to Armageddon the board almost irresistible for an opponent who is able to...

Nonland mana sources, or feeding your Swarm creatively
A reactive strategy -which is, at least in part, what we are pursuing here- has several problems, one of them being that you have to have more mana available than your opponents--if you hope to have enough resources to both make your play and counteract moves by your adversaries, that is. And you fix this issue by having lots of ramp, mana fixers and mana doublers:

• Crucible of Worlds has a killer synergy with your fetchlands. Having it in play and keeping it in play ensures you get land drops every turn.
• Nobody wants to see you play Mirari's Wake and Mana Reflection. Well, nobody other than you. Mana is like firepower: the more, the merrier. And there is no such thing as enough firepower.

You also have to have mana rocks. My picks, out of the list:

• Chromatic Lantern serves a very useful purpose: negating Blood Moon effects, which can hamstring this deck.
• Coalition Relic is one of the best rocks there is.
• Darksteel Ingot--grounds out Harmonic Sliver if there are no other targets around.
• Sol Ring. Well, duh.

And, out of the many ramp spells available, three stand out in my book No, make it two now.

• Hunting Wilds fetches you two forest cards that come into play tapped. For a further 3G, they become creatures. I myself never resorted to this ability, but it may come in handy if you're desperate for defense.
• Skyshroud Claim also fetches you two forest cards, but it puts lands into play untapped, and thus potentially costs only 2
• Shard Convergence. Given a solid manabase you can search for pretty much anything you need. Ditched out in favor of Krosan Verge.

More cards, more plans, more options

You also *have* to have more hands in card than anyone else. How are you going to profit from that huge mana base you've just built?

• Phyrexian Arena is an excellent first choice. 1 card for 1 life--like a miniature Yawgmoth's Bargain, but that one is banned to hell and back, so we settle for this one. I've noted decks packing blue love to steal this.
• Rhystic Study is a no-brainer. Whether they choose to pay or not, your opponents lose.
• This is the whole logic behind packing Dormant Sliver. Make sure you have a sac outlet available if you want to win via combat damage, however.

More minions and thralls to bolster your ranks

Now, things are starting to shape up a bit, but we're woefully short on our sliver count. So the following terrors join the few we have:

• Crystalline Sliver. Duh.
• Ghostflame Sliver. <cackles evilly while fetching All is Dust>
• Harmonic Sliver. Sorry, Sharuum, but you're going back to the bench.
• Hibernation Sliver. Sometimes you just can't dodge that board wipe. And your meta is overripe with graveyard hate. So, 2 life in exchange for another chance at casting them again? Sign me up, anytime.
• Homing Sliver. Your back-up answer to tucking effects for those moments when you can't rely on the Overlord.
• Quick Sliver. Slivers with flash. Just imagine it.
• Root Sliver. Go on, counterspell me. I dare you.
• Sliver Hivelord. The ultimate answer to weapons of mass destruction. Pair it with either Crystalline Sliver or Hibernation Sliver for defense against effects that bounce or exile stuff.
• Sliver Legion. While seemingly out of place, this one allows for a backup strategy of sorts.

And now, for the slav--errr, thralls to the swarm:

• Academy Rector. Having this in play forces your opponents to refrain from attacking you, resort to fliers, or spend resources to exile/bounce it. All good things.
• Amoeboid Changeling will let you indulge into the wacky stealy antics blue is so fond of, or turn one of your-non Sliver thralls into temporary members of the swarm for whatever purpose you need.
• Eternal Witness. Graveyard recursion that can be itself recursed.

Asset removal instruments: of scalpels and cataclysm devices
So far, we've listed necessary (or useful) pieces and the means to defeat attempts at depriving us of them, but sometimes... well, alright, very often you'll find that the balance of power in the table has dangerously shifted towards another player, and unless the player in question is stopped in his tracks he or she will swamp you. That's why we must pack the Magic equivalent to weapons of mass destruction--board wipes.

• All is Dust is ridiculously useful here. Combine it with Harmonic Sliver to fry whatever pesky artifacts survive it and Necrotic Sliver to deal with the Elder Go--err, the Eldrazi.
• Cyclonic Rift has supplanted Austere Command for the time being... until it gets banned, that is. Instant-speed bouncing of EVERY NONLAND PERMANENT THAT IS NOT YOURS. It doesn't get much more overkill than this.
• Catastrophe is my third and last pick. Having slivers that can both turn your whole swarm into mana rocks and that can naturalize as an ETB effect means that annihilating everyone's land base can mean victory. 

And since we're on the WMD topic, we should discuss one of their most glaring weaknesses: collateral damage. You see, massively destructive weapons will kill your enemy, your neighbors, your pets, their pets, innocent bystanders, endangered species, any elephants or parrots in the vicinity, and you. In short, they are about wholesale, indiscriminate destruction. And sometimes that's not just unnecessary, that's inconvenient, not to mention downright suicidal; so, these are our scalpels, razor-sharp instruments of removal.

• Bant Charm--any one effect results in a single card out of play.
• Hull Breach. Blow up, dispel, OR blow up AND dispel. I can't think of many removal pieces more flexible than this one.
• Maelstrom Pulse--another token wiper doubling as a spot removal.
• Mortify--utility is self-explanatory.
• Putrefy--again, utility is self-explanatory.
• Vindicate--once again, this one needs no explanation.

Back from the grave: overcoming extinction

But it's not always your enemy that gets nuked. Sometimes you're out of counterspells. Or, worse still, you've overreached yourself and are fighting a war against the whole table, and you've exhausted your resources. The result is the same: your whole swarm ends up dead. These cards are meant to help us bring our slivers back into the game, but be warned: both require careful use. It's frighteningly easy to fall into the trap of desperately wanting to get rid of something, only to reanimate another beastie that's even worse.

• Living Death--also doubles as a board wipe.
• Patriarch's Bidding

Odds and bits: hard to label them, hard not to love them

And now, some shenanigans that add to the efficiency of your swarm. You may think these are optional, but trust me, you want to have them in play. It bears noting: they WILL draw fire. Protect them well, or play them when the opposition has exhausted their resources (read: tapped out) and cannot respond.

• Since this IS a combo build, Rings of Brighthearth belongs right here. Especially when running Deserted Temple and Cabal Coffers or Gaea's Cradle.
• Training Grounds makes your slivers less demanding, which greatly boosts your Overlord's tutoring capabilities, and potentially turns them into terrifying lockdown machines. I mean, 1 + saccing a sliver to blow up something?
• Unnatural Selection turns your commander into a scarily efficient dominator.

The domains of the Swarm
Last, but definitely not least, lands! Given the color identity of your deck, it should not surprise anybody that this is, by far, the most painfully expensive part to build. Especially when considering the starting point:

• All 10 duals
• All 10 shocklands
• All 10 fetchlands
• 7 misc utility lands

Since the usefulness of duals, shocklands and fetchlands is immediately evident, we're obviously going to focus on the 'utility' lands.

• Boseiju, Who Shelters All. Because there is no such thing as enough preparation.
• Cabal Coffers. Strictly for comboing with Urborg for massive mana. Gets even nicer when Mana Reflection is in play.
• Cavern of Souls is one of the most incredibly useful lands printed ever. Mana fixer? Check. Defuses counterspell threats? Check. Non-legendary? Check.
• Command Tower is another must. It's like having a City of Brass with no drawbacks.
• Gaea's Cradle. Given our small creature count, it would stand to reason that the mind-boggling potential of this land is not fully exploited here. Experience says this argument to be plain wrong. Especially when the Queen is in play. <evil grin>
• High Market. Very useful sac outlet.
• Krosan Verge is a ramp spell in land form.
• Maze of Ith or Mystifying Maze. Both have a very useful defensive ability, and very different drawbacks. The first one adds no mana, and the second one has a high activation cost (and can potentially backfire on you if the attacking creature has any ETB effect).
• Minamo, School at Water's Edge. While we could simply choose Deserted Temple to get synergy with the Cradle and other similar stuff, we never know when we must untap any other legends, right?
• Thespian's Stage. A Shapesharer in land form, except that its effect is permanent--unless there's something juicier around to copy!
• Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Strictly for comboing with Coffers for massive mana. Bonus points if you picked Maze of Ith.
• Volrath's Stronghold. Critical recursion resource.

Note that I listed more than 7 lands. I run them all and made room for them leaving a few fetches and shocklands out. Which ones get the ax in your build is something for you to consider.

Now that we've made our picks, the fun part--the PLAN!

While it is a generalisation, the main aim in warfare is to organise situations where you can bring overwhelming force to bear and curbstomp your enemy. If you aim to fight fair, you are doing it wrong.

- TVTropes.org on the myth of playing fair

Critical bits

Combo decks like this one depend on a straightforward strategy--put together your combo pieces and protect them as you do that. And your possible winning combos are:

• Queen + Mana Echoes + any other two slivers
• Queen + Heart Sliver + Gemhide Sliver + Intruder Alarm
• Queen + Heart Sliver + Gemhide Sliver + Basal Sliver

Once you get any one of these combos rolling, it's a mere matter of fetching Necrotic Sliver and blowing up everything in sight.

Note the Queen always being a required piece. This should be enough to realize how big a mistake it is to play her without at least one layer of defense to screen her--be it countermagic, shroud, whatever. However, sometimes she WILL get exiled, despite your best efforts, forcing you to switch to plan B--which amounts to simply playing as many slivers as you can, putting the Legion into play, and assimilating/butchering your enemies one at a time. You can either achieve this the old way, or by raising them all at once via Living Death or Patriarch's Bidding.
Anxiety and twitchy fingers

I mentioned it already, but it bears repeating--slivers scare people, perhaps to ridiculous extremes IMO. I mean, with beasts like the Eldrazi around, there should be much more threatening things to worry about, right? In theory, yes. But in practice, whenever you play a sliver, everyone will put an abrupt stop to whatever they were doing or thinking about, check what you just cast, reassess what your budding swarm can do, and react accordingly. I've had it happen to me every single time. It almost merits a rule: the opposition won't overlook what slivers can do.

From Rath with love: making your worst fears come true

So, you can't surprise them. That sucks to no end. You can turn this problem on its head by playing into your opponents' fears, though. Hold on to your counterspells and defensive slivers and taunt your enemies into reacting when you can profit from it. Quick Sliver can be one hell of a bait, especially when you have Crystalline Sliver or Root Sliver in hand. When they get used to the idea that targeting your stuff is a waste of good cards, they'll feel far less inclined to do so. Hell, you may even get to slip through a few plays uncontested out of fear of retaliation if you pull it off.

Mindless instruments of death and despair

Another plan is to abuse your removal. Necrotic Sliver and Harmonic Sliver can mean you pack 20+ permanent removal cards. Save your countermagic for threats to your graveyard -you want Living Death to mean game- if the environment is heavy on it, and feel free to spam away if it is not. (Save your tucking effects for commanders, though.) Given our shortage of fatties and our relatively small creature count, you may want to sac slivers on preemptive strikes or, failing that, all-out defense. It would be nice not to reach this stage, though.

Massing the Swarm

One important question that I feel should not go unanswered is how to field your combo pieces to reduce likelihood of disruption. No easy way out here, I'm afraid. But, since all good things come in threes (and also bad things, and also things neither good nor bad), I have put together three (3) courses of action for your delight:

• Answer 1: Field and protect a mana doubler long enough to get the resources needed to fetch and play all required slivers in the same turn. Mana Reflection is your absolute best friend here, because it makes your little terrors yield twice when Gemhide Sliver is in play. Of course, it's got a target painted over itself the size of a skyscraper, and a fear factor equivalent to an Ebola outbreak, so it's no easy task. Your only defense, short of packing stuff like Privileged Position, is sculpting your hand with as much countermagic as humanly possible.
• Answer 2: Bomb everyone else back to the Stone Age first. There are multiple ways to achieve this, but any single one constitutes a case of borderline douchebaggery, and your pod will hate you. Nevertheless, the build packs what's required to achieve the objective: either pair Catastrophe with Gemhide Sliver, or All is Dust with Ghostflame Sliver. The first one will leave everyone with not even a penny on their pockets while you have (hopefully) 4+ slivers to toy with. The second one is more of a reset button that will spare your swarm.
• Answer 3: Play kingmaker, or cop. (Or both.) That means turning your slivers into suicide bombs via Necrotic Sliver and liberally abusing them, or using Unnatural Selection and Amoeboid Changeling to turn a creature an opponent controls into a sliver for your mutual advantage (i.e., give shroud to something you want to remain in play, or confer haste to a critter that can potentially knock someone other than you out of play).

What even slivers fear

What's coming up next is a list of some things you may have thought about already; namely, cards that threaten this deck, and are thus primary targets for counterspelling or removal:

• Blood Moon and its creature equivalent absolutely rape this deck. Trying to incorporate basic lands to mitigate their impact only resulted in wrecking the mana base, so these two are something to live with you'll definitely not want to live with.
• Iona, Shield of Emeria wrecks you if your commander is not in play, whichever color its owner chooses, but if he picks black (removal), blue (countermagic) or white (more removal) you're well and truly screwed. All is Dust can still save you, providing it is not countered.
• Linvala, Keeper of Silence emasculates your Overlord and spays your Queen. That brutally put.
• Stranglehold will hurt everyone across the board, but will hurt you more than most. It negates your commander's potential as a toolbox, your tutors, and your ramp spells and effects. You should only let this one live as long as it stops someone other than you from winning outright.
• Tsabo's Decree and Extinction. I guess no comment is required here.
• I've begun to see Humility quite frequently. To my boundless dismay.
• If you get a Curse of Exhaustion hung on your neck you may as well concede the game.
• Anything that exiles your creatures will tear a big hole into your scheme. This is a major problem the whole build is geared against, but still it bears noting.
• (To be expanded. Greatly so.)

What to expect when drawing your first seven cards

Sample hand 1

• Savannah
  
• Rhystic Study
  
• Breeding Pool
  
• Hunting Wilds
  
• Intruder Alarm
  
• Maze of Ith
  
• High Market

An average hand, to be honest. Quite abundant in mana, though lacking in early-game accelerators. One great drawing engine and a potential combo piece, but no ways to protect them. High Market is a dead weight that would be much more useful late in game.

Sample hand 2

• Savannah
  
• Quick Sliver
  
• Harmonic Sliver
  
• Verdant Catacombs
  
• Badlands
  
• Sacred Foundry
  
• Phyrexian Arena

Better, but not impressive. That Arena is tempting--it could give quite an interesting advantage early ingame, providing you draw means to defend it. The slivers are very useful too and will allow you to blow up two threats. And that fetchland can get you blue mana for the countermagic you will inevitably need.

Sample hand 3

• Chromatic Lantern
  
• Sensei's Divining Top
  
• Tundra
  
• Misty Rainforest
  
• Command Tower
  
• Sol Ring
  
• Crucible of Worlds

At first glance, this one looks like a godsend. In addition to the obvious benefits of the Lantern, the Top, a fetchland and the Crucible make for land drops and for reshuffling your library -and its first three cards- every turn. The danger here is that such a brutal start will quickly alienate the whole pod against you.

The Swarmlord's Guide to Sliver Supremacy: leading your species to victory

Since handling a kickass hand can be quite delicate in multiplayer EDH -misusing it usually means you get curbstomped early on-, I'm going to assume you draw something similar to the last example. The key word here is restraint: unless your opponents have very bad starts, getting a turn 5 or turn 6 victory versus three other players is very, very hard to achieve. You may attain a few of these on the first few matches you play with this deck if you do it right, but smart adversaries learn fast.

Turn 1

So, of that dream hand, you play Command Tower, cast your Sol Ring, and then pass. You got everything you need at the moment. Study everyone else's first turn carefully - you'll most likely see other Rings, a Top, or more exotic stuff like Burgeoning.

Turn 2

If someone did outdo you, you can think of fielding the Crucible right now; if not, go ahead with the Top. Play the Tundra -- you may or may not have drawn countermagic this turn, but you want the opposition on their toes.

Turn 3

Things start picking up the pace; stuff like Phyrexian Arena will surely hit the table. You are now aiming for a mana doubler, or, failing that, any of your combo pieces (Mana Echoes comes to mind). Be wary of playing critical slivers now. Surely someone else will start racking up threat by ramping up in preparation for big stuff coming up next turn; that will surely trigger a boardwipe or something in the same vein and you don't want your combo pieces on the graveyard. An ideal play now is a Maze of Ith or, even better, the Academy Rector if you get it.

Turn 4

Expect the first heavy hitter entering the battlefield now, or, failing that, the next turn. You probably have more than enough life to take hits at the moment, so by all means, let them take on you -- unless, for example, someone reanimates an Artisan of Kozilek or another scary beast. Doing that essentially equals proclaiming confidence in your chances, and that's an ego to be taken down a peg via counterspell or removal. Watch the reactions across the board, and consider the overall aggro level everyone has attained before deciding to act. Letting it through and hoping someone else gets hit is a risky ploy, though; if the ballsy player also turns out to be a canny bastard he can see through your plays and preemptively deal you a blow that's hard to recover from at this point.

If the threat is not as bad and you still have the Crucible, this is a good time to field it, and profit from the fetchland in hand. Abuse the Top for all it's worth.

Turn 5 and onwards: the mid-game

You're now on a stalling strategy, until you get your combo pieces, which is arguably your weakest phase. You have plenty of counterspells and removal to see you through while you hunt for them. Identifying targets for them is key. Unless someone turns out to be determined to kill you, don't fear taking hits. You're relatively safe until you're brought down to <20 life; at that point, you should make it unmistakably clear that no more dicking around will be allowed. Reduce every other critter to dust if you can, that's what Ghostflame Sliver is here for. If you're feeling really, really lucky, and get all the required cards and slivers, you can use Catastrophe to wreck mana bases; note that doing so puts you on a 5-turn clock on average because when (and if) everyone recovers they'll go straight for your throat.

When to bring the Swarmlord to bear

Your commander is a very 7/7-ish creature. That makes him an imposing and deadly wall if you have need of one, but avoid playing it defensively if you can -- your primary concern should be fetching as many combo pieces with it as possible, and if it gets tucked you'll be in for a world of hurt. If you're not desperate for defense, use tutors to fetch Training Grounds and/or Mana Reflection and play them before summoning the Overlord.

Going in for the kill: late game

You know you can do this when you have drawn a mana doubler and you can cast it and defend it for a turn. This, of course, means you have as much countermagic and removal available as you can hold in your hands.

If you do play Mana Reflection with a few slivers (including your commander) on the board and it survives for an entire turn, you're poised for the strike. Ideally those 'few slivers' would be Crystalline Sliver and Root Sliver to minimize exposure to countermeasures.

Worst case scenario, you need a whopping 29 mana, plus commander tax if it got killed, to cast everything on the same turn, broken down as follows:

• WUBRG for the Overlord, plus 2 for each time it died
• WUBRG for the Queen
• 2B for Basal
• 1G for Gemhide
• 1R for Heart
• 3 for each time you use your commander to fetch one of them

If Training Grounds is available, you save 8 -- which still leaves us with the daunting task of gathering at least 21 mana. To squeeze the most out of your worker slivers, you should play Heart or Gemhide first, then Queen, then Basal. If they all get through, you have at least 2 left on your pool, and there's no thing that stops you from using creature abilities, then you've entered a degenerate loop of infinite mana:

• Use the 2 to create a Sliver token with the Queen
• Tap the token for a single mana of any color
• Sacrifice it for BB
• Rinse and repeat until you got enough mana to fetch Sliver Legion and create enough tokens to one-shot everyone left

And thus, it's game over. The Swarm conquers!

This looks all well and good... but have you actually *PLAYED* any of this?!

Arright... where do I start... I suppose it begins when I open a Stronghold pack from among the first batch of boosters I bought, and I get a Crystalline Sliver. Whooooooa... Did I just read "Slivers cannot be targeted by spells or abilities"?

I guess I got enthralled by the Swarm back then in '99. I built that idiotic combo T2 deck and piloted it to an 8th place on a Nationals qualifier, and that was my last experience with Standard play for almost a decade. That Slivers had been rotated out was a bummer. (I was asked during the M13 prerelease about that same T2 deck. The irony.)

Fast forward to 2010, when I first learn about EDH. My brother asks me to pick something up for him at a retailer's. I go to the place... and, almost as if baiting me, the Premium Deck Slivers was the centerpiece of the merchandise on sale. I was almost giddy with delight. Snatch, race back home, and see what can I piece together using that and whatever stuff I had around to jump into the fledgling pod with my bro and pals. I can positively say the development of the deck started right there.

First idea was an aggro-ish approach, as in, cram as many slivers in as you can and wait for magic to happen. Alas, not the best of ideas. I mean, when you had to go up against powerhouses like Sisay, Mayael and Augustine, it just... would not work. That was the first decklist I posted in this thread, but, silly me, consistently replaced it without keeping a decent changelog. It would have been wonderful.

Then I go and stumble upon irpotential's decklist. It made me open my eyes wide. I went on to polish my own version of that build for almost a year, but I always found it too fragile and vulnerable to disruption. The final metamorphosis came when I decided to thin the enchantment count and go for counters. However much I hated them. I always thought I was a red player at heart... but given my change in philosophy I cannot be so sure now. A friend of mine once said that however much I hate blue, I play a lot like blue. Stinging.

And so, here we stand. I've been tweaking this build for a long while now. The local EDH scene is not that big, there's gotta be 20 steady players around here, tops, so it's no surprise that the deck has earned some degree of notoriety (as in, 'oh no, not the slivers again...'). A lot of polishing was done on the Cockatrice scene; sometimes I can be found over there, with this exact same nickname... What, you never heard of Cockatrice? Google it right away. I used to do that until the spooky wizards living by the coast shut it down.

Some further advice you definitely want to read

Quote from ajacobik »

In my experience running Queen combo, there are two options available to a savvy player in a tough meta. Your first option, and the one you're probably trying, is to ramp and get your combo gears turning in the first turns of the game. However, a promptly timed Pithing Needle will ruin you. If you're going for this strategy, I've found that free/cheap counterspells can save the day. Force of Will, Pact of Negation, Silence, Orim's Chant, or similar alternatives will prevent a blowout on your combo turn. I also recommend only casting Queen on the turn you intend to win. Depending on your setup, you should be able to cast her, tap one colorless mana, and win. If your opponent responds with a killspell or some other removal, just tap another colorless to continue your chain. This route is heavily dependent on ramp, so I recommend picking up Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, and Grim Monolith. Their drawbacks are negligible when you intend for the game to be over when people are still casting ramp spells.

Alternatively, you can play the game very slowly. You could borrow a 5C control or stax shell to pilot during the early/mid game, then in the late game, once your opponents have run out of gas and you've guaranteed you have a clear line of sight, you can initiate your combo. It's important in this strategy that you don't cast your commander until you're ready to win and that you never cast her without some form of protection, usually with countermagic. I built both of these archetypes earlier this year and experimented with both and I found that while my win/loss was better with a proxied-to-hell fast combo deck, games were more fun and interactive with a stax shell and a combo finish. If you're willing to brave casting the Queen in a stax list, she can make Smokestack a crippling game-winner by generating enough tokens to compensate. You can also run fewer tutors and only high-quality combo pieces if you go the control route because you can afford to wait until the late game to go off.

Footnotes

• Once the whole primer is complete, I plan to entirely rewrite it to give it the flavor of a book authored by an in-game legend--Venser of Urborg.
• After my primary decklist -combo- is completely polished, I would like to do some brainstorming to create viable lists for aggro and Voltron strategies.