MTG Combo: Basal Sliver + Lavabelly Sliver + Sliver Queen

lillobby6 on The Queen's Egg

2 years ago

So I’ve been watching this deck for years and have seen the countless changes that you have made to it and have used this deck partly as a basis for my own.

I’ve read some of your comments regarding Morophon, the Boundless and looking at your deck I can see why it likely would not be the best inclusion. However I was curious as to your opinion on a deck that is somewhat more weighted towards rituals/ritual-esque rocks (of which you run quite few).

My thought process is as follows: Generally mana-positive manarocks are going to be a decent inclusion if you can find the space for them and your meta allows for them. However including them likely means slimming the number of slivers that you run and moving closer to a more classic combo-shell (e.g. my deck runs about 18 creatures total, 4 of which are non-slivers whereas you have 25 slivers and tend to follow the “slivers-only” rule. In this slimmer sliver/more ritual shell, morophon, I think, could have a better place as it fixes colors and accelerates. There have been plenty of games where I have gotten to 7 mana long before I have gotten to 5 colors. In this case playing Morophon (and having it survive) would immediately allow Sliver Overlord (or any other legend) to be cast. It also allows for one other thing which is to play the entire Basal Sliver + Lavabelly Sliver + Sliver Queen combo without a single colored mana (and if we look under the assumption of Sliver Overlord searching for Morphon into the combo, the total paid cost is the very close [5+(3+7)+(3+5-5)+(3+3-2)+(3+3-1)=27, (3+5)+(3+3)+(3+3)=25] especially when considering the difference between colored mana and colorless mana. If Morphon comes out before Overlord then the cost is 19 v. 27. Of course if the total generation of mana leans more heavily towards colored mana then this would be a lot worse, but in a more ritual heavy deck (and Sol Land heavy, I’ve been also considering the possible benefit of City of Traitors though I am still uncertain whether it truly would be worthwhile) I think this is a benefit.

Of course there are other drawbacks towards having more ritual effects like running the risk of being slightly more inconsistant, not having an answer to every problem, etc, but I do think some of this is solved by cutting certain cards (like Sliver Legion which, while a fun sliver card, I don’t know if it necessarily belongs in an optimal combo deck that typical will not win through attacking, and if it does will have infinite creatures anyways).

I have been just doing the math of the potential benefits of Morophon recently while playing and there have been many turn 2 or 3s (and even a turn 1 or two) where I could have majorly benefitted from the cost reduction/color fixing it provides.