Overview
Reading this decklist
Reading this decklist
This decklist is organized into custom categories - for flavor:
- The Brood: Creatures, plain and simple.
- Legacy Catalysts: Mana Ramp and Rocks, Tutors, Draw spells, and Recursion spells.
- The Hive: Lands.
- Extinction Event: Removal and Counter magics.
What is this Deck?
What is this Deck?
This deck is an example of an "ideal" (as in monetary cost is not an issue, only the most efficient cards allowed)Mid-range Sliver Tribal EDH deck. The power level of this deck is right on the cusp of the Competitive (cEDH) meta (decks rated at a 9 or 10 - out of 10). Personally, i'd rate The Queen's Egg at about an 8.5 toward a 9 - as it can consistently threaten to win between turns 5 and 8. As a frame of reference I use the following videos from The Command Zone Podcast to measure this deck's Power level:
This is what a Competitive Mid-range Sliver Tribal deck should be - or at least somewhere close to it. Though I must acknowledge a more powerful cEDH "Sliver build" in the form of
The First Sliver
+
Food Chain
which typically fits well within the 10 out of 10 power level. One excellent build (and deck description) would be ShaperSavant's Food Chain Sliver - but that is more of a
Food Chain
deck, than Sliver Tribal. It chose raw function over tribal flavor - which is closer to the cEDH ethos, but it abandons what makes Slivers Slivers in favor of raw versatility and speed to achieve it's singular wincon.
As a TappedOut denizen, i've always wanted to have the single highest rated Tribal Sliver EDH deck on the site - currently the only competition I have is TolarianCommunityCollege's introductory build - and I am gaining on that deck's upvotes (I WILL defeat you, Professor!). It's a great deck, serving as an affordable (as of October 2019 the deck costs around $300) springboard into the world of Slivers. The Queen's Egg is meant to be a possible final form of Sliver Tribal EDH - expanding on the idea of what the Professor had established in his video guide "A Study In Slivers". I'll admit that the Professor's deck was definitely an influence on my own - but through my personal playing preferences, the commentary of the TappedOut community, and experiences with my various local metas this deck was honed and shaped into what it is today.
Deck Strengths
Deck Strengths
Outside of being the greatest tribe in all of Magic
(If you disagree with me, then allow me to inform you that you are wrong.), Slivers organically build off of and support
each
other
, and in most cases are each other's
combo
/
synergy
piece. Eventually, if you get enough Slivers on the board you just win - usually due to a ridiculous number of key words triggering when you do something. Within the context of this deck however, this is the ultimate tribe receiving only the most optimal choices for support - Revised Dual lands, high-powered
removal
/
counter magics
, and with some of the best
ramp
choices to fix mana. The speed of this deck can rival that of Mono green ramp - under the right circumstances.
Deck Weaknesses
Deck Weaknesses
Steady streams of
sacrifice effects
,
return effects
, and
mass removal
/
exile
can be devastating as they can also bypass
Crystalline Sliver
's Shrouding. Worse yet, if you were to lose control of
Sliver Overlord
then you might as well consider the game over, as every sliver you play will likely be taken by Overlord's 2nd ability - gain control of target sliver. One of the biggest weakness of the deck however is it's Manabase. It doesn't contain any basics, therefore it is quite vulnerable to enchantments like
Blood Moon
,
Contamination
or
Back to Basics
.
Additionally, there is a weakness that is unique to all Sliver decks: Sliver Hate™. Wizard Mentor archdukeofevil described it perfectly: "When you sit down at a table consider yourself playing Archenemy, and you don't get the silly cards to help. Usually everyone just blasts the slivers and then continues the game." Sliver decks tend to be politically weak - meaning that most players at the table (assuming you are in a 4 player pod) will often view you as a threat on turn 0, and will dedicate resources to containing/crippling you early on. While it is frustrating to have so much scrutiny/attention/disruption on your side of the board - take it as a compliment, as your opponents should rightfully fear the power of the Hive.
The Strategy
General Strategy
General Strategy
This deck is designed to be as competitive as possible while staying within the theme and design of Sliver Tribal. As such, the primary strategy is to populate the board with Slivers, as they will double as answers to potential threats, removal fodder, or engines that can flood the battlefield. As you play you will always want to get sliver a that can make your hivelings stick to the battlefield - i.e.
Crystalline Sliver
,
Sliver Hivelord
, or
Sedge Sliver
. The wincons are
Commander Damage
,
Lifedrain
,
Combat Damage
or
Overwhelming Combat Damage
. The supporting cards and slivers will vary depending on the wincon pursued, but the infinite combos in the deck all hinge on
Sliver Queen
. For a more detailed listing on each individual combo, see "Combos and Synergies" further down the accordion.
Early Game
Early Game
Starting turn 1 the primary goal is to ramp and gain access to all 5c (prioritizing some over others depending on what's in your hand) while gaining access to as much mana as possible through ramp, rocks, or dorks. The secondary priority will be with just populating the battlefield. Slivers present options - be it interaction with an opponent's field or bolstering your own boardstate. It doesn't occur too often, but it is possible to win as early as turn 4 with a
Lavabelly
+
Basal
+
Queen
infinite combo - for this to go off so early you'd need to have access to all 5 colors, at least a
Sol Ring
in play along with
Heart Sliver
+
Gemhide Sliver
.
Mid Game
Mid Game
"Slivers have a vicious bony spear on a flexible limb growing from their chest cavity. With it they inject a corrosive solution that breaks down their prey's body tissue"
- Slivers, from - Source
Early game was when a Sliver would be studying and selecting it's prey - assessing the board state. Midgame is the hunt, and ultimately the kill - assembling a combo or synergy by deciding on which Slivers to tutor/play along with the options you have drawn into. The quote at the beginning of this section should help define your mindset - turns 1 through 4 was building up corrosive solution into your spear, stalking your prey. Turn 5 and beyond is the attack - envenoming your target(s) by actively playing toward your wincon - winning via Commander damage is slower - taking opponents out 1 by 1. Thus, it requires more threat assessment as your opponents will have more time to react. Building an Infinite Combo requires more resource management and awareness of what your opponents may do to thwart your plans.
A good heuristic to follow would be - on turn 5, if you are well ahead of your mana curve (if you have access to at least ) and have at least two of any of the following:
Mana Echoes
,
Gemhide
,
Heart
,
Basal
,
Lavabelly
or
Queen
on the battlefield, then it is feasible to pursue a win through overwhelming the table with combat damage using an infinite number of creature tokens produced by the
Queen
and her various devices.
If you are behind curve, and do not have at least two of the previously mentioned cards on battlefield, then it may be more beneficial to play more conservatively using the
Commander
along with some
evasion
and strong support Slivers such as
Brood
or
Bonescythe Sliver
. This approach will likely stretch you toward the late game - turn 8 and beyond - but it would be beneficial to pursue the soft lock of
Crystalline
and
Sliver Hivelord
to make your boardstate just that much more difficult to deal with while you swing away.
Late Game
Late Game
If a game stretches past turn 8 for this deck, then it is likely that you are trying to win via commander damage, your attempts at assembling an infinite combo were disrupted, or you simply drew into cards that just weren't all that helpful in you establishing a good board state early on. Winning via commander damage at this point should be a fairly straight forward proposition:
- Keep counterspells in hand for when opponents do something you don't like.
- Play more slivers, Commander a lot.
- ???
- Win.
But, for the scenarios where you have key cards in your graveyard you do have options in the form of
YawgWill
,
Patriarch's Bidding
, or
Volrath's Stronghold
. I like to use
Bidding
in conjunction with
Basal Sliver
and at least 5 Slivers on board (including Basal). Sacrificing all Slivers, and having them re-enter the battlefield with mana floating can be a big help when trying to assemble an infinite combo at the "11th hour" this is essentially the hail mary tactic of the deck.
Mulligans
Mulligans
The ideal starting hand for this deck are at least two or three lands with a
mana rock
or two. Having
Gemhide
or
Manaweft
Sliver would be a huge boon early game, as they can increase the speed of the deck significantly. If one of those lands in hand were a Fetchland then you'd be all set as you don't know what mana sources you may have a harder time acquiring.
Combos and Synergies
Combos and Synergies
-
Sliver Queen
+
Mana Echoes
: Infinite Sliver Tokens ver.1 - Once activated, the Queen will spawn a 1/1 Sliver creature token that will generate Mana due to Mana Echoes triggering. Use the to spawn another 1/1, generating four, and so on and so forth...
-
Sliver Queen
+
Basal Sliver
+
Training Grounds
: Infinite Sliver Tokens ver.2 - Same effect as the previously mentioned combo, but with different pieces to accompany her highness. Once all three cards are in play, pay to create a 1/1 Sliver creature token via Sliver Queen's synergy with Training Grounds. The 1/1 sacrifices itself for via Basal Sliver's ability. Then you generate two more 1/1 creature tokens, and so on and so forth...
-
Sliver Overlord
+
Amoeboid Changeling
: Creature Stealing. Tap Amoeboid Changing, activating it's ability to give any specific creature all creature types. Effectively, it will turn that creature into a "Sliver". Then you pay , activating Sliver Overlord's ability to take control of target Sliver. There is no specified length of time on the ability, so even if it ceases to be a Sliver it's still yours.
-
Sliver Queen
+
Heart Sliver
+
Basal Sliver
+
Gemhide Sliver
/
Manaweft Sliver
: Infinite Mana. Pay for a 1/1 Token (via Sliver Queen). It gets
haste
,
sacrifice for BB
and
mana generation
, so you for one mana of any color and sacrifice the token for . Use the to create another Sliver token to it for that one mana of any color, then sacrifice it for the ...rinse wash repeat.
-
Striking Sliver
/
Bonescythe Sliver
+
Venom Sliver
: First strike or Double strike combined with Deathtouch loosely translates to "Dead before they ever even knew it". First strike damage resolves before combat damage even begins, so when your opponent is attacking or blocking, the creature unfortunate enough to be the sliver's target will receive First strike damage first, which happens to be Deathtouch damage.
-
Bonescythe Sliver
+
Brood Sliver
: Sliver Doubling Season. According to the definition of the Combat Damage Step: "All creatures in combat deal combat damage at the same time, except when one or more creatures have first strike or double strike. In this case there are two damage assignment steps." With Double strike, you have two damage assignment steps when dealing combat damage to target player, therefore you get one sliver token per damage assignment step. Yay twins :)
-
Lavabelly Sliver
+
Basal Sliver
+
Sliver Queen
: Death by Boiled Eggs. Pay to activate the
Queen
's ability creating a Sliver Creature Token. That token will have
Lavabelly
's ETB effect, allowing you to target a player (or planeswalker if you're weird) for 1 point of damage. Sacrifice the token using
Basal
's ability generating which will be used for...yes you guessed it - another activation of
Sliver Queen
's ability which will result in another activation of
Lavabelly
's ability. Repeat the process of creating and sacrificing Sliver creature tokens until all would be egg-touchers are dead.
Card Choices Explained
Lands
Lands
I wanted to make an ideal manabase for this deck, so I pursued Original Dual Lands along with Onslaught
and Zendikar fetches. In addition, i'm running Shock lands, Filter lands, various 5 color lands, and high powered miscs (namely,
Gaea's Cradle
and
Volrath's Stronghold
). Obvioiusly, this manabase is vulnerable to the likes of
Blood Moon
and
Back to Basics
, but those cards rarely show up in my meta (and when they do they are typically countered/removed on the spot). It would benefit the deck to run basics, but that will come at a later point when my meta changes enough to force me to. When or if that happens, I would remove the following cards:
- Breeding Pool
- Hallowed Fountain
- Steam Vents
- Watery Grave
- City of Brass
- Cascade Bluffs
- City of Brass
- Flooded Grove
- Gemstone Mine
- Mana Confluence
- Mystic Gate
- Sunken Ruins
Thus freeing up 12 slots for basic lands. I would include 3, 4, 2, 2, and 1.
Non-lands
Non-lands
Outside of the
Commander
and the
leg
end
ary
Slivers and
Mana Echoes
there aren't too many cards in this deck that could outright define a winning scenario.
Echoes
is incredibly important - and along side it once upon a time was
Paradox Engine
- but the Rules Committee in enforcing what their vision of what EDH should be decided to ban it. Yes. I am salty - I love that card, and would love to be able to express myself using it in this deck. Banned
Paradox Engine
aside - I think their Philosophy is contradictory. End of Rant. Another card that can dramatically affect the game is
Patriarch's Bidding
- while yes it can also help out opponents and their tribal decks, it essentially can be played for free utilizing
Basal Sliver
and a few other slivers on the board. Using
Bidding
you can bring back all those recently sacrificed Slivers with some extra floating mana and fresh options.
Other Information
Thoughts on Building Slivers
Thoughts on Building Slivers
Some general guidelines for building a Sliver deck:
Try and keep your average CMC below 3. Since this is a WUBRG deck and your commander is 5 colors, you need to be lean and fast with your spells. You will need interaction, so
Abrupt Decay
,
Counterspell
and spells of that ilk are highly recommended.
Try not to have too many slivers. Yes, keywords are awesome, but you don't need all of them. Focus on the slivers that contribute directly to your game plan. If you want aggro? Change your commander to
Sliver Legion
or
Sliver Hivelord
and focus on Slivers that help you get your damage on your opponents. Combo? Change your commander to
Sliver Queen
and gather her combo pieces. Midrange/Control? Stick with
Sliver Overlord
and pick Slivers that are flexible enough to lend themselves to ether strategy when needed. A good number of Slivers to aim for (excluding your commander) is around 25 or less. Try not to exceed that.
Your manabase is key. Your deck lives and dies by this. Try to include fetches along with original dual lands. If you can't afford original fetches, then I recommend getting the Mirage fetchlands. Can't afford original dual lands? Get Shocklands.
Event record
Event record
So currently I have only acquired most of the cards on my decklist. However, Barnze went ahead and built my deck and tested it out. He (or she?) apparently had all or most of the pieces, and thought my deck was good enough to try out. I just want to thank them for thinking so highly of my deck, and for taking it out and playing it. It's likely that overtime their comment will get archived, so i'll post their event record/review right here:
Update..... Out of 16 Players I came in 2nd.
Results: Since there wasn't a lot of players there, they did a random draw into 4 pods(4 player, 1:30 time limit). The winners of each pod move to a 2 player heads up.
1st match/pod (WIN) 1-0 After this win people knew I had a sliver deck.. SO.... a lot of Sliver Hate™ started to show up and card changes in various decks started happening. lol
2nd match/heads up (Win)2-0 I played against
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Commander deck, it was a really good life link deck but both games I was able to play my
Sliver Overlord
really quickly and use mana generation (
Manaweft Sliver
/
Gemhide Sliver
) and tutoring. I almost had all my slivers out for both games. Maybe I got lucky but that's magic.
3rd match/heads up (Lost)1-2 I played against a Scarecrow Commander Deck
Reaper King
. The 1st game I lost, because I couldn't keep my slivers in play long enough. He would either destroy them or get rid of them. The 2nd game I smoke him by turn 8. I was flashing my slivers at his end step so I could get more combos/synergies out and deal aggro damage. With plus
Striking Sliver
and
Venom Sliver
in play, it was game over for my opponent. The 3rd game was close but I lost.
Overall, The mana curve was really fast, The combos worked as planned, and the Sliver Hate™ was there. Even on the first match, when I revealed my commander at set-up, I could feel as if the table was going to gang up on me, but they didn't...and it was their loss. I did give your name to one of the guys there that asked me about the deck. He thought it was really smooth. I asked him what he might add or replace, so he will let me know. I will be going back up there to pick up some cards for a future commander deck so I will let you know what he says. Also I will sit back and remember what happen during the matches so I can give you card good suggestion(s).
Change log
Change log
12 AUG 2017 - So all the cards on the list are the cards in the deck...it's been that way for quite awhile at this point. I did however swap out
Mutavault
for
Volrath's Stronghold
. I still have the
Mutavault
in case I regret the decision, but as Xcallion pointed out, the deck was lacking graveyard recursion. Given that slivers draw alot of hate they need multiple options for digging themselves out of the grave. I'm also considering
Living Death
/
Living End
but I don't know what to swap out for them. As I play more and more i'll figure out what additional options I should include. This deck doesn't really keep to one meta, as I play in multiple stores with different groups.
??? 2016 - After deciding to pursue all of the cards in this deck, I don't have too many expensive cards (compared to the likes of
Volcanic Island
or
Underground Sea
) left to acquire. The only major future changes I will make will be adding in new slivers (whenever they are produced). Hopefully a proper Sliver Plainswalker will be produced in the near future and it will not suck (the most recent slivers produced were a bit of a disappointment). But I don't plan on changing the deck too much from where it is now.