The Queen's Egg

Commander / EDH Combo Competitive Midrange Primer Sliver Theme/Gimmick

LVL_666

Type Subtype Rarity Color Latest set Latest block Name Board Converted cost Keyword Price Custom

Type Subtype Rarity Name Converted cost Price

The Hive (35)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Badlands
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Cascade Bluffs
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Flooded Grove
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x Gemstone Mine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Mystic Gate
• 1x Plateau
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Savannah
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Scrubland
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 1x Taiga
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Volcanic Island MP
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

The Brood (25)

• 1x Amoeboid Changeling
• 1x Basal Sliver
• 1x Blur Sliver
• 1x Bonescythe Sliver
• 1x Brood Sliver
• 1x Crystalline Sliver
• 1x Dormant Sliver
• 1x Galerider Sliver
• 1x Gemhide Sliver
• 1x Harmonic Sliver
• 1x Heart Sliver
• 1x Hibernation Sliver
• 1x Homing Sliver
• 1x Manaweft Sliver
• 1x Necrotic Sliver
• 1x Quick Sliver
• 1x Sedge Sliver
• 1x Sentinel Sliver
• 1x Shifting Sliver
• 1x Sliver Hivelord
• 1x Sliver Legion
• 1x Sliver Queen SL
• 1x Striking Sliver
• 1x Venom Sliver
• 1x Winged Sliver

Extinction Event (16)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Countersquall
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Delay
• 1x Engineered Explosives
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mana Leak
• 1x Negate
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Commander (1)

Legacy Catalysts (23)

• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Echoes
• 1x Mirri's Guile
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Paradox Engine
• 1x Patriarch's Bidding
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Skyshroud Claim
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Training Grounds
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Yawgmoth's Will SL

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You Have Entered the Hive

When Slivers come together

The Sliver Queen provides you a rare gift - a song celebrating the might and majesty of Slivers. Listen, don't listen- it will be there all the same.

Do you like Tribal Creatures? Do you enjoy crushing your opponents with endless ranks of creatures that have indestructible, +1,000,000.../+1,000,000..., flash, flying, haste, shroud, regenerate, first strike, doublestrike, AND deathtouch? If so, then Sliver Overlord is the perfect choice for you. With its ability to tutor for any other creature in your deck, you have a complete toolkit for any situation at your disposal. With a little help from the hive Overlord can steal the opponent's most prized creatures, adding their might to your own (and making them a Sliver). Alternatively, you could use Overlord to beseech her Highness, the Queen (...de queen) along with one of her treasures you can become unstoppable - crushing your opponents' hopes and dreams with creatures that have more abilities than the card would have room for.

The Hivestone

Overview

Reading this decklist

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Reading this decklist

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This decklist is organized into custom categories. The categories where chosen to help split into function and given names that added flavor elements. Those categories are as follows:

• The Brood: These creatures are your tools to victory, each one bringing a unique ability that is shared equally among the hive.
• Legacy Catalysts: Mana Acceleration, Support Spells, and Tutors in the form of Artifacts, Sorceries, and Instants.
• The Hive: Lands. There is a wide variety of non-basic lands in this deck due to it being all five colors.
• Extinction Event: Removal and Counterspells.

Deck colors

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Deck colors

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Slivers tend to be widely varied in their abilities which can be restricted by color. An example can be Mana generation, which is exclusive to Green, Green again, and Black, which is kind of rare. Therefore, all your Sliver options for creature based mana generation are restricted to and . Another example of color restricted abilities for Slivers can be First strike. You can only choose between Red, White and Black. From these options you can see that some Slivers are more CMC efficient than others. With no access to or , then your only option would be running an extremely underwhelming Sliver. Now I'm not saying you have to run to have a great Sliver deck, but if you want access to every potential ability for the most efficient casting cost then you have to run all 5 colors.

Deck strengths

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Deck strengths

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The ability to tutor and find solutions in the form of Slivers is a great boon, especially when you need to pull some removal. The deck has some flexibility in that you can choose to create a soft lock by playing both Sliver Hivelord + Crystalline Sliver and going in for Midrange beats, or you could go for a combo win via combat damage using the Sliver Queen combo. The idea is that you can choose a strategy depending on the board state and completely dominate the field.

Deck weaknesses

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Deck weaknesses

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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 spells like Blood Moon or Back to Basics. Fortunately, these spells aren't regularly played in my meta but there is always a chance they will show up.

Also, this may not be a weakness per se, but it is worth noting that the deck contains multiple options to victory as opposed to having a focused, singular strategy. This takes away some reliability from getting a wincon in favor of versatility.

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."Basically, the deck can be politically weak.

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The Strategy

General Strategy

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General Strategy

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Labeling this deck as competitive EDH (cEDH) is a bit of a misnomer due to Sliver Overlord being a tier 3 general and this deck being limited to Slivers only. However, this deck adheres to the principal of being as focused and streamlined as possible - containing only the most optimized versions of cards. Additionally, there are multiple paths to victory as opposed to a singular combo.

This deck is designed to be played in 4 player competitive pods- it is by no means meant for casual play where fun is the priority. But if I were to give this deck a proper label, I will first refer to the power level chart referenced in the video How to Power up your Commander deck by The Command Zone. This deck fits within the Optimized category where the aim is to play to win, and use the best possible cards to do what you need to do.

Wincons:

Commander Damage - Ramp into Overlord and attack. Then tutor for Bonescythe Sliver and attack again. There are various other slivers in the deck who give the Commander evasion, or can enhance it's combat effectiveness. Then, you have the Soft Lock of Sliver Hivelord + Crystalline Sliver. With the two of them on the board slivers are much more difficult to remove, and you can continually swing in for damage with little worry. Last, but certainly not least you have Sliver Queen + Mana Echoes or Basal Sliver + Training Grounds for infinite creatures that swing in for combat damage. Additionally, you'd want Heart Sliver to get the win on the turn of the combo.

Early game

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Early game

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The first thing you must always do is Mana-fix and Ramp while saving a counterspell in hand for when an opponent wants to interact with your spells. Going for the soft lock once your manabase is fixed is generally a good play. Having both Hivelord and Crystalline out will make your board presence noteworthy, but hard to deal with. Once the soft lock is in, ramp more and play more Slivers. But always keep something in hand to deal with the shenanigans your opponents may be up to.

Mid game

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Mid game

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You can reliably establish a win-con scenario between turns 5 and 7. This can be done 1 of 2 ways: combo using Sliver Queen or aggro/commander damage. If you can manage to get Paradox Engine on the battlefield along with mana rocks or dorks then you can effectively play your entire deck and end the game.

Late game

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Late game

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So past turn 8 or 9, you're in the Late game. If you've been able to ramp and populate the battlefield earlier in the game then you've definitely been considered the "big threat" at some point. If you're still unable to establish a combo or have little board presence then you have a few options for a last ditch effort: Patriarch's Bidding, Yawgmoth's Will, or Volrath's Stronghold. Pulling back key combo pieces from the graveyard is probably the best strategy at this point. Ether that, or playing as many slivers as possible while keeping mana open for a potential counterspell.

Mulligans

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Mulligans

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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

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Combos and Synergies

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• Sliver Queen + Mana Echoes: Infinite creature combo - 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 creature combo - similar to the previously mentioned combo, but a bit more complicated. 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 Queen + Basal Sliver + Dormant Sliver: Infinite Draw. Pay and create a token via Queen, Dormant's ability triggers and I draw a card. I then sacrifice the token for . Use that to buy another token...rinse wash repeat.
• 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 (Colored) Mana Generation. 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 :)

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Card Choices Explained

Lands

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Lands

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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.

Creatures

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Creatures

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Each and every sliver was chosen to help me respond to a situation. I'll list the situation the Sliver is meant for, and if you disagree or think there is a better option please let me know in the comments. Now, without further ado:

• Sliver Queen: The best sliver ever printed. She can produce 1/1 blockers, or be a combat damage wincon by serving as the main combo piece for an infinite creature combo. Does she conflict with the primary wincon of ramping into Sliver Overlord? That depends on your perspective. She is tutorable, and benefits from all of the bonuses other slivers give her. But she also happens to be a wincon with Basal, Heart, and Gemhide Slivers in play.
• Heart Sliver/Blur Sliver: Enable Sliver Overlord to swing a turn earlier, and enable creatures to get in more combat damage.
• Gemhide Sliver/Manaweft Sliver: Mana dorks.
• Hivelord/Crystalline/Sedge/Hibernation Slivers: Provide protection. These Slivers will help prevent removal (of slivers) in some fashion. Additional note, while Sliver Legion is mostly meant for combat damage, it can also help protect Slivers from Toxic Deluge, marginally.
• Amoeboid Changeling This Sliver's only purpose is to interact with the commander's 2nd ability.
• Bonescythe Sliver is part of the primary wincon, enabling the commander to deal potentially lethal combat damage 1 turn earlier.
• Brood Sliver: Provide protection from combat damage by producing additional blockers after combat damage goes through.
• Winged/Galerider/Shifting Slivers: Evasion.
• Quick/Striking/Venom/Sentinel Slivers: Meant to deter opponents from attacking you, or blocking your creatures when you attack. Sentinel is in to give some added flexibility where I can attack, and potentially tap a sliver for an ability during my 2nd main phase.
• Necrotic Sliver/Harmonic Sliver: Targeted removal.
• Homing Sliver: Tutoring (usually for a Mana Dork)
• Dormant Sliver: Provides card draw but at a big...drawback (pun intended). Can potentially slow down mirror matches. At the least it can provide a free card while a sliver populates the battlefield. If this is played early, then the wincon for that game will likely be through Sliver Queen. The best part is that with Basal Sliver on the field as well, you can potentially draw out your whole deck and find a means of winning on that turn.
• Basal Sliver: This is meant for the sole purpose of helping to establish a combo wincon with Sliver Queen, or serving as a tutorable sac outlet.

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Other Information

Building Slivers

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Building Slivers

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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

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Event record

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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

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Change log

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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.

Optimizing the Hive

• Pimp out the broodlings: Acquiring foils of all the broodlings who are currently in the deck. Most of them are not very expensive save Harmonic Sliver.
• Continue enhancing this page: This deck is a work in progress just like this page. I've just picked up the notes on how to change your page background, but i'm still working on the accordions. Special thanks to multimedia for writing me a script that gives me a custom accordion for my description that doesn't get applied (or reapplied?)to user comments. You're the best, thank you! For additional advice on how to make a custom accordion of your own, refer to the following forums post: CSS Scoping Additionally, I added a song to the page as well (it's the audio controls right under this accordion picture). I felt a little bit of would music to help give a nice theme to the deck page. In case you didn't know, the song is Mantis' Hymn from the Metal Gear Solid soundtrack. If anyone wants any pointers on how to add music to their page, you can reference here: HTML Volume help and HTML Audio tag. Here is just a rule of thumb though, and please feel free to repeat after me: Never EVER autoplay. It is obnoxious and wrong.
• Continue Upgrading: The deck has finally come to some sort of homeostasis. A place where I don't need to make any major changes or upgrades. After the last splurge to purchase the Kaladesh Masterpieces and a Foil Iconic Masters Mana Drain I'm pretty much done. I'll just keep watch for any cards that could be worthwhile to include like Prismatic Geoscope (but it wasn't really that good). My real wish is for more slivers to be produced (that are actually good)...or a Sliver Planeswalker. I'm not sure how Wizards would execute that though, but i'm sure it would be both terrifying (for non-slivers) and incredibly innovative and unique card design. Oh well, one can dream.
• 180 Upvotes!: Thanks for all the votes! I hope you enjoyed all you read. Did you catch any of the little Easter (Sliver) Eggs I hid throughout the primer? They're all just silly little youtube videos for your amusement - 5 in total.

The Queen's Egg

The (Actual) Queen's Egg

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The (Actual) Queen's Egg

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Warning: Your eyes may explode from too much beauty!

My amazing fiancee wife got me this custom made one of a kind deck box. Themed after the Sliver Queen (my all time favorite MTG Card), it's made out of a cast resin, with magnets to hold it all together. The box holds a commander deck double sleeved no problem, and was hand made by the one and only Liefkicker. His website is here: Liefkicker Studio. Note: These boxes are expensive but you get what you pay for. Liefkicker deckboxes are custom art pieces of the highest quality that hold your most prized of decks. Slivers will always be special to me, not to mention I made (or will make) sacrifices to get each card for my deck. The first time I revealed my box, the whole table just stopped and stared at it with wonder. "That looks evil", was the first compliment I ever got. People's eyes practically never left my end of the table (mostly because I was playing slivers...but the box is simply gorgeous). Again, i'm completely happy with this deck box, and I will cherish it for the rest of my life. If you want to know more, or want to see a more comprehensive review about Liefkicker's products, I suggest you look at the TolarianCommunityCollege's review: A Review of The Hedron Box for Magic: The Gathering Also, Shout Out to the Professor!

For the few of you who have been keeping track of this deck's progress Gattison crafted some awesome and funny song lyrics which are a parody of We Care Alot by Faith No More. I made an update about this before, but over time it may become lost from the front page, so here's another location where it may be discovered. As a reminder you can find Gattison's Studio right here. He takes requests! So don't hesitate to contact him, for every deck deserves it's own song. So without further ado, here is the official song of The Queen's Egg:

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The following is a parody of "We Care a Lot," by Faith No More (Lyrics by Gattison).

We share a lot
We share a lot
We share a lot, we share colors like , , , and
We share a lot, we share mechanics like flying, trample and lifelink
We share a lot, we share deathtouch and first strike, and double strike
We share a lot, we share too much, they say, down in the Sliver Hive, yeah

(Oh-oh-oh-oh) Oh, it's a dirty deck but someone's gotta play it
Oh, it's a dirty deck but someone's gotta play it

We share a lot
We share a lot
We share a lot, we share our syphons and our bonescythes and our essence
We share a lot, we share four times as much as you, that's why we're better
We share a lot, we share abilities like " to regenerate"
We share a lot, we share things like "+1/+1 for each one of us in play," YEAH!

Well it's a dirty deck but someone's gotta play it (Oh-oh-oh-oh)
Well it's a dirty deck but someone's gotta play it (3x)
(repeat 1x)

We share a lot
We share a lot
We share a lot, we share our sacrifices for the mana pool
We share a lot, we share the same turn-ons that's how we make the brood
We share a lot, we share mana
We share a lot, we share fortune
We share a creature type, now don't slivers look like fun?
We share a lot, we share the battlefield with ourselves and no one else
We share a lot, we share the graveyard with the goblins and the elves
We share a lot, we share with little slivers and big slivers too
We share a lot, if you're a sliver then we'll share with you too, YEAH!

Well it's a dirty deck but someone's gotta play it (Oh-oh-oh-oh)
Well it's a dirty deck but someone's gotta play it (3x)
(repeat 3x)
Well it's a dirty deck but someone's gotta play it (Oh-oh-oh-oh)
Well it's a dirty deck but someone's gotta play it (2x)
If it's a parody then Gattison'll write it

The coding for this primer was developed by Epochalyptik here.

Date added	3 years
Last updated	1 week
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.40
Tokens	1/1 Sliver, 3/3 Beast, 1/1 Bird
Folders	Cool decks, Slivers, Deck Ideas, Sliver, Cool Decks by Other People, EDH, Sliver, good decks, Jesus, Slivers, See all 181
Top rank	#9 on 2017-02-27