Very long description ahead, almost card by card, but hopefully insightful and useful especially for beginners:
After some discussion with fellow sliver deck mages here (mentioned hereafter), I have decided to totally revamp my sliver deck Sliver to the power of death. It wanted to be built as a selection of the best slivers with the minimum protection spells; turns out it is just dull mid range, so I will update it for casual fun kitchen play and focus on this new deck.
This new sliver deck is an aggro deck, hopefully a competitive modern sliver deck.
Before some thorough (and I hope useful) explanations of the deckbuilding, some credit is mandatory:
This deck building ows a lot to the comments and discussion with Krapak, hobnail2142, Evnicar, brand421, Pyroshade, and especially Dreno33 and mambosong. Please! see their sliver decks and +1 them if you like them.
Now, for this deck:
I have applied some draconian rules of thumb:
Modern legal: I'm sorry, Crystalline Sliver and Muscle Sliver
Consistency: absolutely no card (except maybe some lands) below 3 copies. No tutors nor fetchers. Yes, many slivers are cool; yes, I know we all like many more than the 9 to 10 slivers which would fill the 36-40 non mana-producer slots, but, alas, you have to choose and cull slivers (see further down the final selection). Go for proven efficiency, not for petty liking of a specific sliver.
Manacurve theory: Not only efficient slivers but also CHEAP lowdrop slivers. No Megantic Sliver; no bosses (Sliver Legion and maybe also Sliver Hivelord).
No subpar slivers, especially the highdrops. Yes, Thorncaster Sliver comboes nicely with deathtouch, whatever. Well, sorry, no room in an fast deck for you, nor the several less popular slivers (from the new dubious Constricting Sliver to many others like Battle Sliver, Might Sliver, Battering Sliver, Groundshaker Sliver, Brood Sliver...).
Higher count of slivers with cumulative abilities (or "abilities which stack", but I prefer the cumulative term, not to confuse readers with the stack of spells), and lower count of slivers with non cumulative abilities.
No mana dorks but Aether Vial!!
Consistent and fast land mana base. No taplands whatsoever, and definitely some basic lands (see further down).
No mirror sliver duels (I know you can always meet a sliver deck in small local metas, but I am not willing to trash Sinew Sliver and Sidewinder Sliver just because of that small ocurrence).
So, with all these rules, what does the deck look like? Here we go:
4x cheap efficient slivers with cumulative abilities:
Absolutely mandatory: the sheer pumping of Predatory Sliver and Sinew Sliver
The actual non-targeted removal of Sidewinder Sliver's flanking: Think of two 1-drops that actually give -2/-2 to every creature which blocks them!!! Flanking is a pesky thing when facing it, especially with an extra ability; I still smile remembering my Jolrael's Centaurs in 1997 Standard.
Opponent damage just by declaring attackers!!: Leeching Sliver, and on top of that, cumulative. Swing with 3 slivers among which there are 2 leeching, and opponent is taking 6 damage before even declaring blockers.
Finally, Diffusion Sliver. I know, I know: WTF?! Abubroki you said no pet slivers!! Yes, but think that the opponent has to pay 3 mana to Lightning Bolt or Path to Exile (both among the most played cards in Modern according to MTG TOP8), or 5 mana if you happen to land 2 diffusion! Not to mention Vapor Snag, Shock, Swords to Plowshares, Dismember, Tragic Slip, Twisted Image...
...20 sliver slots covered... Now let's go to the non-cumulative slivers: 3 copies of each because you'd rather have just one in play at once, but no less than 3 copies lest you'd risk not drawing it in many duels:
EVASION: Galerider Sliver! At first I couldn't believe they had actually reprinted Flying Men in a core set ! And yet here it is: a blue 1/1 flyer for U and no drawback! (And you also have Jace's Phantasm which is a blue 1/1 flyer for U and has an extra ability). They have also reprinted Juzam Djinn as Plague Sliver, but that's another story, and in fact Juzam Sliver is a damn threat against sliver decks... I am even sideboarding it in my monoblack decks when playing against sliver decks for casual fun... Anyways, making all your slivers flyers for U is almost ridiculous. I am even tempted to pack 4x Galerider Sliver replacing the 4th Diffusion Sliver... will have to playtest that extensively...
REMOVAL: DEATHTOUCH: Venom Sliver. You might kill 'Tarmo with a 1-drop!
...26 slots covered... No sliver above a Converted Mana Cost of 2 and no sliver with more than one colored-mana symbol.
Now, some complementary spells:
- 3x Military Intelligence. Again, WTF!? pet card!! Well, maybe. But I want to playtest it. It should not be uncommon to be attacking with 2 slivers at once, and just by declaring this I get to draw a card (trust me this is another unconceivable thing by 1997 non-Vintage standards)
There are still 8 slots free... My first take is to cover them with non-sliver spells, via Thoughtseize (proxyed by Duress for budget reasons) and Revoke Existence:
Revoke Existence. Because there are a lot of artifacts and some auras around (yes I'm looking at you Rancor; and you can SB Hurkyl's Recall against Affinity, but more on SB later). Even if it is a sorcery, I prefer Revoke Existence to Harmonic Sliver which is an ETB effect unable to deal with indestructibles, a gold card, and just a 1/1 for 3 CMC.
Path to Exile. Just in case. Better throw whatever threat into the Phantom Zone than risk seeing it back in play or hand, or shuffled into the library, or feeding Tarmogoyf and Scavenging Ooze. Lightning Bolt can't snuff a 2nd-turn-fetchland-pumped-3/4 Tarmogoyf, for example, nor many of nowadays monsters. I am proxying it with Swords to Plowshares until I get them. Thoughtseize might be better here, as an early opportunity to disrupt the opponent's game...
However, I am not trashing completely the idea of running 8 more slivers tasked with removal and disruption. The candidates here are Harmonic Sliver and Necrotic Sliver. Both have the advantage of being a sliver (duh!) so likely they will land with at least an extra ability as the one written in them due to slivers already in play, this might compensate their rather poor efficiency (1/1 for 3 converted mana cost)... Rather than going pure aggro and filling these 8 slots with Blur Sliver or Two-Headed Sliver (cheaper than its descendant Belligerent Sliver), or even Striking Sliver to combo with Venom Sliver (a lot of sliver mages are fond of this combo yet I think it is suboptimal to pack the fourth copy of both Venom and Striking, which neither no cumulative ability, to meet the odds of one of each on the battlefield), I think these 8 slots must be devoid to removing enchantments and/or artifacts and/or creatures. The easiest way to do it seems by packing 4 Harmonic Sliver and 4 Necrotic Sliver. The downfall is that manacurve suffers, and would probably benefit from the 21st land, and also that we can not deal with indestructibles (Revoke Existence could be SB to replace the Harmonics) and that we have to wait to turn 3+ to remove enchantments and artifacts vs turn 1+ with Revoke Existence and Thoughtseize / Duress... On the plus side the slivers protect budget though.
SO, I will leave Revoke Existence and Thoughtseize (again, proxied by Duress for the time being), instead of Harmonic Sliver and Necrotic Sliver... I would love to hear your opinions on this.
Note also that if going for the 34 sliver version with Harmonic and Necrotic, there would be no reason not to include Descendants' Path aside of losing Military Intelligence. I think the Descendant would be better even if costing 1 more mana, since it would mean effectively casting one more sliver per turn, not just drawing it, despite cycling to the bottom of the library other Descendant's copies and any land...
- What about the bosses: No bosses. Well, Sliver Legion is great (and very expensive), but without tutors (which would be lost sliver slots) or the Descendants' Path, I feel including less than 3 copies of the boss would be suboptimal (wasting deck slots), and including 3-4 copies increases too much the probability of it being a dead draw for the first 5-6 turns. I'd rather have 2-3 Megantic Sliver, but I want to keep manacurve low in this deck. I might sideboard it though with an extra basic land... Sliver Hivelord is not so powerful and still does not dodge Dismember or Tragic Slip.
I know the deck is vulnerable to a stabilizing opponent or swarming big strength monsters, my aim is to have the opponent dead before he can start dropping many 5/5...
...36+ card slots covered... Now let's fix the manabase:
4x Sliver Hive. Duh! Ancient Ziggurat and The Hive in a single card (although I do not expect lasting so much as to need extra tokens from the Hive, it should annoy the opponent if the duel lags).
4x Cavern of Souls. It gives colorless mana and makes Slivers uncounterable: so long Remand, Mana Leak, Spell Snare, Spell Pearce, Counterspell, Arcane Denial, Dissipate... like it, UR Delver or Blue Moon?
4x City of Brass. Yes, no lifelink sliver (the best one imho is Syphon Sliver), but still, I don't want to be unable to cast a coloured spell ever. No taplands, we're talking Modern here, and on top of it Aggro! We need SPEED. Shocklands are imho best when combined with Fetchlands, and I think we need none of those here. Even if you just lifeping for 2 once with a shockland and you might use a City of Brass 3-5 times in a duel, I think the versality justifies it.
What next? Painlands? "Subparlands"? (Transguild Promenade, Ancient Ziggurat, Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, Guildgates, checklands, filterlands, scrylands, scarlands, old dull taplands, etc.)? Well, actually my take is... basic lands. As one of my fellow sliver mages pointed out, Red Moon land hate (Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon, etc.) is a threat, so I don't want them to completely shut me down until I can send into oblivion their Blood Moon (with Revoke Existence) or their Magus of the Moon (with Path to Exile). Furthermore, I want to be able to generate advantage from the opponent's Path to Exile. So, before micromanaging by playtesting: 5x Plains, 2x Island, 2x Swamp. No need for Forest as no non-sliver spell is green, but there are black and blue non-sliver spells in the SB and the MaybeBoard. Edit: Playtesting the deck version sporting 3x Military Intelligence suggests it is mandatory to have anytime blue non-creature mana. I found myself sometimes without blue mana for a turn 2 or 3 Military Intelligence, ie, losing card advantage from turn 2!!. To avoid that, I am including some blue painlands (Underground River and Adarkar Wastes, no Yavimaya Coast for now, as there are no green non-creature spells) which can always give colorless harmless mana.
And of course, 3x Aether Vial, set at 1 or 2 (maybe 3 for the deck version packing Harmonic Sliver and Necrotic Sliver, but since there are 18 2-CMC slivers, I think 2 is the optimal count for the Vial). Flash a Sidewinder Sliver blocker and boom! soon-to-be-dead critter gets -1/-1 before assigning combat damage... or flash an end-of-opponent's-turn Diffusion Sliver and suddenly he is unable to exile your slivers for an extra turn. I'll have to playtest how to find a slot for the 4th Aether Vial, but some readers suggested 4 copies is too much...
No Manaweft Sliver or the weaker version Gemhyde Sliver. I agree it might just slow things down when you are already packing the vial, and your critters are always <= 3 CMC.
I have dismissed the Sedge Sliver-Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth version, I think there is no need for it, although I agree the regeneration part of Sedge Sliver's abilities might be underrated and a Regenerating sliver would deserve consideration.
There it is. 60 cards. 21 land cards may seem a lot for a deck with NO SPELL costing more than 2 CMC, but I need extra mana for the protection and the SB, despite the vial.
Speaking of which: Sideboarding (this is my best a priori generic take and I am merely thinking out loud; help and advice are greatly appreciated!!):
Affinity rules, even in my local amateur meta. Well then, Hurkyl's Recall on top of or in lieu of Revoke Existence. Bounce all of their artifacts, and there you are, eot Time Walk for your slivers. Also, City of Brass might allow for some Vandalblast or Smelt (you don't want to blow your vial).
Blood Moon and its implementations: Basic lands in case they succeed, and why not a couple of Fireballs or its peers Banefire etc? just pump them with your newly acquired mountains.
Pithing Needle, shut down their planeswalkers, Pack Rats, Kikis, etc
Twisted Image, kill all mana dorks with 0 strength and the pesky Spellskite
Wheenies: Pyroclasm, as daredevil a gambit as it might seem...
Infect: kill Noble Hierarch with Twisted Image, consider packing Burn the Impure? But also Darkblast (comboes well with Military Intelligence) to bounce back?) and [[Tragic Slip! Cooking an 8/9 trampler Glistener Elf on turn 3? Block with whatever sliver then give the elf -13/-13 penicillin !!! (well, sounds easy, probably is not...)
Tormod's Crypt for graveyard lovers
Countermagic; Rebuff the Wicked, Avoid Fate, Dispel, Spell Snare, Spell Pierce, Mana Leak. They all require just one white/blue/green mana.
Duress, Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize (increasing budget) to disrupt opponent's game and read his deck. Also Gitaxian Probe, which could even be mainboard...
Finally, some general thoughts and maybeboard thoughts:
This is just version beta 0.8 or 1.0. A lot of playtest ahead. 26 slivers probably is not enough, and the deck may suffer just like my other sliver deck Sliver From The Power Of Death did of too megalomaniac a priori deck building: I can almost hear you: Abubroki, just forget about the 7 protection spells and the 3 card drawers and throw in more slivers!!! If that were the case, I would probably consider 3x of some among Two-Headed Sliver for evasion, Blur Sliver for haste (speed), and Sentinel Sliver for vigilance (but this one might slow the deck down?), as the main choices. Bonescythe Sliver has as many defendants as haters, and it is mana pricey, but it could be important if the duel lasts for too long... Syphon Sliver also comes to mind, especially in light of the 4x City of Brass and also to hold down against aggro... Despite my fonding, I don't think Shadow Sliver would be efficient (especially in a deck with Galerider Sliver and/or Two-Headed Sliver); I will probably insert it in my other revamped-for-casual-fun sliver deck. 2-3 copies of Manavault could come in handy too, probably replacing some of the basic lands.
Slivers that didn't make it: Syphon Sliver, Blur Sliver, Sentinel Sliver, Striking Sliver, Shadow Sliver, Virulent Sliver, Steelform Sliver, and Hive Stirrings.
The name of the deck is a pun with the granddaddy of aggro decks, classic monored Sligh-Geeba (plenty of info about that on the net), despite this deck not being a pure aggro deck and having only 7 1-drops (but 19 2-drops), and not having any red as of its initial build!
Experienced mages, sorry for the long diggression; newcomers to MTG, hope you'll find it useful.
Thanks for reading until here, and please, visit the other players' decks mentioned at the beginning, and give me +1 if you liked the deck or found useful the description!
