The Queen's Egg

Commander / EDH Competitive Infinite Combo Midrange Primer Sliver Theme/Gimmick

Mortlocke

The Hive (35)

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

The Brood (25)

• 1x Amoeboid Changeling
• 1x Basal Sliver
• 1x Bonescythe Sliver
• 1x Brood Sliver
• 1x Cloudshredder Sliver
• 1x Crystalline Sliver
• 1x Dregscape Sliver
• 1x Galerider Sliver
• 1x Gemhide Sliver
• 1x Harmonic Sliver
• 1x Hibernation Sliver
• 1x Lavabelly Sliver
• 1x Magma 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 The First Sliver
• 1x Venom Sliver

Extinction Event (16)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Delay
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Engineered Explosives
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Commander (1)

Legacy Catalysts (23)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Grim Tutor
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Echoes
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Three Visits
• 1x Training Grounds
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Worldly Tutor
• 1x Yawgmoth's Will SL

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Queen of Hordes. Her Majesty.

When Slivers Come Together

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 her decree of absolute victory you can become unstoppable - crushing your opponents' hopes and dreams with creatures that have more abilities than the card would have room for.

The Inner Sanctum

Reading this decklist

This decklist is organized into custom categories - for flavor:

• The Brood: Creatures
• Legacy Catalysts: Artifacts, Ramp Spells, Tutors/Top-deck manipulation, and Recursion
• The Hive: Lands
• Extinction Event: Removal/Interaction and Counter magic

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. This deck is designed to be as competitive as possible while maintaining the flavor and design of the Sliver tribal archetype. This deck is considered a Fringe Competitive deck that consistently threatens to win between turns 5 and 8. As a point of reference, I also used the following videos from The Command Zone Podcast to try to fairly (and as impartially as I could) assess this deck's Power level:

• How to Power-up your Decks
• How to Determine Your Deck's Power Level

This deck has been inspired by The Professor of TolarianCommunityCollege's introductory build discussed in the video A Study in Slivers. This deck continues where the Professor's introduction began - ultimately pushing the Sliver tribal archetype to it's most competitive limits in EDH.

Strengths/Weaknesses

The obvious strength of this deck is that Slivers are the greatest tribe in all of Magic (If you disagree with me, then allow me to inform you that you are wrong.) Slivers build off of each other, becoming combo/synergy pieces to establish win states. As a result of the deck being so creature focused the deck is weak against constant mass removal, stax, and sacrifice effects. Additionally, the commander itself can be a liability if stolen by an opponent (specifically Overlord's second ability). Additionally, due to the lack of basic land cards in the deck spells such as Blood Moon, Contamination or Back to Basics can outright shut down this deck's manabase if played at the right time.

There is also 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 - as in some playgroups they are perceived to be a threat starting at turn 0.

The Strategy

The primary strategy of this deck is to aggressively pursue an infinite combo using Sliver Queen. There are multiple combos involving the Queen to help deal with opponent interaction (for more specifics on each combo, consult the "Combos and Synergies" tab further down in the accordion). If too many combo pieces are disrupted, the deck can pursue other avenues to victory - swinging in tall and deep with Commander Damage (basically a Voltron strategy, but all the equipment and auras would be Shifting Sliver and Bonescythe Sliver) or Combat Damage with a wide board - involving Brood Sliver, Crystalline Sliver and Sliver Hivelord.

Early/Mid/Late 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 "The Art of Magic: The Gathering - The Rath Cycle" - Source

This quote flavors the deck's playstyle which is to attack from multiple angles: Aggressively pursue an infinite combo, while continuing to add pressure on your opponents by attacking with creatures (primarily the Commander) with an ever growing amount of keyword abilities. Interaction is absolutely mandatory, especially in a more competitive meta. Keep in mind that this deck is rarely the fastest at the table, that's why it's mandatory to try and slow down your opponents with your arsenal of interaction to keep them from thwarting 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 {7}) 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 combo win. If you are behind curve, and do not have at least two of the previously mentioned cards on battlefield, then a win through combat damage or commander damage with some evasion can easily be built up solidifying your position beyond turn 8.

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).

Combos and Synergies

• Mana Echoes + Sliver Queen - Infinite Sliver Tokens VER.1 - With all of the previously mentioned on the battlefield, activate the Queen's ability to spawn a 1/1 Sliver creature token. That token will trigger Mana Echoes, which will generate {1} colorless mana. Use that {1} to help pay for another activation her highness's ability to trigger Echoes again, this time generating {2} mana. Use that {2} to create another token and generate {3}. Keep activating her royal greatness until you have a board populated with enough tokens to swarm your opponents all in one go. Note: Combo works best with a haste enabler on the field.
• Basal Sliver + Sliver Queen + Training Grounds - Infinite Sliver Tokens VER.2 - The Queen chooses to bring a different entourage with this infinite creature combo - With all of the previously mentioned cards in play, pay {1} to activate Queen's ability - creating a 1/1 Sliver creature token that will gain Basal Sliver's "All slivers have sacrifice this permanent, add {B}{B}". Since Training Grounds reduces the cost for Queen's ability by {1}, sacrifice the 1/1 sliver creature token for {B}{B} and generate two 1/1 creature tokens. Generate {B}{B}{B}{B} by sacrificing the two tokens, then you get 4 tokens. 4 becomes 8, 8 becomes 16, so on and so forth... Note: Combo works best with a haste enabler on the field.
• Amoeboid Changeling + Sliver Overlord - Creature Stealing - {T} Changeling, activating it's ability to give any specific creature all creature types. Effectively, it will turn that creature into a "Sliver". Then you pay {3}, activating Sliver Overlord's ability to take control of target Sliver. There is no specified length of time on the Overlord's ability, so when Changeling's ability resolves the stolen "Sliver" ceases to be a Sliver - but it is still under your control.
• Sliver Queen + Heart Sliver + Basal Sliver + Gemhide Sliver - Infinite Mana - Note:Heart Sliver can be swapped with Cloudshredder Sliver and Gemhide Sliver can be swapped out with Manaweft Sliver. With all of the previously mentioned on the battlefield, pay {2} to create a 1/1 Token (via Queen). The token ETBs with haste, sac for {B}{B} and tap for {1} of any color, so you {T} the token for mana and sacrifice it for the {B}{B}. Use the {B}{B} to create another Sliver token. {T} it for that one mana again, sac it for the {B}{B}...repeat until you have more than enough tokens to kill all opponents, and/or tutored and played every Sliver in your library after playing the commander - then end the game.
• Striking Sliver + Venom Sliver - Quickdraw Venom - Note: Striking Sliver can be swapped out for Bonescythe Sliver - First strike or Double strike combined with Deathtouch loosely translates to "Dead before they ever even knew it". First strike damage ala Striking Sliver resolves before combat damage even begins, so when your opponent is attacking or blocking, the creature controlled by the opponent will receive Deathtouch damage (ala Venom Sliver) before it gets the chance to deal damage.
• Bonescythe Sliver + Brood Sliver - Sliver Doubling Season - Thanks to Bonescythe Sliver each sliver gains Double strike, granting them two combat damage assignment steps. When you combine that with Brood Sliver you gain 1 Sliver creature token generated per combat damage step that assigns damage to an opponent. Yay twins :)
• Basal Sliver + Lavabelly Sliver + Sliver Queen - Death by Boiled Eggs - Pay {2} 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 {B}{B} 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.

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 (Mirage fetchlands are also acceptable!) along with dual lands that have basic land types such as Shocklands, Battle Lands or Bicycle Lands (aka Dual Colored Cycling Lands).

Hive Equilibrium

What is planned for this deck going forward?

The deck has reached a Homeostasis in the respect that there aren't going to be many dramatic changes in the foreseeable future. All I do is simply keep an eye out for new cards that I can experiment with in this deck. Also, a big thanks to the TappedOut community - as folks are always suggesting cards that I've completely missed or needed to take a second look at.

Recently, the deck has reached a new tappedout milestone: The Queen's Egg is now (as of May 2020) the highest rated Sliver Tribal + Sliver Overlord deck on the site. It took a lot of advertising, but the deck managed to get 500+ upvotes - overtaking (for now at least)the Professor of Tolarian Community College's Introductory build on Slivers. I'll admit that his build has had an influence on previous iterations of this deck - but I took that basic premise and pushed it to as far as I could.

We Sliver players are a Hive mind race, and as such I wish for this deck to serve as a resource for individuals looking to build a Sliver EDH deck of their own. If you've read this far into my deck description then all I can say is thank you. If you're looking for any help, inspiration, whatever - don't hesitate to ask. Also I do try and help with decks that aren't just Slivers...so again if you're a player that needs help, or just wants to chat then your friendly neighborhood poorly disguised group of slivers is up to the task.

The Queen's Egg

The (Actual) Queen's Egg Show

My amazing 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:

Show

_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 {W}, {U}, {B}, {R} and {G} 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 "{T} 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.

Top Ranked	Achieved #9 position overall 6 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Competitive 9 months ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Infinite Combo 9 months ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Midrange 9 months ago
Date added	6 years
Last updated	1 month
Key combos	Mana Echoes + Sliver Queen Basal Sliver + Sliver Queen + Training Grounds Striking Sliver + Venom Sliver Bonescythe Sliver + Brood Sliver Basal Sliver + Lavabelly Sliver + Sliver Queen
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 59 - 0 Rares 14 - 0 Uncommons 11 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.31
トークン	Beast 3/3 G, Bird 2/2 U, Sliver 1/1 C
Folders	Cool decks, Slivers, Deck Ideas, Sliver, Cool Decks by Other People, EDH, Sliver, good decks, Jesus, Slivers, See all 328