This deck is primarily a combo deck, relying heavily on the Commander, Sliver Overlord, to tutor up the combo pieces.
It does well in a number of play group sizes, but is tuned for a four-player game.
The power of this deck is its versatility and resilience.
It can combo off relatively quickly, but features several backup plans and can also fight through a broad range of countermeasures.
However, it can be a difficult deck to pilot.
Many of the cards interact in subtle or non-obvious ways, and most cards serve multiple purposes.
The remainder of this description is a primer on how to play the deck.
Let's start with a high-level overview.
Looking at the High Level Strategy
The game plan for this deck is desceptively straightforward:
- Ramp up to eight total mana, with access to all colors (preferably two sources for each).
- Once you have eight mana available, cast Sliver Overlord and start tutoring up combo pieces or answers as the board state demands.
Eight total mana is a critical number because it's enough to cast the Overlord and use its ability before your next untap step.
It's also enough mana to combo off within 1-2 turns after you cast the Overlord.
We'll talk about how to manage your mana sources in a bit, but first let's go over combo at the heart of the deck.
Once you understand the combo, you'll have a better idea of how to pay for it, accelerate it and defend it.
Dissecting the Combo
If all goes well, you'll be able to assemble the following win combo, which requires four pieces.
This may sound like a lot, but remember that your general is capable of tutoring for them at instant speed.
First you'll need either Gemhide Sliver or Manaweft Sliver to produce mana.
Manaweft is generally slightly better because it only affects your slivers, but this rarely matters in practice.
Next you need either Heart Sliver or Blur Sliver to give your slivers haste.
The biggest difference is that Heart costs less, which is often relevant.
On top of those you need both a Basal Sliver and a Sliver Queen.
These cards are irreplaceable, so if you lose one during the game, you'll have to start working on a backup plan.
With all four pieces on the board, you have an infinite any-color mana and infinite hasty slivers combo.
It works like this:
- - Activate Sliver Queen's ability to produce a 1/1 sliver token.
- Tap the sliver token for one mana of any color (thanks to Manaweft and Heart slivers).
- Sacrifice the sliver token to Basal Sliver's ability, adding to your mana pool.
- Invest the back into Sliver Queen to restart the cycle.
At the beginning of this cycle, if you don't have , you can sacrifice your Sliver Overlord to Basal Sliver's ability to kickstart things.
You can always recast the Overlord from the Command Zone.
With your unlimited mana, you can now create an army of hasty sliver tokens and swing in for the win.
If for any reason you can't attack, use the Overlord's ability to tutor up Acidic Sliver.
Now you can sacrifice sliver tokens to deal direct damage to your opponents.
If you don't have access to Acidic Sliver, you can use Necrotic Sliver to blow up any permanents that are causing you trouble, or Mindlash Sliver to empty all of your opponents' hands.
Faced with this board position, most opponents will concede.
Paying For the Combo
This is all well and good, but how much will it cost?
It depends a lot on the game state and what other tools you've been able to assemble, so I like to think about it from the baseline case.
Imagine you have no cards in hand and your Overlord is in the Command Zone.
What would it take to combo off?
Let's break down the numbers, step by step.
First, to cast the Overlord from the Command Zone costs you .
To get a mana sliver, you'll need for the tutor cost and for the sliver, a total of .
Likewise, to get the Heart Sliver you'll need a total of .
At this point you could start tapping your slivers for mana, but it makes more sense to hold off since your lands likely only tap for one or two colors, but slivers are good for any.
So instead, pay to tutor for the Basal Sliver and to cast it.
Next, pay to search for Sliver Queen.
Tap your four slivers currently on the board (Overlord, Manaweft, Heart, and Basal) for , then sacrifice your Overlord to the Basal Sliver's ability for .
Spend to cast Sliver Queen with floating.
You need just more to activate Sliver Queen's ability and kickstart the combo cycle, so tap the Sliver Queen itself for one mana of any color.
At this point you have all the combo pieces on the board and mana to get it going.
Let's recap the costs:
- - Cast Overlord from Command Zone.
- , - Tutor for and cast Manaweft Sliver or Gemhide Sliver.
- , - Tutor for and cast Heart Sliver.
- , - Tutor for and cast Basal Sliver.
- - Tutor for Sliver Queen.
Total Cost: 24 mana, broken down as .
This may seem like a tall order, but it's achievable over several turns.
For example, say you have eight mana available on the turn you cast the Overlord (call this combo turn 1), you can tutor for the Manaweft Sliver at the end of your last opponent's turn.
On your next turn (combo turn 2), you cast the Manaweft Sliver, tutor and cast Heart Sliver and still have mana to tutor again at the end of your last opponent's turn.
On your next turn (combo turn 3), finish assembling the combo and win.
Managing Your Mana Sources
Since the combo requires a rich combination of colors to pull off, you'll need to be smart about how you play and search for lands.
The mana base contains one of each fetch land and one of each shock land.
It's likely that in your opening hand, or within a few draws, you'll have encountered at least one of each (or both).
This raises the question of the order in which they should be played.
Generally speaking, you need green mana earliest in the game.
The ramp spells all need green, and they allow you to search up other colors as needed.
You should seek to have at least two green sources, three if possible.
Beyond that, you need at least one source of each color of mana, two to three is better.
Life generally doesn't matter, so don't be afraid to shock yourself to have lands come into play untapped.
Mechanics like Dethrone and play-group etiquette will rebalance life totals, so hitting yourself early tends to work out fine.
Having said all of that, you generally want to play and crack fetch lands last, all other things being equal.
As the game goes on, you'll be drawing cards, and since the deck is land heavy, you don't want to waste time fetching any color of land that you naturally draw.
Practice drawing example hands and think about what order you'd play the lands and other cards.
Nearly every other card in the deck can be seen as a means of accelerating towards paying for the combo, either by adding more mana directly, or by reducing costs.
All of the ramp spells (Rampant Growth, Sol Ring, Sakura-Tribe Elder, etc.) fall into this category.
Let's look at a few of the key enabling cards and how they work.
Accelerating the Combo
Ramp spells and cost reduction spells like Urza's Incubator are relatively easy to understand.
But for some it's a bit tricky to figure out.
We'll start with the easiest case.
Training Grounds
Perhaps the easiest cost-reducing card to analyze is Training Grounds.
It reduces the cost of both the Overlord's tutor ability and Sliver Queen's token creation ability.
Assuming you have Training Grounds in hand, and the Overlord in the Command Zone, your total cost structure looks like this:
- - Cast Training Grounds.
- - Cast Overlord from Command Zone.
- , - Tutor for and cast Manaweft Sliver or Gemhide Sliver.
- , - Tutor for and cast Heart Sliver.
- , - Tutor for and cast Basal Sliver.
- - Tutor for Sliver Queen.
For an initial investment of , you cut off of the tutor costs, for a net reduction of seven mana.
This means you only need 17 mana () instead of 24 to combo off.
With eight mana available, and a land to play on the second turn, it takes only two turns to combo off.
- On combo turn 1, cast Overlord, Training Grounds and tutor up Manaweft Sliver and Heart Sliver.
- On combo turn 2, play a land, then tutor up Basal Sliver and Sliver Queen, cast everything and win.
If you don't have a land to play on combo turn 2, you'll be short.
You may want to delay the whole plan in that case, depending on the board state.
Mana Echoes
Mana Echoes is a little tricker to work with than Training Grounds, because it changes the dynamics of what you need to combo off.
Since Mana Echoes adds colorless mana for each sliver that hits the board, it takes the place of Basal Sliver, but makes color calculations more difficult.
Let's assume you have Mana Echoes in hand, and the Overlord in the Command Zone.
Your cost structure looks like this:
- - Cast Mana Echoes.
- - Cast Overlord from Command Zone (float ).
- , - Tutor for and cast Sliver Queen (float ).
- Invest in Sliver Queen to make a 1/1 token, producing (repeat indefinitely).
At this point, you have an unlimited supply of colorless mana and 1/1 sliver tokens.
For more, you can give them haste by tutoring up Heart Sliver or Blur Sliver.
Total cost: 17 as
The downside of this plan is that it costs .
You can get there over a couple of turns, but you'll need at least nine mana on combo turn one, three of which is red.
Here's an alternative Mana Echoes strategy that's slightly less red-heavy:
- - Cast Mana Echoes.
- - Cast Overlord from Command Zone (float ).
- , - Tutor for and cast Plated Sliver (float ).
- , - Tutor for and cast Galerider Sliver (float ).
- - Tutor for and cast Metallic Sliver (float ).
- - Tutor for and cast Manaweft Sliver (float ).
- - Tutor for and cast Basal Sliver (float ).
Total cost to here: 17 as
At this point, you have floating, and the Basal Sliver lets you convert earlier stepping stone slivers into .
So now you can:
- Sacrifice the Metallic Sliver for (floating ).
- Tutor for and cast Mindlash Sliver (float + from before).
- Tutor for and cast Clot Sliver (float + from before).
- Sacrifice Plated Sliver for (floating ).
- Tutor for and cast Syphon Sliver (float + from before).
At this point, you have 6 slivers and floating, with Mindlash Sliver online.
By sacrificing any combination of slivers (except the Basal Sliver, which is irreplaceable), you can trigger Mindlash Sliver enough times to empty everyone's hand.
This should be enough protection to make it to your next turn, where you can combo off.
Aluren
Aluren is one of the best cards in the deck since it acts both as an accelerant and as a flash enabler.
Comboing off with Aluren is quite easy, if you have enough life.
Let me explain.
Presuming you have Aluren in hand, and the Overlord in the Command Zone, your payment outlook is as follows:
- - Cast Aluren.
- - Cast Overlord from Command Zone.
- - Tutor for Manaweft Sliver or Gemhide Sliver.
- - Tutor for Heart Sliver or Blur Sliver.
- Cast Manaweft Sliver and Heart Sliver for free off of the Aluren ability.
- Tap Overlord, Manaweft and Heart for three mana of any color, tutor for Hibernation Sliver.
At this point, you have Hibernation Sliver in hand, and Aluren, Overlord, Manaweft and Heart on the board.
This allows you to perform the following sequence of actions:
- Cast Hibernation Sliver for free off of the Aluren ability.
- Tap Hibernation Sliver for a mana of any color.
- Pay 2 life: Return Hibernation sliver to your hand.
In effect, you can now Pay 2 life for one mana of any color.
So to complete the combo:
- Pay 6 life - Add three many of any color to your mana pool, tutor for Basal Sliver.
- Cast Basal Sliver for free with Aluren's ability.
- Pay 6 life - Add three mana of any color to your mana pool, tutor for Sliver Queen.
- Tap Basal Sliver for (float ).
- Sacrifice Overloard to Basal Sliver's ability for (float ).
- Pay 4 life, leave Hibernation Sliver on the battlefield tapped - Add to your mana pool (floating ).
- Cast Sliver Queen (floating ).
- Tap Sliver Queen for a mana of any color (floating ).
Now you have the whole combo online, with in the mana pool to create a 1/1 sliver token and begin the cycle.
Total cost: 15 mana as and 16 life.
Ashnod's Altar and Lightning Greaves
Ashnod's Altar acts as a stand-in for Basal Sliver, but produces rather than .
It also allows you to sacrifice any early non-combo slivers as necessary to get the combo online.
Lightning Greaves can act as a stand-in for Heart/Blur sliver, since you can move it between slivers in order to tap them for mana.
Of course you can also use it to protect your commander in the turns leading up to combo time.
Summoner's Pact
Using Summoner's Pact is a little weird.
Although it's an instant, you most likely want to play it on your own turn, reducing your search costs by .
