I dont like to win with creatures because our opponents will have creatures to block and it is harder to win I prefer to win doing damage, so I thought to play pyrite spellbomb + academy ruins
I like blue because Thirst for knowledge, Compulsive research... allow you to improve your hand
If you want to use the spellbomb win-con, you might try using faithless looting and trading post instead of the blue. It's not as powerful draw, but there is the added utility with trading post and getting your hand closer to empty with looting. Also, it leaves you in only two colors, which is easier on the manabase.
I've worked on this deck a little in the past, and one of the cards that always was excellent for me was Trading Post. It lets you empty your hand faster, gain life so you're not as weak to a lock piece getting destroyed, recur destroyed Ensnaring Bridge or Mind Stone to help dig for another win-con, and preserve your life-total better by generating chump-blockers.
The first thing I notice is that you're missing two of your 'other spells,' giving you a 58-card deck. You might look into going up to 60, as I've heard you tend to win more games that way.
It feels like your list can't really make up its mind as to what it wants to be. Generally, Sedge Sliver is at its best in blitzy lists that don't mind the additional volatility of a five-color manabase. However, I'm not sure how blitzy your list can be, since it has no one-drops and only 20 creatures. Also, I'm not really sure what Manaweft Sliver is really doing for you, since your deck tops out at three mana. Aether Vial lets you cheat mana costs while still attacking, but Manaweft Sliver makes you pick between being aggressive and furthering your board development.
A couple questions:
what is the gameplan for this deck? How are you trying to win? How quickly?
How often does your plan come together the way you envision it? Which happens more often, having too much removal or not enough? Too much mana or not enough?
How many games do you lose by being 'one turn too slow?' What do you think could help give you that one extra turn?
How often do you find yourself getting 'out-carded' in the card advantage game? (i.e. how many times do you just 'not have enough gas' to close out a game?) How do those games usually play out?
I think sidewinder sliver and striking sliver are probably similar power levels in terms of 1-drops. The biggest draws of sidewinder, IMO, are that flanking stacks (unlike first strike, though I admit that that's rarely relevant) and that sidewinder sliver is the same color as sinew sliver, so it's easier on the manabase. If you're already playing a full set of bolt, helix, and boros charm then maybe you would want striking sliver instead, but I've been extremely happy with a bant manabase, since it's much more stable and lets me run the 4x Mutavault that give so much reach.
Incidentally, here is the md that I've been testing:
This build tries to play a bit more of a tempo game than a straight blitz list, which gives incidental resilience to mass removal with the countermagic and the ability to 'hold back' a couple lords until the last turn. Additional resilience to targeted removal comes in the form of spellskite and opaline sliver. I'd really love another spellskite, but I'm not sure what I can take out that wouldn't compromise the aggression of the deck too much. I may cut one of the mana leaks for it. This can easily go turn 1 vial, turn 2 lord plus galerider, and then just sit back on disruption while repeatedly bashing for four in the air. Once I figure out a sideboard I think I'll start running this regularly at local modern events.
EDIT: Also, it's easy to set up a good finishing blow by holding back a couple lords until near the end and then playing them out at once to give that surprise boost to finish out a game. Also, the arid mesa are a concession to my only having 1 misty rainforest. I'd much rather run 4x Misty.
Your list actually looks pretty interesting, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to cut blue just yet (which is the biggest source of evasion, and also provides a lot of disruption). I'm also not sure if it's quite fast enough, but I haven't tested it at all so I could be way off base. If you have some good success with it I might be swayed, but I'm going to stick with bant right now, since that's a more familiar feel of slivers for me.
If you have played with Sedge Silver and have access to black, you'll know that it's a house. You wanna be aggressive, and you wanna have resilience. Sedge gives both. Once you untap with Sedge on board, aside from Path, they will have a huge problem. Not having lots of black mana still allows you to recover from a "sweep" quicker.
Okay, I can understand that. I'm still confused by a lot of the lists on this thread that seem to be content running 4 sedge sliver with only a single blood crypt as a black mana source. At best you can only regenerate one guy with it, which has to be the sedge sliver whenever removal comes around, otherwise you're in exactly the same place with regard to your board as if you weren't running the sliver at all. you're basically splashing two additional colors in order to run a lord that says, "if this survives to your next turn, draw a card." Unless I can find a better reason to take a lot more damage from my manabase, I'm not sure it's worth it.
I'm wondering how many people on this thread realize that sedge sliver only gives +1/+1 if you control a swamp. It seems like, unless you're already five colors in a fetch-shock manabase (which I wouldn't recommend), this is the weakest lord you could possibly want.
pochy, I like the inclusion of opaline sliver as added resilience to targeted removal, but the problem I have with your build as such is that it's very draw-dependent. the games where you have turn-1 aether vial and a good mix of creatures and countermagic work amazingly, but there's far too many times where the game doesn't work out that way. slivers can't play a delver-type tempo strategy because we need a critical mass of creatures in play in order to win in a reasonable timeframe.
I was testing a four-color build a little while ago before galerider sliver was spoiled that wasn't quite getting there, and I've re-visited it since and tried to make it more consistent. Starting from your list, I added one land, went up to 4 each of galerider sliver and sidewinder sliver instead of the harmonic slivers, and went down to 3 path to make room for 3 remand, (similar role to mana leak, but it cantrips), 3 sentinel sliver, 2 adaptive automaton (which are mainly there as filler until I can find something better, possibly going to 1 and the 4th sentinel) and 4 lead the stampede.
Honestly, lead the stampede can be pretty insane, since it allows you to use a similar sort of draw engine to the goblins decks in legacy, regularly drawing about 3 cards. It gives additional card advantage for an aggressive deck, and filters out a lot of the chaff (extra aether vial, lands, etc.) that you don't want to be drawing late anyways. It's possible I could see cutting it, because it gives us more 3-drops to try and use and doesn't immediately impact the board unless you have spare mana or an untapped vial, but it's been really good every time I cast it, so I would be kind of sad to see it go.
It seems to me that the best way to play slivers is as a kind of 'merfolk' strategy, where we can stick a few lords (especially with aether vial) and protect them with countermagic or other disruption. One of the things that slivers gives over something like merfolk in modern is much more versatility in terms of the lords that get played as well as the potential for more reach against removal-heavy decks. For example, here is the list I'm going to start tinkering with:
Of note in this build is very few four-ofs, since drawing multiples of most slivers is pretty underwhelming. Also, this deck wants to be able to hold up mana to protect our slivers from removal, so I think aether vial is a must, and thirst for knowledge makes huge gains in mitigating how awful it is to draw multiple vials, as well as being instant-speed draw so we can hold up countermagic or other disruption. I'm not running many (any) mutavaults or caverns because of the fairly tricky non-creature color requirements, though the mana base isn't tuned at all, so I could definitely see adding in those lands at some point, and probably going up to 21-22 lands. There's no green in this build because the extra color is really tough to support, especially in terms of it's gameplan, and green really only gives access to predatory sliver, harmonic sliver, and lead the stampede, which I also think could be absurd in a deck like this, much in the same way that goblin ringleader is really good in legacy goblins.
I would almost certainly not cut blue for green though, because opaline sliver is a major deterrent against targeted removal. I could even see adding the fourth one because this is an ability that does stack with multiple copies, unlike the keyword ones.
i've been splashing red myself. mainboard bolt (not even sure i want this or not. still testing) and sideboard blood moons and maybe artifact hate. though i've yet to decide between destruction and steel sabotage/huryl's. 4 scalding tarns, 2 steam vents. maybe 1 hallowed fountain so i can get 3 on explosives. i don't really see bolt enough to properly judge its impact. but it is nice to get tarn/vents/bolt in your opening hand and they lead off with a deathrite shaman. i'm currently on a 3/3/3 split with vendilion, scion, and mistbind. i'm playing around to see which effect i want the most. scions are definitely nice because they're a removal magnet, letting other things live. sideboard still needs work.
I've really liked the red splash, but I've appreciated it more because it also enables other removal like Izzet charm and Firespout post board as another EE-type effect. I'm also working on whether artifact destruction (ancient grudge) or Steel Sabotage/Hurkyl's recall is more what I'm looking for. let me know what your testing shows, though I think it will depend on how prevalent that mono-U tron deck that's been putting up results on MTGO ends up being.
For the guys playing 4 x Scion: Do the times when you just double-Scion them out of the game outweigh the times when you are stuck with two of them in hand and wish they were "action" cards? I'll assume you're going to say yes otherwise you would have cut down on them, but it's a big worry for me with so little early card draw or manipulation.
Usually it does. I'm on 3 scion right now simply because there isn't room for a 4th, but I find that it's more often that I'll want another fae that can enable a T4 mistbind clique than I end up with 2 scion and nothing else in hand.
What do you guys do against Valakut? It seems to consistently run over me when playing.
Blood Moon and Spellskite really help. The biggest thing to remember is that we have more countermagic than them in the form of SSS, and V. Clique can disrupt their hand pretty easily. Just make sure that you have a response to when they cryptic your blood moon so that you can stick it again before they can scapeshift.
It is a shame that a relevant faerie has not come out but whatever. Our matchup to the meta has improved with a weaken storm and no BBE, however, how do we deal with hate bear. I cannot get a solid win on it. Thalia hurts, loxodon hurts even more and thrun murders me. I can give you guys a decklist if needed but it is a basic U/R fae deck.
What red spells do you have? I'd think that 4x lightning bolt and 2-3x izzet charm, not to mention 4x Spell Snare, would normally be enough to deal with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Loxodon Smiter eats a shackles or even a mana leak if they don't curve out perfectly w/o disruption (i.e. T2 thaila on the play, T3 Smiter once we bolt thalia on our T2). We ven get EE post-board that can kill smiter if you run 1-of Breeding Pool I've also been playing around with 1-of Dismember to see if that helps as an answer to bigger stuff.
Thrun, the Last Troll kind of hurts, but we should be able to race with disruption once we get to 4 mana (mistbind, cryptic to tap, shackles to grab blockers). That's just off the top of my head.
so soul ransom may be a potential sideboard card when they unban bitterblossom. the u/b deck won't be running shackles, and sower is too vulnerable to be played i think. it eschews the weakness of threads and is potential card advantage if they want their creature back. the deck has enough board control that they'll probably need their creature back to accomplish anything.
It's possible, but if they do pay the soul tithe then we'll still have to spend another card dealing with whatever it is that we took in the first place, so it's not always the backbreaking 4-for-1 that some people think it is. (also, since Bitterblossom still hasn't been unbanned, it'll be a lot longer before we get to see if this would be worth it to run)
Any opinions on Faithless Looting? It seems like it's a reasonable way to get some 'digging' without diminishing the effect of Ensnaring Bridge. I've been playing around with 3 Faithless Looting and 1 Idyllic Tutor to help with utility enchantments. It's been pretty good to me so far.
If you want to use the spellbomb win-con, you might try using faithless looting and trading post instead of the blue. It's not as powerful draw, but there is the added utility with trading post and getting your hand closer to empty with looting. Also, it leaves you in only two colors, which is easier on the manabase.
The first thing I notice is that you're missing two of your 'other spells,' giving you a 58-card deck. You might look into going up to 60, as I've heard you tend to win more games that way.
It feels like your list can't really make up its mind as to what it wants to be. Generally, Sedge Sliver is at its best in blitzy lists that don't mind the additional volatility of a five-color manabase. However, I'm not sure how blitzy your list can be, since it has no one-drops and only 20 creatures. Also, I'm not really sure what Manaweft Sliver is really doing for you, since your deck tops out at three mana. Aether Vial lets you cheat mana costs while still attacking, but Manaweft Sliver makes you pick between being aggressive and furthering your board development.
A couple questions:
what is the gameplan for this deck? How are you trying to win? How quickly?
How often does your plan come together the way you envision it? Which happens more often, having too much removal or not enough? Too much mana or not enough?
How many games do you lose by being 'one turn too slow?' What do you think could help give you that one extra turn?
How often do you find yourself getting 'out-carded' in the card advantage game? (i.e. how many times do you just 'not have enough gas' to close out a game?) How do those games usually play out?
Incidentally, here is the md that I've been testing:
2x Cavern of Souls
2x City of Brass
1x Misty Rainforest
3x Arid Mesa
4x Mutavault
1x Breeding Pool
2x Hallowed Fountain
2x Temple Garden
2x Island
1x Plains
4x Galerider Sliver
2x Sidewinder Sliver
1x Spellskite
4x Predatory Sliver
4x Sinew Sliver
3x Phantasmal Image
2x Snapcaster Mage
2x Opaline Sliver
4x Aether Vial
4x Remand
3x Mana Leak
4x Path to Exile
3x Serum Visions
This build tries to play a bit more of a tempo game than a straight blitz list, which gives incidental resilience to mass removal with the countermagic and the ability to 'hold back' a couple lords until the last turn. Additional resilience to targeted removal comes in the form of spellskite and opaline sliver. I'd really love another spellskite, but I'm not sure what I can take out that wouldn't compromise the aggression of the deck too much. I may cut one of the mana leaks for it. This can easily go turn 1 vial, turn 2 lord plus galerider, and then just sit back on disruption while repeatedly bashing for four in the air. Once I figure out a sideboard I think I'll start running this regularly at local modern events.
EDIT: Also, it's easy to set up a good finishing blow by holding back a couple lords until near the end and then playing them out at once to give that surprise boost to finish out a game. Also, the arid mesa are a concession to my only having 1 misty rainforest. I'd much rather run 4x Misty.
Okay, I can understand that. I'm still confused by a lot of the lists on this thread that seem to be content running 4 sedge sliver with only a single blood crypt as a black mana source. At best you can only regenerate one guy with it, which has to be the sedge sliver whenever removal comes around, otherwise you're in exactly the same place with regard to your board as if you weren't running the sliver at all. you're basically splashing two additional colors in order to run a lord that says, "if this survives to your next turn, draw a card." Unless I can find a better reason to take a lot more damage from my manabase, I'm not sure it's worth it.
Am I just missing something?
I was testing a four-color build a little while ago before galerider sliver was spoiled that wasn't quite getting there, and I've re-visited it since and tried to make it more consistent. Starting from your list, I added one land, went up to 4 each of galerider sliver and sidewinder sliver instead of the harmonic slivers, and went down to 3 path to make room for 3 remand, (similar role to mana leak, but it cantrips), 3 sentinel sliver, 2 adaptive automaton (which are mainly there as filler until I can find something better, possibly going to 1 and the 4th sentinel) and 4 lead the stampede.
Honestly, lead the stampede can be pretty insane, since it allows you to use a similar sort of draw engine to the goblins decks in legacy, regularly drawing about 3 cards. It gives additional card advantage for an aggressive deck, and filters out a lot of the chaff (extra aether vial, lands, etc.) that you don't want to be drawing late anyways. It's possible I could see cutting it, because it gives us more 3-drops to try and use and doesn't immediately impact the board unless you have spare mana or an untapped vial, but it's been really good every time I cast it, so I would be kind of sad to see it go.
4x Aether Vial
Creatures:
2x Sidewinder Sliver
4x Sinew Sliver
2x Sentinel Sliver
3x Two-headed Sliver
3x Opaline Sliver
3x Blur Sliver
4x Adaptive Automaton
2x Bonescythe Sliver
1x Bonesplitter Sliver
2x Path to Exile
3x Remand
1x Mana Leak
3x Thirst for Knowledge
2x Boros Charm
1x Legion's Initiative
Lands:
2x Island
2x Plains
1x Mountain
3x Sacred Foundry
2x Hallowed Fountain
3x Steam Vents
3x Arid Mesa
4x Scalding Tarn
Of note in this build is very few four-ofs, since drawing multiples of most slivers is pretty underwhelming. Also, this deck wants to be able to hold up mana to protect our slivers from removal, so I think aether vial is a must, and thirst for knowledge makes huge gains in mitigating how awful it is to draw multiple vials, as well as being instant-speed draw so we can hold up countermagic or other disruption. I'm not running many (any) mutavaults or caverns because of the fairly tricky non-creature color requirements, though the mana base isn't tuned at all, so I could definitely see adding in those lands at some point, and probably going up to 21-22 lands. There's no green in this build because the extra color is really tough to support, especially in terms of it's gameplan, and green really only gives access to predatory sliver, harmonic sliver, and lead the stampede, which I also think could be absurd in a deck like this, much in the same way that goblin ringleader is really good in legacy goblins.
I would almost certainly not cut blue for green though, because opaline sliver is a major deterrent against targeted removal. I could even see adding the fourth one because this is an ability that does stack with multiple copies, unlike the keyword ones.
I've really liked the red splash, but I've appreciated it more because it also enables other removal like Izzet charm and Firespout post board as another EE-type effect. I'm also working on whether artifact destruction (ancient grudge) or Steel Sabotage/Hurkyl's recall is more what I'm looking for. let me know what your testing shows, though I think it will depend on how prevalent that mono-U tron deck that's been putting up results on MTGO ends up being.
Usually it does. I'm on 3 scion right now simply because there isn't room for a 4th, but I find that it's more often that I'll want another fae that can enable a T4 mistbind clique than I end up with 2 scion and nothing else in hand.
Blood Moon and Spellskite really help. The biggest thing to remember is that we have more countermagic than them in the form of SSS, and V. Clique can disrupt their hand pretty easily. Just make sure that you have a response to when they cryptic your blood moon so that you can stick it again before they can scapeshift.
What red spells do you have? I'd think that 4x lightning bolt and 2-3x izzet charm, not to mention 4x Spell Snare, would normally be enough to deal with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Loxodon Smiter eats a shackles or even a mana leak if they don't curve out perfectly w/o disruption (i.e. T2 thaila on the play, T3 Smiter once we bolt thalia on our T2). We ven get EE post-board that can kill smiter if you run 1-of Breeding Pool I've also been playing around with 1-of Dismember to see if that helps as an answer to bigger stuff.
Thrun, the Last Troll kind of hurts, but we should be able to race with disruption once we get to 4 mana (mistbind, cryptic to tap, shackles to grab blockers). That's just off the top of my head.
It's possible, but if they do pay the soul tithe then we'll still have to spend another card dealing with whatever it is that we took in the first place, so it's not always the backbreaking 4-for-1 that some people think it is. (also, since Bitterblossom still hasn't been unbanned, it'll be a lot longer before we get to see if this would be worth it to run)