*The Queen chitters with joy as her long-lost servant walks once again into the royal chambers*
I got the idea a few days ago. My brother helped organize a huge event, with several tournaments happening on the same day. There was a Commander tournament even. Regrettably, it flopped - very few people showed up - but one thing the whole shebang left me with was the nagging feeling my decklists don't measure well against a tier-1 general such as, say, Narset or Zur.
So, I decided to start the other way around. Pick winning conditions first, and select staples to support them next.
Added Cream of the Crop to the useful cards list. The THINGS you can do with it!
On an aside, I think I'm going to take apart my current deck and rebuild it, but with a particular idea in mind. What do you think would make good winning conditions among all of the cards I've listed on the decks and the useful card lists? Feel free to add anything I missed.
@iliurgul - Yeah, well, merging my old forums account with a Twitch one wrecked something with my prefs so I missed a ton of stuff. That's fixed already so I'll be around again, ready to collect wisdom and share it with my fellow servants of the Hive.
Added your suggestions to the useful cards list. Shame, shame, shame on me for missing Bring to Light, especially when it's a card I've been using myself.
Hold on a sec here, who's been fiddling with my alerts settings? Thought there was no news here, then I stop by and there's all this going on. What a pleasant surprise.
@gvazdaus: Teferi's Protection is good enough that it warrants packing a Boseiju, Who Shelters All. I've been toying myself recently with Triumph of the Hordes. I've been wanting to build a decent multiplayer infect deck for years but it's simply not viable. There are more slivers than critters with infect. I'm still making sacrifices to Yawgmoth now and then, hoping that he will bless us servants of the Hive with an infecting sliver...
@Outcryqq: Apologies for missing this. Also, many thanks for your kind words. I'm a sucker for praise, truth be told
I had also completely missed Kindred Discovery. I'll add it to the useful cards list for now until I can test it live.
I've played nothing but slivers for years on EDH and, to be honest, regeneration has failed to work out consistently for me, even if the meta has never remained constant for long. If I were to pack one, I'd go for Sedge Sliver, since it also packs a buff, and it's been a rare day when I've been short on black mana.
I may be wrong and, once again, it could be that my meta is influencing me too much. I wouldn't rule it out, but slivers is all I do. Hope you find it useful.
I don't have anything to say about the Bow of Nylea vs Venom Sliver that Mockingbird hasn't already said, myself - including the single useful effect we can get out of the Bow. It's probably a mistake on my part but I try to look for solutions within the sliver toolbox because tutoring.
Mind's Eye is something I'm going to try out - it's like a reverse Rhystic Study, which means it shouldn't be anywhere as annoying - and it should have some more staying power. That said, in a multiplayer environment, and given the surplus of mana you're usually expected to have, it's a source of card advantage the enemy will quickly learn to target.
Triumph of the Hordes is definitely on my wantlist. Everyone's life total reduced to 10 for one turn? Sign me up. Damn, I wish I had considered it in detail myself. Props to you, blackcat.
I'm considering to once again fill my present build with countermagic, especially since once both Sliver Hivelord and Crystalline Sliver land only a few choice WMDs can really get the table rid of the swarm - stuff like Merciless Eviction or Ixidron, for instance.
Loving Rishkar's Expertise. Draw a ton of cards and cast a sliver lord you just had drawn with the expertise, or fetched in EoT the turn before... seems pretty good.
I have tried that approach before. The INSANELY HIGH aggro factor of slivers ended up ruining my day. I'll refer to my last match: I had the Overlord in play, and on a given turn I cast both a mana sliver and the flash sliver. They didn't make it to the next round, and I got my mana rocks blown up for my trouble.
Your meta will heavily influence the success or failure of your strategies all the time, but even so, I've consistently found out that people is RIDICULOUSLY SCARED of slivers. With good reason, I should add.
Now, regarding your comments about mana doublers being 'win more' cards: you may have a point. Those cards ended up having a spot on my deck after I was consistently confronted with the fact that either I deployed most or all of my key pieces at the same time, or I would never get to deploy then at all. Maybe your experience is different; if that's the case, share your wisdom with us and tell us how you got it to work
Something doubling all your ETB fun? Yay, by all means. Just get a lightning rod or something. Goes without saying that you'll have to more or less stuff you hive fleet with strains that profit from it.
Found a couple of interesting lands to add to the useful cards list: Arena and Path of Ancestry.
I got the idea a few days ago. My brother helped organize a huge event, with several tournaments happening on the same day. There was a Commander tournament even. Regrettably, it flopped - very few people showed up - but one thing the whole shebang left me with was the nagging feeling my decklists don't measure well against a tier-1 general such as, say, Narset or Zur.
So, I decided to start the other way around. Pick winning conditions first, and select staples to support them next.
That said, so far I've picked these:
- Mana Echoes - combo with Sliver Queen for infinite tokens
- Purphoros, God of the Forge - Either synergize with the previous one or go off with Primal Surge
- Sliver Legion - well, duh.
- Triumph of the Hordes - Lots of skittering horrors with infect
On an aside, I think I'm going to take apart my current deck and rebuild it, but with a particular idea in mind. What do you think would make good winning conditions among all of the cards I've listed on the decks and the useful card lists? Feel free to add anything I missed.
Added your suggestions to the useful cards list. Shame, shame, shame on me for missing Bring to Light, especially when it's a card I've been using myself.
@gvazdaus: Teferi's Protection is good enough that it warrants packing a Boseiju, Who Shelters All. I've been toying myself recently with Triumph of the Hordes. I've been wanting to build a decent multiplayer infect deck for years but it's simply not viable. There are more slivers than critters with infect. I'm still making sacrifices to Yawgmoth now and then, hoping that he will bless us servants of the Hive with an infecting sliver...
I had also completely missed Kindred Discovery. I'll add it to the useful cards list for now until I can test it live.
I've played nothing but slivers for years on EDH and, to be honest, regeneration has failed to work out consistently for me, even if the meta has never remained constant for long. If I were to pack one, I'd go for Sedge Sliver, since it also packs a buff, and it's been a rare day when I've been short on black mana.
I may be wrong and, once again, it could be that my meta is influencing me too much. I wouldn't rule it out, but slivers is all I do. Hope you find it useful.
- Cryptolith Rite
- Engineered Explosives
- Paradox Engine
Mind's Eye is something I'm going to try out - it's like a reverse Rhystic Study, which means it shouldn't be anywhere as annoying - and it should have some more staying power. That said, in a multiplayer environment, and given the surplus of mana you're usually expected to have, it's a source of card advantage the enemy will quickly learn to target.
Triumph of the Hordes is definitely on my wantlist. Everyone's life total reduced to 10 for one turn? Sign me up. Damn, I wish I had considered it in detail myself. Props to you, blackcat.
I'm considering to once again fill my present build with countermagic, especially since once both Sliver Hivelord and Crystalline Sliver land only a few choice WMDs can really get the table rid of the swarm - stuff like Merciless Eviction or Ixidron, for instance.
Loving it too. I'll have to get one for me.
Your meta will heavily influence the success or failure of your strategies all the time, but even so, I've consistently found out that people is RIDICULOUSLY SCARED of slivers. With good reason, I should add.
Now, regarding your comments about mana doublers being 'win more' cards: you may have a point. Those cards ended up having a spot on my deck after I was consistently confronted with the fact that either I deployed most or all of my key pieces at the same time, or I would never get to deploy then at all. Maybe your experience is different; if that's the case, share your wisdom with us and tell us how you got it to work