Sliver Hive

[TheWhiteDragon]

Sliver Hive
Land

T: add 1 to your mana pool.
T: add 1 naba of any color to your mana pool. Use this mana only to cast sliver spells.
5T: put a 1/1 sliver token into play.

Apparently WotC REALLY wants Slivers to be a deck.  It's painless city of brass for slivers.  With all the good slivers out there and an EASILY made rainbow base with this and Mana Confluence, can Slivers be an actual deck?

[JPoJohnson]

In an eternal format? Pffft.

They're still rainbow Merfolk in my eyes and because of that fact will always lag behind them as an aggro deck. In standard... I guess we'll see what is spoiled from this point on.

[Prospero]

As an aside, how about the fact that slivers went back to being slivers in this art, and don't look like they're predators anymore?  I approve. 

Sometimes the simple things are nice because they're simple.  I like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. 

[AmbivalentDuck]

It's sort of interesting that you can run this and Cavern of Souls. Not sure these nonbasics are anything near on par with Island and its support for Daze. If they print a 1 cmc Muscle Sliver, you could probably do this concept. But what can they offer that's good enough for Vintage? Patron Sliver? Trygon Sliver? Snapcaster Sliver? Dark Confisliver?

[Protoaddict]

Slivers have one big big benefit over Merfolk, and that is harmonic sliver. It is absolutely brutal in the shops matchup.

While this land, combined with cavern of souls provides slivers with an amazing mana base, that is really not what they needed. Since they are not using islands they lose access to gush and daze and only have force to counter things, but that means they need to up their blue card count to make it matter enough for force which makes the rainbow land a lot less important in the first place.

If they had a counter sliver and a viable draw sliver, i think they would become a deck, but what are the odds that would not be a base blue deck and what the hell could they ever do to surpass merfolk?

[JarofFortune]

I tried making slivers work semi-recently. I agree about it being a worse menfolk. I had a lot of trouble with the blue count for Fow. They also have the disadvantage of not having lords that give both an anthem and evasion in one.   Of course, if they make some new printings like Duck mentioned, things could change.

[Saya]

How about sacrificing Sliver Hive for Aggressive Mining?

[gkraigher]

In all seriousness, you have 12 "lord"/muscle slivers at 2.  There is also the first strike sliver at 1 and the flying man sliver at 1.  The deck is getting reasonable.  The lifelink slivers are very good against creature based match-ups.  Harmonic sliver is an absolute house.  

This card seems very reasonable for eternal play to me.  

Why do you need force of will?  There are plenty of powerful decks that don't run that card.  You can still run mental misstep, and easily play spell pierce.  

sinew sliver
muscle sliver
predatory sliver
striking sliver
galeride sliver
syphon sliver

The comparison to merfolk is fair, and merfolk still has the leg up because it can access force, the lords all start as 2/2s and the deck has access to the second best 1 drop creature of all time, cursecatcher.   (Delver is superior)

[vaughnbros]

Slivers have no efficient disruption outside of harmonic.  When they start printing hate slivers then they can be a competitive creature type.  Right now they are bad Merfolk.  I have to playing a flying sliver and a muscle sliver to get evasion and +1/+1 whereas Merfolk can achieve that on 1 lord.  The one benefit they have is you can play a ramp deck with them, but with no good disrupters it's hard to get to that point.

[Samoht]

In all seriousness, you have 12 "lord"/muscle slivers at 2.  There is also the first strike sliver at 1 and the flying man sliver at 1.  The deck is getting reasonable.  The lifelink slivers are very good against creature based match-ups.  Harmonic sliver is an absolute house.  

This card seems very reasonable for eternal play to me.  

Why do you need force of will?  There are plenty of powerful decks that don't run that card.  You can still run mental misstep, and easily play spell pierce.  

sinew sliver
muscle sliver
predatory sliver
striking sliver
galeride sliver
syphon sliver

The comparison to merfolk is fair, and merfolk still has the leg up because it can access force, the lords all start as 2/2s and the deck has access to the second best 1 drop creature of all time, cursecatcher.   (Delver is superior)

Deathrite Shaman wants to have a word with you. So does Goblin Welder. Even Gorilla Shaman is a little miffed.

[JarofFortune]

Ok, I think that we've all vastly underestimated this card's Vintage Potential. Consider this game vs Oath. The Sliver Hive Deck is on the Play.


T1: Play mana Crypt, Mox Jet, Spellbook, Black Lotus, Mox Sapphire, Mox Pearl, Crack Lotus for Timetwister. Play Lion's eye diamond, Skullclamp, Lotus,  Basilisk Collar, and expedition map. Crack for Tolarian Academy and play it. Pass the turn.

Oath T1: Black Lotus, Oath of druids with a forbidden orchard untapped. Pass the turn.

T2: Play Sliver Hive. Tap academy for 10 mana, make a token, equip it with skull clamp, draw 2. Play Frantic Search, Your opponent Force of Wills. YOu use the last of your academy mana and the mana from crypt to cast rewind. Untap Academy and Hive, make another token with 5 mana floating. Frantic Search Resolves. Untap your lands, make another token, equip it, untag again with cloud of faeries. Do this 3 more times with Cloud of faeries, and equip your faeries with clamp as well.

Now comes the kill. PLay Great Whale. Untap your lands.   Play great whale, untag your lands. Do this 2 more times. Then drop mox emerald, and play concordant crossroads. Swing for Lethal.

I quickly encountered a problem with Wasteland decks, but I believed I have solved it with Akroan Horses in the sideboard. They allow you to gain incremental advantage with your clamps, until you can play you your Great Whales.

The main problem with evaluating this card was that we looked at it from a sliver tribal standpoint, and not from the viewpoint of a combo deck using a win condition that once had power level errata.

Get your copies now, Wizards has made a huge mistake in printing this card!

[Samoht]

Ok, I think that we've all vastly underestimated this card's Vintage Potential. Consider this game vs Oath. The Sliver Hive Deck is on the Play.


T1: Play mana Crypt, Mox Jet, Spellbook, Black Lotus, Mox Sapphire, Mox Pearl, Crack Lotus for Timetwister. Play Lion's eye diamond, Skullclamp, Lotus,  Basilisk Collar, and expedition map. Crack for Tolarian Academy and play it. Pass the turn.

Oath T1: Black Lotus, Oath of druids with a forbidden orchard untapped. Pass the turn.

T2: Play Sliver Hive. Tap academy for 10 mana, make a token, equip it with skull clamp, draw 2. Play Frantic Search, Your opponent Force of Wills. YOu use the last of your academy mana and the mana from crypt to cast rewind. Untap Academy and Hive, make another token with 5 mana floating. Frantic Search Resolves. Untap your lands, make another token, equip it, untag again with cloud of faeries. Do this 3 more times with Cloud of faeries, and equip your faeries with clamp as well.

Now comes the kill. PLay Great Whale. Untap your lands.   Play great whale, untag your lands. Do this 2 more times. Then drop mox emerald, and play concordant crossroads. Swing for Lethal.

I quickly encountered a problem with Wasteland decks, but I believed I have solved it with Akroan Horses in the sideboard. They allow you to gain incremental advantage with your clamps, until you can play you your Great Whales.

The main problem with evaluating this card was that we looked at it from a sliver tribal standpoint, and not from the viewpoint of a combo deck using a win condition that once had power level errata.

Get your copies now, Wizards has made a huge mistake in printing this card!

Palinchron. I just made your deck better. KKTHXBAI

[gkraigher]

So I had a small oversight on deathrite shaman.  Very minor (wink), cursecatcher is 3rd best. 

[AmbivalentDuck]

Let's stop the joking around: Snapcaster Sliver and Dark Confisliver in M15 would shake up the meta and the deck that played them would play Cavern of Souls. The real question is whether or not it would run one of these even if those two got printed.

Ie. Does some unforeseen overpowered Sliver get this played over Caverns or duals/fetches? I don't think you'd ever run Hive #1 over Cavern #4. You'd need a crazy Sliver density to edge out duals, too.

[gkraigher]

Your absolutely right that cavern is always better than this, but a 5 color deck could also find room for wasteland/strip mine with rainbow lands like this.  That's what allows slivers to catch up with other tribal decks.  

Apparently, there will be a series of uncommon slivers and a mythic sliver in the set.  I'd imagine the mystic is another 5 color one that is irrelevant for eternal formats, but the uncommons certainly have a chance to be good.  

[TheWhiteDragon]

Discordant Sliver
B
1/1
Slivers you control have "Whenever you cast a sliver spell, target opponent discards a card."

Sliver Spymaster
GU
2/2
Slivers you control have "Whenever this card deals damage to an opponent, draw a card."

Those two right there should do it.

[serracollector]

Are you guys all forgetting Crystalline Sliver?  Show me a merfolk, human, or well, any "lord" other than Eladamri that gives a creature type shroud.

[JPoJohnson]

Are you guys all forgetting Crystalline Sliver?  Show me a merfolk, human, or well, any "lord" other than Eladamri that gives a creature type shroud.

Kira, Great Glass-Spinner gets fairly close... but I think the point is that they don't NEED Crystalline. While it is a powerful creature, it doesn't impact the board state beyond protection when it comes down. Your creatures are still babies and are easily swept away with the lack of counter magic the deck is able to consistently run and use comparably.

[JarofFortune]

 

Discordant Sliver
B
1/1
Slivers you control have "Whenever you cast a sliver spell, target opponent discards a card."

I would immediately switch to slivers if this card were printed. The way you worded it, the triggers stack if you have more slivers. YOu get to mind twist your opponent at the cost of playing creatures. The Edric Sliver is also excellent, and combined the two would create incredibly lopsided board states and hand sizes. Once they discard down to 0, if you don't have a cavern their counter magic is still useless because you can lead with a less important sliver to get rid of their counter. This lets you use your counter spells for business, and with a fast clock.

Edit: These cards would also destroy every format they are legal in.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Edit: These cards would also destroy every format they are legal in.

Which invites the question: do they make it worthwhile to play a 5C sliver land that isn't Cavern to help you resolve Discordant Sliver in the first place?

[JarofFortune]

Edit: These cards would also destroy every format they are legal in.

Which invites the question: do they make it worthwhile to play a 5C sliver land that isn't Cavern to help you resolve Discordant Sliver in the first place?

In the all-creature sliver decks I would just consider this a slight upgrade over Ancient Ziggurat.

[Protoaddict]

Sliver decks problem has never really been mana base. They are also not always going to be 5CC, as I believe most sliver builds in the past were basically bant.

The problem is they just don't do anything that merfolk do better outside of Harmonic. Harmonic is a real thing in vintage, though it prevents you from playing a lot of things that would make sense in slivers like Aether vial.

Lets just say you went traditional build with 4 harmonics. Now bearing in mind that harmonic is not optional, your not going to play artifacts outside of lotus since it sacs itself. So your list is going to be harmonics and pumpers, and your basically going to be W/G beats at that point.

You'll want to add blue for broken stuff, but you'll need a critical mass of blue things and islands a that point to include force or daze or whatever else, making this card much less likely to have real effect or even there being a slot for it. Phantasmal image cannot be played off sliver mana, and that card is a great option for this list.

You do get changelings, so I guess you can run a mirror entity as a wincon and Nameless inversion to kill some things, but really there are not many other things sliver or not out of the bant color scheme that that would really push you into playing 4 or 5 colors anyway.

And then the deck dies to Toxic Deluge anyways.

The deck  does nothing relevant against an early sphere, Dredge, its not faster than merfolk, it has a harder time using blue power, etc. Maybe if they printed something straight up broken for them that no one else had access to, we would see slivers happen. Like a force of will that required you have a sliver on the field and not a card in hand or something.

[shrewarmies]

Slivers did have at least one top 8 in 2013. This card fits cleanly into that deck.

this gives the card a non zero chance of seeing play in the future. This card is not the card that will bifring slivers into the spotlight but this card is a very good inclusion in that deck. If someone chooses to run slivers I would assume that this will be in the deck.  It casts the main slivers as well as vial, helps to fix the manabase which is abysmal. 

Card is playable in slivers, but it des not give a major compelling reason to assume the deck ascends in power to a high degree.

[gkraigher]

Totally agree shrewarmies, this card is not the card that makes slivers playable. 

[Bill Copes]

I'd love to see something like:

YougPyroSliver, or SliverShitter

1UG

2/2

Whenever you cast a sliver spell, put a 1/1 u/g sliver token onto the battlefield.

This would present an actual clock in conjunction with the lords, while still being reasonably fair.

[Protoaddict]

I stand by them needing
- A counter sliver that costs 2 or less (all slivers gain sac this sliver to counter target spell unless its controller pays 2)
- A sliver spell that stands in for the spells your not going to be able to use, like the sliver force of will example
- A grave hate sliver so the deck has an on theme option against dredge

Then, if and only if they are costed right, we may see them see play.

That being said, all this only applies to vintage. I think this card has a home in legacy, not only for a budget list looking to play slivers, but I think that deck can stand on its own in that format between 2 lords, mutavault, a rainbow base and an environment that is not as ruthless as vintage.

[Guli]

A small problem is that you probably want to cast non sliver colored spells too and Cavern+Hive makes it a little problematic. I think with 4 Mana Confluence 2 City and say 3-4 Canopy you could pull it off but it is risky. Maybe 2 mana sliver in addition and it could work. At least Hive does give colorless mana while zigurat doesn't.

Why are you guys talking about potential new prints? Slivers are obviously playable, even in vintage. A good counter wall, the flying sliver with de double striker, the lords, some removal and off you go. Slivers were never ment to be hatebears and don't require much time to finish the game. It is a tempo deck, like Delver, you don't need a strong draw engine, just strong tempo plays.