Topic: Sliver Surfer - an all out slivers deck

I made this deck because I came home with about a half dozen slivers from my first booster draft a few weeks ago.  And in play, they were just too fun not to base a deck on.  So I built this deck because I think it will be fun. 4 colors. We'll see if it holds up at FNM.  A sliver-strong booster draft deck put me in second place tonight when I "should" have had first place. 

Comments are welcome.  I have a couple more Bonescythe Slivers and a couple of Syphon Slivers in the mail.  Have to go 5 color at that point for the syphons.

Before anyone comments on my guild gates and land setup: I know that shock lands would be much better.  I ain't gonna spend the money.  I'm cheap.  I would appreciate anyone's analysis of my mana curve and quantity of lands, though.

4 Galerider Sliver
3 Striking Sliver
4 Manaweft Sliver (gotta have in a 5 color sliver deck)
4 Predatory Sliver
3 Sentinel Sliver
2 Blur Sliver
1 Chromatic Lantern
1Darksteel Ingot
1 Hive Stirrings
3 Sliver Construct
2 Steelform Sliver
1 Bonescythe Sliver
2 Battle Sliver
3 Thorncaster Sliver
3 Megantic Sliver
1 Groundshaker Sliver
2 Azorius Guildgate
1 Boros Guildgate
4 Gruul Guildgate
1 Island
1 Izzet Guildgate
3 Mountain
1 Plains
4 Selesnya Guildgate
4 Simic Guildgate
1 Stomping Ground

Sideboard:

1 Dispel
2Pacifism
1 Spell Rupture
1 Five-Alarm Fire
1 Safe Passage
2 Solemn Offering
2 Trollhide
2 Congregate
2 Scatter Arc
1 Sleep

Re: Sliver Surfer - an all out slivers deck

Tell us a little more about your FNM environment?  How tough is it?  Do you see teir 1 decks?  have you been to an FNM before?  I'm going to base my advice around your FNM being at least moderately competitive.  Something like 20 people, a quarter playing tier 1, tier 2, "good stuff" home brews and the last quarter like yours, beginners on a budget theme or event deck.

5 color decks without mana fixing will be very very VERY rough to play.  The fact that you can't (wont?) be able to get shocks or duals of any kind will also absolutely murder your tempo.  You're looking at playing your first card on turn 3 if you draw all gates and 2 drops.   I would very Stronglyrecommend you cut the colors down so you can include some basics to help your tempo.

I think there could be a tier 2.5(?) sliver deck, but it needs to be like GW focused with Hive Stirrings to generate sliver tokens and elves instead of manaswift.  You need the turn one elf so you can ramp into your 3 drops on turn 2 and your 4-5 drops on turn 3-4.  Slivers are an aggro deck and you need to be faster to get under peoples midrange/control decks.  A turn 2 hive stirrings followed by a turn 3 double predatory sliver could net 6 damage easy.  That being said it'll still be a struggle against a tier 1 deck.

Consider this

Creatures 23
4 Mystic elf
2 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Predatory Sliver
2 Sentinel Sliver
4 Steal Form Sliver
4 Bone Scythe Sliver
3 Megnatic Sliver

Spells 14
4 Hive Sitirings
3 Rancor
2 Selesnya Charm
2 Rootborn Defense
3 Unflinching Courage

Land 23
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Temple Garden
4 Sunpetal Grove
2 Gavony Township
6 Forest
6 Plains

Ignore the lands for this paragraph.   The thing about this decklist to take note of is it would be a lot more consistent than your current build.  I would suggest putting your deck and a similar deck to the one I suggested into deck box and using the statistics tool to see which one gets better draws and if you played out the hand (with no opponent) which ones are more consistent.  If  you analyze the cards and the mana base I would bet all the cards in my inventory you get more consistent hands with my suggested build. 

I'm not saying copy my build I'm just providing it for reference so you can compare.  Trying to give you the benefit of some of my experience.  A 5 color home brew sliver theme deck probably won't win an FNM or even do very good against a tournament tested deck.  Not wanting to buy the lands is hurting your chances of having a consistent decks there's really no substitute for them.  If you plan on continuing to play tournament magic you _need_ to pick the lands for the colors you want to play, and you will continue to hear this from just about everyone as long as you want to go to FNMs and build 2 or more color decks.

Last edited by elpablo (2013-08-15 14:02:53)

Re: Sliver Surfer - an all out slivers deck

I'm going to second elpablo's suggestion that you narrow the color spectrum for your deck.  For whatever reason, the M14 slivers might as well be from a Naya shard than something five color.  Without all stars like Sliver Queen, Sliver Legion, and Sliver Overlord, there really aren't reasons to slide in those extra two colors.

This is a ROUGH build I've pieced together that would focus on all post-rotation viable sliver pieces (and lord knows what Theros will give us in these colors).

Creatures
3 Elvish Mystic
4 Manaweft Sliver
4 Predatory Sliver
3 Sentinel Sliver
3 Blur Sliver
4 Bonescythe Sliver
2 Battle Sliver

Instants and Sorceries
3 Hive Stirrings
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Shock
2 Celestial Flare

Planeswalkers
3 Domri Rade

Artifacts
2 Door of Destinies

Enchantments
1 Collective Blessing
1 Primeval Bounty

Land
4 Forest
2 Mountain
3 Plains
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Stomping Ground
4 Temple Garden

Now I'm not saying this is an optimal build by any stretch of the imagination, but you'll note that it has some added diversity to help out your plan.  I think it's an easy mistake to make to simply slide in all slivers and nothing else, but you will encounter creatures or other things that you simply have no answer for in your current setup.

Lands aside, here are some thoughts on the archetype:

1) You're still sitting on a pretty creature heavy deck here with 23 creatures, 20 of them being slivers.  The Elvish Mystics are really just meant to offer another mana accelerator and they could easily be replaced with some lands or other spells/slivers.

2) Realistically, you are going to run into threats on their side of the board that you will have to answer.  Whether it be Olivia Voldaren, a planeswalker, or something else, if you go the 100% slivers route, you have no means to deal with their board threats.  Simply put, I could see Angel of Serenity, Kalonian Hydra, or even Archangel of Thune single-handedly taking you down.  The addition of some point removal is critical.  In this build I've proposed you have a variety of options ranging from Shock for disruption, Celestial Flare for larger threats or hexproof creatures, and Mizzium Mortars for larger threats.  Keep in mind these are by no means the only options available... the sky is the limit, but you NEED at least some versatility.

3) Personally, I'm not a believer in the slivers that cost more than four or five mana.  Giving them all trample might be nice and all, but you could be doing more for seven mana than just playing Groundshaker Sliver (if you're needing trample that much, Skarrg Guildmage is out there... and there are other options).  Further, Megantic Sliver works wonders in limited, but in a constructed environment, it will get wiped out more often than it will do any good.  Rather, what I suggest are a few six drops that are in your colors that will have a bit more effect.  Collective Blessing is the exact same thing as Megantic Sliver, but it's an enchantment, making it harder to deal with.  Further, Primeval Bounty creates a card advantage engine that the opponent likely won't be able to overcome... it will turn that t7 Manaweft Sliver into a larger threat with an added 3/3 beast token, late land drops become life gain, and your removal will serve to further pump your slivers.  I just see this as the sort of answer to drawn out games much like Assemble the Legion has been in some upper tiered decks.  Again, just my two cents lobbying for a card... take it or leave it.  But the key here is to be making some more headway when you're spending 5-6 mana rather than just dropping a sliver who will get blasted immediately.

4) I really do think Domri Rade really works in any sliver deck... he creates added card draws and offers spot removal.  What's not to love here?

5) Door of Destinies... tribal deck and you're not running at least 1-2 of these?

Anyway, I'll leave it up to you to decide what to take or leave from this proposed build, but the key things to think about when running with slivers is to reduce your colors to improve consistency, add some non-sliver cards to increase your versatility and flexability to deal with other threats, and rethink the top of your curve.

Best luck with it!

Re: Sliver Surfer - an all out slivers deck

Thanks for all the good advice.  I'll play around with this a bit. 

I was originally thinking 3 colors (w/g/r).  The only reason I splashed blue was to get the galeriders in there against flying-heavy decks.  I've definitely had a few matches (not this deck, but concept is still valid) where I just had to keep taking hits because I had no defense against flying.   I suppose that is why you have the Shocks, Mortars and Celestial Flare's.  Throwing some Plummet's on the sideboard might not be a bad idea, as well as maybe some Gift of Orzhova and Windstorm or Thunderbolt.  Just thinking about the cards I have available...(no mortars in my collection yet). 

Otherwise, most of the good slivers are in w/g/r anyway.  I can see the advantage of losing blue, for sure.  It's a shame that Black and Blue each only have one sliver to add to the sliver tribe, or other color combos would be more viable.  Maybe theros will throw out a few more blue or black slivers. 

I was also thinking that the 4x manaweft sliver along with 4xHive Stirrings and some TrollHides might make for a strong base of any color mana from creatures that are hard to remove.  Seems like that could make for a pretty strong 4 or 5 color deck.  I'm not knocking the elvish mystics, though.  Green decks with an elf on the first draw definitely hit the ground running fast.   

I have 1 domri rade to throw in (was already considering that), and door of destinies sounds like a good fit too (I don't have any, though).   Picked up a Primeval Bounty as part of last weeks booster draft prize pool, and I agree it should go in. 

I'm finding that this deck wants to share a lot of cards with my w/g weenie token deck.

Now if I can just get my wife to buy me some shock lands for my birthday.....