For this week I had planned redeeming myself for GP: Amsterdam, and bring you some of the action from GP: Massachusetts. Two-Headed Giant Sealed deckbuilding, draft strategy, in-game plays (such as absurd turns or big game swings). Sadly, it’s not going to happen once again. Not only we failed to post the 3-2 score (after the two byes) needed to advance into Day 2, our decks were also very unspectacular, and Shuhei Nakamura and I battled against our own mana in almost all of the games. In the first round we played, for example, I had five Islands and two Plains, when I was Red/Blue splashing White… and Shuhei had Forests and Mountains, when he was Green/Black splashing for Kaervek. Even though I think Two-Headed Giant Sealed is a fun format to play once in a while, I believe it has many flaws for competitive play.
* If one of the players is mana- or color-screwed, it’s almost game over. That’s why Volcanic Awakening is so good, as it shuts down one player. Since there are twice as many players involved in a game, there is twice the chance of someone being mana-screwed. The free mulligan is more than nice. It’s a must in this format. However, I still believe it doesn’t solve the problem.
* I don’t understand why they’re changing the team formats making the team-mates talk more. I loved (and still love) three-on-three Team Rochester, where you couldn’t talk. It was the most skill-intensive format, as Kai Budde, the Phoenix Foundation, and some other elite players showed us. I hate talking being allowed in team formats, as it makes the game last forever. I was very excited with the possibility of being back on the Portuguese National Team this coming year. I’ve been on the Team on the past for three times, but at the time Portugal was a third-world country in regards to the game, and we always finished in the bottom five in the world. Apparently, now Portugal is a “tier 2” nation in the Magic world, and we realistically had a shot at being in the team finals the past two years. However, I felt my home country boys were somehow inexperienced in regards to Team Rochester, and I would love to be back on the team to contribute with my experience. Now it’s announced the team format is 2HG. What can I do for my country now? Share my 1-7 record?
* As a consequence of so much talking and deliberation – because when you’re allowed to talk, it will only make you feel more insecure about a play and rely more on your team-mate’s opinion – there’s not enough time to play the format in anything other than a one-game-per-match framework. Compare this with three-on-three Team Limited, where you had to win two matches in a best of three games. Now you only need a single win to take the whole three points.
* There’s also the Sealed Deck factor. Some of my non-Magic friends think that Sealed Deck is the fairest format there is. As they say, the chances are equal for everyone. But, as I like to answer, some chances are more equal than others.
* Cheating is also easier because one of the players might be distracting the opponents, to cover the cheating team-mate. Of course, what usually happens is that players from the same team distract themselves by arguing, talking, and communicating in a way so their opponents can’t notice… and they’re so into it that their opponents can do whatever they want. Language can also be a drawback or a huge advantage, but I guess nothing can be done. If English were implemented as the only official language at the table, there would be some teams that couldn’t communicate at all. (Once again, the solution would be to reduce the talking.)
Please bring back everyone’s favorite team format: three-on-three Limited.
After adding some more spice to the debate over such a controversial format, I’ll now move on to the main course of this week’s article. Before Grand Prix: Massachusetts I did some 2HG drafts with many different team-mates, including Frederico Bastos, Bernardo da Costa Cabral, Masashi Oiso, John Pelcak, and Shuhei Nakamura. With such a short period of time to prepare, I could only come up with four different strategies to draft 2HG, and I’m now going to share them with you.
* Draft the two best cards in the pack. If this proves to be a valid strategy and not only an emergency one, then 2HG draft is no better than Sealed.
* Draft G/W creatures with Thrill of the Hunt, and U/B control with Mystical Teachings. Red is the easiest color to splash because all the spells worth splashing cost only one Red, and Green/White usually has the fixers for it.
* Draft G/R aggro and U/W control, two of the more classic draft strategies. This was suggested by Shuhei as we could ignore black this way, arguably the weakest color for Limited at this time, and it also makes some of the best creatures in the format a lot weaker against us, like Mire Boa and Viscid Lemures… and even Bog Serpent.
* Draft Slivers. Actually, I hate drafting (or even playing) Slivers in individual Limited, but that all changes for Two-Headed Giant. Since you’re playing two decks, you have easy access to four or even five colors, and you can play two Slivers every turn: one from each player.
The Slivers strategy was introduced to me by Bernardo da Costa Cabral, and since I started trying it for myself I’ve been winning on average two out of three drafts. By winning I mean going 2-0, which is a winning percentage of approximately 85%. Drafting Slivers is based on a very basic idea. You will always draft two slivers out of each pack when it’s possible, over almost any bomb. But for a better understanding of the strategy – such as knowing when to move into Slivers, or knowing exactly which Slivers you need – I’ve divided all the available Slivers into one of three categories. The Slivers aren’t grouped by power or impact, but by importance in this archetype.
Class 1: Attack and Defense Power Enhancers
These are the Slivers that make all your others a threat. You will need some of these Slivers in order to succeed, but thankfully some of them are common. What usually happens is this: you’ll have some laughable Slivers already on the table, when you play one of these better Slivers and attack with all of them. Thus you’ll be trading up for some better creatures or dealing huge amounts of damage.
In alphabetical order:
Bonesplitter Sliver
Fury Sliver
Might Sliver
Pulmonic Sliver
Sedge Sliver
Sinew Sliver
Watcher Sliver
The exception is Pulmonic Sliver, which provides an absolutely game-breaking ability (Levitation). Once it’s in play, you’ll never lose a Sliver ability… you’ll simply put it back on top of your library when it dies. Having some other Slivers along with one of these on the table gives you a huge advantage, and if you have two of these Power Enhancers in the first few turns, I don’t think you can lose.
Class 2: Useful Abilities
The Slivers in this category are below average by themselves, with the exceptions of Cautery and Essence Sliver, but together they act as a support for those times where just extra power and toughness aren’t enough. Almost any combination of two Slivers from Class 2, or one each from both Classes, can prove to be deadly, and most of the time you won’t have a mere two Slivers in play.
Cautery Sliver
Essence Sliver
Firewake Sliver
Frenetic Sliver
Necrotic Sliver
Poultice Sliver
Psionic Sliver
Quilled Sliver
Reflex Sliver
Screeching Sliver
Sidewinder Sliver
Spitting Sliver
Synchronous Sliver
Telekinetic Sliver
Two-Headed Sliver
Screeching Sliver is Plan B of the Slivers strategy. If you can’t win the game by dealing damage, you can attack one player’s library. If you and your team-mate have a decent amount of slivers on the board, they must kill Screeching Sliver.
Class 3: Body Slivers
These Slivers add abilities that are less frequently useful or relevant. In such a complicated puzzle like a board of four players from Two-Headed Giant they can the missing piece for the win, but their main strength is simply being Slivers. They receive the bonus from the Class 1 and Class 2 Slivers. Some of these are usually played in one-on-one Limited because of their mana cost to power and toughness ratio, but in Two-Headed Giant you expect a little more than that.
Basal Sliver
Battering Sliver
Darkheart Sliver
Dementia Sliver
Fungus Sliver
Gemhide Sliver
Ghostflame Sliver
Harmonic Sliver
Mindlash Sliver
Opaline Sliver
Shadow Sliver
Spined Sliver
Spinneret Sliver
Vampiric Sliver
Venser’s Sliver
Battering, Fungus, and Vampiric Sliver are great against chump-blocking creatures, but when the opponents are chump-blocking things are looking good for you anyway. Basal Sliver can power up a big X spell like Squall Line or Disintegrate. Shadow works great if you something to pump the power, but like all the Slivers in this list, their abilities are redundant or situational.
Plague Sliver: Obviously Plague Sliver didn’t find a home in any category, as he’s the only Sliver you absolutely don’t want to see. I believe he’s the best hoser against the Sliver strategy in 2HG. [So be sure to hate-draft him, folks! – Craig.]
Drafting Slivers
Once you settle into drafting Slivers, the premise is very simple. Always take two Slivers from each pack, or a Sliver and the best supporting card (which usually is a removal spell). Don’t fall into the temptation of assuming a Sliver will table back to you, as this can be seen as a sign Slivers are open. There are very few bombs you draft over a Class 1 Sliver… stuff like Damnation.
If you decide to force Slivers prior to the draft, your main concerns are to have no other team besides you drafting Slivers, and having the packs cooperate. I did one draft with the Cak where we weren’t forcing Slivers, but we were lucky enough to first pick Bogardan Hellkite and Empty the Warrens when we never saw any Class 1 or 2 Slivers. We were sure there was a team drafting them, but it turned out it was the packs. They simple had no Slivers.
The top commons in Time Spiral for 2HG might be Empty the Warrens, Grapeshot, Urborg Syphon-Mage, or Cancel, but when I draft Slivers the commons I expect to open are Bonesplitter and Watcher Sliver. They even come together sometimes. Once I decided to force Slivers before the draft, and was rewarded by someone passing me a pack with Bonesplitter and Watcher Sliver.
I believe you should move into Slivers if, in one of the early Time Spiral boosters, you see a pack with any Class 1 or a good Class 2 Sliver like Telekinetic, Psionic, or Essence Sliver, passed to you third or fourth pick. That means two or even three of the opponents’ teams have already held that pack in their hands and chose not to take the Sliver. If it’s just a second pick, it’s not a such clear signal, as there might have been bombs in the pack, and you still don’t know what the other teams’ reactions to Slivers in that booster. But receiving Class 1 Slivers any time after that is a reliable sign to go for it. If, by any chance, you see good Slivers tabling back, then you should pick them and be prepared to grab all the others you see, like Gadiel and Cak did in one of their drafts at Grand Prix: Massachusetts.
In Planar Chaos you find many quality common Slivers, as they’re all Class 2 with nice abilities. Sinew Sliver is even a Class 1, and Battering is a good Class 3. You definitely want to grab Sinew, Poultice, Synchronous, and Spitting Sliver. Reflex is also very good when both players are casting Slivers.
Deckbuilding
Since you’ve been drafting all the Slivers you could regardless of color, you arrive at the deckbuilding stage with a large Sliver cardpool but no specific color commitment yet. You should decide the colors of your deck based on the number of Slivers each is going to have, and on the mana curve of the Slivers, to maximize the chances of both players casting Slivers every turn from turns 3 or 4.
Except for Sedge Sliver, no Gold or multi-color Sliver is strong enough to dictate the color combinations in your deck (I know Sedge is a Red card, but you get my meaning). In order to have a better Sliver distribution or mana curve, you can sacrifice a Gold Sliver like Opaline or Darkheart, or splash for one like Necrotic. If you have multiple Gold Slivers that are incompatible, like one Ghostflame and Opaline, you can make an effort to play both by trying Blue/White and Red/Black. Just keep in mind that you want approximately twelve Slivers in each deck, and the more the better.
In my personal experience I tend to put the Red in one deck and the White in another. Watcher and Bonesplitter Sliver are the most important common Slivers, and I usually have several copies of these. By splitting the White and Red you usually split the four mana slot, and you also make it possible to have a turn 4 where one of the players cast Watcher Sliver and the other Bonesplitter Sliver, attacking with the ones in play.
Since I never make it to the draft portion of any sanctioned Two-Headed Giant event, I’ll present you one of the drafts Gadiel Szleifer and John Pelcak did at Grand Prix: Massachusetts this weekend. Gadiel and Cak weren’t drafting Slivers until a Bonesplitter tabled back, and they decided to pick it and see what was coming. They ended up with two very good Sliver deck. Since they only had one Watcher and two Bonesplitters, their curve wasn’t too clogged at the four mana. I wasn’t watching their deckbuilding, so I don’t know what other reasons motivated their deckbuilding towards these particular colors combinations.
2 Telekinetic Sliver
2 Synchronous Sliver
1 Mindlash Sliver
1 Vampiric Sliver
1 Basal Sliver
2 Think Twice
1 Psychotic Episode
1 Imp’s Mischief
1 Merfolk Thaumaturgist
1 Slipstream Eel
1 Snapback
1 Corpulent Corpse
1 Jodah’s Avenger
1 Prismatic Lens
1 Erratic Mutation
1 Cancel
1 Mindless Automaton
1 Clockwork Hydra
1 Mindstab
1 Urborg Syphon-Mage
2 Sidewinder Sliver
1 Two-Headed Sliver
2 Sinew Sliver
2 Bonesplitter Sliver
1 Watcher Sliver
2 Venser’s Sliver
2 Battering Sliver
1 Dead / Gone
1 Grapeshot
1 Sudden Shock
1 Keldon Halberdier
1 Foriysian Totem
1 Dawn Charm
1 Fortify
1 Whitemane Lion
1 Saltfield Recluse
1 Soltari Priest
Even though they don’t have a single rare, both decks are solid and compliment each other well. I would love to tell you they posted a 2-0 result with these decks, but they lost one of the rounds to the Ruels. Sometimes in 2HG you have great decks and can’t win. For example, see Raphael Levy and Geoffrey Siron on the second day of Massachusetts.
With the 2HG qualifying season underway, this format will still be played all over the world, and I hope you have a better understanding on how to draft Slivers when you have to draft in the Top 4. You might want to give it a try first in some practice drafts, to have a better perception of the abilities of each Sliver. Classes 1, 2, and 3 help you realize their relative importance, but not the usefulness of their abilities. For example, Reflex Sliver is not the best Class 2 Sliver, but he’s a lot stronger than he seems.
Keep in mind downside of drafting Slivers. You want to be the only team at the table drafting Slivers, because if you are, you’ll probably 2-0. But if this article made you consider drafting Slivers, it’s possible that other teams might want to give it a try too. Furthermore, the more the format is played, the more players will realize the power of Slivers. In the beginning it was very easy to end with fifteen Slivers in each deck, but nowadays the are Slivers are hate-drafted, and that’s why I settle the mark on twelve slivers per deck when possible.
Just try them! I absolutely hate drafting or playing any Sliver (except for Sedge Sliver) in individual Limited, but I love drafting Slivers in Two-Headed Giant. It’s a powerful strategy, it has a lot of synergy, it’s very easy to draft them, it’s very aggressive, and it makes for some devastating turns!
Thank you for reading,
Tiago