Hello, this is Doug Linn on behalf of the Dominaria Wildlife Fund. Recently, you may have seen news stories about the declining population of Slivers all across the multiverse. The DWF wants to protect these fragile creatures and safeguard their habitat. Every day, baby Plated Slivers are abandoned by Legacy players, often to make room for elves or merfolk. This poor Crystalline Sliver can barely get enough mana to live day-to-day, existing in squalid conditions next to Cavern Harpy and other cast-offs from yesteryear. At the DWF, we want to protect the hivemind and we can only do it with your help. Please, call in today and make a contribution to protect this varied and beautiful form of wildlife.
…
A few days ago, I was thinking about how tribal decks have really made inroads in Legacy, especially in the past year. Goblins is still the workhorse, and Elves and Merfolk are fine decks as well. Then I thought about Slivers – why haven’t I seen them in many T8s this year? Counterslivers has certainly made appearances, sure, but what is it about a seemingly underpowered deck like Merfolk that allows it to succeed while Slivers languishes?
I thought that maybe it was because Merfolk has 8 pumping lords in the deck, while Slivers only has… 8 pumping lords. Maybe it’s the Islandwalk that Lord of Atlantis grants… but Winged Sliver gives even better evasion. Merfolk runs Standstill for extra draw, but Slivers usually runs Brainstorm as well. The two decks have mostly the same number of counters as well. Maybe the difference is much more subtle than a simple compare-and-contrast would reveal. In this article, I’m going to lay out several theories and I ask that you, the reader, chime in on the forums or by email and let me know which ones you think are the most realistic, as I only have a hunch and I’d like to hear from a lot of other players about why they would run something like Merfolk over CounterSlivers. I’ll be doing a lot of comparison of these two decks, since they’re very close analogs in many ways.
Theory #1: Budgetary Concerns
Counterslivers often runs three colors to support Crystalline Sliver, Muscle Sliver, Hibernation Sliver (which is much less relevant with M10 combat) and more. That requires a lot of dual lands, usually six or more. If you’ve been trying to buy into Legacy recently, you know that blue duals are wickedly expensive. Those, along with the fetchlands, makes a good manabase for Counterslivers an expensive proposition.
On the other hand, a player interested in the Counterslivers model might opt for Merfolk instead. The basic manabase means that the biggest outlay in the deck will be Force of Will, which can be borrowed from just about any Eternal player. The rest of the Merfolk are very cheap, and Mutavault, the other expenditure, is also easily borrowed from friends. Thus, Merfolk is quickly assembled, while a player needs to take some time and expense to get a good Slivers deck together.
Budgetary concerns seem like a compelling reason why Slivers have dropped out of popularity, but there are plenty of players with everything needed to field the deck. I don’t think this explains much without the help of other factors, but it certainly does contribute. It’s kind of a clichéd excuse as well, since the cards needed for the deck are the most commonly played in the format and aren’t both obscure and expensive (lookin’ at you, Imperial Recruiter and Grindstone!). It makes more sense when combined with the next theory…
Theory #2: Players With The Cards Would Rather Play Something Else
For a player with dual lands, fetchlands, Force of Will, Swords to Plowshares and more, they might be far more inclined to play a CounterTop deck or something along the lines instead of Slivers. Personally, I’d rather run a Counterbalance deck because I feel that it gives me more opportunities to outplay my opponent, and maybe a lot of players feel this way. If you add in Tarmogoyf or Phyrexian Dreadnought to the pool of cards required for Counterslivers, you end up with several other hot decks of the moment.
I get the sense that this explanation accounts for a good deal of why we don’t see more Counterslivers. It’s long been perceived as a Little Kid deck with rabid fans playing Slivers forever, and it may not have shaken that image. While Counterslivers is good (and one of the premises of this article is that it’s decent-to-good), there are other, more proven decks that players might want instead.
Theory #3: Slivers Lacks A Draw Engine Comparable To Standstill or Goblin Ringleader
In my research, I found that many Slivers decks run Brainstorm, a sure hit with fetchlands in the deck. However, Brainstorm might not be enough of a draw engine and doesn’t force the same kind of interaction that Standstill and Goblin Ringleader do. It doesn’t put a player ahead on cards, nor does it force the game to either slow down or speed up. Standstill is definitely an engine of Legacy, but I don’t know how strong it is compared to Brainstorm in Slivers. For one, Slivers is not currently positioned to exploit Standstill the way that Merfolk can, primarily because it lacks Wasteland and Mutavault (though the latter is appearing more). Dropping a Plated Sliver on the first turn into a Standstill on the second applies little pressure without the help of manlands. Saving the Standstill for later turns may be catastrophic if the opponent can land bigger beasts, making the card a gamble if one can only rely on what’s on the board without having the chance to draw into a helper along the way.
Without a draw engine like other tribal decks have, Slivers lacks the sort of midgame recharge or topdeck bomb that seals up an even board position. For this reason, I see this theory as a compelling factor in why Counterslivers doesn’t perform as well as similar tribal decks. I don’t know if reconfiguring the deck to accept Standstill would do much to improve it, though. It may want something like Dark Confidant to provide a more aggressive draw engine, comparable to Ringleader.
Theory #4: The Multicolored Manabase Rules Out Meaningful Quantities of Colorless Lands
For all but the exceptionally greedy, running full sets of Wasteland and Mutavault in a Slivers deck with three or more colors is unwise. Without those lands, Standstill is a lot worse and the deck doesn’t have uncounterable ways to expand its board position or slow the opponent. While most of the creatures in Merfolk are pretty trashy on their own, the tempo created by Wasteland makes them better by getting in another attack or slowing the removal from the opponent down. Similarly, a Mutavault off the top of the deck means that single Lord of Atlantis hanging on your side of the board got a lot better.
This theory brings a lot of presumptions about Legacy that I’m unprepared to make. Chiefly, it presumes a high power level for Wasteland in a format that builds to minimize Wasteland’s power. Further, it supposes that a manland that doesn’t help any other creatures in the deck is better than something with active tribal synergies (which is what all Slivers have). That said, the colorless lands seem like a big factor in the success of both Merfolk and Goblins, so I’m sure it plays in to a degree here.
Theory #5: The Reasons to go Multicolored Aren’t Strong Enough
As a corollary, perhaps the creatures that make Slivers worth running aren’t worth splashing into other colors anymore. The banner reason to run White is Crystalline Sliver; while it was a total pain in the tuchus before, it’s dwarfed by Tombstalker and Tarmogoyf now. White also enables Swords to Plowshares, but Merfolk seemingly gets along fine without the removal spell anyway. If we chop away colors that are “good” but not “great”, we lose a lot of Slivers’ punch. For example, many Slivers decks run green to support Muscle Sliver exclusively (with Krosan Grip and/or Harmonic Sliver making appearances as well). Is Muscle Sliver better than Mutavaults? Can Slivers even function without Muscle Sliver? The answers to these questions are interwoven with other considerations, which makes it hard for me to come to a decision.
This theory has the most teeth to it. It’s complex because it’s not an opt-out question of whether to run Slivers but an opt-in of why you would run it over Merfolk. The advantages of Slivers, namely, having Shroud and Swords to Plowshares, don’t seem strong enough to abandon ten Island manabases and Lords that have similar pumping effects, but don’t need several colors on board to shine. Slivers does have a marked advantage over Merfolk against Zoo, but that’s only one deck. It also has a few advantages over Merfolk in the Goblins match, but I think that’s more a “lose less” function than an “actually win” function.
Pulling It All Together
Maybe Slivers needs a redesign, perhaps a massive overhaul. It could adopt the UWB Fish idea and run Dark Confidant and Thoughtseize alongside the White and Blue Slivers, angling for a less explosive, but more disruptive angle. It could drop Black altogether and get on board with a more Bant-like manabase, running the absolutely vicious Harmonic Sliver maindeck. There might even be a straight-UW Slivers deck that can support many colorless lands, with Sinew Sliver making such a choice possible. As it is, I’m hard-pressed to think of a reason to run Slivers over either Merfolk or CounterTop, but I’m eager to hear from people who have had success with the deck recently.
On behalf of the Dominaria Wildlife Fund, I encourage you to write in the forums or email about the plight of the Slivers in the Legacy metagame. With your help, we might be able to protect and foster this once-proud species and enhance the biodiversity of the tournament scene!
Until next week…
legacysallure at gmail dot com