fbpx

So You Wanna Build a Sliver Commander Deck?

Bennie goes Sliver-crazy for M14, and builds a new Commander deck to cover his previous lack of love for Magic’s most beloved tribe.

By

I have something to admit that I’m a little bit ashamed about. You see… I’ve never built a Sliver deck for Commander.

I know, I know… seems a bit nuts right? I mean, my card pool is deep, I’ve got all the dual lands, and I’ve built dozens and dozens and dozens of decks since becoming an early adopter of the format. I even own a ton of Slivers!

So why haven’t I broken down and built a Sliver deck before? I recently asked my therapist to help me figure the answer to that very question, and we had to dig deep into my psyche to figure out why. There were tears. There were screams. I blamed my mother. I blamed my father. I blamed my ex-wife. I was once chased by a swarm of hornets after throwing grapes at their nest and received numerous stings for my stupidity, and figured maybe that horrific experience had made it difficult feeling comfortable messing around with Magic’s most vicious swarm entities.

Turns out the answer was simpler than that.

The answer is that I did not own a Sliver Queen, and had no one to blame for it but my own stupidity.

Once upon a time I owned a playset of Sliver Queens. I’ve always loved creatures that did cool stuff, and slivers were cool creatures that did cool stuff. I built casual Sliver decks and I built competitive Sliver decks. I had a great time with my Slivers and my Sliver Queen.

Time passed. Sliver Queen started going up in price. Eventually I wondered: did I really need four Sliver Queens? So I broke the playset for a big trade and was content to have three.

The price of Sliver Queen continued to rise, and I wondered… did I really need three Sliver Queens? I could trade for some sweet cards for one, and really did I need more than two?

The price of Sliver Queen continued to rise, and I wondered… did I really need two Sliver Queens? I could trade for even more sweet cards for one, and really did I need more than one now that we had Sliver Overlord that could search for your Sliver Queen?

The price of Sliver Queen continued to rise, and I wondered… did I really need two Sliver Queens? I could trade for even more sweet cards for one, and really did I need more than one since we still had Sliver Overlord that could search for your Sliver Queen? I’m not sure where the other one was, but I was positive I could find it when needed…

Time passed. EDH (what Commander was originally called) fell into my life like a revelation, giving form to everything I could possibly want in a multiplayer format. I spent quite a bit of time searching through my collection and pulling legends aside for use as possibly Commanders. I pulled Sliver Overlord… the recently printed Sliver Legion… but after a while I realized I could not find my Sliver Queen. I even spent one evening staying up way too late poring through every nook and cranny of my collection before I could confirm…

My Sliver Queen was gone!

I tried to think back to the last times I had a Sliver Queen. I can remember trading some of them away, but in the last trade I was pretty sure I still had one left. Had I lent it to someone and forgotten to get it back?

No… I don’t think so. To my deep and utter shame, I’m pretty sure I accidentally traded all four Sliver Queens away… and to add insult to injury, the price of Sliver Queen continued to rise, to the point that I found it hard to justify buying another one to cover for my stupid mistake. Instead, I sank right past denial into a complete lack of desire to build a Sliver deck in the least.

Thankfully, my therapist was able to prescribe some sweet medication to help me cope with years of shame and suppressed desire… and now along comes Magic 2014 to help pique my interest in our little hive-minded friends! I figured there might be quite a few other people new to Commander who might not have dabbled with Slivers who might also be interested in building a Sliver Commander deck, so let’s all take a look at what could make a sweet Sliver deck.

First of all, we need Slivers. Searching the deck database shows 76 Slivers have been printed prior to M14, and if we add the new bumper crop of 14! new Slivers that’s 90 total Slivers we can choose from, way more than we could possibly want in our 99-card deck. I’ve gone through our choices grouped by mana cost, with notes about what each one provides:

One Mana

Galerider Sliver (flying), Striking Sliver (first strike), Metallic Sliver (vanilla colorless), Mindlash Sliver (sac, everyone discards), Plated Sliver (+0/+1), Screeching Sliver (tap, mill 1), Sidewinder Sliver (flanking), Virulent Sliver (poisonous 1)

Two Mana

Sentinel Sliver (vigilance), Manaweft Sliver (tap for mana), Predatory Sliver (+1/+1), Acidic Sliver (sac, Shock), Cautery Sliver (sac, 1 damage dealt or prevented), Clot Sliver (regenerate for mana), Crypt Sliver (tap to regenerate), Crystalline Sliver (shroud), Darkheart Sliver (sac, gain 3 life), Frenzy Sliver (frenzy 1), Gemhide Sliver (tap for mana), Ghostflame Sliver (all slivers become colorless), Heart Sliver (haste), Hibernation Sliver (pay 2 life, return to hand), Hunter Sliver (provoke), Mistform Sliver (1: gain another creature type), Muscle Sliver (+1/+1), Quick Sliver (flash), Quilled Sliver (tap, ping combatants), Sinew Sliver (+1/+1), Spined Sliver (+1/+1 for each blocker), Spinneret Sliver (reach), Talon Sliver (first strike), Two-Headed Sliver (Goblin War Drums), Victual Sliver (2, sac: gain 4 life), Winged Sliver (flying)

Three Mana

Steelform Sliver (+0/+1), Syphon Sliver (lifelink), Blur Sliver (haste), Sliver Construct (vanilla colorless), Armor Sliver (2: +0/+1), Barbed Sliver (2: +1/+0), Basal Sliver (sac, add BB), Blade Sliver (+1/+0), Firewake Sliver (1, sac, give Sliver +2/+2), Frenetic Sliver (Frenetic Efreet), Harmonic Sliver (Naturalize), Homing Sliver (slivercycling), Horned Sliver (trample), Mindwhip Sliver (2, sac: player discards at random), Mnemonic Sliver (2, sac: draw a card), Necrotic Sliver (3, sac: destroy permanent), Opaline Sliver (if targeted by a spell, draw a card), Poultice Sliver (2, tap: regenerate), Sedge Sliver (Sedge Troll), Shadow Sliver (shadow), Spectral Sliver (2: +1/+1)

Four Mana

Bonescythe Sliver (double strike), Bonesplitter Sliver (+2/+0), Dormant Sliver (defender, Glimpse of Nature), Essence Sliver (lifelink), Fungus Sliver (Fungusaur), Magma Sliver (tap, +X/+0, X=#of Slivers), Mesmeric Sliver (fateseal 1), Plague Sliver (Juzám Djinn drawback), Reflex Sliver (haste), Root Sliver (can’t be countered), Shifting Sliver (can’t be blocked by non-Slivers), Telekinetic Sliver (Opposition), Toxin Sliver (deathtouch), Vampiric Sliver (Sengir Vampire), Watcher Sliver (+0/+2)

Five Mana

Battle Sliver (+2/+0), Thorncaster Sliver (Hellrider), Brood Sliver (combat damage to a player, make a Sliver token), Dementia Sliver (tap, name a card, look at opponent’s hand and discard it), Lymph Sliver (absorb 1), Might Sliver (+2/+2), Psionic Sliver (Psionic Entity), Pulmonic Sliver (if dies, may put it ontop of owner’s library), Spitting Sliver (first strike), Synapse Sliver (combat damage to player, draw a card), Synchronous Sliver (vigilance), Venser’s Sliver (vanilla colorless), Ward Sliver (protection from color of choice)

Six Mana

Megantic Sliver (+3/+3), Battering Sliver (trample), Fury Sliver (doublestrike)

Seven Mana

Groundshaker Sliver (trample)

Wow, that’s a lot of slivers! A few things jumped out as I compiled this list. First, there are some redundancies here; some are good – such as power/toughness boosting – but some are just granting the same ability such as haste. Another thing that jumped out at me is that a lot of slivers have abilities that cost mana, and if we get too many in play it can start to become a burden. My urge is to steer clear from activated abilities unless they are really worth the cost (such as Necrotic Sliver).

Sliver Support

There are a handful of cards that directly support Slivers, and then there are a bunch of cards that can support decks that have a heavily focused tribal theme: Hive Stirrings, Hivestone, Sliversmith, Cavern of Souls, Cover of Darkness, Konda’s Banner, Pack’s Disdain, Shared Triumph, Standardize, Steeling Resolve, Unnatural Selection, Adaptive Automaton, Alpha Status, Descendant’s Path, Faces of the Past, Harsh Mercy, Luminescent Rain, Shared Animosity, Urza’s Incubator, Call to the Kindred, Distant Melody, Door of Destinies, Mana Echoes, Riptide Replicator, Roar of the Crowd, Belbe’s Portal, Coat of Arms, Cryptic Gateway, Patriarch’s Bidding, Vigean Intuition

Changelings

Let’s also not forget that Lorwyn’s changelings are Slivers too. While we have more than enough actual slivers to choose from, there are a few changeling cards that might be considered: Mutavault, Shields of Velis Vel, Amoeboid Changeling, Blades of Velis Vel, Shapesharer, Mirror Entity, Taurean Mauler, Chameleon Colossus.

Commander

Lastly – or maybe firstly – there is our Commander to consider. We’ve got three legendary Slivers to choose from: Sliver Legion, Sliver Overlord, and Sliver Queen. If you want to be super-aggressive, Sliver Legion is your ticket, but if you want to be more flexible then Sliver Overlord is the obvious choice. Sliver Queen is the “classic” choice, but she’s perfectly fine as one of the 99 instead.

If you want to be a little bit stealthy to prevent anyone from metagaming against you, Karona, False God is a fine choice that is particularly good in a tribal deck.

So with all that in mind I started constructing my deck, pulling what I feel are the best slivers from each casting cost and seeing how the curve shaped out. I ended up with 39 slivers, which seems like plenty of the tribe while also leaving room for other good cards. If you notice there’s a huge glut of quality slivers at the two and three mana slot, so when there was non-cumulative redundancy in sliver abilities I’d cut from the two and three mana slot in favor of comparable slivers in the other slots. Here’s what I ended up with:

Commander: Sliver Overlord
Bennie Smith
Test deck on 07-14-2013
Commander
Magic Arena

Creatures (40)

Lands (38)

Spells (21)

Magic Card Back


I decided to make this a true five-color Sliver deck, so with that in mind color-fixing was a priority. I’ve got a ton of “comes into play tapped” lands which will be a little bit frustrating at times, but the mana curve of the deck is low enough and the Slivers are high-impact enough that I think it’ll run just fine. I also went this route to demonstrate how to make five-color work without breaking the bank with dual lands, so if you’ve got duals feel free to slot them in.

I found room for other good color-fixing too: Springleaf Drum, Fellwar Stone, Darksteel Ingot, and Chromatic Lantern. Aether Vial and Cryptic Gateway can effectively fix mana by eliminating the need for it altogether.

Of course, any tribal deck worth its salt will find ways to keep its creatures around in the face of mass removal, so I tapped old favorites Eldrazi Monument, Cauldron of Souls and Nim Deathmantle. Patriarch’s Bidding can undo a lot of that damage as well. I also peppered in a fair amount of card-drawing to reload: Distant Melody, Greater Good, and Synapse Sliver. Dormant Sliver functions as a Glimpse of Nature which makes the awkwardness of giving your Slivers defender worth the trouble since you’ll usually have some ways of getting rid of it yourself.

Call to the Kindred seems like the perfect fit for a deck like this provided you can make it around to your next turn with it still enchanting one of your Slivers.

I like Unnatural Selection in this deck for the ability to turn another player’s creatures into Slivers, either as a combo with Sliver Overlord… or, if you need to help one player take down another player, by letting his creatures take advantage of sharing the pile of Slivers abilities.

So what do you think? Are you itching to get your hands on some of the new Magic 2014 Slivers for you Commander decks? Which ones look good to you? Let me know in the comments!

Take care,

Bennie

Facebook = Bennie Smith, Writer
Twitter = @blairwitchgreen
Email = [email protected]
Twitch = http://www.twitch.tv/blairwitchgreen
Blog = My fantasy and horror fiction writing

New to Commander?
If you’re just curious about the format, building your first deck, or trying to take your Commander deck up a notch, here are some handy links:

My current Commander decks (and links to decklists):

Previous Commander decks currently on hiatus: