Back to the Hive Part 2

We have looked at all the Magic 2014 Slivers in Part 1 of this series, today we are going to look at some Sliver decks that utilize the ability of the Hive's new recruits.

Muscle Sliver and Sinew Slivers are like the "backbones" of a Sliver deck, not only they are able to ramp up your entire Sliver army's strength; the high redundancy also allows Slivers to be more resilient against spot removal spells. This foundation of the Sliver deck is further enforced with the introduction of Predatory Sliver. As a general rule of thumb I believe an efficient Sliver deck should at least contain eight of these power boosting Slivers.

In order to fully utilize the potential of a Sliver deck we need to rely on more than just one color.  Fortunately, with the help of inexpensive Pain Lands and the Triple Lands we are able to have a very consistent multi-color mana base.

Let us first take a look at this Naya Aggro Sliver  deck (RGW):

Creature (27)

• 3x Bonescythe Sliver
• 4x Manaweft Slivers
• 4x Muscle Sliver
• 4x Predatory Sliver
• 3x Sinew Slivers
• 3x Striking Sliver
• 2x Thorncaster Sliver
• 4x Two-headed Sliver

Instant (8)

• 4x Boros Charm
• 4x Lightning Bolt

Enchantment (3)

• 3x Steely Resolve

Land (22)

• 2x Battlefield Forge
• 2x Brushland
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 5x Forest
• 4x Jungle Shrine
• 5x Mountain
• 3x Plains

This deck is a straight forward Aggro Sliver deck that utilizes the ability of Striking Sliver and Two-Headed Sliver. These Slivers can make your army rather hard to block while delivering fatal blows with the aid of Bonescythe Sliver. There are in total five Slivers that have a mana cost of four and above. The Manaweft Slivers serve as an extra mana source to facilitate casting of high mana cost Slivers.

Board wiping spells or the so called "Wrath Effect" is one of the most annoying challenges that a creature based deck needs to deal with. Fortunately, with the multi-purpose Boros Charm, Slivers will gain a certain degree of resistance against board wiping spells; this potentially allows you to gain significant combat advantage when used at the correct time. Steely Resolve provides further protection for Slivers against spot removal spells, as an attempted replacement for the almighty Crystalline Sliver.

From time to time you may have problems taking out your opponent's last few life points. Thorncaster Sliver is just the solution for resolving this type of issue. Although a bit expensive in terms of mana cost, Thorncaster Sliver makes your alpha strike even deadlier, it can easily take down your opponent's last few life points or simply get rid of annoying chump blockers. If a Thorncaster Sliver powered alpha strike isn't enough, a Lightning Bolt or a Boros Charm to the face can usually end the game right on the spot.

Sideboard wise I highly suggest running four copies of Harmonic Slivers for the purpose of demolishing enchantments or artifacts that may hinder the performance of this deck  (i.e. Propaganda, Ensnaring Bridge, Oblivion Ring and etc).

Now let us move on to the Bant Control Sliver deck (GWU). This deck requires a slightly higher budget but it allows you to enjoy many different interactions of  Slivers

Creature (36)

• 4x Crystalline Sliver
• 2x Dormant Sliver
• 4x Galerider Sliver
• 3x Gemhide Sliver
• 4x Manaweft Slivers
• 4x Plated Sliver
• 4x Predatory Sliver
• 3x Psionic Sliver
• 4x Sinew Slivers
• 4x Telekinetic Sliver

Sorcery (4)

• 4x Armageddon

Land (20)

• 2x Adarkar Wastes
• 2x Brushland
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 3x Forest
• 4x Island
• 3x Plains
• 4x Seaside Citadel
• 1x Yavimaya Coast

This Sliver based control deck can be operated just like any Aggro deck, with the combination of Galerider Sliver, Crystalline Sliver and all the "Muscle Slivers" you can easily overrun your opponent with an unstoppable Sliver army.

On the other hand this deck also packs enough tricks to be played as a control deck. By turning all Slivers into mana producers, Manaweft Sliver and Gemhide Sliver allow you to disrupt your opponent's mana base with Armageddon, while having a relative low impact on yourself. As your opponent is struggling to regain their mana base, you could take this opportunity to make the Sliver army bigger and stronger. In addition, Telekinetic Sliver can easily lockdown newly played lands during your opponent’s upkeep to prevent further non-instant spell casting.

The inclusion of Dormant Sliver is to provide a way to potentially draw more Slivers whenever a Sliver enters the battlefield. The improved consistency of recruiting more Slivers is worthwhile although you are not able to use your Slivers to attack. Of course with the ability of Psionic Sliver you can simply deal damage to the opponent or other creatures without needing to attack. In fact very often, with enough Slivers on the battlefield you are able to bring the opponent's life total down to zero in one go. With enough of a toughness boost, the Slivers are able to activate the "Psionic" ability without killing themselves in the process.

For sideboard, it is best to include a few copies of Ready // Willing to counter the "Wrath Effect". At the same time this also makes the ability of Telekinetic Sliver and Psionic Sliver much more effective. As with any other Sliver decks that utilize both green and white mana, sideboarding Harmonic Slivers is always a good idea.

For players who enjoy winning the game with a variety of interactions packed within one deck try this list out, you will have a ton of fun with it.

That's all for now folks, I hope you enjoy these two Sliver based decks.
Until next time, may the strength of the Hive be with you!