Creature (36)
Land (20)
Instant (4)
Sideboard
Creature (9)
Enchantment (4)
Instant (2)
Maybeboard
Creature (17)
- 1x Adaptive Automaton
- 1x Bladeback Sliver
- 1x Cloudshredder Sliver
- 1x Dregscape Sliver
- 1x Firewake Sliver
- 1x Harmonic Sliver
- 1x Lavabelly Sliver
- 1x Metallic Mimic
- 1x Mirror Entity
- 1x Opaline Sliver
- 1x Phantasmal Image
- 1x Screeching Sliver
- 1x Sedge Sliver
- 1x Shadow Sliver
- 1x Spiteful Sliver
- 1x The First Sliver
- 1x Virulent Sliver
Artifact (8)
- 1x Aether Vial
- 1x Grafdigger's Cage
- 1x Jester's Cap
- 1x Konda's Banner
- 1x Lifecrafter's Bestiary
- 1x Liquimetal Coating
- 1x Relic of Progenitus
- 1x Tormod's Crypt
Land (4)
Enchantment (4)
Fast and competitive aggro sliver, designed for modern, capable of beating some modern tier 1 archetypes. I might not win you a tournament but it's fun and your opponents won't expect it and won't have sideboard against it.
This deck is a baseline. Bellow, I'll be explaining how to tailor it to suit your personal style as well as several situations you might encounter. It's a long read, but I'll explain more competitive variants and different deck styles as well as many of the tweaks and changes you can do to adapt to any situation.
Maybeboard is a list of cards for alternative playstyles and variants as well as modifications to fight specific decks. Continue reading for further explanation about variants and specific cards.
--About City of Brass and Mana Confluence. This is a common question I get: "Why don't you use Mana Confluence instead of City of Brass?". Well, first of all Mana Confluence is listed as an alternative so yes I'm aware of its existence and you can use it if you please. I prefer City of Brass because there are certain cards that prevent you from paying life and also because you must pay life first and then you get the mana. In the case of City of Brass you get the mana and then you take 1 point of damage, which in some cases it's preferable. Imagine that you want to use Worship or Phyrexian Unlife, you cannot pay life if you are at 1 or 0 life but you can take damage from City of Brass. It does have its drawbacks, of course, if you face a deck that can tap your City of Brass it's recommended to use Mana Confluence instead.
--You might prefer having Necrotic Sliver in your mainboard (I do). It's not an aggro creature type, but it's quite good to get rid of nasty stuff. I find him very useful and I'm pretty sure you'll want him with you if you are facing lockdown decks or Tron for example.
--Essence Sliver
stacks with itself and Syphon Sliver. Please note that Essence Sliver's ability is not lifelink, it's a triggered ability that triggers after dealing damage and goes through the stack, so opponents can respond and kill you before you get the life. Lifelink however, is a static ability, the moment you deal damage you'll get the life.
--Interesting combo: Liquimetal Coating+Harmonic Sliver, if both cards are in your starting hand you can begin destroying lands at your third turn.
--Opaline Sliver, Darkheart Sliver, Diffusion Sliver and Syphon Sliver to counter burn (direct damage) decks. I also use Darkheart Sliver and Frenetic Sliver against heavy removal or control decks. Sedge Sliver is also another variant, you don't need the swamp to get the regeneration ability, just the +1/+1, which stacks, but you only need 1 swamp even if you have 4 copies of Sedge Sliver on the battlefield. Another option is Boros Charm, some sliver decks use it for the diverse utility. A new option is Heroic Intervention, it's not as flexible as Boros Charm, but it offers way more protection. Be aware that neither Boros Charm nor Heroic Intervention will protect you against mass non-targetting stuff like Languish or Evacuation.
--Screeching Sliver and Virulent Sliver to counter lifegain decks.
--Aether Vial and Cavern of Souls (sadly Root Sliver is not legal in modern) to fight counter/control decks, Opaline Sliver and Diffusion Sliver are also a good choices against control.
--Aether Vial is a very good card and some people might like to have 3-4 copies mainboard, it avoids counterspells and allows you to cast creatures for free and at instant speed, that means you can cast them during your opponents turn as surprise defenders. It's however quite expensive and scarce since many tribal decks run it, but worth it if you have the money.
--Jester's Cap and Surgical Extraction as anti-combo.
--Grafdigger's Cage, Tormod's Crypt or Relic of Progenitus as anti graveyard, but the best card would be Rest in Peace since this deck uses white and you have no way or retrieving your slivers from graveyard.
--Psionic Sliver, Thorncaster Sliver and Quilled Sliver are great against defensive/control and swarm aggro decks or anti tokens, also you can use Psionic Sliver to get rid of your Dormant Slivers deal direct damage to an opponent or to take down important creatures, Thorncaster Sliver and Quilled Sliver become exceptional if paired with Venom Sliver.
--Shadow Sliver is an option to consider while facing a creature based defensive deck or just a deck that's aggro enough to keep up with your sliver and put you in a stalemate. Please notice that while your creatures can't be blocked you also can't block, so it's recommended to use it as a finisher, drops the Shadow Sliver, attack with everything and win.
--Descendants' Path and Call to the Kindred are great cards for tribals. Basically you get free slivers, but you can't choose when you want to play them. They are the poorman's versions of Aether Vial/Collected Company. If you don't want to spend a lot of money to buy 4xAether Vial and/or 4xCollected Company, you might want to try them as an alternative. Note: Call to the Kindred's effect makes opponent's unable to counter the sliver, since it says "put that card into the battlefield", but if you are using Descendants' Path, your slivers can be countered, since it says "cast it without paying its mana cost".
--Rally the Ancestors: It was suggested in the comments bellow. I find it interesting, it can win you the game after a board wipe. It doesn't give your creatures haste, but you want slivers mostly because of their effects. You can attack and resurrect all your previously fallen slivers after the enemy declares blockers, suddenly bringing a ton of new effects to the battlefield and what might look like a feeble desperate attack suddenly turns the tables around. It can also be used to mount a surprise defense, taking down most of your opponent's creatures. There are a couple of alternatives I've found, the first one is Immortal Servitude, which is pretty similar to Rally the Ancestors but it's a sorcery instead of an instant and your cards stay on the battlefield, so no surprises but you get to keep your slivers. The second one is Return to the Ranks, also similar but overall seems less useful unless you want to return just a 1 or 2 key slivers early on. Return to the Ranks is better for returning a few key creatures after spot removal, Immortal Servitude is better against mass removal and Rally the Ancestors is trick, can be used to surprise your opponent during the combat phase or as a finisher.
--Eldritch Evolution: It's a new card you might want to check. It can replace Homing Sliver. The fetch cost is the same, but Eldritch Evolution gets the card to the battlefield with a few drawbacks. First you must sacrifice a creature, so you'll be trading 2 cards to get one card into play. The spell can also be countered making you lose both the card and the creature (note: Your opponent cannot remove the creature to counter the spell, as sacrificing is part of the cost and no action can take place while you are casting a spell) and has sorcery speed, unlike Homing Sliver's ability, which has instant speed, which means you can do it during your opponent's turn. There are also few cards that counter abilities.
--Collected Company: Great card here, since most slivers cost 3 or less. Many people with sliver decks play 4 copies and it's became a staple alongside Aether Vial. It's really useful and a solid variant. In this case people usually prefer using Adaptive Automaton, the +1/+1 slivers and Phantasmal Image, with a few utility slivers.
--Mirror Entity: it counts as a sliver and many sliver decks like to use it as a finisher. It can also be used to boost your slivers with spare mana to survive mass damage spells. Since most slivers have a base resistance of 1 to 3 it doesn't require much mana to be of use.
--Mutavault is a sliver on a land, quite good, and cannot be targeted by Abrupt Decay, Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek
--Frenetic Sliver: You MUST include this one in your mainboard against heavy control, heavy removal and mass removal. It basically makes removal useless once you learn how to flip coins. Get yourself a custom coin, preferably big and heavy (easier to predict the result) and practice. There is nothing in the rules that says how to flip a coin the only rule is that the affected player flips the coin and must call head or tails while it's in the air unless the card specifies otherwise. Since coin flipping is an unusual and old mechanic there are only 3 rules affecting it, none of them specify how to flip so you can take advantage of this loophole. The best way is grabbing it while it's in the air and then slam it down to the table/hand. Due to physics if you apply the same force all the time when you flip, you can calculate how to make it land heads or tails, but it requires practice, oh, and it's perfectly legal :)
--Leyline of Sanctity or Witchbane Orb are great against burn, keep in mind bun decks can destroy artifacts since they sideboard Shatterstorm and Shattering Spree/Smash to Smithereens but have no way to interact with enchantments. Alternatively, there is Ivory Mask and Orbs of Warding.
--Mark of Asylum can be used to protect your slivers against burn, in that particular case, it's better than the alternative Asceticism. the later, however, is better against control and other kinds of removal. Its counterpart for avoiding combat damage is Dolmen Gate.
--Aether Revolt brings 2 interesting cards to this deck:
The first one is Lifecrafter's Bestiary, which is a card draw engine, having Dormant Sliver as the only alternative and it comes with a few drawbacks like making all your slivers defenders. The main problem with slivers is precisely how fast they run out of steam, a board wipe and you are toast. The lack of a proper, reliable and consistent card draw is their main weakness. Until now people had to rely on the Dormant Sliver or Distant Melody, Kaladesh brought Ghirapur Orrery which is interesting but also helps your opponent. So in the end sliver decks have this main problem, they go in big and fast, but if your opponent manages to kill a large number of slivers, there is just no way to replace them fast enough. The thing is, generic consistent draw engines are limited in number and with a high mana cost or have some other restrictions or drawbacks. Other than the previously mentioned the other 2 remaining card draw engines are Primordial Sage and Zendikar Resurgent, which are ok for a sliver commander deck but don't cut it for modern. Other than that all that remains are the usual cards that make both players draw cards like Temple Bell, Howling Mine, etc.
The second one is Metallic Mimic, which is similar to Adaptive Automaton and the classics Sinew Sliver and Predatory Sliver, but it has a very interesting difference, instead of a passive +1/+1 it gives +1/+1 counters to every sliver entering the field, that has an advantage and a drawback. The advantage is that counters are permanent and if Metallic Mimic is destroyed they'll remain. The drawback is that Metallic Mimic won't boost previously cast slivers unlike Adaptive Automaton.
--Metallic Mimic is a great addition to a popular sliver lord deck variant which is basically composed of 4xPredatory Sliver, Sinew Sliver, Adaptive Automaton and Phantasmal Image. It usually has Collected Company and Aether Vial + some utility slivers and flex picks.
So, new slivers and new opportunities. Let's review your new options:
--Dregscape Sliver is a nice sideboard option against those kill-heavy decks. Unless they can exile your stuff or clear the graveyard, they are gonna have a had time.
--Cloudshredder Sliver is interesting. it's basically Galerider Sliver+Striking Sliver in one card. I have my doubts about it, but if you're pressed for space, you can replace the above-mentioned slivers with this one.
--Lavabelly Sliver Oh boy, this is a powerhouse. I couldn't believe myself when I saw it. Pair that with the ridiculous The First Sliver for an instant win unless the opponent has a way to counter that very same turn. Speaking of which:
--The First Sliver: Jesus fucking Christ. This thing allows you to play your entire deck, for free, at once. Pair this with Lavabelly Sliver and it's a win-con (if 20-30 slivers on the battlefield are not enough already).
--Spiteful Sliver: This is an interesting card to have for sure against decks that use powerful creatures. also combos with Blasphemous Act
--Unsettled Mariner This counts as a sliver, and it's basically an alternative difussion sliver. Is control giving you much trouble? 4 of those and 4 difussion sliver and have fun.
--Bladeback Sliver: Slivers tend to empty their hands real quick. This is a nice card to have.
The sideboard is just a small list, not a real sideboard, you can build it however you want and it keeps changing depending on the current meta. I recommend keeping at least Harmonic Sliver.
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| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 11 years |
| Last updated | 4 years |
| Legality | This deck is Modern legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 9 - 2 Mythic Rares 16 - 8 Rares 17 - 5 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.73 |
| Tokens | Sliver 1/1 C |
| Folders | Like, Nice Deck ideas, Slivers, maybe decks, decks i like, cool ideas, Joey, Other Peoples Decks (For Ideas), Faveeeee~ all respect to the owners of said decks for these are theirs~, Interesting |
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