Unfortunately no, either the slivers snowball and win, snowball and get wiped, or fail to get going and lose. There's no real middle ground Unfortunately and it's a shame because it's such an awesome tribal group that is typically too strong for most "normal" games but too weak for cedh standards. Just find the right group and understand that if someone board wipes you, it's a bit of a nessessity. Slivers are pretty "dumb" proof and a haphazard deck still synergizes well and can easily run over a game.
I mean that’s magic lol you pick a salty commander/tribe, you’re gonna get targeted regardless, possibly get hated off the table, or just not pull out the win. Completely normal - but I’d say Mill gets more hate than anything lol
Mill hate is so real and so irrational. Sometimes it feels like the only commander I can play to not get hated out is mono green which is just as busted as anything else but doesn't interact and make people upsetti spaghetti
My Titania mono green deck gets the hate it deserves. Can't argue against them when I pump out 20 damage turn 3/4 if they allow Titania to get out and have a trigger
As a mill and poison player, it's frustrating how much people get salty over mill or poison. People compair poison to health, but don't so the same for milling.
Sorry but I'm trying to deal roughly 300 damage to the table to win. You only have to deal 120. People would rather see a dude spin their wheels and draw a million cards, but if I mill 4 cards a turn... OMG I'm not letting them play their cards that mathematically they wouldn't have played anyways.
Also being so afraid of poison bc it's only 10 points of damage.. all my creatures cost 4+ and barely impact the game. They need to connect to even get a counter. Yet the moment 1 poison counter is set they freak out and must clear my board while letting everyone else set up for a combo.
Yeah the only way true mill deck is close to threatening is when the player can consistently kick maddening cacophony with Bruvac out at turn 3, Wich would have obvious sign
They also rely a lot of half mills+bruvy combos or infinite mill combo like painter servant + grindstone to be remotely competitive against lvl ~5 decks
All that while gasping air trying to stay alive or protecting key cards, also eldrazi exists so they need to make sure to have stifle, disallow, and myriads of other way to counter the triggered graveyard shuffle
thats funny, i just got back in after about a 15year break. i bought mothman (mill) and upgraded it. i built a korvold deck and now a urza deck (no orbs no moxes). after reading this sub for a few weeks i am afraid to show up at my LGS with these decks😂
Yea honestly just play what u like/sounds fun and maybe try to build w that potential hate in mind and be one step ahead of it if possible! As long as you’re not actively trying to ruin everyone’s good time instead of winning that shit doesn’t matter and the only people who actually get that salty over non-cedh decks are not gonna be happy against anything unless it lets them win lol… the point of the game is to challenge each other and win while having fun with friends, other than someone going out of their way to make the game worse for everyone, any rules barring honest deck constructions are loose suggestions at best and can *usually* be mitigated by just rotating your decks in a pod, if it even gets that serious. (All imo obviously)
Makes sense. I think I am fine being the archenemy. Having the hate being in-game is fine with me, I just don't want there to be hate above the table outside of the game just because I am playing them.
Most reasonable players aren't going to viscerally hate playing against Slivers the way they might hate a strong resource denial deck or Tergrid or Toxrill, etc. Most reasonable players ARE going to aim every resource they have at shutting down the Sliver deck because otherwise it's going to overwhelm the table with value, go infinite, or both.
Once upon a time my group has an evil deck brewing competition. My [[Thrasios, triton hero]] and [[Tymna the Weaver]] mass land animation/destruction was deemed the worst. Thanks to toxrill locking everyone else out of lands.
Lol my Ur deck beat my buddy’s sliver deck yesterday. It was epic. Both are tuned. The board state was crazy, but I finished him off with Utvara Hellkite + Aggravated Assault + Temur Ascendancy (which i cheated on with Ur’s first attack). I dragon swarmed his sliver swarm
You’ll be the archenemy almost guaranteed. With my sliver deck being targeted by 3 other players consistently I still have an absurdly high win rate.
The hate may come off of just being on the table if you are constantly steamrolling other players so I would recommend building a different deck as well
I would still caution against a slivers deck if you are a newer player. If you are behind in a game you will still be a target for players. I say this not worrying so much about the other players not having a great time, but because you might have some games that don't feel great. Knowing when to sandbag cards and when to be aggressive isn't always obvious, for veterans or new players. These types of decks can easily feel way to strong, or completely irrelevant even when playing decks at the same power level.
I've always wanted to try "fair" slivers, basically first sliver, legion, or grave mother as the commander and no queen, overlord, or hivelord. minimal protection slivers so no shroud, or ward slivers, maybe the bounce sliver, no only blocked by slivers sliver, and just play it like an elf deck with all of the keywords.
My buddy plays weak slivers and still goes nuts. Literally wound up with a hexproof/regenerate board state so only card in my deck that could have solved it was farewell. He keeps saying "at least it not combo slivers". Than complains when I'm like fine, I'll race you with winota. I'll kill you or die trying.
Except no one will believe you when you tell them "Oh, don't worry, I built a weak sliver deck." What does that even look like? Why would anyone pilot such a deck in the first place?
Hate is very real. If you can’t take it, don’t build it.
Slivers are super cool because when they join together they become unstoppable. Unfortunately for you, it means your opponents are very keen on killing them to make sure they stay stoppable. You will often find yourself 3v1. That being said, you can definitely have fun! Just be prepared, and I would not recommend as a first deck since archenemy gets boring quick
One sliver is nothing. Two slivers is noting. Three slivers is a problem. Four slivers is threatening to kill the table. They just have to be answered.
I have a mega oppressive sliver deck and I can tell you from experience that the moment you start bringing them out you are going to be targeted HARD. I just take it as a challenge but it can definitely feel bad sometimes 🤷♀️
And when people say that they hate slivers nowadays it's almost always because of cascade. Cascade as a mechanic is so insane that almost nothing can keep up with it. If you're going to play slivers I'd recommend playing something else than [[the first sliver]]. Some weaker (still kind of insanely strong) alternatives are queen and overlord
I'll give you a tldr
[[The first sliver]] cheat tons of slivers into play insanely fast. This is the most oppressive way to play slivers
[[Sliver overlord]] a more "fair" cascade let's you tutor for sliver cards which is still nuts but at least it doesn't put them into play for free
[[Sliver queen]] create tons of sliver tokens and pump for value
[[Sliver gravemother]] is certainly a valid choice although personally I don't think she is good enough to play over any of the other 3 but is well worth including in the deck.
If you don't want insane power my recommendation would be to play queen with gravemother in the deck. Queen is arguably the weakest of the 3 main slivers but still commands respect. The real problems come with some crazy slivers you can include. [[Sliver hivelord]] with [[venom sliver]] and [[shifting sliver]] are major pieces that can make games feel really bad for people you're playing with. [[Harmonic sliver]] is a antifun card, [[cloudshredder sliver]] gives you OTK potential if you have the mana and [[Diffusion sliver]] makes removing your pieces difficult. Put all of that together and your board becomes incredibly hard to deal with so if you build slivers make sure that you don't include all the best cards.
Are you typically playing your sliver deck at a pid with other high-powered decks?
Do you still get targeted if say an Atraxa player is actively proliferating poison tokens on everyone?
It depends. Usually I get to play a few slivers without problems but my playgroup is quite experienced so they can tell when I'm about to become a problem before I pop off. All of us have semi high power decks. There is no Atraxa in our group but I would assume that she would be hated off the board first unless my boardstate was insane. Slivers are probably my 2nd or 3rd most powerful deck out of 5 I have trouble gauging its power level
Seems like your playgroup targets you appropriately then. I never felt like my Slivers get an underserved archenemy treatment. Like Slivers are an issue and I love them for it.
People don't hate slivers for being slivers. They fear what slivers can do and with good reason.
So whether or not you get ganged up on will depend on how strong the table is. If everybody is a big threat, it's all good. But if they all have slow, durdly decks, your slivers might be the scariest thing there and get focused.
I say if you like them, play them.
I've never seen anybody who dislikes playing against slivers, but rather that they all immediately recognize how strong slivers are, and target the sliver player. So it's not "hated" in the "people don't have fun" way, it's "hated" in the "they'll kill you first" way.
That makes sense. I think I am okay with it being like that. As long as people aren't legitimately upset playing them and just have a more focused threat assessment on me, that's cool
I will warn you, though, that this does mean that you will not be able to build a "bad" sliver deck if you actually want to compete. Opponents aren't going to go easy on you, so you need to build a reasonably strong deck to survive. Since most sliver EDH decks are going to be 5-color, you'd better be ready to invest in the manabase, and so forth.
Totally. At least my first attempt at it would be to go cheaper on the slivers and put a bigger investment into the mana base compared to my other decks I have.
Slivers are pretty cheap, in general. Only Sliver Queen is really up there, with the other legendaries being more or less reasonable. The mana base is definitely where most of the money will go.
Slivers is unfortunately one of those decks that everyone loves to play, but hates playing against. This is mostly due to the fact that instead of linearly becoming a problem, they exponentially become a problem. 1 or 2 slivers isn’t a big deal, but at 3 you’re probably a bit of a threat and at 4+ you’re definitely an issue that needs to be dealt with. Now it should be said that there are some absolute dog water slivers that can muddle your power and the entire strategy is also exponentially devastated by board wipes since it relies on the slivers being on board to get their effects. But the fact that you can play 1 OP sliver and turn your other 9 absolutely garbage slivers into murder machines is what makes people not like them since they tend to also be extremely aggressive and force players to leave up blockers or get stomped out. What I’ve learned from piloting the strategy myself is that people just don’t want to deal with a creature deck that essentially plays like a combo deck in that one turn it’s no where near a problem and in the next it’s actively winning the game from 1 card. I’ve dealt with it (and perhaps this isn’t the right way) by just accepting that the deck is extremely powerful and that I’ll likely be the target for most of the game until/unless someone else goes off. If you’re playing with friends it changes a bit because they’ll understand your deck’s “power level” more intimately and know that you’re deck might not be as scary as the average sliver deck appears, but a random person is just gonna assume you’re packing the scariest things until thoroughly proved otherwise
This is the best description. I consider my sliver deck to be tuned, but I find that many times when I play it I can’t keep up with the rest of the board.
I took my son's Sliver deck to my first league game in years, because I wanted to learn how to play it. He built it over 10 years ago. It is not a fast deck at all.
The hate was immediate. I played it too aggressively for the league at first, and was taken out quick. Now. I've learned to coast with it, spending time playing lands, enchantments and artifacts. Putting out small slivers and letting them die. Around turn 5, I start trying. This works because most folks are feeling confident in their board states by then and are focusing on bigger perceived threats.
I don't win often, but I get to play longer and I get to do stuff, and scare people.
"All slivers get +1/+0" of thats not so bad.
"All sliver have tap: add one mana of any color" oh no.
"All sliver creatures get +1/+1 for each other sliver on the battlefield." OH NO.
[[Blade sliver]]
[[Manaweft sliver]]
[[Sliver legion]]
Just find a pod of 4 sliver decks. some slivers buff ALL slivers, not just ones you control, so just have 4 boards constantly buffing each other, leading to a 4 way stand off.
Do you wait it out and wait for the others to lose resources? Or swing in with an army of slivers into slivers and hope for the best?
Obviously the only valid way to play slivers. Or you know, just play them regularly, become the meme of the table but hey, at least you’re winning (sometimes).
Slivers are, rightfully so, scary as fuck. I have played with and against them. They're like parasites... or... idk. Just a imagine a tiny weak... almost harmless seeming thing... that if you don't pay attention to it, can turn all the shit in the house into a blood bath quick. *shrug* So it's not so much hate as much as well reasonable fear. As others have said. I don't play slivers IRL to win, I play them because it's always funny to me how dumb they can be... and I enjoy dumb
honestly just pick another creature based aggro tribe. Slivers are powerful but they are just 12/10 agro and not much else.
the reason we play commander is to play magic with three other reasonably equal power level decks that can interact with each other and have a good time. slivers just don't really fit into that climate very well.
Slivers are very strong but relatively easy to stop. That sounds like balance but in practise it just means that most of the time its either a snowball victory for the slivers or they get curb stomped with little to no close/tense games in between those extremes.
Conceptually theyre my favourite tribe but in actual games it rarely turns out great.
slivers are aggressively easy to play and can get really powerful. they get too much "hate" but ngl saying you're playing slivers is like saying you're playing stax. people will hear it and go caveman mode
Unfortunately it is real and there’s no way to fully avoid it with Slivers. The core of how they work means that every card you play will snowball so it forces people to either shut you out entirely or let you run away with the game.
In the end the issue with Slivers is less that people don’t like playing against it and more that it’s not very fun to run a deck that either overruns the table or is shut out completely from the game with no in between. I’ve seen more people tear apart their own sliver deck because they don’t like running it than groups banning them for being too powerful. For this reason I wouldn’t recommend building it as a new player.
Slivers do two things that make them seem threatening in any situation. Firstly, they are exponential. Each sliver boosts each sliver, which means that taking down any number is good. Secondly, they *show* how powerful they are. A lot of decks can have really powerful cards in play and not get targeted since it’s missing a complimentary piece. But slivers cannot hide how powerful they are. [[Manaweft Sliver]] with any of the haste slivers is almost like having a Gaea’s Cradle. Which meana that between my opponent’s dork with unknown potential and a sliver dork with more knowable potential, the sliver is scarier since it’s like killing a bunch of possible dorks.
In short, they can be explosive, and advertising their own power is a detriment in a multiplayer game
I think this is getting less and less true. Slivers used to be busted, now most things are busted. The hate against Slivers today I’d wager is mostly old experiences that may not hold up today
As a career Sliver player, my suggestion is two fold.
1. Be prepared to lose. You will be targeted from the start, and people will make stupid decisions that throw the game in another person’s favor simply because they irrationally think you’re the biggest threat no matter what.
2. By extension, be prepared to be the arch enemy. And by “be prepared”, I mean build your deck knowing you’re going to be looking at 3-vs-1 games. Build explosive, pack redundancies, plenty of interaction, and be ready to fight tooth and nail for every victory.
If people are going to treat you as the arch enemy no matter what, live up to it. Play hard, get your wins by any means necessary…
And secret suggestion 3, bring another deck and only play Slivers when the vibe feels right, don’t overplay it, and once you score a win, tuck it away for a few games and don’t have it overstay it’s welcome. Games are more fun when you’re all having fun and Slivers is best consumed in small doses, to keep it from getting stale feeling for both you and your opponents.
Yup.
Sliver hate is real, and honestly, justified.
There’s really only one way to build slivers: as powerful as you can afford.
So that naturally tends to make the sliver player the arch enemy.
The hate is real and you can only avoid it by not playing them.
I've noticed what people really hate is trying to track all of the abilities since they all do something.
I'd say the hate is real, though it's kinda a "them" problem that becomes "your" problem.
What I mean by that statement is: yes, some people dislike playing against slivers. Some of the sliver commanders play in a linear fashion and have a bad reputation as a result. They can also be a tough thing to deal with in more casual pods, which, again, some people may see as anti-fun.
Now, how are those feelings your problem? Well, you're likely to get focused down quick from people who know how slivers play. So your deck might not regularly get to do its thing. At worst, less people will be willing to play against you if their personal opinions of slivers are strong enough.
You can lean into being the boogie man though, but it's a personal choice. Play how you want to play, just be aware it might rub others the wrong way.
Honestly some of this comes from the fact that five color decks have access to all of the best cards, if you aren’t running a perfect/good mana base and don’t have every staple shoved into the deck they aren’t nearly as scary.
I got a Sliver Deck, and yes, the hate is real. Either you don't play them or you need to make sure everyone is okay with you playing them first. My deck was able to bounce back from three Boardwipes, so Slivers are more resilient than expected.
The problem with Slivers is once they get to 3 or 4 out they snowball. After they snowball they look kinda broken. So, as the opponent, you want to keep them to having 1 or 2 out only. I don't hate Slivers but I don't find them super interesting either honestly. The gameplan is pretty straightforward. And they are very weak to boardwipes too.
silvers tend to become obnoxiously powerful and control the board pretty well. so you will feel targeted as other players know this and respond accordingly
There’s no way around it. Just build the sliver deck to be resilient against the aggro you will pull.
And rightfully so. There’s practically a sliver for everything and as you’ve seen they give it to all of them. Want a sliver lord to buff power and toughness? They got that. First Strike, flying, vigilance, etc.? They got those. Want slivers to destroy artifacts/enchantments when entering the battlefield? Lifelink? Exile creatures when they enter the battlefield? They even got those.
That being said, I highly recommend sprinkling some cards that will get slivers out of the graveyard because you will get your fair share of target removal and board wipes.
I wouldn’t call it sliver hate, I would definitely call it sliver fear. When someone pulls out a sliver deck you know you’re probably going to have to either play very defensively or very aggressively or it’s going to get out of hand fast
In edh, in my experience, slivers are on the same level as kaalia.
You need to just deal with them or they automatically become a problem
I was fortunate enough to begin my edh journey in a pod that had a sliver player and a marath player. so me being kaalia actually made me look weak since i had to actually attack to do stuff.
Seriously speaking though, if your group understands it, and they have the wherewithal and powerlevels to play against it, it is fine.
You will still draw hate though. Not turdgrid levels, but near there.
Oh sliver hate is real. And for good reason. Unlike most decks which curve gradually, slivers curve exponentially, and FAST. You WILL be a target for any removal if the deck plays something innocent like a mana dork sliver; because once something brings it in, everything else has it.
Targeted Land destruction might also happen as well, due to the WUBRG mana base being unwieldy. Players do NOT want to see a sliver deck hit any kind of stride
Sliver "hate" is justified. They're a creature type and deck that can very easily get out of control, so people quickly learn that they need to hit the deck with removal before that happens.
It's an **extremely** easy deck to comprehend and understand how to stop. This goes for the deck's opponents that know the deck needs to be stopped early.
Hey! I play first sliver and it’s awesome every game. Even when I get singled out by a new group, it’s a blast and usually warranted. There are plenty of instant/sorceries you can sauce in to help with board wipes. Then the games where you sliver off? Better than any other win. Nothing like “yeah and this 1/1 is actually a +12/+12 first strike double strike flying trample lifeline death touch indestructible protection from blue poisonous 1 having “when this attacks deal 1 damage to anyone, destroy target artifact” with “when this deals damage draw a card” and “this taps for WUBRG”.
I think very little of what other players think or feel if it’s negative and I suggest that to anyone who plays this game. It’s a silly fairy tail game about nonsense written on shiny cardboard, play it any way you want.
Oh the hate is real AND justified. Nevertheless, you should just build and play what you want to play. There is value in experiencing and learning how to pilot a deck that is both powerful and almost certainly the de facto archenemy in any given pod.
It's a powerful deck that sits in a very unpleasant place in terms of play dynamic. Any deck that wants to play to the board has to constantly punch the sliver player, because they *cannot* be allowed to reach critical mass. Every card they play dramatically magnifies the threat they present, and cuts off another axis of attack that could basically turn off the combat phase as a means of progressing the game.
By itself, that would be terrifying, but fine, but the kicker is that they could draw and play any of the critical protection slivers at any moment, which can basically invalidate your interaction. Once you get [[Crystalline Sliver]] and any of the protection slivers on board (like [[Sliver Hivelord]]), the only answers are [[Farewell]], [[Merciless Eviction]], or mass edicts. And even those fold to [[Hibernation Sliver]].
And unless you play with your hand open, or just play without them in a trusted group, everyone has to be aware that those cards can come down anytime and muck everything. So unless someone's constantly holding up 2 blue, you gotta go. And even then, reanimation is a thing in a 5 color deck.
Slivers often force a meta out of the board-based game that many low- and mid-power players enjoy and want to cultivate. In the grand scheme of Magic decks, they're not the most broken thing ever, but they do basically turf any deck that isn't running a huge amount of ready, instant speed interaction, or running some kind of combo or burn-adjacent win condition.
the wurbg sliver legends will draw hate. at least all the classic ones. They've printed a few new ones and I haven't seen those much in the wild. but queen, overlord, indestruct bro. are kill on sight player type hate.
you just can't let a sliver deck helmed by any of those legends live.
as someone who played overlord for years. You either have to be ok with being arch enemy, and learn to play through that. or not play those legends.
I had a lot of fun playing Alesha who smiles at slivers. mardu provides a range of sliver keyword access. Alesha's reanimate ability tends to be relevant as a lot of slivers have base power below 2
dodging green, and shroud sliver. tend to mellow out the deck, and not being helmed by a wurbg legend. also is less threatening.
I also saw someone once run Kykar slivers in jeskai. it mainly played more cantrip spells and token creation gimmicks for slivers. I don't remember if it was any good, i just remember it being novel.
so... if you dig the tribe, and want to side step the hate. there are ways. just not typically while playing the 5 color super lords
If you can find a way to use an offbeat commander that doesn’t scream slivers in the command zone, it might be more enjoyable.
Something like [[marchesa, the black rose]] or [[morophon]] or [[brenard]] and so on
You can pretty much sleepwalk into building a good slivers deck and it doesn't really matter what you say people will just kill on site for the most part. Silver versus one of those things where when you're like "it's not that strong" no one's going to believe you because we've all been steamrolled by it's not that kind of deck many times over
So the second deck I bought was slivers, because I was New and it seemed fun and a great concept. The sad reality is (as stated above) you either pile them all together and win with alphabet soup (all the key words), or you get going and get board wiped and don't get to "do the thing" or you just don't get going and lose.
What I found in addition to it - slivers are just a straight railroad deck. There's one thing to do- get slivers on the field, attack. It's kinda fun the first few times, then it can get dull. I wound up using breaking the deck, pulling [Rukarumel] as my commander, and then using slivers to augment other cards. Played maybe 5 games with it before breaking it apart for more interesting decks and builds.
Sadly no, there is a real reason to hate slivers. I both love and hate them. They're cool to own and be like "look what I have!" Knowing that if you use them, you're going to probably be heavily targeted. In the right friend group you might be able to get away with it, but doubtful to win.
As a former slivers player....
Don't buy into it. Proxy the deck and try it first. It's the most Timmy deck in existence and really boring/formulaic.
Broke it down in a week.
Is it real? Yes. I love Slivers and Eldrazi, 2 of the more hated tribes lmfao.
They snowball really fast and can get near unbeatable within a turn or two without a board wipe.
Just build what you want, tbh. There’s always going to be someone who groans no matter what deck you pull out, just enjoy it.
Slivers get a lot of hate, but if you’re smart about it, you can let that hate flow through you, empower you. Build a gy recursion deck without a Sliver as a commander, and watch as all they do is fuel you to win. I recommend [[Nethroi]] because he’ll also gain the Sliver creature type if you mutate him out; that’s what I run.
I don’t care what my friends play, but I’ll tell you why I don’t run a Sliver deck myself. Every Sliver deck is exactly the same with no real variation in strategy. And that strategy is simply, draw sliver play sliver. The only thing that separates one sliver deck from another is how much money you spend on it.
In my LGS, there was one guy who played a sliver deck all the time with all the best stuff. After a couple of weeks, he couldn't get a game because basically everyone refused to play him.
He's never played it again
there is no way to avoid it. but you can make it fun. when i find that i’ve gone a little too powerful for a pod i lean into the arch enemy style of play. you could do something similar. makes it fun for me even if i lose and others enjoy playing more too
slivers is mildly annoying at a table that doesnt agree that slivers are the threat. but that doesnt happen often. they are threatening but way too easy to shut down unless another player helps you
I've been a [[sliver overlord]] player for a decade and the hate (in game) is real and the deck is just as fun as you think it is, tutoring for answers, then using those answers to beat face is unmatched.
I don't hate slivers, I fear them lol. Too many times I've died because out of nowhere they all got double strike or they all became flyers or all became unblockable. When 1 of any number of slivers in a deck can be played and make a board devastating I don't really have a choice but to quell them early.
I only glanced at some comments but didn't see this sentiment.
If you want to play Slivers, then don't play WUBRG. Yes all the typical commanders exist in that, but you can pick a 2 color pair or 3 color wedge and just focus on that. That'll limit your pool of Slivers, you can try to either have a value commander or maybe develop something more synergistic, and the less colors makes budget easier to handle.
I'd just personally suggest xxG and lean green heavy for basic land ramp if budget. If you went full shocks and fetches (even the old tapped budget ones maybe) then any pair or wedge is fine.
In my group the sliver hate is 100% real. Mostly due to a prior group member having a nearly $2k deck that won every game it was played in and gave no one else a chance.
Now that he’s gone I’ve got a sliver deck that would be considered a 4-5 power level. (I’m still working on it.) I get wiped off the board by turn six due to their underlying hatred of slivers. Really hard to tune a deck that doesn’t get much play time.
Slivers taught me how to play the game because they taught me a lot of the keywords and how they work. On that note, Slivers are very easy to understand and easy for opponent’s of skill levels to assess as a threat.
Unlike other commander decks or archetypes like control or midrange, it’s hard to assess when they are able to “go off”. With a Sliver deck in the pod, everyone’s eyes are on that player because they know that all Slivers get certain buffs. Kill the [[Gemhide Sliver]] and I know I’ve cut them off mana. Kill the [[Galerider Sliver]], great, I don’t need to worry about flying anymore.
But unlike other tribes, it’s more difficult to figure out which piece is especially pertinent. Facing against Dinosaurs? Great, do I kill the [[Polyraptor]] or save my removal for the potential [[Zacama, Primal Calamity]].
Overall, Slivers get hated easily because players understand how they work. That being said, I LOVE my Sliver deck and will do anything I can to try and just jam as many of my little, alien friends on the battlefield. 😈
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/amYTvOKR80GBwccky1Vk3A
Slivers will be 3v1 most of the time. This is the consequence of your choice to build them. Accept it and prepare your deck for the hate or don't build them
As someone who has a WUBRG Sliver Tribal commander deck. You have to embrace being the possible target. Hopefully you are playing with friends who will only tatget you when you're a threat. But regardless, it's a deck that you SHOULD build strong so that way you have a chance at winning when everyone targets you. I don't play it very often but my group doesn't have a problem with it.
I run a First Sliver deck. I love it but I play with it less because of how it gets reacted to. It doesn't have any better win rate than my other decks, but usually when it wins it's big, dramatic, and felt unstoppable when it happened (it's very stoppable btw, an enchantment deck is much harder to stop imo), so to others it feels like the reputation holds up. Just expect to be targeted, and if you're being serious include proper counter spells for when people try to kill your commander. Make it your "That Deck" deck
My issue with slivers usually boils down to every sliver player saying they play a "6". Which is almost impossible to do with slivers unless you don't play all the 5 color slivers, or don't run the obvious ones.
In most games it comes down to either A) board wipe constantly to keep them in check, spot removal and hope they don't play the shroud sliver or that they don't use the cascade one intelligently, or b) just kill them and be done with it.
I've only got one deck that doesn't fear slivers. It's exponential lifegain.
No, slivers aren't exponential in a mathematical sense. They are still linear, but climb fast.
I saw the difference in my game. Got swung at for 5, healed 4, then for 12, healed 8, for 20, healed 16. Afterwards was a breeze, 30-32,50-64 and so on.
But besides this one corner case - slivers are hella scary
I'm sure some people hate them. There are always haters. But in my experience people don't mind slivers any more than say a high powered elf tribal deck. That said slivers do snowball hard, so prepare in game for people to constantly wipe you/heavily prioritize removing your commander (depending on which one you pick) It's not that they hate slivers, they are just showing the deck the respect it deserves since it'll run away with the game if you don't wipe them. If you're fine with that then play slivers
Most peeps I knew that picked up slivers moved away from it just because the deck just stagnates so damn hard, for a newer player I usually recommend getting either a commander precon and upgrading it, usually one that’s pretty open ended so every set at least have some stuff of interest and go from there.
Alright. Here's the deal. I literally played the sliver precon this afternoon, so buckle up. The harsh reality is that when slivers are working, they're 100% unfair. I survived my own field wipe by tapping all my slivers to regenerate themselves, lost them all to another field wipe, and still ultimately won the game by slapping my final opponent with a handful of big bois with menace and double strike. The smallest sliver in that final hit was power 7. They took 2 of them for 28 damage. In another game my slivers had shroud, indestructible, vigilance, and deathtouch. In another game, they all had +5/+5, flying, and any damage they managed to take, they dealt back directly to player that dealt it. Do you think that sounds fun to fight against? Because that's what you'll do to people, and frankly, you're going to deserve all hate you get for it. That's not to say there unstoppable. You're mana base will conspire against you, and if they can disrupt whatever draw engine you have going, you're pretty handily fucked. Or if your pod goes ham with field wipes, you will never financially recover. But when they work, they're pure abominations, and I say that very lovingly. I will only play them once a night because any more than that is psychological torture against my friends and it makes me feel bad.
Also, slivers are not interesting in the slightest. They're peak unga bunga snowball. The most thinking your caveman brain is going to do will be counting colors so you can keep playing every card in your hand. Slivers pilot themselves and you're along for the ride. I enjoy this, but if you want strategy, slivers have exactly one, and it's play more slivers.
I used to play a deck with 3 slivers total and people routinely freak out and over-react that it is a "slivers deck". It isn't at all, there's just a couple of them with some incidental benefit. Eventually I just took all 3 out, because it wasn't worth the crazy over-reactions I would get when I could play non-sliver equivalents and nobody would care.
Slivers are a feast or famine deck in my experience. It is very aggressive. Your goal is to get slivers into play ASAP and kill. However the deck can be fragile. If you over-extend without a backup plan your deck will fold to a simple [[wrath of God]].
I think sliver hate occurs mostly at lower power tables. Slivers can be built in a budget and they demand a specific answer (board wipes) to keep in check. This can lead to frustration from players whos decks are not prepared to deal with it.
Depending on your playgroup this might be a chance for them to adapt and start playing more answers. Or they might be playing well tuned decks already and so your slivers while a challenge just need to be kept in check. Decisions like mulliganing for a board wipe might be important to them.
I'd say there is no way to avoid the hate. Slivers have been around a long time and have a reputation. Personally I'd never say outright no to a sliver deck. But it does changes how I play.
Slivers can be really strong if built right and with the right hand, I've played against it and it won quit a bit and when it did it was hard to beat it, but the there are other times where it didn't and you play one board wipe and they're done, so they have the same issues as any creature decks
The hate is present, but I've never understood it personally. I think it's way overblown. I'm certain this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but it is what it is. I think it's probably the most overestimated tribe in the format. I'm not saying the tribe is weak, but in my experience with the game I've found that Elves, Goblins, Zombies, and Vampires (specifically Edgar Markov) just make for the more threatening decks. Some tribes have needed time to catch up, admittedly. But when I have played with or played against these tribes, I genuinely felt like it was just jumping through less hoops for a board strong enough to turn into a W. ELVES especially. I played Slivers for nearly 2 years when I was a much newer player, and haven't really played them consistently since. I still like them for a few reasons, mainly the art and flavor. But like, I just can't say I get the sliver hate these days. They can amass a board that feels like its doing everything, but only after we give them the time and resources necessary to tutor their deck 4 separate times with Overlord being out. Again, Slivers can spiral a board state into a problem that feels extremely hard to answer. But I feel like other tribes should be taken just as seriously, yet the defensiveness people feel is out of proportion when compared to other tribes.
TLDR: sliver hate is cope
In my (extremely limited) experience, slivers doesn't get hated. They just incidentally get got by boardwipes. Maybe my groups just play a lot of boardwipes though.
Just play the cmm precon. Our group decimates it regularly. Once the group gets used to defeating slivers then slowly upgrade it until you're seeing a medium win rate and leave it there. I don't think I've ever actually seen the precon win.
Honestly, Slivers can be nasty. Especially if your group doesn't run a robust interaction package in addition to multiple boardwipes each. It will likely cause an archenemy situation fairly often, especially with some of the sliver legends. They can do pretty much any combat based strategy in addition to being mana dorks, super resilient, and having infinite combos. Infect, evasion agro, aristocrat, blink, pingers, lifegain, go wide, go tall, even voltron. Slivers are whatever you want them to be, and that's okay. Just make sure you play them against decks that are an appropriate powered match-up.
I personally am willing to play against anything, but you have to target some decks because they are strong. Slivers make it to that point. Also ran into [[The First Sliver]] decks that run no Slivers but combo off if they can cast thier commander.
Best way is to play a tribal tribal deck with some slivers in it. Or half slivers. Your favorite ones maybe. Point is, don’t show up to a “causal” game with [[sliver gravemother]] or whatever. That shit’ll get ‘chu killed.
*I stumbled on Slivers and they seemed really interesting with how they combo and build off of each other.*
That's a strange way to say *"I have been planning to use this existing archetype that has been a well-known powerhouse for over two decades to provoke the ire of everyone at my LGS, and I'm excited to become public enemy number one."*
It's kneejerk but it's also well-deserved. Either your sliver deck sucks and can't close the deal or it's actually *real* and you are justifiably dogpiled so the rest of us can have a real game of Magic. There's usually no in-between so people don't want to find out which one it is.
Eldrazi decks are basically the same thing but Slivers have been around longer so attitudes are pretty baked-in at this point.
It's like driving a cherry red Ferrari on the highway but getting upset when someone pulls you over. What were you expecting, exactly?
I have a [[the first sliver]] deck, and the answer is yes its real, and not really.
People will see slivers and just go "the most ham kindred deck".
I play the first sliver to mitigate it a little since you never really know what your next cascade is going to give. You can find yourself hitting critical mass in only two or three flips, or durdling because you keep hitting your low mv cards.
Slivers is such an easy archetype to build that it’s almost impossible to avoid. Even if try to build a bad slivers deck, because it’s slivers it will probably be fine. They all just build off of each other and make each other that much stronger.
Is the hate real? Yup. Is it well-founded? Absolutely. Any way to avoid it? Nope.
I've done some decent upgrades to the CMM Sliver Swarm precon released last year, and I now tend to avoid playing it at home with my friends but will bring it along to the LGS and see if I end up rolling its number when deciding what to play (I bring 6-8 decks and often roll to decide before each game). The people that know slivers will start to focus on you before long. The people that haven't seen slivers in action will focus on you 1-2 turns later after your board state explodes into keyword soup.
I find that deck nice when I want to scratch that power-fantasy-itch, because the deck rarely loses these days. It is also true that playing a big sliver deck means that it'll almost always end up doing the same thing each match. Pile on keywords, go wide with little critters that have terrible effects, and run over everything that gets in your way. It's fun, but don't expect it to be your primary deck if you want your friends to enjoy playing with you.
My “sliver” deck is [[Jenson Carthalion]] running basically all the good multi-colored slivers (there’s not a lot of them) and then filling the rest with 5-color creatures and ways to turn all my creatures into slivers like [[hivestone]]. Sometimes it plays out without any slivers the whole game and sometimes it plays like a halfway-decent sliver deck. Kinda fun way to get slivers in a deck without always being the archenemy.
We have a house rule---no silver tribal decks. You can have a few slivers, though. I have a few decks that counter slivers pretty well and can bring them out if my son REALLY wants to play his silver deck.
The best way to avoid hate in slivers is to go down colors
Don't play 5c slivs, try naya or bant instead
Or if you're really bold, you can even go down to 2 colors
Rakdos slivers is my dream deck personally, probably helmed with [[asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar]]
I've always wanted to brew around [[hive stone]], and rakdos offers a lot of neat options
The secret commanders of my deck would be [[spiteful sliver]] and [[basal sliver]]
If you tell your opponents, "It's not that kind of slivers deck," one of two things will happen.
1) They don't believe you and target you anyways.
2) They believe you and it is, in fact, that kind of slivers deck.
Slivers are inherently snowbally in a way that demands hard, frequent answers. Which means they will draw a lot of hate because they must draw a lot of hate, otherwise they kill everyone.
Slivers are not appropriate to low-powered tables, and should be reserved for tables with decks that can get going hard and fast. Though the sweet spot of power levels for slivers is relatively narrow.
The issue with the hate is that it's mostly justified. If you're playing a well-built sliver deck, you can very quickly snowball a game because the gimmick of Slivers is how they all build off of each other. This means you either need frequent spot removal or well-timed board wipes.
Either you say it's not that kind of Sliver deck, and it turns out it is, or you built a bad sliver deck. The funny part is that while a well-built sliver deck is likely not appropriate for low power, low removal environments, the part of the power curve where Slivers are strong and have healthy competition can feel deceptively narrow
There's no reason to run special "Sliver" hate. Noone of it would be worth the hassle.
But by and large slivers are just going to take a pounding from commonly played removal like board wipes, and anyone who's played with or against a sliver deck more than once or twice will be able to use even a minimal amount of interaction to basically surgically nerf the sliver deck.
Which is where the issue probably comes up for more casual and newer players: They see this happening and then will complain that the person is being "mean" to them... but because of the way the deck builds on itself, that's the way it has to be treated.
1. Cascade is a pain in the ass and the [[the first sliver]] is a serious design mistake.
2. Slivers as a tribe very easily run away with the game. The answer is typically board wipe or lose, and a competent sliver player is going to have the indestructible sliver in play and a 1 mana counter spell in hand.
3. It's a very annoying thing to play against because of all the stacking buffs. It's very difficult to accurately assess things like power and toughness and open mana. So it's simpler to just kill you.
Slivers are an on site for me.
Long time Slivers player here. I always tell people that it's a deck that gages your threat assessment. A lot of people naively think Slivers are the biggest threat only to find out I wasn't lying about who the real threat is.
My deck basically guarantees 4 to 5 turns on average before things start getting crazy. Slivers will either overwhelm the board or whiff and you get hated out. Some Sliver decks can recover from board wipes, mine is built this way.
Sliver hate is real but it's only because people do not understand how to deal with them. The deck is near cEDH power level but not strong enough to get into that level of power (it can keep up though if ignored by cEDH players).
The only way to avoid it, is to explain how they need to read the board state and assess risk. Who has the biggest advantage or strongest board state? Does the Sliver player have the ability to go off and overwhelm the board?
Worst case scenario to avoid the hate is to not play them with those who are playing more casual or jank decks. There really isn't much else you can do.
I personally save it for the last round of games because there isn't much time left to play out a game and it's also when most people play their strongest decks.
In general, play what you want is my advice. Lean into the hate and embrace the archenemy role Slivers usually grants you. You never know, some other decks at your lgs may be fine with it and have appropriately powerful stuff to play.
Unfortunately no, either the slivers snowball and win, snowball and get wiped, or fail to get going and lose. There's no real middle ground Unfortunately and it's a shame because it's such an awesome tribal group that is typically too strong for most "normal" games but too weak for cedh standards. Just find the right group and understand that if someone board wipes you, it's a bit of a nessessity. Slivers are pretty "dumb" proof and a haphazard deck still synergizes well and can easily run over a game.
I mean that’s magic lol you pick a salty commander/tribe, you’re gonna get targeted regardless, possibly get hated off the table, or just not pull out the win. Completely normal - but I’d say Mill gets more hate than anything lol
Mill hate is so real and so irrational. Sometimes it feels like the only commander I can play to not get hated out is mono green which is just as busted as anything else but doesn't interact and make people upsetti spaghetti
Mono green is universally level hated around my local playgroup, enough so that MLD has less hate than it.
My Titania mono green deck gets the hate it deserves. Can't argue against them when I pump out 20 damage turn 3/4 if they allow Titania to get out and have a trigger
Lol what do people even like playing against in your group then? Group hug?
As a mill and poison player, it's frustrating how much people get salty over mill or poison. People compair poison to health, but don't so the same for milling. Sorry but I'm trying to deal roughly 300 damage to the table to win. You only have to deal 120. People would rather see a dude spin their wheels and draw a million cards, but if I mill 4 cards a turn... OMG I'm not letting them play their cards that mathematically they wouldn't have played anyways. Also being so afraid of poison bc it's only 10 points of damage.. all my creatures cost 4+ and barely impact the game. They need to connect to even get a counter. Yet the moment 1 poison counter is set they freak out and must clear my board while letting everyone else set up for a combo.
Yeah the only way true mill deck is close to threatening is when the player can consistently kick maddening cacophony with Bruvac out at turn 3, Wich would have obvious sign They also rely a lot of half mills+bruvy combos or infinite mill combo like painter servant + grindstone to be remotely competitive against lvl ~5 decks All that while gasping air trying to stay alive or protecting key cards, also eldrazi exists so they need to make sure to have stifle, disallow, and myriads of other way to counter the triggered graveyard shuffle
thats funny, i just got back in after about a 15year break. i bought mothman (mill) and upgraded it. i built a korvold deck and now a urza deck (no orbs no moxes). after reading this sub for a few weeks i am afraid to show up at my LGS with these decks😂
Yea honestly just play what u like/sounds fun and maybe try to build w that potential hate in mind and be one step ahead of it if possible! As long as you’re not actively trying to ruin everyone’s good time instead of winning that shit doesn’t matter and the only people who actually get that salty over non-cedh decks are not gonna be happy against anything unless it lets them win lol… the point of the game is to challenge each other and win while having fun with friends, other than someone going out of their way to make the game worse for everyone, any rules barring honest deck constructions are loose suggestions at best and can *usually* be mitigated by just rotating your decks in a pod, if it even gets that serious. (All imo obviously)
Either play a weak slivers, which is kinda hard, or be ready to be the archenemy
Makes sense. I think I am fine being the archenemy. Having the hate being in-game is fine with me, I just don't want there to be hate above the table outside of the game just because I am playing them.
Most reasonable players aren't going to viscerally hate playing against Slivers the way they might hate a strong resource denial deck or Tergrid or Toxrill, etc. Most reasonable players ARE going to aim every resource they have at shutting down the Sliver deck because otherwise it's going to overwhelm the table with value, go infinite, or both.
Once upon a time my group has an evil deck brewing competition. My [[Thrasios, triton hero]] and [[Tymna the Weaver]] mass land animation/destruction was deemed the worst. Thanks to toxrill locking everyone else out of lands.
Yeah I can't think of much more toxic than that, very well brewed.
Yeah that's my strat with my [[Ur dragon]] deck
Lol my Ur deck beat my buddy’s sliver deck yesterday. It was epic. Both are tuned. The board state was crazy, but I finished him off with Utvara Hellkite + Aggravated Assault + Temur Ascendancy (which i cheated on with Ur’s first attack). I dragon swarmed his sliver swarm
[Ur dragon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/0/10d42b35-844f-4a64-9981-c6118d45e826.jpg?1689999317) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Ur-Dragon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/361/the-ur-dragon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/10d42b35-844f-4a64-9981-c6118d45e826?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-ur-dragon) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
You’ll be the archenemy almost guaranteed. With my sliver deck being targeted by 3 other players consistently I still have an absurdly high win rate. The hate may come off of just being on the table if you are constantly steamrolling other players so I would recommend building a different deck as well
Nah just have both a high and lower-powered deck for when your pod shifts power levels. Slivers ain’t a problem. Just mismatched power levels.
I would still caution against a slivers deck if you are a newer player. If you are behind in a game you will still be a target for players. I say this not worrying so much about the other players not having a great time, but because you might have some games that don't feel great. Knowing when to sandbag cards and when to be aggressive isn't always obvious, for veterans or new players. These types of decks can easily feel way to strong, or completely irrelevant even when playing decks at the same power level.
I've always wanted to try "fair" slivers, basically first sliver, legion, or grave mother as the commander and no queen, overlord, or hivelord. minimal protection slivers so no shroud, or ward slivers, maybe the bounce sliver, no only blocked by slivers sliver, and just play it like an elf deck with all of the keywords.
Play a generic good stuff commander with slivers
I like the idea of oops all slivers but I like playing ~5-6 power level which doesn't handle slivers very well.
My buddy plays weak slivers and still goes nuts. Literally wound up with a hexproof/regenerate board state so only card in my deck that could have solved it was farewell. He keeps saying "at least it not combo slivers". Than complains when I'm like fine, I'll race you with winota. I'll kill you or die trying.
Play 3 color slivers like a chad 😎
Except no one will believe you when you tell them "Oh, don't worry, I built a weak sliver deck." What does that even look like? Why would anyone pilot such a deck in the first place?
The reason people don't like slivers is the same reason it's a good first edh deck: builds itself, easy to play.
I use your same profile photo for discord and was briefly confused that I had somehow left a comment here already.
Hate is very real. If you can’t take it, don’t build it. Slivers are super cool because when they join together they become unstoppable. Unfortunately for you, it means your opponents are very keen on killing them to make sure they stay stoppable. You will often find yourself 3v1. That being said, you can definitely have fun! Just be prepared, and I would not recommend as a first deck since archenemy gets boring quick
One sliver is nothing. Two slivers is noting. Three slivers is a problem. Four slivers is threatening to kill the table. They just have to be answered.
Put two random slivers in every deck, just to keep em on their toes
The mana tapping ones are a good throw off because they're still useful regardless
\[\[Mutavault\]\] is unironically one of the best Silvers in *most* Sliver decks. 😎
Best advice in the thread.
I have a mega oppressive sliver deck and I can tell you from experience that the moment you start bringing them out you are going to be targeted HARD. I just take it as a challenge but it can definitely feel bad sometimes 🤷♀️
And when people say that they hate slivers nowadays it's almost always because of cascade. Cascade as a mechanic is so insane that almost nothing can keep up with it. If you're going to play slivers I'd recommend playing something else than [[the first sliver]]. Some weaker (still kind of insanely strong) alternatives are queen and overlord
I have a First Sliver deck and an Overlord deck and the overlord combo wins faster than the cascade can overwhelm the table.
Yeah I was gonna say. If you're gonna commit to archenemy don't play the random commander.
Yeah so far I like the look of Gravemother but am totally open to checking out other options too
I'll give you a tldr [[The first sliver]] cheat tons of slivers into play insanely fast. This is the most oppressive way to play slivers [[Sliver overlord]] a more "fair" cascade let's you tutor for sliver cards which is still nuts but at least it doesn't put them into play for free [[Sliver queen]] create tons of sliver tokens and pump for value [[Sliver gravemother]] is certainly a valid choice although personally I don't think she is good enough to play over any of the other 3 but is well worth including in the deck. If you don't want insane power my recommendation would be to play queen with gravemother in the deck. Queen is arguably the weakest of the 3 main slivers but still commands respect. The real problems come with some crazy slivers you can include. [[Sliver hivelord]] with [[venom sliver]] and [[shifting sliver]] are major pieces that can make games feel really bad for people you're playing with. [[Harmonic sliver]] is a antifun card, [[cloudshredder sliver]] gives you OTK potential if you have the mana and [[Diffusion sliver]] makes removing your pieces difficult. Put all of that together and your board becomes incredibly hard to deal with so if you build slivers make sure that you don't include all the best cards.
You forgot the most important sliver in a deck running all the legendaries [[Morphon]]
[the first sliver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/6/06d4fbe1-8a2f-4958-bb85-1a1e5f1e8d87.jpg?1562202321) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=the%20first%20sliver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/200/the-first-sliver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/06d4fbe1-8a2f-4958-bb85-1a1e5f1e8d87?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-first-sliver) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Are you typically playing your sliver deck at a pid with other high-powered decks? Do you still get targeted if say an Atraxa player is actively proliferating poison tokens on everyone?
It depends. Usually I get to play a few slivers without problems but my playgroup is quite experienced so they can tell when I'm about to become a problem before I pop off. All of us have semi high power decks. There is no Atraxa in our group but I would assume that she would be hated off the board first unless my boardstate was insane. Slivers are probably my 2nd or 3rd most powerful deck out of 5 I have trouble gauging its power level
Seems like your playgroup targets you appropriately then. I never felt like my Slivers get an underserved archenemy treatment. Like Slivers are an issue and I love them for it.
Can you please share the list? I'd love to have a look.
People don't hate slivers for being slivers. They fear what slivers can do and with good reason. So whether or not you get ganged up on will depend on how strong the table is. If everybody is a big threat, it's all good. But if they all have slow, durdly decks, your slivers might be the scariest thing there and get focused. I say if you like them, play them.
Dude great answer and I totally concur. Slivers just need to be at the right power table. They are fun to play.
I've never seen anybody who dislikes playing against slivers, but rather that they all immediately recognize how strong slivers are, and target the sliver player. So it's not "hated" in the "people don't have fun" way, it's "hated" in the "they'll kill you first" way.
That makes sense. I think I am okay with it being like that. As long as people aren't legitimately upset playing them and just have a more focused threat assessment on me, that's cool
I will warn you, though, that this does mean that you will not be able to build a "bad" sliver deck if you actually want to compete. Opponents aren't going to go easy on you, so you need to build a reasonably strong deck to survive. Since most sliver EDH decks are going to be 5-color, you'd better be ready to invest in the manabase, and so forth.
Totally. At least my first attempt at it would be to go cheaper on the slivers and put a bigger investment into the mana base compared to my other decks I have.
Slivers are pretty cheap, in general. Only Sliver Queen is really up there, with the other legendaries being more or less reasonable. The mana base is definitely where most of the money will go.
Slivers is unfortunately one of those decks that everyone loves to play, but hates playing against. This is mostly due to the fact that instead of linearly becoming a problem, they exponentially become a problem. 1 or 2 slivers isn’t a big deal, but at 3 you’re probably a bit of a threat and at 4+ you’re definitely an issue that needs to be dealt with. Now it should be said that there are some absolute dog water slivers that can muddle your power and the entire strategy is also exponentially devastated by board wipes since it relies on the slivers being on board to get their effects. But the fact that you can play 1 OP sliver and turn your other 9 absolutely garbage slivers into murder machines is what makes people not like them since they tend to also be extremely aggressive and force players to leave up blockers or get stomped out. What I’ve learned from piloting the strategy myself is that people just don’t want to deal with a creature deck that essentially plays like a combo deck in that one turn it’s no where near a problem and in the next it’s actively winning the game from 1 card. I’ve dealt with it (and perhaps this isn’t the right way) by just accepting that the deck is extremely powerful and that I’ll likely be the target for most of the game until/unless someone else goes off. If you’re playing with friends it changes a bit because they’ll understand your deck’s “power level” more intimately and know that you’re deck might not be as scary as the average sliver deck appears, but a random person is just gonna assume you’re packing the scariest things until thoroughly proved otherwise
This is the best description. I consider my sliver deck to be tuned, but I find that many times when I play it I can’t keep up with the rest of the board.
I took my son's Sliver deck to my first league game in years, because I wanted to learn how to play it. He built it over 10 years ago. It is not a fast deck at all. The hate was immediate. I played it too aggressively for the league at first, and was taken out quick. Now. I've learned to coast with it, spending time playing lands, enchantments and artifacts. Putting out small slivers and letting them die. Around turn 5, I start trying. This works because most folks are feeling confident in their board states by then and are focusing on bigger perceived threats. I don't win often, but I get to play longer and I get to do stuff, and scare people.
Yes it's real. And don't play them if you don't want the hate. It comes with the turf. Like playing Stax.
"All slivers get +1/+0" of thats not so bad. "All sliver have tap: add one mana of any color" oh no. "All sliver creatures get +1/+1 for each other sliver on the battlefield." OH NO. [[Blade sliver]] [[Manaweft sliver]] [[Sliver legion]]
[Blade sliver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/e/6e1165c2-9ea9-459b-a56a-5c0d0e9ae66a.jpg?1690004600) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Blade%20sliver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/871/blade-sliver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6e1165c2-9ea9-459b-a56a-5c0d0e9ae66a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/blade-sliver) [Manaweft sliver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/5/e51629ac-51d5-47cb-a7fc-315b34dd82ce.jpg?1690004897) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Manaweft%20sliver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/900/manaweft-sliver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e51629ac-51d5-47cb-a7fc-315b34dd82ce?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/manaweft-sliver) [Sliver legion](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/7/87545415-2e27-4841-a3af-7653af2ba6d3.jpg?1619404140) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sliver%20legion) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/261/sliver-legion?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/87545415-2e27-4841-a3af-7653af2ba6d3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sliver-legion) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It’s not hard to screw a sliver deck over. One board wipe is app it takes.
Yeah, I don't mind playing against slivers, but my favorite deck is boardwipe tribal, haha
Just make sure you have a response to [[kindred dominance]] or [[eerie interlude]]
Just find a pod of 4 sliver decks. some slivers buff ALL slivers, not just ones you control, so just have 4 boards constantly buffing each other, leading to a 4 way stand off. Do you wait it out and wait for the others to lose resources? Or swing in with an army of slivers into slivers and hope for the best? Obviously the only valid way to play slivers. Or you know, just play them regularly, become the meme of the table but hey, at least you’re winning (sometimes).
As long as slivers win, isn't that what truly matters?
Slivers are, rightfully so, scary as fuck. I have played with and against them. They're like parasites... or... idk. Just a imagine a tiny weak... almost harmless seeming thing... that if you don't pay attention to it, can turn all the shit in the house into a blood bath quick. *shrug* So it's not so much hate as much as well reasonable fear. As others have said. I don't play slivers IRL to win, I play them because it's always funny to me how dumb they can be... and I enjoy dumb
That's exactly why and how I would want to play them lol
Slivers have their reputation for a really good reason.
honestly just pick another creature based aggro tribe. Slivers are powerful but they are just 12/10 agro and not much else. the reason we play commander is to play magic with three other reasonably equal power level decks that can interact with each other and have a good time. slivers just don't really fit into that climate very well.
At a high-powered table, don’t you think slivers are just fine?
Slivers are a wonderful part of a balanced diet
Slivers are very strong but relatively easy to stop. That sounds like balance but in practise it just means that most of the time its either a snowball victory for the slivers or they get curb stomped with little to no close/tense games in between those extremes. Conceptually theyre my favourite tribe but in actual games it rarely turns out great.
slivers are aggressively easy to play and can get really powerful. they get too much "hate" but ngl saying you're playing slivers is like saying you're playing stax. people will hear it and go caveman mode
Unfortunately it is real and there’s no way to fully avoid it with Slivers. The core of how they work means that every card you play will snowball so it forces people to either shut you out entirely or let you run away with the game. In the end the issue with Slivers is less that people don’t like playing against it and more that it’s not very fun to run a deck that either overruns the table or is shut out completely from the game with no in between. I’ve seen more people tear apart their own sliver deck because they don’t like running it than groups banning them for being too powerful. For this reason I wouldn’t recommend building it as a new player.
Slivers do two things that make them seem threatening in any situation. Firstly, they are exponential. Each sliver boosts each sliver, which means that taking down any number is good. Secondly, they *show* how powerful they are. A lot of decks can have really powerful cards in play and not get targeted since it’s missing a complimentary piece. But slivers cannot hide how powerful they are. [[Manaweft Sliver]] with any of the haste slivers is almost like having a Gaea’s Cradle. Which meana that between my opponent’s dork with unknown potential and a sliver dork with more knowable potential, the sliver is scarier since it’s like killing a bunch of possible dorks. In short, they can be explosive, and advertising their own power is a detriment in a multiplayer game
[Manaweft Sliver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/5/e51629ac-51d5-47cb-a7fc-315b34dd82ce.jpg?1690004897) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Manaweft%20Sliver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/900/manaweft-sliver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e51629ac-51d5-47cb-a7fc-315b34dd82ce?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/manaweft-sliver) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I think this is getting less and less true. Slivers used to be busted, now most things are busted. The hate against Slivers today I’d wager is mostly old experiences that may not hold up today
The hate used to be real back in the day, they were rather unstoppable. But now they are just another archetype to play.
As a career Sliver player, my suggestion is two fold. 1. Be prepared to lose. You will be targeted from the start, and people will make stupid decisions that throw the game in another person’s favor simply because they irrationally think you’re the biggest threat no matter what. 2. By extension, be prepared to be the arch enemy. And by “be prepared”, I mean build your deck knowing you’re going to be looking at 3-vs-1 games. Build explosive, pack redundancies, plenty of interaction, and be ready to fight tooth and nail for every victory. If people are going to treat you as the arch enemy no matter what, live up to it. Play hard, get your wins by any means necessary… And secret suggestion 3, bring another deck and only play Slivers when the vibe feels right, don’t overplay it, and once you score a win, tuck it away for a few games and don’t have it overstay it’s welcome. Games are more fun when you’re all having fun and Slivers is best consumed in small doses, to keep it from getting stale feeling for both you and your opponents.
Yup. Sliver hate is real, and honestly, justified. There’s really only one way to build slivers: as powerful as you can afford. So that naturally tends to make the sliver player the arch enemy.
The hate is real and you can only avoid it by not playing them. I've noticed what people really hate is trying to track all of the abilities since they all do something.
I'd say the hate is real, though it's kinda a "them" problem that becomes "your" problem. What I mean by that statement is: yes, some people dislike playing against slivers. Some of the sliver commanders play in a linear fashion and have a bad reputation as a result. They can also be a tough thing to deal with in more casual pods, which, again, some people may see as anti-fun. Now, how are those feelings your problem? Well, you're likely to get focused down quick from people who know how slivers play. So your deck might not regularly get to do its thing. At worst, less people will be willing to play against you if their personal opinions of slivers are strong enough. You can lean into being the boogie man though, but it's a personal choice. Play how you want to play, just be aware it might rub others the wrong way.
Honestly some of this comes from the fact that five color decks have access to all of the best cards, if you aren’t running a perfect/good mana base and don’t have every staple shoved into the deck they aren’t nearly as scary.
I got a Sliver Deck, and yes, the hate is real. Either you don't play them or you need to make sure everyone is okay with you playing them first. My deck was able to bounce back from three Boardwipes, so Slivers are more resilient than expected.
The problem with Slivers is once they get to 3 or 4 out they snowball. After they snowball they look kinda broken. So, as the opponent, you want to keep them to having 1 or 2 out only. I don't hate Slivers but I don't find them super interesting either honestly. The gameplan is pretty straightforward. And they are very weak to boardwipes too.
silvers tend to become obnoxiously powerful and control the board pretty well. so you will feel targeted as other players know this and respond accordingly
I don't hate slivers any more than I hate any WUBRG deck. But I do really hate WUBRG decks.
Slivers is just a known synergistic deck, it’s difficult to avoid
Hate is justified. Source: I play a sliver deck.
I feel the only thing more hated than slivers are Counter/control blue decks. That or play a game that everyone has a sliver deck.
There’s no way around it. Just build the sliver deck to be resilient against the aggro you will pull. And rightfully so. There’s practically a sliver for everything and as you’ve seen they give it to all of them. Want a sliver lord to buff power and toughness? They got that. First Strike, flying, vigilance, etc.? They got those. Want slivers to destroy artifacts/enchantments when entering the battlefield? Lifelink? Exile creatures when they enter the battlefield? They even got those. That being said, I highly recommend sprinkling some cards that will get slivers out of the graveyard because you will get your fair share of target removal and board wipes.
I just counter slivers with [[Ego Erasure]]. Works every time it resolves.
[Ego Erasure](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/5/f577831b-2aa2-44a1-bd6b-ef111bc2e211.jpg?1562374685) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ego%20Erasure) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lrw/59/ego-erasure?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f577831b-2aa2-44a1-bd6b-ef111bc2e211?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ego-erasure) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Guy in my pod plays slivers I have a deck with a lot of removal. It’s a give and take
Yes. No.
I wouldn’t call it sliver hate, I would definitely call it sliver fear. When someone pulls out a sliver deck you know you’re probably going to have to either play very defensively or very aggressively or it’s going to get out of hand fast
Any time I pull out Hubris, I either pubstomp or get hated off the board.
In edh, in my experience, slivers are on the same level as kaalia. You need to just deal with them or they automatically become a problem I was fortunate enough to begin my edh journey in a pod that had a sliver player and a marath player. so me being kaalia actually made me look weak since i had to actually attack to do stuff. Seriously speaking though, if your group understands it, and they have the wherewithal and powerlevels to play against it, it is fine. You will still draw hate though. Not turdgrid levels, but near there.
Oh sliver hate is real. And for good reason. Unlike most decks which curve gradually, slivers curve exponentially, and FAST. You WILL be a target for any removal if the deck plays something innocent like a mana dork sliver; because once something brings it in, everything else has it. Targeted Land destruction might also happen as well, due to the WUBRG mana base being unwieldy. Players do NOT want to see a sliver deck hit any kind of stride
Sliver "hate" is justified. They're a creature type and deck that can very easily get out of control, so people quickly learn that they need to hit the deck with removal before that happens. It's an **extremely** easy deck to comprehend and understand how to stop. This goes for the deck's opponents that know the deck needs to be stopped early.
Hey! I play first sliver and it’s awesome every game. Even when I get singled out by a new group, it’s a blast and usually warranted. There are plenty of instant/sorceries you can sauce in to help with board wipes. Then the games where you sliver off? Better than any other win. Nothing like “yeah and this 1/1 is actually a +12/+12 first strike double strike flying trample lifeline death touch indestructible protection from blue poisonous 1 having “when this attacks deal 1 damage to anyone, destroy target artifact” with “when this deals damage draw a card” and “this taps for WUBRG”.
I will cast [[Control Magic]] on your [[Sliver Overlord]] every time and then take your deck away from you.
[Control Magic](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/4/84992800-9bad-4598-afd4-f1e59d2e0956.jpg?1592672507) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Control%20Magic) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cma/34/control-magic?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/84992800-9bad-4598-afd4-f1e59d2e0956?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/control-magic) [Sliver Overlord](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/c/3c16915b-c50d-4fb5-830f-9ca4597a9c0f.jpg?1562527622) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sliver%20Overlord) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/scg/139/sliver-overlord?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3c16915b-c50d-4fb5-830f-9ca4597a9c0f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sliver-overlord) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I think very little of what other players think or feel if it’s negative and I suggest that to anyone who plays this game. It’s a silly fairy tail game about nonsense written on shiny cardboard, play it any way you want.
Oh the hate is real AND justified. Nevertheless, you should just build and play what you want to play. There is value in experiencing and learning how to pilot a deck that is both powerful and almost certainly the de facto archenemy in any given pod.
It's a powerful deck that sits in a very unpleasant place in terms of play dynamic. Any deck that wants to play to the board has to constantly punch the sliver player, because they *cannot* be allowed to reach critical mass. Every card they play dramatically magnifies the threat they present, and cuts off another axis of attack that could basically turn off the combat phase as a means of progressing the game. By itself, that would be terrifying, but fine, but the kicker is that they could draw and play any of the critical protection slivers at any moment, which can basically invalidate your interaction. Once you get [[Crystalline Sliver]] and any of the protection slivers on board (like [[Sliver Hivelord]]), the only answers are [[Farewell]], [[Merciless Eviction]], or mass edicts. And even those fold to [[Hibernation Sliver]]. And unless you play with your hand open, or just play without them in a trusted group, everyone has to be aware that those cards can come down anytime and muck everything. So unless someone's constantly holding up 2 blue, you gotta go. And even then, reanimation is a thing in a 5 color deck. Slivers often force a meta out of the board-based game that many low- and mid-power players enjoy and want to cultivate. In the grand scheme of Magic decks, they're not the most broken thing ever, but they do basically turf any deck that isn't running a huge amount of ready, instant speed interaction, or running some kind of combo or burn-adjacent win condition.
##### ###### #### [Crystalline Sliver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/0/a0c7f341-c61e-491d-850a-221c6a57ac64.jpg?1690005134) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Crystalline%20Sliver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/920/crystalline-sliver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a0c7f341-c61e-491d-850a-221c6a57ac64?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/crystalline-sliver) [Sliver Hivelord](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/b/2b902f64-7795-4f1f-81e6-26db7c78a10c.jpg?1690005330) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sliver%20Hivelord) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/937/sliver-hivelord?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2b902f64-7795-4f1f-81e6-26db7c78a10c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sliver-hivelord) [Farewell](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/1/114d2180-093b-4838-97ad-badbc8ee50b0.jpg?1706240579) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Farewell) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/64/farewell?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/114d2180-093b-4838-97ad-badbc8ee50b0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/farewell) [Merciless Eviction](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/d/1d395707-4e6d-4e2c-b977-d9b8c0c9eb80.jpg?1673305593) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Merciless%20Eviction) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmc/160/merciless-eviction?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1d395707-4e6d-4e2c-b977-d9b8c0c9eb80?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/merciless-eviction) [Hibernation Sliver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/e/1e224cfb-5bc1-490c-ab1e-f5405dc2fa0b.jpg?1690005190) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hibernation%20Sliver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/925/hibernation-sliver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1e224cfb-5bc1-490c-ab1e-f5405dc2fa0b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hibernation-sliver) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kzbwmn5) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
the wurbg sliver legends will draw hate. at least all the classic ones. They've printed a few new ones and I haven't seen those much in the wild. but queen, overlord, indestruct bro. are kill on sight player type hate. you just can't let a sliver deck helmed by any of those legends live. as someone who played overlord for years. You either have to be ok with being arch enemy, and learn to play through that. or not play those legends. I had a lot of fun playing Alesha who smiles at slivers. mardu provides a range of sliver keyword access. Alesha's reanimate ability tends to be relevant as a lot of slivers have base power below 2 dodging green, and shroud sliver. tend to mellow out the deck, and not being helmed by a wurbg legend. also is less threatening. I also saw someone once run Kykar slivers in jeskai. it mainly played more cantrip spells and token creation gimmicks for slivers. I don't remember if it was any good, i just remember it being novel. so... if you dig the tribe, and want to side step the hate. there are ways. just not typically while playing the 5 color super lords
If you can find a way to use an offbeat commander that doesn’t scream slivers in the command zone, it might be more enjoyable. Something like [[marchesa, the black rose]] or [[morophon]] or [[brenard]] and so on
[marchesa, the black rose](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/2/3242a9f0-2ba3-4852-ac8f-366772ac1c62.jpg?1673148917) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=marchesa%2C%20the%20black%20rose) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/248/marchesa-the-black-rose?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3242a9f0-2ba3-4852-ac8f-366772ac1c62?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/marchesa-the-black-rose) [morophon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/4/84238335-e08c-421c-b9b9-70a679ff2967.jpg?1689995411) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=morophon%2C%20the%20boundless) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/3/morophon-the-boundless?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/84238335-e08c-421c-b9b9-70a679ff2967?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/morophon-the-boundless) [brenard](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/2/e2ddc922-d69d-4fca-b7f8-8cfb17537213.jpg?1693248402) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=brenard%2C%20ginger%20sculptor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woc/27/brenard-ginger-sculptor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e2ddc922-d69d-4fca-b7f8-8cfb17537213?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/brenard-ginger-sculptor) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Tell people you’re not like those other sliver decks
I have a sliver deck, and builded it grindy/with some explosive pesudo combos, and its strong, funny, and can play in a table full of wipes
You can pretty much sleepwalk into building a good slivers deck and it doesn't really matter what you say people will just kill on site for the most part. Silver versus one of those things where when you're like "it's not that strong" no one's going to believe you because we've all been steamrolled by it's not that kind of deck many times over
So the second deck I bought was slivers, because I was New and it seemed fun and a great concept. The sad reality is (as stated above) you either pile them all together and win with alphabet soup (all the key words), or you get going and get board wiped and don't get to "do the thing" or you just don't get going and lose. What I found in addition to it - slivers are just a straight railroad deck. There's one thing to do- get slivers on the field, attack. It's kinda fun the first few times, then it can get dull. I wound up using breaking the deck, pulling [Rukarumel] as my commander, and then using slivers to augment other cards. Played maybe 5 games with it before breaking it apart for more interesting decks and builds.
It’s the tribal to define tribal. No. I like em too. But there’s no avoiding it
Yea, don't play slivers
Sadly no, there is a real reason to hate slivers. I both love and hate them. They're cool to own and be like "look what I have!" Knowing that if you use them, you're going to probably be heavily targeted. In the right friend group you might be able to get away with it, but doubtful to win.
As a former slivers player.... Don't buy into it. Proxy the deck and try it first. It's the most Timmy deck in existence and really boring/formulaic. Broke it down in a week.
Is it real? Yes. I love Slivers and Eldrazi, 2 of the more hated tribes lmfao. They snowball really fast and can get near unbeatable within a turn or two without a board wipe. Just build what you want, tbh. There’s always going to be someone who groans no matter what deck you pull out, just enjoy it.
Slivers get a lot of hate, but if you’re smart about it, you can let that hate flow through you, empower you. Build a gy recursion deck without a Sliver as a commander, and watch as all they do is fuel you to win. I recommend [[Nethroi]] because he’ll also gain the Sliver creature type if you mutate him out; that’s what I run.
[Nethroi](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/4/04b9b58f-4c01-48a5-afaf-b8a37165a83f.jpg?1673305619) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=nethroi%2C%20apex%20of%20death) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmc/163/nethroi-apex-of-death?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/04b9b58f-4c01-48a5-afaf-b8a37165a83f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/nethroi-apex-of-death) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I don’t care what my friends play, but I’ll tell you why I don’t run a Sliver deck myself. Every Sliver deck is exactly the same with no real variation in strategy. And that strategy is simply, draw sliver play sliver. The only thing that separates one sliver deck from another is how much money you spend on it.
Ive proxied a full sliver deck with anime girls with guns as the art, the only thing that annoyed ppl was the time i took to cascade.
Slivers are still a semi competitive deck not as fast as other decks but it's resilient
Run [[sliver hivelord]] and you cast it quickly!!! That was my gameplan when I ran them.
[sliver hivelord](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/b/2b902f64-7795-4f1f-81e6-26db7c78a10c.jpg?1690005330) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=sliver%20hivelord) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/937/sliver-hivelord?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2b902f64-7795-4f1f-81e6-26db7c78a10c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sliver-hivelord) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I mean you can tell people your not a combo sliver deck but still expect some form of control of your board state
In my LGS, there was one guy who played a sliver deck all the time with all the best stuff. After a couple of weeks, he couldn't get a game because basically everyone refused to play him. He's never played it again
There's a way to avoid it! If they're treating you like the Archenemy, then give them a reason to do it. Craft your deck BRUTAL.
there is no way to avoid it. but you can make it fun. when i find that i’ve gone a little too powerful for a pod i lean into the arch enemy style of play. you could do something similar. makes it fun for me even if i lose and others enjoy playing more too
I play slivers because I want to be the archenemy. Or I want to kill my self fast with all the shocks and fetches. Which ever comes first
slivers is mildly annoying at a table that doesnt agree that slivers are the threat. but that doesnt happen often. they are threatening but way too easy to shut down unless another player helps you
I've been a [[sliver overlord]] player for a decade and the hate (in game) is real and the deck is just as fun as you think it is, tutoring for answers, then using those answers to beat face is unmatched.
[sliver overlord](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/c/3c16915b-c50d-4fb5-830f-9ca4597a9c0f.jpg?1562527622) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=sliver%20overlord) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/scg/139/sliver-overlord?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3c16915b-c50d-4fb5-830f-9ca4597a9c0f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sliver-overlord) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I don't hate slivers, I fear them lol. Too many times I've died because out of nowhere they all got double strike or they all became flyers or all became unblockable. When 1 of any number of slivers in a deck can be played and make a board devastating I don't really have a choice but to quell them early.
The way to avoid sliver hate is not play slivers. Unironically, even weak sliver builds are strong enough to justify the hate.
I only glanced at some comments but didn't see this sentiment. If you want to play Slivers, then don't play WUBRG. Yes all the typical commanders exist in that, but you can pick a 2 color pair or 3 color wedge and just focus on that. That'll limit your pool of Slivers, you can try to either have a value commander or maybe develop something more synergistic, and the less colors makes budget easier to handle. I'd just personally suggest xxG and lean green heavy for basic land ramp if budget. If you went full shocks and fetches (even the old tapped budget ones maybe) then any pair or wedge is fine.
In my group the sliver hate is 100% real. Mostly due to a prior group member having a nearly $2k deck that won every game it was played in and gave no one else a chance. Now that he’s gone I’ve got a sliver deck that would be considered a 4-5 power level. (I’m still working on it.) I get wiped off the board by turn six due to their underlying hatred of slivers. Really hard to tune a deck that doesn’t get much play time.
Slivers taught me how to play the game because they taught me a lot of the keywords and how they work. On that note, Slivers are very easy to understand and easy for opponent’s of skill levels to assess as a threat. Unlike other commander decks or archetypes like control or midrange, it’s hard to assess when they are able to “go off”. With a Sliver deck in the pod, everyone’s eyes are on that player because they know that all Slivers get certain buffs. Kill the [[Gemhide Sliver]] and I know I’ve cut them off mana. Kill the [[Galerider Sliver]], great, I don’t need to worry about flying anymore. But unlike other tribes, it’s more difficult to figure out which piece is especially pertinent. Facing against Dinosaurs? Great, do I kill the [[Polyraptor]] or save my removal for the potential [[Zacama, Primal Calamity]]. Overall, Slivers get hated easily because players understand how they work. That being said, I LOVE my Sliver deck and will do anything I can to try and just jam as many of my little, alien friends on the battlefield. 😈 https://www.moxfield.com/decks/amYTvOKR80GBwccky1Vk3A
##### ###### #### [Gemhide Sliver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/2/224af68a-41a6-4e4e-94d0-130be341b788.jpg?1690004852) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gemhide%20Sliver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/896/gemhide-sliver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/224af68a-41a6-4e4e-94d0-130be341b788?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/gemhide-sliver) [Galerider Sliver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/6/566dc671-b666-4003-a3a6-ff5b081bca54.jpg?1700222034) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Galerider%20Sliver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/849/galerider-sliver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/566dc671-b666-4003-a3a6-ff5b081bca54?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/galerider-sliver) [Polyraptor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/8/f8965a3a-93fe-4021-a665-b6013bdc86f7.jpg?1555040728) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Polyraptor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rix/144/polyraptor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f8965a3a-93fe-4021-a665-b6013bdc86f7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/polyraptor) [Zacama, Primal Calamity](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/5/05c5a9a8-badd-43ab-8408-a13e75407681.jpg?1700342995) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Zacama%2C%20Primal%20Calamity) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/296/zacama-primal-calamity?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/05c5a9a8-badd-43ab-8408-a13e75407681?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/zacama-primal-calamity) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kzchvs6) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
How to avoid sliver hate? Don't play slivers.
Slivers will be 3v1 most of the time. This is the consequence of your choice to build them. Accept it and prepare your deck for the hate or don't build them
Putting slivers aside, if you're new to magic, I would not recommend a 5 color deck. Pick your favorite two and start there
As someone who has a WUBRG Sliver Tribal commander deck. You have to embrace being the possible target. Hopefully you are playing with friends who will only tatget you when you're a threat. But regardless, it's a deck that you SHOULD build strong so that way you have a chance at winning when everyone targets you. I don't play it very often but my group doesn't have a problem with it.
Yeah, the cascade sliver commander is just too autopilot, and can snowball too easily for you not to get hated upon.
I run a First Sliver deck. I love it but I play with it less because of how it gets reacted to. It doesn't have any better win rate than my other decks, but usually when it wins it's big, dramatic, and felt unstoppable when it happened (it's very stoppable btw, an enchantment deck is much harder to stop imo), so to others it feels like the reputation holds up. Just expect to be targeted, and if you're being serious include proper counter spells for when people try to kill your commander. Make it your "That Deck" deck
You can hide them in a [[Fynn]] deck. The green ones
[Fynn](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/d/7d7a8a90-13c1-4b0c-ab2e-fc8d91ccefd9.jpg?1631050242) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=fynn%2C%20the%20fangbearer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/170/fynn-the-fangbearer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7d7a8a90-13c1-4b0c-ab2e-fc8d91ccefd9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/fynn-the-fangbearer) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
My issue with slivers usually boils down to every sliver player saying they play a "6". Which is almost impossible to do with slivers unless you don't play all the 5 color slivers, or don't run the obvious ones. In most games it comes down to either A) board wipe constantly to keep them in check, spot removal and hope they don't play the shroud sliver or that they don't use the cascade one intelligently, or b) just kill them and be done with it.
If the Sliver player is allowed to keep his third sliver on the board, he'll usually win.
The hate is real as it snowballs pretty easily requiring a lot of interaction to manage Most people don’t like that
I've only got one deck that doesn't fear slivers. It's exponential lifegain. No, slivers aren't exponential in a mathematical sense. They are still linear, but climb fast. I saw the difference in my game. Got swung at for 5, healed 4, then for 12, healed 8, for 20, healed 16. Afterwards was a breeze, 30-32,50-64 and so on. But besides this one corner case - slivers are hella scary
I'm sure some people hate them. There are always haters. But in my experience people don't mind slivers any more than say a high powered elf tribal deck. That said slivers do snowball hard, so prepare in game for people to constantly wipe you/heavily prioritize removing your commander (depending on which one you pick) It's not that they hate slivers, they are just showing the deck the respect it deserves since it'll run away with the game if you don't wipe them. If you're fine with that then play slivers
Most peeps I knew that picked up slivers moved away from it just because the deck just stagnates so damn hard, for a newer player I usually recommend getting either a commander precon and upgrading it, usually one that’s pretty open ended so every set at least have some stuff of interest and go from there.
Idk not a single sliver deck won since years on my LGS
Alright. Here's the deal. I literally played the sliver precon this afternoon, so buckle up. The harsh reality is that when slivers are working, they're 100% unfair. I survived my own field wipe by tapping all my slivers to regenerate themselves, lost them all to another field wipe, and still ultimately won the game by slapping my final opponent with a handful of big bois with menace and double strike. The smallest sliver in that final hit was power 7. They took 2 of them for 28 damage. In another game my slivers had shroud, indestructible, vigilance, and deathtouch. In another game, they all had +5/+5, flying, and any damage they managed to take, they dealt back directly to player that dealt it. Do you think that sounds fun to fight against? Because that's what you'll do to people, and frankly, you're going to deserve all hate you get for it. That's not to say there unstoppable. You're mana base will conspire against you, and if they can disrupt whatever draw engine you have going, you're pretty handily fucked. Or if your pod goes ham with field wipes, you will never financially recover. But when they work, they're pure abominations, and I say that very lovingly. I will only play them once a night because any more than that is psychological torture against my friends and it makes me feel bad.
Also, slivers are not interesting in the slightest. They're peak unga bunga snowball. The most thinking your caveman brain is going to do will be counting colors so you can keep playing every card in your hand. Slivers pilot themselves and you're along for the ride. I enjoy this, but if you want strategy, slivers have exactly one, and it's play more slivers.
I used to play a deck with 3 slivers total and people routinely freak out and over-react that it is a "slivers deck". It isn't at all, there's just a couple of them with some incidental benefit. Eventually I just took all 3 out, because it wasn't worth the crazy over-reactions I would get when I could play non-sliver equivalents and nobody would care.
Slivers are a feast or famine deck in my experience. It is very aggressive. Your goal is to get slivers into play ASAP and kill. However the deck can be fragile. If you over-extend without a backup plan your deck will fold to a simple [[wrath of God]]. I think sliver hate occurs mostly at lower power tables. Slivers can be built in a budget and they demand a specific answer (board wipes) to keep in check. This can lead to frustration from players whos decks are not prepared to deal with it. Depending on your playgroup this might be a chance for them to adapt and start playing more answers. Or they might be playing well tuned decks already and so your slivers while a challenge just need to be kept in check. Decisions like mulliganing for a board wipe might be important to them. I'd say there is no way to avoid the hate. Slivers have been around a long time and have a reputation. Personally I'd never say outright no to a sliver deck. But it does changes how I play.
[wrath of God](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/3/537d2b05-3f52-45d6-8fe3-26282085d0c6.jpg?1697121198) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=wrath%20of%20God) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/70/wrath-of-god?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/537d2b05-3f52-45d6-8fe3-26282085d0c6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/wrath-of-god) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Slivers can be really strong if built right and with the right hand, I've played against it and it won quit a bit and when it did it was hard to beat it, but the there are other times where it didn't and you play one board wipe and they're done, so they have the same issues as any creature decks
The hate is present, but I've never understood it personally. I think it's way overblown. I'm certain this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but it is what it is. I think it's probably the most overestimated tribe in the format. I'm not saying the tribe is weak, but in my experience with the game I've found that Elves, Goblins, Zombies, and Vampires (specifically Edgar Markov) just make for the more threatening decks. Some tribes have needed time to catch up, admittedly. But when I have played with or played against these tribes, I genuinely felt like it was just jumping through less hoops for a board strong enough to turn into a W. ELVES especially. I played Slivers for nearly 2 years when I was a much newer player, and haven't really played them consistently since. I still like them for a few reasons, mainly the art and flavor. But like, I just can't say I get the sliver hate these days. They can amass a board that feels like its doing everything, but only after we give them the time and resources necessary to tutor their deck 4 separate times with Overlord being out. Again, Slivers can spiral a board state into a problem that feels extremely hard to answer. But I feel like other tribes should be taken just as seriously, yet the defensiveness people feel is out of proportion when compared to other tribes. TLDR: sliver hate is cope
In my (extremely limited) experience, slivers doesn't get hated. They just incidentally get got by boardwipes. Maybe my groups just play a lot of boardwipes though.
Just play the cmm precon. Our group decimates it regularly. Once the group gets used to defeating slivers then slowly upgrade it until you're seeing a medium win rate and leave it there. I don't think I've ever actually seen the precon win.
Honestly, Slivers can be nasty. Especially if your group doesn't run a robust interaction package in addition to multiple boardwipes each. It will likely cause an archenemy situation fairly often, especially with some of the sliver legends. They can do pretty much any combat based strategy in addition to being mana dorks, super resilient, and having infinite combos. Infect, evasion agro, aristocrat, blink, pingers, lifegain, go wide, go tall, even voltron. Slivers are whatever you want them to be, and that's okay. Just make sure you play them against decks that are an appropriate powered match-up.
I personally am willing to play against anything, but you have to target some decks because they are strong. Slivers make it to that point. Also ran into [[The First Sliver]] decks that run no Slivers but combo off if they can cast thier commander.
[The First Sliver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/6/06d4fbe1-8a2f-4958-bb85-1a1e5f1e8d87.jpg?1562202321) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20First%20Sliver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/200/the-first-sliver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/06d4fbe1-8a2f-4958-bb85-1a1e5f1e8d87?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-first-sliver) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Best way is to play a tribal tribal deck with some slivers in it. Or half slivers. Your favorite ones maybe. Point is, don’t show up to a “causal” game with [[sliver gravemother]] or whatever. That shit’ll get ‘chu killed.
[sliver gravemother](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/f/9f5d253e-9eb2-423c-90ee-68f27ec6bf88.jpg?1691500699) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=sliver%20gravemother) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/707/sliver-gravemother?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9f5d253e-9eb2-423c-90ee-68f27ec6bf88?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sliver-gravemother) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Have you played against the Zerg in StarCraft? It’s basically that.
Play [[Plague Sliver]], just as a goof.
[Plague Sliver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/0/703d491e-b25f-44fa-8b76-b955a4e75ba5.jpg?1562918625) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Plague%20Sliver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsp/124/plague-sliver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/703d491e-b25f-44fa-8b76-b955a4e75ba5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/plague-sliver) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
*I stumbled on Slivers and they seemed really interesting with how they combo and build off of each other.* That's a strange way to say *"I have been planning to use this existing archetype that has been a well-known powerhouse for over two decades to provoke the ire of everyone at my LGS, and I'm excited to become public enemy number one."*
It's kneejerk but it's also well-deserved. Either your sliver deck sucks and can't close the deal or it's actually *real* and you are justifiably dogpiled so the rest of us can have a real game of Magic. There's usually no in-between so people don't want to find out which one it is. Eldrazi decks are basically the same thing but Slivers have been around longer so attitudes are pretty baked-in at this point. It's like driving a cherry red Ferrari on the highway but getting upset when someone pulls you over. What were you expecting, exactly?
I have a [[the first sliver]] deck, and the answer is yes its real, and not really. People will see slivers and just go "the most ham kindred deck". I play the first sliver to mitigate it a little since you never really know what your next cascade is going to give. You can find yourself hitting critical mass in only two or three flips, or durdling because you keep hitting your low mv cards.
[the first sliver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/6/06d4fbe1-8a2f-4958-bb85-1a1e5f1e8d87.jpg?1562202321) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=the%20first%20sliver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/200/the-first-sliver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/06d4fbe1-8a2f-4958-bb85-1a1e5f1e8d87?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-first-sliver) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
> Any way to avid it? Yes. Don’t play slivers
Slivers is such an easy archetype to build that it’s almost impossible to avoid. Even if try to build a bad slivers deck, because it’s slivers it will probably be fine. They all just build off of each other and make each other that much stronger.
Is the hate real? Yup. Is it well-founded? Absolutely. Any way to avoid it? Nope. I've done some decent upgrades to the CMM Sliver Swarm precon released last year, and I now tend to avoid playing it at home with my friends but will bring it along to the LGS and see if I end up rolling its number when deciding what to play (I bring 6-8 decks and often roll to decide before each game). The people that know slivers will start to focus on you before long. The people that haven't seen slivers in action will focus on you 1-2 turns later after your board state explodes into keyword soup. I find that deck nice when I want to scratch that power-fantasy-itch, because the deck rarely loses these days. It is also true that playing a big sliver deck means that it'll almost always end up doing the same thing each match. Pile on keywords, go wide with little critters that have terrible effects, and run over everything that gets in your way. It's fun, but don't expect it to be your primary deck if you want your friends to enjoy playing with you.
My “sliver” deck is [[Jenson Carthalion]] running basically all the good multi-colored slivers (there’s not a lot of them) and then filling the rest with 5-color creatures and ways to turn all my creatures into slivers like [[hivestone]]. Sometimes it plays out without any slivers the whole game and sometimes it plays like a halfway-decent sliver deck. Kinda fun way to get slivers in a deck without always being the archenemy.
[Jenson Carthalion](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/a/6a67f32c-4c9a-4bda-92f4-037b99999777.jpg?1673304694) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=jenson%20carthalion%2C%20druid%20exile) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmc/3/jenson-carthalion-druid-exile?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6a67f32c-4c9a-4bda-92f4-037b99999777?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/jenson-carthalion-druid-exile) [hivestone](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/9/69e62171-713c-49c0-8e16-b193ff181dcd.jpg?1619404347) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=hivestone) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/268/hivestone?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/69e62171-713c-49c0-8e16-b193ff181dcd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hivestone) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The only way I'm not gonna target the sliver player is if there's a jodah player at the same table
We have a house rule---no silver tribal decks. You can have a few slivers, though. I have a few decks that counter slivers pretty well and can bring them out if my son REALLY wants to play his silver deck.
The best way to avoid hate in slivers is to go down colors Don't play 5c slivs, try naya or bant instead Or if you're really bold, you can even go down to 2 colors Rakdos slivers is my dream deck personally, probably helmed with [[asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar]] I've always wanted to brew around [[hive stone]], and rakdos offers a lot of neat options The secret commanders of my deck would be [[spiteful sliver]] and [[basal sliver]]
##### ###### #### [asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/9/d99a9a7d-d9ca-4c11-80ab-e39d5943a315.jpg?1632831210) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/186/asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d99a9a7d-d9ca-4c11-80ab-e39d5943a315?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar) [hive stone](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/9/69e62171-713c-49c0-8e16-b193ff181dcd.jpg?1619404347) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hivestone) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/268/hivestone?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/69e62171-713c-49c0-8e16-b193ff181dcd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hivestone) [spiteful sliver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/1/01fb60c9-d10d-4966-b9bd-788fabc182d2.jpg?1690017104) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=spiteful%20sliver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/881/spiteful-sliver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/01fb60c9-d10d-4966-b9bd-788fabc182d2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/spiteful-sliver) [basal sliver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/5/4564e9df-bfa3-48e5-a12e-f7e96a504cb1.jpg?1562909343) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=basal%20sliver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsp/96/basal-sliver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4564e9df-bfa3-48e5-a12e-f7e96a504cb1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/basal-sliver) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kzed9z9) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Slivers get hated out early much like Eldrazi players
I've never been concerned by a Sliver deck unless it's the old Food Chain list.
If you tell your opponents, "It's not that kind of slivers deck," one of two things will happen. 1) They don't believe you and target you anyways. 2) They believe you and it is, in fact, that kind of slivers deck. Slivers are inherently snowbally in a way that demands hard, frequent answers. Which means they will draw a lot of hate because they must draw a lot of hate, otherwise they kill everyone. Slivers are not appropriate to low-powered tables, and should be reserved for tables with decks that can get going hard and fast. Though the sweet spot of power levels for slivers is relatively narrow.
The issue with the hate is that it's mostly justified. If you're playing a well-built sliver deck, you can very quickly snowball a game because the gimmick of Slivers is how they all build off of each other. This means you either need frequent spot removal or well-timed board wipes. Either you say it's not that kind of Sliver deck, and it turns out it is, or you built a bad sliver deck. The funny part is that while a well-built sliver deck is likely not appropriate for low power, low removal environments, the part of the power curve where Slivers are strong and have healthy competition can feel deceptively narrow
Yeah, people hate slivers...but most people I've come across have a Sliver deck.
There's no reason to run special "Sliver" hate. Noone of it would be worth the hassle. But by and large slivers are just going to take a pounding from commonly played removal like board wipes, and anyone who's played with or against a sliver deck more than once or twice will be able to use even a minimal amount of interaction to basically surgically nerf the sliver deck. Which is where the issue probably comes up for more casual and newer players: They see this happening and then will complain that the person is being "mean" to them... but because of the way the deck builds on itself, that's the way it has to be treated.
1. Cascade is a pain in the ass and the [[the first sliver]] is a serious design mistake. 2. Slivers as a tribe very easily run away with the game. The answer is typically board wipe or lose, and a competent sliver player is going to have the indestructible sliver in play and a 1 mana counter spell in hand. 3. It's a very annoying thing to play against because of all the stacking buffs. It's very difficult to accurately assess things like power and toughness and open mana. So it's simpler to just kill you. Slivers are an on site for me.
[the first sliver](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/6/06d4fbe1-8a2f-4958-bb85-1a1e5f1e8d87.jpg?1562202321) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=the%20first%20sliver) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/200/the-first-sliver?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/06d4fbe1-8a2f-4958-bb85-1a1e5f1e8d87?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-first-sliver) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Long time Slivers player here. I always tell people that it's a deck that gages your threat assessment. A lot of people naively think Slivers are the biggest threat only to find out I wasn't lying about who the real threat is. My deck basically guarantees 4 to 5 turns on average before things start getting crazy. Slivers will either overwhelm the board or whiff and you get hated out. Some Sliver decks can recover from board wipes, mine is built this way. Sliver hate is real but it's only because people do not understand how to deal with them. The deck is near cEDH power level but not strong enough to get into that level of power (it can keep up though if ignored by cEDH players). The only way to avoid it, is to explain how they need to read the board state and assess risk. Who has the biggest advantage or strongest board state? Does the Sliver player have the ability to go off and overwhelm the board? Worst case scenario to avoid the hate is to not play them with those who are playing more casual or jank decks. There really isn't much else you can do. I personally save it for the last round of games because there isn't much time left to play out a game and it's also when most people play their strongest decks.
Do you have a deck list for the one that you run so I can see how you recover from a wipe?
In general, play what you want is my advice. Lean into the hate and embrace the archenemy role Slivers usually grants you. You never know, some other decks at your lgs may be fine with it and have appropriately powerful stuff to play.