Silvers have made quite a splash recently in both constructed and limited formats recently. It has got a lot of people trying once again to put together that perfect Sliver deck. This reader is working on his (or her) version:
 

I have always liked slivers ever since I bought the Legions pre-con deck. But then I stop liking slivers when the new slivers came out because everybody had sliver decks. But then i realized that some good slivers had come out and decided to remake the deck. The point is just to get as many slivers out and hopefully Gemhide, Reflex, and Overlord. Then you can get creatures and put them into play if you think about your mana and what you're playing. It is:

 

GREEN: 

4x Reflex Sliver

4x Might Sliver

4x Gemhide Sliver

4x Virulent Sliver

3x Brood Sliver

 

WHITE

4x Plated Sliver

4x Sinew Sliver

4x Ward Sliver

3x Essence Sliver

 

BLUE

3x Shifting Sliver

 

MULTICOLORED

2x Sliver Legions

1x  Sliver Overlord

 

LANDS

7x Forest

7x Plains

3x Islands

3x Terramophic Expanse
 

Well, Slivers sure are a popular type of deck, so I'll be glad to go over this deck with you. You have chosen to go with green and white, with blue for Shifting Sliver, then have the Legion and Overlord. Right now, the only way you can play Legion or Overlord is when you have Gemhide out. But what if you can't get a Gemhide, or your opponent kills it before you can use it? I would like to see you put in 1 Mountain and 1 Swamp so you can search for them with Terramorphic Expanse. And while you're at it, let's go ahead and add one more of those. This will put us at 23 lands, which will make it much less likely that we're sitting there with a hand full of Slivers and no mana to play them!

 

+1 Mountain

+1 Swamp

+1 Terramorphic Expanse

 

Now, on to the Slivers themselves. Your strategy, as you said, is to "get as many slivers out and hopefully Gemhide, Reflex, and Overlord". So, keeping those three you mentioned as a base point, let's focus on this strategy. Gemhide Sliver is obviously great, since it can help you get out all your Slivers and get them more quickly. Reflex allows you to use them as soon as you get them, and Overlord, is, well, just crazy big. If you can get Overlord out, it usually spells game over for the opponent.

 

The first problem I see with your Sliver selection is that we have 11 Slivers that cost 5 mana! My guess is that you often lose because these guys clog up your hand early in the game and you can't play much. If your strategy is to get a lot of slivers out, let's look at some cheaper ones. As good as those expensive Slivers are, we can get better value elsewhere.

 

-4 Might Sliver

-3 Brood Sliver

-4 Ward Sliver

 

To take their places, let's put in Sinew Sliver's green brother, Muscle Sliver. One of these guys by themselves is a good value at a 2/2 for 2 mana. Two of them gives you 2 3/3's for a total of 4 mana. Even better. 3 of them gives you 3 4/4's for 6 mana - only one mana more than your Might Sliver which would have given you only 1 4/4 for 5 mana.

 

+4 Muscle Sliver

 

Now that we have more land and less expensive Slivers, we're often going to be able to play all our slivers, quickly leaving us with no cards in hand. To remedy that, I'm going to suggest a card that may at first not seem good, but give me a moment to explain: Dormant Sliver. But I can't freakin' attack with these guys out! How am I supposed to win? Hey, I told you to give me a minute to explain! Once you get a Dormant dude out, every Sliver you play gives you an additional card. As you play these Slivers, you should have a pretty good defense while you build up your Sliver army.

 

+4 Dormant Sliver

 

Now, to help out your defense, let's make sure your guys can block your opponent's fliers by adding Winged Slivers. To make room, let's take out the underpowered Plated Sliver.

 

+4 Winged Sliver

-4 Plated Sliver

 

Okay, we've got a solid defense now. We can probably drop the Essense Sliver - even though it's so fun to gain all that life - because we don't really need the life now. What we need is some way to get rid of that Dormant Sliver once he has outlived his usefulness. To do this, my first choice is Psionic Sliver. I know, I'm returning a 5 casting cost Sliver, but we'll just put in 3 copies - a lot better than the 11 5-costers we had to start. Between the 3 damage it would do to itself and damage another Sliver could do to it, you should have no problem killing him off.

 

But Psionic Sliver might be hard to get since he's a rare. If you can't get him, you can go with Mnemonic Sliver or Victual Sliver. Either one of them allows a Sliver to sacrifice itself for an effect. But for the purpose of this article, the Psionic Slivers are the best, because there's always the backup plan of just pinging them away for 2 per sliver once you get your Slivers' toughness up to 4.

 

-3 Essence Sliver

+3 Psionic Sliver

 

Now we have switched the role of blue and white in this deck. Blue is stronger and white is weaker. Let's adjust the lands accordingly.

 

+4 Islands

-4 Plains

 

With these changes, your deck might look something like this:

 

GREEN: 

4x Reflex Sliver

4x Gemhide Sliver

4x Virulent Sliver

4x Muscle Sliver

 

WHITE

4x Sinew Sliver

 

BLUE

3x Shifting Sliver

4x Winged Sliver

3x Psionic Sliver

 

MULTICOLORED

2x Sliver Legions

1x  Sliver Overlord

4x Dormant Sliver

 

LANDS

7x Forest

7x Plains

3x Islands

1x Mountain

1x Swamp

4x Terramophic Expanse

 

As usually happens when I'm fixing a deck, I have more ideas for the deck than I'm able to fit in! I do believe that the above decklist should work well most of the time against most matchups. But in case it doesn't, here are a few other possibilities if you feel like trying them:

 

Quick Sliver: Throw down a sliver as a surprise blocker and mess up your opponent's combat math.

Crystaline Sliver: Does your opponent like to throw Terrors or Lightning Bolt at your Slivers? Not anymore!

Harmonic Sliver: Does a pesky Worship or Ensnaring Bridge have you down? Harmonic's got a quick and easy answer!

Root Sliver: A perfect way to get around that annoying player that thinks the only way to win is to pack 16 counterspells in his deck.

Wild Pair: Not really necessary, but it can be fun to play 2 slivers at once!

 

I hope this helps you with your sliver deck. There really are a bunch of different strategies you could go with. Half of the fun (to me, at least) is experimenting and tweaking until you have it just right! Have fun!
 

-mattedesa