This card seems like it would be good in Sliver
decks, but it really isn't.
The first time I opened up one of these in a
booster draft, I grabbed it. I very much liked
the idea of turning all my Slivers into removal
spells. With a little luck, you could even wind
up with Slivers with large enough toughnesses to
allow repeated use of Psionic Sliver's ability.
Sounds good, but it really doesn't work out that
well. Might Sliver is a five casting cost Sliver
that makes the cut in limited, but Psionic
Sliver really does not. Psionic Sliver is the
wrong color for a five casting cost Sliver.
Blue/white decks ask for more from their five
slot than this rare card delivers. I know it
seems delicious, but Psionic Sliver is just not
worth the effort. In constructed decks, Psionic
Sliver's relatively high cost more than offsets
its usefulness. There are a lot of other cards
that would make the cut in a constructed Sliver
deck before Psionic Sliver.
Without a toughness-boosting Sliver, this
basically turns all your Slivers into potential
Shock Troops. And Shock Troops isn't the card
they're homaging with this. It's powerful
nonetheless, though, letting you clear the board
when needed or finish off an opponent with
direct damage. In limited, any removal is good
removal, and Blue doesn't often get good
removal. Well, it sure did this time.
Here's Slivery goodness. I'm not a huge fan of
the creepy little buggers, but this one is
excellent. I was a fan of Psionic Entity and
this captures the flavor just perfectly. And the
existence of Watcher Sliver and Might Sliver to
make it work are icing on the cake. It seems to
me that one of the strongest two color sliver
combinations you can get is blue and white.
Psionic is at the forefront of this strategy,
turning all of your slivers into big shotguns.
And if you dash in green for Fungus Sliver,
things get even more ridiculous. When you open a
blue card in Time Spiral that starts with
Psionic, you should be happy even if the second
word isn't "Blast".
It just keeps getting better. I said before that
my favorite of the new slivers is Gemhide, and I
stand by that. But this one is aweful close.
I've won a few games with a strong sliver
attack, followed in the next turn by dropping a
Psionic and shooting for the win. It lets blue
dip into the Red part of the color pie to get a
little reach at the end of a creature showdown.
It's even better if you can pump your slivers
toughness.
Constructed: 5 (in a sliver deck, obviously)
Casual: 5
Limited: with enough slivers, a 5
Gackley Ferguson
Psionic Sliver
...I don't know what to say about this one.
Let's weigh the pros and cons...a 2/2 for 5?
Con. You're dealing 2 damage to something else
and 3 to the sliver? Con. I can only see this
being useful if your slivers were being targeted
for something, and even then the measly 2 damage
isn't guaranteed to take it out. I'll pass on
this one.
