Get the MTG
Interactive Encyclopedia
from Amazon.com

Oh my, how things have changed. Not just the environment, but I'm not actually helping a deck…

Not only is seventh been somewhat of a bust for the most part, but much of Apocalypse has already been confirmed and the discussion already started. These "editions" seem to have their problems by filling their ranks with lots of bad cards that have several better replacements. The only thing that separates them from the expansions is the lack of themes like Kicker or Buyback.

Speaking of themes, one of the better ones, or should I say one that is actually viable, is Slivers. CounterSliver is debatably a Tier one 1.x deck right now, with most of the concern being over the loss of Demonic Consultation. Planeshift may have solved that problem with the addition of Eladamri's Call to the environment. Already Red Zone decks have added it to their arsenal to get Rith, Tangarth, and Flametongue Kavu. In 1.x where the dual lands would give added mana stability, the Call should be the cure for the Slivers.

The traditional creature core for this style of deck is:

4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Winged Sliver

Big, untargetable, flying slivers rule.

As more slivers are added, decks tend to look at the other gold ones. Victual fits the colors, but isn't that useful, and after Acidic and Hibernation, Spined is only good in creature battles. Acidic and Hibernation are also good in these battles, and Hibernation allows tricks with Force of Will. I would like to stick to U/W/b/g for my colors, but since I have call I can splash so I'll add:

4 Crystalline Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
4 Winged Sliver
3 Hibernation Sliver
1 Victual Sliver
1 Acidic Sliver

That should suffice right now as far as my creature base. Now to spells. I'm going to snag a little bit of utility from all my colors.

4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Duress
3 Seal of Cleasing
4 Eladamri's Call

Now the hard part. Getting the right count for all those colors is a pain. Fortunately, the dual lands and the fetch land Flood Plains solves the majority of these problems

3 Gemstone Mine
3 Treva's Ruins
4 Tundra
4 Flood Plains
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Savannah
1 Volcanic Island
2 City of Brass

The Ruins/Mine combo does work, and since none of your spells cost more than two mana (since you aren't planning on using the mana cost of Force of Will) it won't slow you down as much as you'd think. The Calls in the deck open up the sideboard for things like Blastoderm, Masticore, Monk Realist, Uktabi Orangutan and all those other lovable guys. If you don't like Counterspell due to the UU in the casting cost, try Mana Leak, Miscalculation, or Arcane Denial. Those are the more splashable counters, but with twenty two blue mana sources, there shouldn't be a problem. Some other cards that might have a place are Cursed Scroll (over Counterspell), Blastoderm (over the other cross-color slivers), and Mox Diamond (for turn one Slivers).

Slivers is a challenging deck to play. You have to watch out for Powder Keg while defending against that Sliver Queen the Secret Force player brought in from his sideboard. You have to suck up ten damage from Mr. Sligh's Price of Progress. Stasis has a Dust Bowl out, and all your Slivers are tapped. But at the same time you have some harsh stuff because your deck can do anything. Discard, Counters, permanent destruction, creature removal…the list goes on. At the same time, your creatures present several problems - they become bigger than other weenie deck's creatures, spot removal becomes useless, and they fly over cards like Wall of Blossoms.

Enough about that deck, I've got two winners to announce!

First up is the Angel Contest. Lennart Qvarnstrom takes the prize, and I think it was the only entry, but I've let this thing drag on a while, so I don't remember seeing any others. There may have been one from BEFORE I actually started running the contest based on the Blinding/Voice line with Dueling Grounds.
That might have just been a deck that I saw on a mill though.

Anyway, Lennant has a build that's very close to the popular U/W control decks running around these days.

2 Meekstone
2 Story Circle
4 Wrath of God
4 Counterspell
4 Absorb
4 Chimeric Idol
4 Voice of All
3 Serra Angel
2 Dismantling Blow
2 Tsabo's Web
4 Marble Diamond
2 Star Compass
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Coastal Tower
8Island
7 Plains

Not bad, but there is bad synergy between the eight counters and Chimeric Idol…If I were going to play this, I'd change….

3 Story Circle
4 Wrath of God
4 Counterspell
4 Absorb
4 Blinding Angel
4 Voice of All
4 Serra Angel
3 Dismantling Blow
3 Tsabo's Web
3 Marble Diamond
1 Sky Diamond
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Coastal Tower
8Island
7 Plains

Something tells me I want to run the full complement of Angels, if for no other reason than because I can. At least one magazine has confirmed some Apocalypse cards that were running around the net, so a B/w version might look like…

4 Voice of All
4 Blinding Angel
3 Serra Angel

4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress

3 Seal of Cleansing

4 Vindicate
4 Desolation Angel

3 Marble Diamond
2 Charcoal Diamond

4 Caves of Koilos
3 Dromar's Cavern
11 Plains
7 Swamp

And lastly, the Make Mine Magic Contest. This times winner is Matt " vicious weasel" Thompson

"Until we manage to get Juzam Djinn out of that darn Pokeball, Make Mine Magic"

Kevin Williams
Kevin@pojo.com