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Main » Articles » Slivers in Historic?

Slivers in Historic?

A. E. Marling
Posted on August 10, 2021
 Reddit

Sliver Hive

I can't believe it! With the release of Jumpstart: Historic Horizons, slivers are slinking into Historic. This product combines two of my favorite things: a quick-to-play Limited format and the most synergistic tribe in Magic's history. I've written many articles about Jumpstart and even designed packs bristling full of Slivers. Each of the five packets was mono-colored. The digital platform of Arena allows us to delve deeper into the multicolored aspects of the hive. Not only will we have a (small) chance to battle with our slither pals in Limited, but also the tribe is now legal in Historic. In this article, we'll explore various sixty-card builds of slivers and discuss if they are worth building.

Wildcards for Wild Creatures

Let's begin with a clear-eyed assessment of the cost of buying Slivers in Historic. If that's your goal, the first thing you should know is that you can't get them directly in packs, not practically speaking. There are so many different packets (46) in Jumpstart: Historic Horizons that your chance of opening one for slivers is small, about one in fifteen. This costs two-thousand gold and even more in your time.

If you buy generic packs of any other set, each gives you about a quarter of a rare wildcard. To get the eleven rares we need from Jumpstart: Historic Horizons, we should expect to buy at least forty-four packs. I would choose Kaldheim, as we also need pathway lands and Realmwalker. Forty-five packs costs 9,000 gems, which translates into $60. If this is your entry into Magic: Arena, you get a discount on your first gems buy. If you have been playing on this platform for a while, you may have an equivalent 45,000 gold in your vault, or the eleven rare wildcards ready to go.

Sliver Hive
Cloudshredder Sliver
Spiteful Sliver

These are the eleven rares from Jumpstart: Horizons I would play in any Sliver Historic deck. Notably absent is Bonescythe Sliver. This card is worse than the common Cleaving Sliver, except when you already have so many slivers in play you're already winning. Every deck will include four Striking Sliver, which has some redundancy with double strike. You can skip that rare, and the mythics are optional.

The First Sliver

Though some decklists won't include The First Sliver, it is a potent creature. It gives you card advantage against control and a huge body that can dominate other creature decks like Gruul or Stompy. If you cascade into Cloudshredder Sliver, you can win out of nowhere. And the five mana is achievable, thanks to prismatic lands and Manaweft Sliver.

Manaweft Sliver

The archetype is defined as much by its non-rare slivers. Manaweft Sliver combines best with 1-drop slivers, turning even the lowly Universal Automaton into a Birds of Paradise. Better yet, if you have Cloudshredder Sliver in play, your hasty mana producers can help cast each other, allowing you to deploy your entire hand in a turn cycle and begin attacking or ramp into a payoff like The First Sliver or Collected Company. Our initial list will avoid both of those more expensive options and focus on attacking with the cheapest slivers possible.

The Decklists

Cheap Slivers | Historic | AE Marling

You may well wonder why I chose Universal Automaton over slivers that can contribute abilities to the tribe, such as Sentinel Sliver. While that White creature is great and present in a later list, it costs twice as much mana. This archetype may have five colors but is limited in its option for turn-one plays. Your 1-drop changelings don't give abilities, but they're great at receiving them. Predatory Sliver gives the same +1/+1 to every creature in your deck, and this provides the most benefit to your 1-drops, proportionally. Beyond that, it's essential to have early plays to get under the format's nemesis.

Memory Lapse

Historic is defined by Memory Lapse and other non-creature spells from Strixhaven's Historical Archive. Though the new Jumpstart release does give you strong slivers, they are entering a maelstrom of instants of sorceries that well may be stronger. Now, I believe Memory Lapse should be banned, as the most frustrating counterspell of all time. Yes, I would rather contend with Counterspell itself; at least it doesn't lead to as much repetition and mana screw. This is relevant to slivers because unlike in other formats, we don't have Cavern of Souls or Aether Vial. If we don't play lots of 1-drops we may never get on the board at all.

In the sideboard you'll notice three copies of Spiteful Sliver. You may well want this card main, but it's even stronger in post-board games when people reach for their Anger of the Gods. It also excels against decks with big beaters like Gruul.

Speaking of giant monsters, let's move on to the list that features The First Sliver. With a few less 1-drops, I included more tap lands we can slip into play on the first turn like Fabled Passage; the shuffle can clear the top of our deck for Realmwalker. It also allows us to dip into a few colored spells in our sideboard. Forced Landing is important against Korvold, Fae-Cursed King and Serra's Emissary.

Midrange Slivers | Historic | AE Marling

Diffusion Sliver

When playing my test games, many of my wins came from Diffusion Sliver. On the most basic level, Diffusion Sliver gives you tempo advantage, as it now takes three mana to kill your 2-drop with a card like Spikefield Hazard // Spikefield Cave. Our little Blue friend doubles the cost of Lightning Helix and Scorching Dragonfire, and it may lock our opponent out of killing our slivers entirely. Losing our Blue buddy to reduce our color count comes with a significant cost. That said, simplifying our deck to three colors allows us to improve our sideboard and cast the all-star Collected Company.

Naya Sliver | Historic | AE Marling

Collected Company rewards you for maximizing your number of 3-drops, and I'm happy to move Spiteful Sliver maindeck along with the fiery dear Lavabelly Sliver. The latter rewards you for playing multiple slivers in a turn, and the drains give you reach and swing races in your favor. The best part? It's only an uncommon. If you have another rare, you could add the fourth Spiteful Sliver instead of one Universal Automaton. It is worth noting that this Naya deck requires more rare lands. Unless you already own them, I would start with a cheaper five-color build. I haven't found the three-color variant to be superior in results.

Can Slivers Win?

To design these decks, I mostly tested against the top archetypes of Historic's past. This won't be representative of the new format but simply served to give me an idea of the preexisting power level. Slivers struggled, and my sense is that they and other tribal decks with minimal interaction will continue to have to fight simply to be tier two.

Our strong slivers like Dregscape Sliver are well matched by strong removal like Anger of the Gods and Magma Spray. Those Red cards will be played often to defeat Izzet Phoenix. Without Harmonic Sliver, we lack meaningful interaction against aura and artifact strategies. Creatures like Mayhem Devil can torment us, and our five-color lists have no way to remove them in the seventy-five.

Slivers are a resilient tribe and will be reasonable if the format is defined by creatures and creature interaction. The hive will suffer if Historic is dominated by combo or ultra-fast decks. Mizzix's Mastery from the Historical Archive stands out as a potent enabler for Magma Opus and Dragonstorm, both of which stomp on our sliver babies. Going forward, I would expect to see more combo and reanimation of Serra's Emissary, which is tough for our beaked beauties.

Mizzix's Mastery
Serra's Emissary

We do have strong slivers but not enough one-mana or interactive options to thrive in Historic. Fans of the sliver tribe will enjoy casting them on Arena, and buying in may be worth it to you depending on your situation. It's a rush chaining slivers together with Manaweft Sliver and Cloudshredder Sliver. I loved slaying my Gruul foes with triggers from Spiteful Sliver. That said, I would not expect to win more than 45% of my games.

Yes, slivers can win in Historic. No, I would not recommend you spend your last wildcards on the deck. The best format for Slivers likely is still Legacy, but they also felt reasonable in Modern. I've included my most recent decklist below, with Force of Negation in the sideboard to fight Blood Moon.

Slivers | Modern | AE Marling

TAGS articles, constructed, analysis, slivers, decklist, tribal, ae marling, arena, mtg arena, historic, jumpstart, jumpstart historic horizons, 08102021

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