A friend of mine has recently been playing a Slivers deck in our FNM tourney. Last week he went either 1-3 or 2-2. This week he went 3-1 and got 4th place. His version of Slivers was Red/White/Green, using nothing but Birds of Paradise and Slivers. After seeing him play that in the first tournament I decided to build my own Slivers deck, building upon the weakness I saw in his deck: No Removal. In order for me to add in removal I would have to go with Red, White, or Black. At this point I had to analyze what slivers there were for each of these colors:

White:
1- Essence Sliver (3W) - Slivers have a built in Spirit Link, gaining you life for any damage they do.

2- Quilled Sliver (1W) - Slivers can deal 1 damage to an attacking or blocking creature.

3- Pulmonic Sliver (3WW) - Slivers fly and when they die you can put them on the top of your library.

4- Sidewinder Sliver (W) - All slivers have Flanking.

5- Watcher Sliver (3W) - All slivers get +0/+2.

Black:
1- Mindlash Sliver (B) - Allows you to sacrifice a sliver for 1 to force both players to discard a card.

2- Plague Sliver (2BB) - Beginning of upkeep each sliver deals one damage to its controller.

3- Vampiric Sliver (3B) - Anytime a creature dies that was dealt damage by this sliver you put a +1/+1 counter on it.

4- Basal Sliver (2B) - Slivers can be sacrificed for BB.

Red:
1- Bonesplitter Sliver (3R) - Slivers get +2/+0.

2- Fury Sliver (5R) - All Slivers have Double Strike.

3- Sedge Sliver (2R) - All slivers get +1/+1 and can be regenerated for B if you control a swamp.

4- Two-Headed Sliver (1R) - Slivers can only be blocked by two or more creatures.

This list does not contain the Ghostflame Sliver because I would have to commit to B/R.

Looking at the mana costs of these colors:
White:
1cc: 1
2cc: 1
4cc: 2
5cc: 1

Black:
1cc: 1
3cc: 1
4cc: 2

Red:
2cc: 1
3cc: 1
4cc: 1
6cc: 1

I decided to go with the fastest deck I could to keep the deck Competitive. I chose Black and White. Both those colors top out at 4cc (Not counting the Pulmonic Sliver) and they both give you the chance to play a sliver every turn. Also both those colors allow for a wide variety of removal spells. Some of the options for removal spells are:
White:
Wrath of God
Condemn
Faith's Fetters
Devouring Light

Black:
Sudden Death
Cruel Edict
Seal of Doom

My first step was to narrow the Slivers down. These are the slivers I chose:
White (9):
4 Sidewinder Sliver- Against any deck not playing flanking creatures, these will allow your slivers to get through almost every time.
4 Essence Sliver- Life gain is always nice, especially when more than one Essence Sliver is out and you gain double or even triple the life. It works great with Plague Sliver as well.
1- Pulmonic Sliver- I wanted to keep the costs low, but this gives all slivers an ability that can win the game as soon as you play it. You don’t want too many in the deck though, because you won’t cast it until turn 5 at the earliest.

Black (12):
4 Mindlash Sliver- Turn 1 creature and also adds a useful effect to help combat combo decks.
4 Plague Sliver- With an Essence Sliver in play you get a 5/5 with no drawbacks for only 4 mana.
4 Vampiric Sliver- I like this guy because he will help make your slivers get big quickly.

That gave me 21 creatures with a heavy lean on the 4cc area of the mana curve. To help with that I went for removal spells that were in that lower range:
Removal:
4 Cruel Edict- Kill their turn 1 bird when you go first, or kill their Protection from Black creature that you can't target.
4 Sudden Death- Kills almost any creature and can't be countered.

I am now up to 29 cards. With a deck that maxes out around 4cc I feel safe playing 22 lands, so I can fit another 9 cards into the deck:

2 Grim Harvest- Great against Wrath of God, or just to use with the Mindlash Sliver to force your opponent to lose a card.
3 Phyrexian Arena- Card draw, and with Essence Sliver in play there is no drawback.
4 Loxodon Warhammer- This card can force your opponent to block more often then they would like to, gives you some life, and destroys your opponent faster.

For land I chose:
4 Godless Shrine
4 Cave's of Koilos
4 Orzhov Basilica
10 Swamp

That brings the final Decklist to:
Creatures (21):
4 Mindlash Sliver
4 Plague Sliver
4 Vampiric Sliver
4 Essence Sliver
4 Sidewinder Sliver
1 Pulmonic Sliver

Spells (10):
4 Cruel Edict
4 Sudden Death
2 Grim Harvest

Enchantments (3):
3 Phyrexian Arena

Artifact (4):
4 Loxodon Warhammer

Lands (22):
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Godless Shrine
4 Orzhov Bassilica
10 Swamp

Since this was a casual deck that I built to be competitive, I did not build a sideboard for it but I would recommend the following cards:

2 Sudden Spoiling- Side in against Slivers when either you attack or they do to create massive card advantage and board control for you.
3 COP Red- Obvious reasons.
3 Hide/Seek- No more Dragonstorm Combo
4 Disenchant- It's no fun playing when your opponent has a COP Black out and you are only drawing black creatures.
3 Wrath of God- Just in case you need more mass removal.

I hope you enjoy my Sliver deck. If you took the time to read my article, please rate it. That way I know if I'm doing a good enough job or if I'm just too boring.


Billy Moreau
[email protected]