Introduction
This deck is part of the Pauper Decks, which are made from only common cards. The great thing about Pauper is the majority of the cards are cheap to buy, and are still strong as there are quite a lot of good common cards over Magic's history.
Key Strategy
Slivers is a tribal deck focused on the unique synergies of Sliver creatures. Each Sliver contributes abilities to the entire team, creating a collective force that can quickly overpower opponents. The deck capitalizes on this synergy by playing a variety of Slivers that grant crucial abilities, making your army both resilient and aggressive.
Key Cards
Muscle Sliver, Predatory Sliver, and Sinew Sliver: These are your primary lords, each granting +1/+1 to all Slivers. Stacking these effects quickly turns your small creatures into formidable threats.
Gemhide Sliver: A critical mana fixer that allows all of your Slivers to tap for mana, enabling explosive turns where you can flood the board or cast multiple spells in a single turn.
Virulent Sliver: Grants all your Slivers poisonous, allowing you to threaten lethal damage through poison counters, which can bypass traditional life totals.
Winged Sliver: Grants all your Slivers flying, enabling them to avoid ground blockers and apply pressure through the air.
Plated Sliver: Provides an additional layer of toughness to your creatures, making them harder to remove and more durable in combat.
Abundant Growth: Provides mana fixing and card draw, ensuring you have access to your colors while cycling through your deck for more Slivers or key spells.
Lead the Stampede: This spell helps you recover from board wipes or refuel your hand by digging for more creatures, often finding multiple Slivers to keep the pressure on.
Gameplay Strategy
The main strategy with Slivers is to swarm the board with your creatures and leverage their shared abilities to create a highly synergistic and overwhelming force.
In the early game, focus on playing your mana-fixing Slivers like Gemhide Sliver to ensure you can cast your multicolored spells easily. Follow up with your lords like Muscle Sliver, Predatory Sliver, and Sinew Sliver to start buffing your entire board. These lords are the backbone of your deck, turning even the smallest Slivers into significant threats.
Once you have a few Slivers in play, Virulent Sliver becomes particularly deadly, as it allows you to win through poison counters, a secondary win condition that can catch your opponent off guard. Winged Sliver can make your team evasive, allowing you to push through damage even if the ground is clogged with blockers.
Lead the Stampede plays a crucial role in ensuring you don’t run out of steam. Use it to refill your hand after committing several creatures to the board. This card is particularly effective after a board wipe, allowing you to quickly recover and maintain pressure.
Abundant Growth helps smooth out your mana and ensures that you can consistently cast your spells. Additionally, the card draw keeps your hand full, allowing you to maintain pressure throughout the game.
In the mid-to-late game, as your board of Slivers grows, you can often close out the game with a combination of evasion from Winged Sliver and poison counters from Virulent Sliver. Even if your opponent manages to deal with some of your threats, the constant flow of creatures from Lead the Stampede and the resilience provided by Plated Sliver or Crypt Sliver (which grants regeneration) makes it difficult for them to stabilize.
Mulligan Guide
With Slivers, your ideal opening hand includes a mix of mana-fixing creatures and Slivers that provide buffs to your team. A good hand should have at least two lands, a mana-fixing Sliver like Gemhide Sliver or Abundant Growth, and at least one lord to start building your board presence.
If your opening hand lacks sufficient lands or ways to accelerate your mana, consider a mulligan. Likewise, if you have no early plays or too many high-cost cards, it’s best to mulligan to ensure a faster start.
However, because the deck relies heavily on synergy, try to keep hands that allow you to develop a board presence early and start stacking abilities. A hand with one or two lands but the potential to quickly ramp with Gemhide Sliver or find more Slivers with Lead the Stampede is often keepable.
Slivers is all about creating a powerful, synergistic board state that grows stronger with every Sliver you play. By leveraging the collective abilities of your Slivers, you can quickly overwhelm opponents and dominate the battlefield. With the right combination of creatures and spells, this deck can deliver consistent, explosive victories.
Key Cards
Cards to look for in the opening hand