Magic Gets a Facelift

[Mr. President]

I never got into slivers the first time around. But being a weenie-creature general, I was enthused by the one that lets all Slivers be played at instant speed.

And how about that Mistform Ultimus? If you haven't seen it yet, it counts as all creature types. There's going to be a run on Lords of Atlantis when the tournament players start getting copies of the Ultimus.

[Grumbold]

Slivers are after my time but I assume they're more 1/1 counter creatures. I think I've still got a merman deck with 4 lords of atlantis though

I thought the original PC Magic game was of a reasonable standard. It gave you a considerable number of cards to collect and your AI opponents were varied if not superb players. I have no intention of playing the new online game. Paying for resalable cardboard is one thing. Paying money for virtual cards is another thing entirely.

[Chowlett]

No, a sliver is merely a creature with type sliver - all colours I think, although predominantly green, and each has an ability text along the lines of "Each sliver gains [ability]".

So there's a flyer, a +1/+1, a tap-sacrifice to deal damage, and a play-as-instants sliver to start with, and all slivers are then fliers, +1/+1, have tap-sacrifice for damage or can be played as instants.

[Grumbold]

Ah a weenie deck special (assuming the cost is cheap )

[Richard Bruns]

Slivers are really cool. I like the whole "hive mind" aspect of them. The problem is that they tend to be overpriced individually, so they only get effective if you have a lot of them. They all cost 2 or 3 mana for abilities that would be on a non-sliver creature costing 1 or 2 mana. Sliver decks tend to be vulnerable to both selective creature removal and many black and blue effects, and must be either really fast, which is hard given the bad mana curve, or be protected with a lot of countermagic.

The exception is the Muscle Sliver, which is a Bear (2/2 green creature for 1G) even if you play it by itself, so four of these are a decent addition to any Type 1 green deck. But the original slivers, back in Stronghold, were not primarily green, they were equally balanced with each color getting two and each allied multicolor combination getting one.

The star of the show was the Sliver Queen, which was the first card to cost one mana of each color. She was a 7/7 sliver for 5 mana, and could produce 1/1 sliver tokens for 2 colorless mana. Of course, this was before the invasion cycle, when it was a lot harder to do multicolor decks. They missed their chance to add really cool slivers in that cycle; enemy-colored slivers in the Apocalypse expansion would have been a lot of fun and would have fit into the theme perfectly.

[Ben Kenobi]

There are a few other slivers that work in non-sliver decks. Crystalline slivers are pretty good, a 2/2 for UW that cannot be targetted by spells or abilities.

Needless to say, sliver decks usually run four of them.

And how about that Mistform Ultimus? If you haven't seen it yet, it counts as all creature types. There's going to be a run on Lords of Atlantis when the tournament players start getting copies of the Ultimus.

Play with slivers. All slivers now have the ultimus special ability when the ultimus becomes a sliver. Lord of Atlantis now pumps up all the slivers, as all slivers count as Mistfolk in addition to their normal sliver pump ups.

Can anyone think of any other combos? I'm sure there are more.

[Grumbold]

What did the 'invasion cycle' do to improve multicolour decks? The only thing I could do when wanting multicolour is pile all my matching dual lands in the deck.

[Standup]

darn.. i got all excited their for a moment at the mention of TopTrumps and drifted back to my youth.

Only played Magic once or twice and soon got bored as i was consistently outgunned by friends who seemed to have the GNP of a small european nation on cards to get the best ones. I assume that there are various house rules to stop this sort of 'buying' success ? Guess they just didn;t want to admit to them !!

[Shadowstrike]

Mistform Ultimus sounds really useful with Coat of Arms. If it counts as all creature types, that means all creatures gain +1/+1, right?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by obiwan18
There are a few other slivers that work in non-sliver decks. Crystalline slivers are pretty good, a 2/2 for UW that cannot be targetted by spells or abilities.

Looks like a mini Autumn Willow

But what exactly are Slivers? I am still not sure what they do.

Originally posted by obiwan18
Play with slivers. All slivers now have the ultimus special ability when the ultimus becomes a sliver. Lord of Atlantis now pumps up all the slivers, as all slivers count as Mistfolk in addition to their normal sliver pump ups.

Does it mean when a creature becomes a sliver, all other creatures gain its special abilities?

[SnowFire]

UR: Hehe, I found two Autunm Willows in the commons box once. In any case, all Slivers have an ability along the lines of "All Slivers have X." So Clot Sliver is 1B for a 1/1 with "All Slivers gain 2: Regenerates" while Winged Sliver is 1U for a 1/1 with "All Slivers gain Flying." Individually, a 1/1 flyer for 1U is pretty bad, as is a 1B 1/1 Regenerator (heck, Drudge Skeletons are better, they regenerate cheaper). But if you have both out, then they're both flying regenerators. If you have out Crystalline Sliver as well (WU for a 2/2 with "Slivers can't be the target of spells or abilities") then every sliver gets even stronger and more efficient.

Play with slivers. All slivers now have the ultimus special ability when the ultimus becomes a sliver. Lord of Atlantis now pumps up all the slivers, as all slivers count as Mistfolk in addition to their normal sliver pump ups.

Nice try. Mistform Ultimus merely says that it is all creature types. It doesn't say "All slivers are all creature types." Therefore Lord of Atlantis won't pump slivers.

Now slivers will pump the Mistform Ultimus, but it's probably better just to play with another sliver unless you really want the 3/3 body.

[Velociryx]

Dr Spike: I think you've got it!

The one and only tourney I ever played in was a sealed deck affair (which has been pointed out to be the great equalizer, and renders the "suitcase guys" largely impotent, actually....since they get all soft relying on their uber cards, they usually fall apart when they have to make due with lesser stock).

For the tourney I participated in, you bought your stock (two 60 card decks, one booster pack, and eight basic lands of your choosing--in case you were short) and were permitted half an hour to trade around the room.

The deck I won with (went through the tourney undefeated!) was a simply-constructed, Red-Green, little critter, direct damage, and boosting card deck, with a trio of Stormbind cards (Ice Age set...long time ago!) thrown in as a kicker.

So it's not *always* the guy with the uber-deck that can get a win....with persistence, and a good understanding of what your deck can do, just about anything CAN be made into a winner!

-=Vel=-

[Chowlett]

In case folk are wondering, I came around 60th of 150-odd players in the pre-release. This is less impressive when you take into account the fact that all except about 65 had dropped by the end...

OTOH, I did do rather well in a raffle. I bought 5 tickets for £5, and drew the star prize - a Mox Pearl. The then offered the alternative "Mox or a Box", so after some consultation with the guys I'd gone down with, and based on Mox condition (playable in a sleeve, probably), I took the box.

So I can now say I have owned a Mox Pearl for 2 minutes, and I now have 36 Judgement boosters being slowly opened.

Among other acquisitions I like, though, is an Italian Soldevi Excavations. Niiiiiice card.

[FrustratedPoet]

sounds like it was a pretty successful trip then Chowlett. nice

36 boosters is a nice haul.

[Ben Kenobi]

"Nice try. Mistform Ultimus merely says that it is all creature types. It doesn't say "All slivers are all creature types." Therefore Lord of Atlantis won't pump slivers."

Snowfire:

Slivers are a subset of creatures.
Mistform Ultimus is all creature types simultaneously.
Therefore Mistform Ultimus counts as a sliver.

One of the built-in abilities of creatures of the subset sliver is the ability to share all other abilities with other slivers.

This includes the mistform ability that says, Mistform Ultimus is all creature types simultaneously.

Therefore, all slivers gain this mistform ability, and all slivers are all creature types simultaneously.

Slivers now count as merfolk, slivers, elves,
zombies, in addition to counting as slivers.
Also the mistform gains all the current sliver abilities in play.