To this day, Slivers remain one of the most iconic creature types in all of MTG. Their ability to join forces and empower oneanother makes them a powerful build-around in Commander. Unfortunately, outside of Commander, Slivers rarely make their presence felt in competitive formats.
This makes it all the more exciting that a combo deck centered around the creature type just 5-0d a Magic Online Legacy League. This brew has the potential to kill as early as the first turn, so if you’re not prepared, you may end up on the wrong side of things.
Infinite Sliver Combo
The main goal behind this deck is to assemble a three-card combo. Despite requiring multiple cards to get your engine rolling, the whole combo can be set up for only two mana. Leyline of Transformation, naming Sliver, is essential in your opening hand for this to work. Thanks to this, the deck comes equipped with a playset of Serum Powder to aid your mulligans.
From there, because all of your creature cards are Slivers, you’re set up to abuse Hatchery Sliver‘s second ability. With a zero-mana creature, you can essentially cast as many copies of that card as you want for free. With this in mind, Memnite gets to play the role of honorary Sliver in this deck, setting you up for lethal damage the following turn. If you’re fortunate enough to have Thrumming Hivepool in hand as well, you can even attack right away.
What’s nice about this combo is that it’s more resilient than it might initially look. First of all, Leyline is immune to counter magic when it’s in your opening hand. Similarly, the presence of Cavern of Souls can help you sneak Hatchery Sliver into play through a counterspell. Then, if you have Memnite rolled up, you can put infinite copies on the stack before your opponent ever has priority. This way, your opponent never gets to convert Force of Will or traditional removal in any meaningful way. With the help of Elvish Spirit Guide, setting up a turn one win isn’t out of the question.
Aiding Consistency and a Plan B
While this combo’s resiliency isn’t bad, setting up a three-card combo in a format as fast and strong as Legacy isn’t easy. Luckily, this archetype features a lot of card selection spells and tutors, like Worldly Tutor and Spoils of the Vault, to help you find your missing pieces.
Notably, besides just aiding this deck’s main combo, Spoils of the Vault and Serum Powder enable Cosmogoyf as an alternate win condition. Decks that rely on damage-based removal may struggle to beat such a beefy body.
Still Far From Perfect
Unfortunately, despite all of things going in this deck’s favor, this Sliver combo still has its fair share of weaknesses. Even with a plethora of card selection, this deck still has a decently high fail rate compared to other combo archetypes. In some games, you’ll mulligan into oblivion and simply not find Leyline. Other times, your Leyline will get blown up or bounced, your tutors will get countered, and you’ll spend the whole game spinning your wheels.
On top of these issues, this deck is also vulnerable to a variety of hate cards. Mindbreak Trap, for example, can counter all copies of Memnite on the stack, unlike traditional counterspells. Sweepers like Wrath of the Skies can also be problematic, unless you also stick Thrumming Hivepool. Even a flipped Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student is problematic thanks to its +2 ability, shrinking your 1/1s. Screeching Sliver out of the sideboard may at least come in clutch when dealing lethal damage won’t work out, though.
All in all, this Sliver combo deck is more a fun option rather than a super powerful one. Nonetheless, it’s cool to see such a unique archetype get some time to shine. If you want to surprise your friends with an off-the-wall strategy that they almost certainly haven’t prepared for, this deck could be right up your alley.
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