Karate for Defense Only

On a warm summer’s day in 1984, kids everywhere went to theatres to see a movie which would shake the foundations of what we could achieve! Karate Kid came out and everyone was in their backyards doing house work for their parents, knowing that any would-be bullies wouldn’t know what hit them when they came at them with a ‘Wax on, Wax off’ move to cripple their attempts at injuring them and taking their lunch money. Crane kicks became a norm in recess fights, and karate classes rose to their top numbers of students. Yes, it was a glorious time, and everyone wanted to find their own Mr. Miyagi.

Welcome to another lesson at Sliver Academia, My name is Tuxebromask, and today our Slivers will be learning true strength. Slivers look for teachers as well, ones who can teach them about all the important things in life. One of the most important teachers to the Sliver tribe is none other than Sliver Hivelord, the Sliver who teaches you how to survive a board wipe, a Sliver’s least favourite plays. So with a Commander who pretty much makes your Slivers invulnerable to board wipes, what better way of saying ‘NO U!’ is there than making a complete and utter board wipe deck featuring Slivers. This does cause some hate as well, but then again, you can’t spell frustration without F,U,N!

Boardwipes

• Blasphemous Act
• Cyclonic Rift
• Day of Judgment
• Fumigate
• Hour of Revelation
• Nevinyrral’s Disk
• Supreme Verdict
• Wrath of God

Oh, how the tides have turned. Slivers biggest weakness becomes their weapon in this version of Slivers, even having some fun interaction when you use Blasphemous Act while you have a Spiteful Sliver on your side of the field. All of these should keep the field quite barren and if Mr. Miyagi is on the field, your side will be left unaffected. This deck tends to win versus other Tribal Decks due to the one reason that many Tribal Decks require a field presence to start their ball rolling, and you would be the bringer of bad news when you decide it’s about time to cleanse the field once or twice.

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Ramp

• Arcane Signet
• Chromatic Lantern
• Coalition Relic
• Commander’s Sphere
• Cryptolith rite
• Cultivate
• Fellwar Stone
• Gemhide Sliver
• Gilded Lotus
• Herald’s Horn
• Kodama’s Reach
• Manaweft Sliver
• Mirari’s Wake
• Sol Ring

Nothing too special but a solid ramp package. I usually try and get green mana, because I usually have a solid amount of green cards such as ramp spells, but then I’ll focus on having access to white mana, as many of the board wipes will require a bit. It’s good to note that some of your board wipes will take out more than just creatures, so add that into your considerations for deciding when the board wipes are needed.

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Combos

Blasphemous Act + Spiteful Sliver: = a nice 13 damage to target players or Planeswalkers face each Sliver you have.
Board wipe + Sliver Hivelord: = one sided board wipes.
Sliver Hivelord + Crystalline Sliver: = Indestructible, Shrouded Slivers (really not the easiest things to remove).

Not many combos in this composition of the deck, this is more for the grinding your opponents into using their resources, and then becoming an impenetrable wall of Slivers. I left the other Legendary Slivers for minor Shenanigans, and because they are always a nice 5 drop with heavy upsides.

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Summary

When my friends ask to create Elf EDH Decks, or Goblin Tribal EDH, I always happily oblige, as I go through the boxes of cards, and start taking out their key pieces for them. They always wonder why I start taking out Wrath of God, and other board wipes while creating their mono-green or mono-red decks and say, ‘Oh you can’t put that in there, it’s not Insert Colour‘. That’s when I smile and tell them, that’s not for their deck… it’s for mine!

What are your thoughts on this board wipe Sliver Deck? Would you have even more board wipes? Possibly some taxing cards like Smothering Tithe / Rhystic Study? Let us know in the comments. Until next lesson!