> Theme

Sliver tribal deck.

> Introduction

Slivers are THE BEST tribe that WotC has ever made in the whole magic history. They are (mostly) small creatures that create synergies between each other. Slivers' main peculiarity is their ability, since they all start with "Slivers you control have ..." or "All slivers have ...", which means that having 3 or 4 slivers on the battlefield, will result into 3 or 4 creatures with 3 or 4 abilities each! So, as you can understand, things can evolve really quickly when you start dropping those little Zerg-like creatues on the battlefield, forcing your opponents to deal with them as soon as possible. Yes, of course, slivers bring a lot of hate to their owner, so prepare to be the first target in your pod! With this deck we're going to see how to deal with this hate in order to reach our goal: outlast your opponents while evolving your army until the game's climax. I know that many of you are probably thinking "tribal and cEDH are not compatible", and somehow I can agree with you, since there are 5 colors commander that are better then Sliver Overlord. But my goal is to have a tribal deck as much competitive as possible, with cards that I own. Competitive is not only a matter of cards, it's a state of mind: you play because you want to win.

> Commander

Sliver Overlord is the only serious choice here. Why? Your commander can tutor for other slivers. Instantly, without tapping him. Training Ground is a huge help here, because with the original ability cost of {3} you can now tutor for 3 slivers, or just ramp a little and play your commander at turn 5, using its ability in the same turn: pretty badass uh? And of course he can also steal other slivers from other players. They don't have slivers? False. Amoeboid Changeling can turn them into slivers as well, so you can steal them. Oh, almost forgetting: you can also tutor for it, since it's also a sliver. Sliver Overlord also can be seen as a sliver card draw engine due to its main ability, so don't forget about that: tutoring for slivers will thin your deck and can help you avoid dead draws. Generally we can cast our lord on turn 3 with a right start, but I suggest waiting a little longer in order to have some protection for him. If something wrong happens, it will then cost 7 mana, which is a lot.
In the past I've also tried Sliver Hivelord or Sliver Legion as our commander, but they are too casual compared with to tutor in your command zone. they might work if you want to lower down your deck power, but generally you'll have to fix your list in order to draw/tutor more. Sliver Queen can be a great commander, but not for a sliver tribal deck. That way you can build a deck to fully support combos around her without wasting slots on slivers or on cards that support the tribe. Same goes for The First Sliver: the best Food Chain commander ever. He can access all the colors in order to support a really solid combo and let you to cast your whole deck for free.

> Protecting your babies

Like every tribal deck, one of your weak points are board wipes and single target removals. Let's see how we can deal with those.

The lock:

Sliver Hivelord + Crystalline Sliver is one of our key synergies here, since the first provides indestructible and the second shroud. With those on our field, our weakness will be sac and mass exile.

Bounce:

Hibernation Sliver is very important for us, since it allows us to bounce back our slivers without using mana. In response to a mass sac or mass exile, we can use its ability in order to save some of our key pieces.

Interactions:

One of the best and easiest ways to protect your army and gameplan is to interact with other players. "The Brood Superiority" package provides a bunch of counters and spot removals that can help you win the game or prevent you from losing. For example, some protection can be provided by cards like Pact of Negation, Mana Drain, Force of Will, Flusterstorm, Miscast, Swan Song, Fierce Guardianship and Deflecting Swat. We’re also running a bunch of spot removals, in order to stop our opponents’ combos or to remove hate pieces. Those are Assassin's Trophy, Boseiju, Who Endures, Cyclonic Rift, Swords to Plowshares and our friend Necrotic Sliver, which can transform all of our babies into super cute kamikazes. Also, when you're going to combo out, Silence and Veil of Summer can really do the work for you.

> Finding the right tool when needed

We're using some tutors here, since our commander might be not enough. Vampiric Tutor, Imperial Seal, Finale of Devastation, Enlightened Tutor, Worldly Tutor, Eladamri's Call, Demonic Tutor, Eldritch Evolution, Neoform and our friend Homing Sliver, which, if played, can transform all of our slivers in our hand into sliver-tutors as well. Most of the times you will use Homing Sliver on the spot, but don't forget that our main tutor is right there, on the command zone. Tutors are used in order to build our strategy; we will look for Gemhide Sliver / Manaweft Sliver if we want to speed up the cast of our commander, or we will find for combo pieces / card draw cards if we plan to run out of cards soon. Survival of the Fittest, Hermit Druid and Intuition are a tool needed for finding whole lines: they are basically a sort of one card combo.

> Fixing our mana base and ramping

There are 0 CMC rocks like Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, Mana Crypt, which can really help us play our commander before turn 5. A huge ramp can come from Gemhide Sliver and Manaweft Sliver, which can transforms our babies into mana dorks. Ignoble Hierarch, Noble Hierarch, Utopia Sprawl, Birds of Paradise and Carpet of Flowers are also a pretty fast ramp, very nice if played T1. Dockside Extortionist isn't a sliver but it does provide one of the greatest ramp and mana fix ever. It also prevents some of the common stax situations.

> How to be hated and win your games

Emiel Lines:

• Emiel the Blessed + Dockside Extortionist (when it can create at least 4 treasures) = infinite colored mana
  This combo is so powerful that itself it will makes you win the game. With infinite colored mana you can basically cast whatever sliver you like since you can cast Sliver Overlord first, then tutor for slivers, then cast them and win. This is generally the fastest way to win a game, since it's an easy 2 card combo.
• Emiel the Blessed + Mana Echoes + 3 slivers on the battlefield = infinite sliver etb
  This combo can also be abused in different way. If Lavabelly Sliver is on the battlefield, you can kill your opponents just out of it. If Dormant Sliver is on the battlefield, you can draw your deck. If Cloudshredder Sliver / Heart Sliver and Gemhide Sliver / Manaweft Sliver are on the battlefield, you can generate infinite colored mana, cast your commander, tutor for everything and win.

Curio Lines:

• Cloudstone Curio + Dockside Extortionist (when it can create at least 4/5 treasures) + another creature = infinite colored mana
  As the first Emiel line, this is a huge combo for us, so we can cast our commander, tutor for every sliver and then cast them and win. We will need 4 treasures from Dockside Extortionist if we bounce a 1CMC creature, 5 if we're bouncing a 2CMC. Cool thing is, if we can't produce that additional mana that help us reaching the infinite amount of treasures, we might have Lavabelly Sliver on the battlefield and kill our opponents while bouncing a sliver with Dockside Extortionist.
• Cloudstone Curio + Intruder Alarm + Gemhide Sliver / Manaweft Sliver + 2/3 slivers = infinite colored mana
  Bouncing and casting again a creature, let us untap each creature in play. For us, with Gemhide Sliver / Manaweft Sliver out and at least a couple of more slivers who can already tap for mana, it can lead to infinite mana.

Sliver Queen Lines:

• Sliver Queen + Basal Sliver + Lavabelly Sliver

This is the main Sliver Queen line, it enables infinite slivers entering the battlefields, which leads to infinite damage to our opponents. this is a 3 cards combo, and as is, it's pretty difficult to assamble. So here I'm offering you 2 different way to assamble it in an easier way.

• Survival of the Fittest: with this on the battlefield, one creature in your hand and 4 green mana, you can assemble this combo in your graveyard.

  • Before your turn, activate Survival of the Fittest, spending G, discarting any creature in your hand, searching for Sliver Queen;
  • Activate Survival of the Fittest again, spending G, discarting Sliver Queen, search for Basal Sliver;
  • Activate Survival of the Fittest again, spending G, discarting Basal Sliver, searching for Lavabelly Sliver;
  • Activate Survival of the Fittest for the last time, spending G, discarting Lavabelly Sliver, searching for Dregscape Sliver.

  This way you just need to unearth all 3 slivers on your turn in order to win.

• Intuition + one of the 3 slivers needed already in your hand.

  Intuition will search for Dregscape Sliver + the remaning 2 slivers needed for the combo. As you can understand, whatever card our opponent will chose to put in our hand it will result on us reanimating what we need, since Dregscape Sliver works both on the battlefield in our graveyard (we just need to unearth it first).

• Hermit Druid: activating its ability will mill your whole library into your graveyard. This is a more risky line then Survival of the Fittest one, but less mana intensive. After all of your cards are into your graveyard, you only need to unearth Dregscape Sliver and then unearth the remaining sliver and perform a Sliver Queen line. Having some sliver already on the battlefield might reduce the unearth cost if Basal Sliver is the second sliver you unearth.

Slivers Combo:

Here you can find a list of combos that make you win the game:

• Slive Legion + Galerider Sliver / Cloudshredder Sliver / Shifting Sliver + enough slivers for a big swipe
• [Sliver Queen + Basal Sliver + Training Grounds + Heart Sliver/Cloudshredder Sliver will also result into infinite slivers on the battlefield with haste.
• Sliver Queen + Gemhide Sliver / Manaweft Sliver + Heart Sliver/Cloudshredder Sliver + Intruder Alarm = infinite 1/1 Sliver Tokens
• Sliver Queen + Mana Echoes + {2} Mana = infinite colorless mana and infinite 1/1 Sliver Tokens
• Gemhide Sliver / Manaweft Sliver + Heart Sliver/Cloudshredder Sliver + Intruder Alarm = this allow you to untap your slivers when a sliver ETB, and tap this new sliver too; with Sliver Overlord you can tutor for everything, like Bonescythe Sliver, Sliver Legion or other slivers that help you attack and kill everyone in that specific turn.

Generally these combos may happen around turn 6-7+, depending on how good your starting hand was and regardless of interaction, Emiel lines can be quicker. You can easily block someone else's combo and protect your strategy.

> Starting Hand

We generally want a couple of lands (at least one with green), at least 1 ramp card, 1 or 2 slivers, a tutor or draw card and 1 protection/interaction card. Our plan is to benefit from our commander as soon as possible, and sometimes we tutor for a Gemhide Sliver / Manaweft Sliver asap, so we can have a lot of mana in the early turns. Having some protection will help us live longer. If you have fetches in your opening hands, the first land you will fetch into will be Breeding Pool, since green/blue are great colors for early turns. As a second pick I would fetch into Watery Grave / Overgrown Tomb, depending on what fetches we have and what cards we kept, for example Utopia Sprawl or Vampiric Tutor. Depending on our starting hand, we must understand which endgame we would like to reach. Sometimes going for an Emiel line would be quicker, sometimes not.

> Credits

https://deckstats.net/decks/122386/1199660--primer-sliver-overlord-the-go/it