Commander Overview
Dormant Sliver is a very interesting commander in the format, while it immediately says infinite combo to a lot of people, this deck has no infinite combos! We do have some powerful synergies combined with our card advantage from Dormant Sliver. Still, there are no infinite combos. We are a combat deck through and through. One of the best things about this deck is that our slivers not only provide card advantage because of our commander, but also give them defender, and all of the buffs we have make us have a very strong matchup against other creature decks. Dormant Sliver is a wonderful piece of card advantage for the deck, but we can also get rid of them or not cast them if our opening hand/game state dictates. Since we are not doing combos, we do not need Dormant Sliver, but they are a wonderful support piece.
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How to Play the Deck
The game plan of the deck is a little bit different than a typical Dormant Sliver game plan since we do not have any infinites. We are much more of a stompy deck; we use our slivers to gain card advantage or end the game (which is very easy to do with cards like Virulent Sliver), which effectively makes our opponents’ lives ten. We do love using Dormant Sliver, but they fall much more into a support role for the deck. We often don’t cast them if going to combat with our slivers makes more sense. We also have a litany of changelings in the deck, which also gives us card advantage, and if our commander isn’t out, it gives us a lot more attackers. We can totally use them, but we do not need them for the overall gameplay. The stompy part of our game plan is quite easy to execute. We close out games with cards like Ulamog’s Crusher and Hand of Emrakul. These are both big attackers that can threaten our opponents’ life totals, and, more importantly, the annihilator is devastating for them. Combat and card advantage are the names of the game here; there’s not much else we do.
Synergy’s in the deck
Our biggest synergies in the deck are from our slivers and from our changelings, all of the slivers work very well together and give all of them and their sliver friends buffs, this allows us to be quite strong within combat, especially if we have both Predatory Sliver and Muscle Sliver, giving them additional keywords is so strong for our deck too with cards like Winged Sliver and Synchronous Sliver. Slivers are a big piece of our deck; beyond that, we have our stompy package with various big creatures like Maelstrom Colossus. Since we draw so many cards, we often have access to our big creatures, and with help from cards like Manaweft Sliver, we can ramp into our big creatures early and change the game. Our deck is built in a way that works very well together./p>
Phases of the Game
Early-Game: The early game is pretty quiet for us, this when we focus on getting out our commander so we can get some card draw going, a lot of our early game is very hand dependent if we have a cheap hand with a lot of slivers transitioning to attacking more and not playing our commander in the early-game is totally an option. Our early game is pretty simple.
Mid-Game: The mid-game for our deck is when things start to get a little crazy for us. We typically draw a lot of cards and have a huge board. If we were able to ramp, we usually have a big creature out, but this isn’t something that happens in every game; it can occur. Once we get to a strong board state, that is when we turn them sideways and strike our opponents.
Late-Game: We typically try to end the game before we get to the late-game, and that is something I had quite a bit of success doing in our testing games, but it doesn’t happen all of the time. When we do get to the late-game, that is when we start dropping our big creatures, and if our board is big enough, we use cards like You Meet in a Tavern to buff up our board and strike our opponents. The late game is when we get scary strong, and this is a great part of the game for our deck.
Card Breakdowns
Ramp
Ramp is something we are pretty good, one of my favorite pieces of ramp is Axebane Guardian since all of our slivers can be defenders when our commander is out we can use that to ramp into one of our huge stompy creatures, we can do this very early in my testing games i was able to do that by turn five which is a very strong pace for Pauper EDH.
We do have some more traditional ramp like Cultivate and Kodama’s Reach, which are perfect for the game plan as well. We also have some creature-based ramp like Boreal Druid. Whether we ramp a ton in one turn or get some additional land drops over a few turns as well, no matter what type of ramp it is, as long as we drop big creatures early, we are perfectly fine.
Card Draw/Card Advantage
Our commander is the best piece of card draw that we have in our deck. They allow us to draw a ridiculous number of cards. We do have Ponder and Preordain; these are very important for setting up our early turns and ensuring a strong showing in the early game. Whispers of the Muse is such a cool card for the deck, since we have a decent amount of mana production, we can easily buy back Whispers and keep on drawing. Card draw is something our commander allows us to do very easily.
Removal
Removal is one of the weaker points of our deck. We are great at removing opponents’ creatures through combat, but single-target removal is not something we are strong at. This is another Pauper EDH deck. Our game plan is purposefully a little “selfish”; we’d rather focus much more on our board than anything our opponents are doing. The best way for us to remove our opponents’ stuff is with enchantments like Witness Protection and Lignify. These are great against any creature, but are so strong against commanders, and if a deck relies on their commander, we can easily take them out of the game.
Protection
This is another part of our deck where we are pretty selfish, as long as an opponent isn’t trying to combo off or do anything crazy we are perfectly ok with sitting back and keeping our gameplan going, our commander and a lot of our big creatures are often victims of removal from our opponents but we do have a few ways to stop it with cards like Counterspell and Arcane Denial and Turn Aside these are all great ways for us to protect our stuff and keep our big stuff on the board.
Utility / Support
Our stompy package includes some creatures that are difficult to remove and provide us a big advantage in combat with cards like Benthic Giant and Annoyed Altisaur. These provide so much utility for the mana cost, and being able to whittle down our opponents and put a lot of pressure on them. Connecting with our creatures is not always easy, especially if we are playing against another stompy deck, which is why we have Aqueous Form, guaranteeing that we connect with an opponent. Also, the scry can be quite handy, given all our card draw.
Mana Base
Our color percentage in this deck is just about 50/50, and our mana base reflects that we have a very nice split of forests and islands, and in all of my testing games, I didn’t have any trouble with getting all of my colors established. We do have some hand non-basics that allow us to draw cards like Slippery Karst and Remote Isle. You may think it’s pointless to have cycling lands, but being able to turn a late-game tap land into a card and removing a truly dead draw is very strong.
Win Conditions
Our only win condition is combat; there are no other ways for us to close out the game.
Strengths of the Deck
One of our biggest strengths is our combat presence as well as our card draw. We never run out of things to play, and we can easily hang with opponents in combat.
Our synergies with our changelings as well as our slivers are powerful and allow us to keep our hands full.
Weaknesses of the Deck
We have a rough matchup against Voltron decks, they often give their commander unblockable and removal evasion like Hexproof, and with our limited removal, it can be tough for us to deal with.
Our commander can sometimes feel useless. If we have a powerful board presence, we often don’t want to play them since they give our slivers defender.
Deck Testing/Matchups
I tested this deck against three different decks
Game 1: Vs Ley Weaver and Lore Weaver. Matchup Record: 0-3
This was a very tough matchup for our deck. They are a combo deck, and we have a lot of trouble stopping them. They can also get their combo out way before we can get going.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Arcane Denial, Counterspell and Capsize.
Game 2: Vs Blight Pile. Matchup Record: 3-1
A true defender vs defender matchup, while they are way more of a defender deck than us, they can’t threaten us in combat. If we have a decent board state and go a little quick, we can overwhelm them. Keeping their commander off ot the field is key as well. Keep their commander off the board, and they can’t do much.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Lignify, Stasis Field and Witness Protection
Game 3: Vs Kardur, Doomscourge. Matchup Record: 2-2
This was a split matchup for our deck, and this is a matchup where we need to counter Kardur, and the matchup can be very tough if we don’t. Their ETB can devastate us; having to attack and putting us in a bad combat situation can be very rough. We are bigger and better in combat than they are; we need to avoid their commander as much as possible.
Cards that worked really well in this matchup:
Counterspell, Turn Aside and Ulamog’s Crusher
Conclusion
Thanks so much for reading to the end! I hope you all enjoyed a different take on Dormant Sliver. As someone who has played a version with all the infinite combos, it’s very nice to have a good old stompy game plan for the deck.