Legacy League - Meathooks
15 Dec 2009 | Jack Ding
Week 9 of the Legacy League was the last week I would be able to play in and I was running out of ideas for what to play. I decided that I wanted to play a deck with Aether Vial in it at least once so that was where I started. I did not want to play Merfolk or Goblins as neither of those decks have a very good matchup against Zoo which is rather prevalent in our metagame. One of my friends suggested I play Meathooks or Countersliver as it is also known as. I had not played with Slivers since High School and I latched onto that idea eagerly. Here is the list I played.
Lands (20)
3 [A] Tropical Island
3 [A] Tundra
4 [MOR] Mutavault
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [B] Underground Sea
2 [TE] Wasteland
Creatures (17)
4 [SH] Crystalline Sliver
3 [TE] Winged Sliver
4 [PLC] Sinew Sliver
4 [TE] Muscle Sliver
2 [SH] Hibernation Sliver
Spells (23)
4 [FNM] Swords to Plowshares
4 [DS] Aether Vial
3 [OD] Standstill
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NE] Daze
4 [MM] Brainstorm
Sideboard (15)
4 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
3 [TSP] Harmonic Sliver
4 [A] Blue Elemental Blast
4 [SC] Stifle
About the Deck:
The first point I will make is that I am not very familiar with Meathooks in Legacy. I have not played it in any tournaments before. However, the basic game plan of the deck is to abuse the tribal synergy of Sliver ‘lords’ to create undercosted and efficient creatures (more on this later). The deck plays out similarly to Merfolk in this way but with the advantage of Crystalline Sliver which makes your army untouchable. The downside of this is that every other aspect of the deck is inferior to Merfolk in general such as the manabase, disruption and countermagic. A key aspect of the deck is that it leans very heavily on Aether Vial as the deck’s manabase is very fragile with zero basics and six colorless lands.
The Tournament:
Round 1 v Aaron with Zoo
Here was where I was glad I was playing Slivers and not Merfolk. I kept a rather weak hand in game 1 with a Force of Will Winged Sliver Brainstorm Daze and three lands. I chose not to Daze my opponent’s Kird Ape on turn 1 but my subsequent Brainstorm did not find anything except Mutavaults and more land. My choice not to Daze the Ape might have been incorrect as my opponent proceeded to cast one drops for the rest of the game while the Daze was stranded in my hand. With a board position of three Kird Apes and a Lavamancer I scooped up to prevent revealing what I was playing.
Sideboard: +4 Blue Elemental Blast +2 Harmonic Sliver -2 Winged Sliver -4 FoW
Game 2 my opponent mulliganed to 5 which made the game rather quick. A succession of Sinew and Muscle Slivers protected by a Crystalline ran over his lone Tarmogoyf.
Sideboard: -3 Standstill +2 Winged Sliver +1 Harmonic Sliver
I did not want to see a Standstill on the draw in my opening hand. The times where I would want to see one in this matchup after the opening hand will usually be situations where the game is over already. My opponent kept a land heavy hand with no play on turn 1. I played an Aether Vial and Dazed his Qasali Pridemage on turn 2. His Tarmogoyf next turn resolved and my attempt at casting a Crystalline was met with a Pyroblast. I Vialed in the 2nd Crystalline I was holding and passed the turn, taking one hit from the Goyf. The next turn I played a pair of Sinew Slivers which stalled the ground. Eventually I drew a Winged Sliver and despite a few Lightning Helixes to delay the inevitable my opponent was unable to get the job done as he was rather mana flooded.
Round 2 v Rony with Natural Order Rock
Game 1 I kept a hand of Vial Daze Crystalline 4 land one of which was a Wasteland. I played Vial and Dazed his turn 1 Thoughtseize. Unfortunately he had a 2nd Thoughtseize the next turn leaving me with 4 lands in my hand. I Wasted his white source and passed the turn. He skipped his next land drop and was stuck on Bayou and a Swamp while I managed to draw a Sinew and a Muscle Sliver. They went the distance with him not playing another spell for the rest of the game. It’s all about outplaying your opponent.
Sideboard: +3 Stifle -3 Winged Sliver
I brought in Stifle as I knew he would be boarding in Pernicious Deed which destroys this deck. Game 2 I Stifled an early fetch and Forced a Deed while beating down with a Crystalline and a Muscle Sliver. He then Extirpates my Force, sees that I do not have a counter in hand and casts Natural Order. I draw a Mutavault do the maths and scoop.
Game 3 I keep a nice hand of Vial Muscle Sinew Crystalline 3 lands. I play out my hand and Force his Deed. Unfortunately he has another one which wipes my board leaving me with 2 lands and no cards in hand. He proceeds to cast a bunch of irrelevant creatures with power and toughness which beat me down. Note: this deck is awful against sweeper effects.
Round 3 v Victor with Fae Stompy
Game 1 saw my opponent cast a turn 2 Sea Drake which I let resolve. I did not do anything this game except proceed to cast Grizzly Bear after another, each of which was slightly bigger until their total power exceeded my opponents life total. The only interaction this game was Forcing a 2nd Sea Drake.
Sideboard: +3 Harmonic Sliver -3 Winged Sliver
Game 2 involved about as much interaction as the first. I Dazed an attempt at an early Chalice of the Void on 2. My opponent proceeded to cast a Sword of Fire and Ice, a Sword of Light and Shadow and then a 2nd Sword of Fire and Ice. As usual I follow the game plan of ‘stack the grizzly bears’ and a late Daze on a Mulldrifter was the only other interaction in this game.
Round 4 v Ivan with Kithkin
Game 1 saw my opponent curve out with a Knight of Meadowgrain (aka Xena) and Wizenned Cenn while I played a Crystalline Muscle and Sinew (starting to see a pattern here). I sent Xena farming when my opponent attempted an Honor of the Pure. My opponent’s attempt at Cloudgoat Ranger was met with a Daze and the Spectral Procession was also met with a Daze after he chose to reinforce his Wizenned Cenn in combat with a Rustic Clachan.
Sideboard: -3 Winged Sliver -3 Harmonic Sliver
Game 2 started with a Goldmeadow Stalwart and Figure of Destiny from his Aether Vial while I had to cast my Slivers the old fashioned way using mana. Harmonic Sliver destroyed an Honor before it was hit by Path to Exile. I chose to Brainstorm in response to take advantage of the free shuffle effect. My opponent played a Jitte and attempted to equip it to the Stalwart which was promptly sent farming. At this point I had a Muscle and a Sinew facing down his lone Figure of Destiny. I was pretty confident as I had two Swords in my hand which would prevent the Jitte from becoming active. However my opponent played Stillmoon Cavalier. Apparently Lorwyn Standard was stronger than I thought. I had no outs to a Jitte wielding Cavalier and scooped.
Game 3 started with a mulligan to 5 from me. Nothing like being down 2 cards on the play to motivate tight play. My opponent played a Figure of Destiny on turn 1 which I traded for a Sinew Sliver and he replaced it with another. I played a pair of Muscle Slivers and offered a trade by double blocking the 2/2 Figure the next turn as he had 3 mana open. At this point I needed him to pump the Figure so that I would be free to drop the last card in my hand which was a Standstill. Natural greed for card advantage won out and my opponent did indeed take his two-for-one. I played the Standstill and hoped that I had gotten back into the game to an extent. My Standstill drew me into a Muscle Hibernation and another Standstill. Unfortunately my opponent had played a Spectral Procession which prevented me from dropping the 2nd Standstill along with a Sliver. I drew a Force on my turn and played both my Slivers before passing the turn. My opponent played an Honor of the Pure and attacked me for 6. I drew a Harmonic Sliver which was rather fortunate and blew up the Honor. However I was not really in a better situation than last turn. I did not have enough mana to play the Standstill that turn together with the Harmonic. The next turn my opponent attempted another Honor with 3 mana open. At the point I have to decide whether I want to Force it or not. If I let it resolve his attack would leave me on 4 life. I would need to pay 2 life to return a Sliver to destroy the Honor which would still leave me dead on board. However if I naturally drew another Sliver I would be on a 2 turn clock rather than a 1 turn clock from the tokens. This would mean that the Force would be a dead card in my hand as I would not be able to play it for its alternate cost without dying. I decided to Force the Jitte and my opponent cast a 2nd Spectral Procession which I had no out for.
Thoughts on the Deck:
This deck is obsolete. As fun as it is to revisit the nostalgia of casting Slivers they simply are not efficient enough. In a format defined by efficient beatdown creatures such as Tarmogoyf, the Sliver ‘lords’ are terrible. Just think about it. You could have three Muscle Slivers in play and all of them would be smaller than your opponent’s Tarmogoyf. Some people might say that Winged Sliver gives them all evasion and so this does not matter. They are wrong. Winged Sliver is a two mana Levitation on a 1/1 body. When was the last time you played Levitation in Limited not to mention constructed? You will notice that I sided out Winged Sliver a lot of times. While it may have been correct to leave them in against Kithkin (I did after all lose to Spectral Procession) I never want to see this card in my opening hand. This card might as well be a mulligan and its only saving grace is that it is blue enough to pitch to Force of Will. If this quality was good enough to justify running a card we would all be running horribly inefficient creatures such as Gaea’s Skyfolk in Threshold. Another issue with this deck is that it does not mulligan very well. Every mulligan might as well be giving all your Slivers -1/-1 for the rest of the game. And finally the deck is really vulnerable to any sweeper effect unless you have Hibernation Sliver in play (which is practically uncastable without Aether Vial in play and is useless for any other purpose after the M10 rules update). These glaring issues are not the reason why this deck is no longer viable as other decks have similar weaknesses. It is because the deck suffers from high risk low reward and there is not enough reason to play this over similar decks like Merfolk.
If I were to run the deck again (and I would not) I would replace the Winged Slivers with something more useful such as Plated Sliver or even move the Harmonic Slivers to the maindeck. I would run the sets of Mutavault and Wasteland. The manabase is already fragile and you might as well lean on Aether Vial all the way and get the maximum efficiency out of your lands. The optimal hand with this deck might very well be Wasteland Vial and five spells. Unfortunately the strategy of ‘play one grizzly bear a turn’ is no longer up to the standard of modern Legacy and neither is this deck. You have been warned.
For discussion.