Sliver Swarm Upgrade Guide

Do you want to make your new Sliver deck even better? If so, you’re at the right place, as in this Sliver Swarm Upgrade Guide you’ll find which cards you can add to your deck in order to make it stronger and more fun.

Here’s what you can expect. First, we’re going to take a look at the decklist to see what we’re working with. Then, I’m going to recommend the best 3 cards that you can use to upgrade Silver Swarm with, which will be helpful if you don’t want to replace a ton of cards. Afterward, we’ll explore many other possible additions that you can make. Of course, I’ll also discuss which cards you should remove from the deck. At the end, I’ll also provide an upgraded decklist example.

Sliver Swarm Decklist

* If the new cards aren’t showing, that’s because they haven’t been added to the database yet. You can find them in Commander Masters Precons Guide.

Just one more thing, before we move to the upgrades. In case if you don’t already own a Sliver Swarm precon, you can get it on Amazon.

Top 3 Cards for Sliver Swarm Upgrade

It can be hard to upgrade a whole 100-card deck all at once, particularly if you aren’t the most enfranchised player with a large collection. That’s why I’ll first highlight just three cards, all of which can improve your deck by a lot. With these cards, I’ll focus on on-theme cards, as opposed to general staples.

Note: I choose all the upgrade suggestions in this article (including the Top 3) under the assumption that you’ll be using Sliver Gravemother as your main commander.

The First Sliver

There’s quite a large selection of five color Slivers to choose from, but my favorite one is The First Sliver. You’re surely getting a 2-for-1 out of it, and if you manage to keep it in play, your other Slivers also become insane value engines.

For example, let’s say, you cast . You cascade into , and since you get to cast it, it also triggers its cascade ability, and you can hit something like and keep the value train rolling.

All in all, this is a great card to include into any Sliver deck, and it’ll provide you with lots of fun and memorable plays.

Homing Sliver

Sliver Swarm has a fine lineup of non-legendary Slivers. However, since precons don’t typically contain tutors, there’s one relevant omission, and that’s Homing Sliver.

For three mana you can exchange it for any Sliver in your deck. This gives you the perfect one for any scenario. In some cases, you might even play it out, so that all Slivers in your hand will become tutors.

Reflections of Littjara

This enchantment can be both insanely fun, and powerful. Of course, you’ll choose Slivers when you play it, which will essentially double any Sliver that you play.

Some Slivers come with abilities that get better in multiples, so this card can give you some amazing board presence quickly with cards like Megantic Sliver.

One downside of this card can be that you don’t get much value from casting legendary Slivers. However, even that can be circumvented with your commander, as it disables the legendary rule. That’s why this card is a great fit for a Sliver Swarm precon.

Additional Sliver Swarm Upgrades

Slivers

A lot of good Slivers are already included in the deck, but thanks to the Magic’s rich history, there are many additional options available.

We’ve already mentioned one 5-color legend, but you might also want to consider Sliver Legion, which can be brutal when you encore it with your commander. There’s also Sliver Overlord, which can get you a bunch of Slivers from your deck, provided you have the mana for it.

The final and possibly the most powerful 5-color addition is Sliver Queen. However, its price is extremely high, since it’s on the Reserved List.

If you want more budget-friendly upgrades, you can go with the pair of Predatory Sliver and Muscle Sliver, both of which are fine two drops, that work well with encore.

If you want additional effects to give your Slivers haste, you can add Heart Sliver. Haste is quite useful, and not just for attacking. The original decklist has Slivers that give tap effects to your Slivers (For example: Hollowhead Sliver, Manaweft Sliver, Crypt Sliver.) Therefore, giving all of your Slivers haste can be quite strong.

Shadow Sliver can make your creatures essentially unblockable, as your opponents are unlikely to have creatures with shadow in play.

You can find more ideas in our article about the best MTG Slivers.

Support

There are many cards that aren’t Slivers, but will still play very well in this deck. I’ll provide you with various examples, but keep in mind, that you shouldn’t play all of them, as you still need a critical mass of Slivers. So, pick the ones that play best against your play group.

You’ll want to keep your Slivers in play, and your biggest enemy are going to be various wrath effects, that destroy all creatures. There are various effects that you can use to protect your Sliver army, such as Heroic Intervention, Clever Concealment, or even And They Shall Know No Fear. Each one of them can be good in different scenarios.

Even if you’re a brand-new player, you’ll quickly figure out that you’re able to do much more powerful stuff in games where you draw Manaweft Sliver or Gemhide Sliver. Letting all of your Slivers tap for mana is a powerful effect. In order to get more redundancy, you can add Elven Chorus and/or Cryptolith Rite.

If you want to go deeper on the theme of bringing your fallen Slivers back from the graveyard, then you can use Patriarch’s Bidding or Haunting Voyage, or maybe even both.

Kindred Discovery can provide you with a lot of card advantage, if you don’t want to go with the staple Rhystic Study.

Mana Base

The mana base in this precon is bad, with the majority of the lands entering the play tapped. If you already own fetches, shocks, and triomes, you can easily fix that. However, if you’re planning on a budget upgrade, you’re going to have a harder time.

Budget Upgrade

To get the best 5-color mana base on a budget, you have to do something unintuitive. You need to play less dual lands that enter the battlefield tapped, and replace them with basics (mostly Forests).

Then you add more ramp spells (Grow from the Ashes, Edge of Autumn, Utopia Sprawl, etc.) Now your lands will enter the battlefield untapped, and you’ll be able to grab the ones that you need most. It’s not ideal, but it is cheap.

Besides, you have Gemhide Sliver and Manaweft Sliver. Aforementioned Elven Chorus can also be currently found for fairly cheap. Of course, you shouldn’t forget Chromatic Lantern, which should be included in both versions of the deck.

Here’s an example of how the lands could look in a budget version of the deck, provided that you also include enough ramp spells. (I’d go for at least 7, if not more.)

Full Upgrade

For the full upgrade, you’ll want to add shock lands (Temple Garden), and Triomes (example Indatha Triome). Then add fetchlands (Widswepth Heath), which can grab any of the previous two, and you’ve got yourself a really solid mana base.

However, it can be improved even further, by addition of Sliver Hive, which is the ideal land for the deck. Then there are the Battlebond lands, which are great in multiplayer (Bountiful Promenade). For all the lands, you probably want to focus on the ones that can produce green mana, as that’s the one you’ll most often need early.

Finally, there’s The World Tree, which can also make

Which Cards to Cut From Sliver Swarm Precon?

When deciding what to cut, you typically want to start with cards that aren’t particularly powerful, and don’t fit the theme. There are less and less of these types of cards in precons, but you still find something like Windfall, which looks quite out of place in this deck. As such, this would be the first card to go, but the rest aren’t that obvious.

As far as Slivers go, I’d start by cutting the following four:

• Blade Sliver
• Bonesplitter Sliver
• Cleaving Sliver
• Two-Headed Sliver

While they can all be useful, they are simply the weakest of the bunch. Since you’ll be adding better ones, some will have to leave the deck.

Sliver Swarm Upgraded Decklist Example

Here’s my first draft of what an upgraded Sliver Swarm precon could look like. Of course, you don’t need to follow this decklist exactly. Add the cards you like, remove the ones you don’t. There really isn’t one exact optimal deck that I could give you.

Nevertheless, this should give you an idea of how a better version of the precon could look like.

Conclusion

That’s the end of our Sliver Swarm Upgrade Guide. Do you think there’s an amazing card that I missed? That’s quite likely with so many Magic cards. In that case, let me, and the other readers know in the comments.

If you want to see the upgrades for the other three Commander Masters precons, you can check them by following these links:

• Planeswalker Party Upgrade Guide
• Eldrazi Unbound Upgrade Guide (coming soon)
• Enduring Enchantments Upgrade Guide

Until next time, have fun and win many games with your upgraded Sliver Swarm deck.