Modern Horizons is finally here, and it’s time to start putting our brewing hats on. While some will lament the fact that their top-tier deck didn’t get any new toys, most of us are over the moon to get so many cards to shake up the Modern meta game. Today’s brew makes good use of the new cards available to us in Modern Horizons, and contains two of my favourite things in magic: tribal synergies and silly combos. It’s a deck that would make Pleasant Kenobi proud and Wedge from the mana source cringe. Magic players everywhere, I’m proud to present to you: Stuffy Sliver Combo.

Stuffy Sliver Combo is an aggro deck that can easily overpower an opponent under a tidal (tribal?) wave of chitin and blades, but is also able to one shot an unprepared player thanks to some new tech from Modern Horizons. It’s a ton of fun to play and has been showing some real promise in testing, so if you’re looking for something new to play at your next Modern event, we have you covered.

The deck, as you can imagine, runs a lot of Slivers. The great thing about this tribe are its strong synergies, with each Sliver being a cog in a finely tuned machine. We will be running two ‘lords’ in the form of Predatory Sliver and Sinew Sliver to help beef up the rest of our stabby friends. We will also be running two copies of Sentinel Sliver and Two-Headed Sliver. While not as important as the rest of our Sliver package, vigilance and menace are great keywords to help mess with combat maths.

We have also included three copies of Virulent Sliver to work as a backup win-con in case we come across anyone who wants to play unfair and gain a ton of life. The last of the old school Slivers in the deck are Gemhide Sliver and Manaweft Sliver. These two creatures basically turn all our serpentine horrors into Birds of Paradise, allowing us to race ahead by playing out our hand and fixing our mana. With that out of the way, let’s get on to the exciting stuff.

We’re running a playset of Cloudshredder Sliver. This little beast is a powerhouse in the deck and can lead to some crazy turns if left unchecked. Have this down and any of our mana-generating Slivers, and we can find ourselves vomiting out our hand in very short order as each new Sliver can also tap for mana straight away. Next, we have Spiteful Sliver. This is really the linchpin of the deck and the reason the deck is called Stuffy Sliver Combo.

Spiteful Sliver gives sliver creatures we control “Whenever this creature is dealt damage, it deals that much damage to target player or planeswalker.” If this looks familiar, it should – you can find almost the exact same text on Stuffy Doll. However, this time it is all of our creatures that have this ability. This can really mess with our opponents, as they will be hard-pressed to have a good combat step when we can punish them so severely.

But what if our opponent doesn’t want to attack/block and take damage? Well then, we just blow up the world with a good old-fashioned Blasphemous Act. Thanks to the sheer number of creatures we can put out, the cost reduction should be fairly steep. Not to mention the fact there is a good likelihood our creatures will be able to pump mana into the spell, letting us sit back and watch our opponent take multiple shots of thirteen to the face until they run out of life.

To help us find our combo pieces, we will be running a playset of Collected Company to find our Spiteful Sliver, and three copies of Hollowhead Sliver to allow our Slivers to dig up a Blasphemous Act. Between these two cards I have found that digging for the combo is surprisingly easy, and many a player has been caught unawares by it.

For the mana base, we will be running ten on-colour fetches in Windswept Heath, Wooded Foothills, and Arid Mesa, as well as the appropriate shocks, with two Sacred Foundry, Stomping Ground, and Temple Garden along with one of each basic. We are also running one copy of Gavony Township to help with the primary goal of racing our opponent to the finish via beatdown.

When it comes to the sideboard, we are running a full playset of Harmonic Sliver to take care of any problem artifacts of enchantments. Four Path to Exile gives us some solid on-colour removal, while Relic of Progenitus handles graveyard decks. Boros Charm can be a good way to close out a game, but it’s just as likely to be used to protect the team or give a pumped-up Sliver doublestrike. Finally, Deflecting Palm is a good way to battle Bogles and Through the Breach decks.

And that is Stuffy Sliver Combo for Modern. The deck is pretty solid as is, but if you wanted to do a few upgrades to the deck, I would recommend dropping a shockland or two for some Cavern of Souls in case control rises in popularity. Apart from that, the deck is very tight and I’ve been having a blast playing it online. I would love to hear what you think about it. Is this your kind of brew, or has Modern Horizons inspired you to build something else? Why not tell us in the comments below. And while you’re there, you could like and subscribe to keep up to date with all we do here at Master of Magics.

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