Review: Premium Deck Slivers

The premium sliver deck has been out for a little over a week now and I just finally got around to picking up my copy from my friendly local gaming store. I paid $5 above retail but that is really nothing compared to the $30 markup they had on the Garruk vs. Liliana Deck but I digress. It was a small price to pay for the instant gratification of having a fully foil deck of my favorite tribe dating back to tempest.

The packaging itself is nice and follows the recent trend that wizard's marketing department has pushed of showing off some of the product from the display. The packaging matches the cards as well as the inside by having a nice foil shine as well. As players, we don't give two craps about how shiny the box is. We are already hooked on the game and just want to get to the shiny cards inside.

Lets go ahead and jump to the contents:

60 foil cards
1 - foil deck box
1 - non-foil 20-sided spin-down dice

Even though I am a long time player this is my first fully foil deck. The cards themselves are very nice quality compared the the foils I remember from the past. I have memories of pulling foils from boosters that were already slightly bowed at the center. I am very impressed to see just how much better the foiling process has gotten over the years and so far the cards seem to be holding up holding up well.

The card selection is very sliver heavy, which is good, but i was disappointed that some of my favorite slivers were not included in this deck (including my favorite sliver of all time Chameleon Colossus har har). Overall though the gives you many different sliver abilities by giving you few redundant cards. Generally I would say that it weakens the deck a bit because it is harder to get the effects that you want, but I would argue that this deck is much more playable than the starter decks that Wizards has released in the past. The one fortunate side effect of the card list is that it makes it very easy to make this a starting point of any sort of singleton format deck...say EDH for example. Expect a post on this exact topic to be posted on Friday.

Without getting into painstaking detail about the complete contents of the deck list, I would like to comment on the rares included in the set. Instead of the usual 3 rares that you would get with an intro pack, this set is loaded full of 6 foil rares that seem to range from average to above-par with the quality that you would expect with an intro pack. The Rootbound Crag will certainly be welcomed in my seeming unbalanced collection of red / green non-basic lands without any complaints from me.

As for "the general" of this set, I am a little disappointed. Sure we get the ability of Sliver Legion from the Coat of Arms but I would have much rather seen a little bit of price control on the secondary market and seen Sliver Queen be reprinted. For me that will always be the most iconic Sliver legend and I would love to have been able to get my hands on another copy cheaply.

I understand the justification for having the overlord there. He combos with Amoeboid Changeling to be able to take over your opponents creatures. I personally feel that since it is a combo that relies solely on 2 cards in a full 60 card deck it should have almost just been left out. Don't get me wrong I am glad there was one one Amoeboid Changeling in the sliver deck.

This is mainly a matter of personal play style, but for as hard as the Overlord is to get into play I would rather have the Queen or Legion for the same cost. He does make the best EHD general for the tribe however so if you are interested in using this deck to get in the format then it really is a fortunate choice on Wizard's part. While being able to get the slivers that you need is a great ability, I would personally rather be able to dump massive amounts of sliver tokens on the board. Again, the queen isn't necessarily always better but it does fit my play style better and is the original Legendary sliver so it would have been nice to see it featured in this deck.

My biggest complaint is actually with the deck box. The box looks great and all but unfortunately even though their is plenty of width in the box beyond the deck the box is too narrow to be able to fit a sleeved deck into. Sadly that just means one less bonus from this set because there is no way that anyone in their right mind is going to play a fully foil deck unsleeved. It really is a shame because foiled deck box matches the cards and theme of the deck so well.

Despite my seemingly critical tone for most of this interview I really like this deck. I have always been a big sliver fan and I hope that the next Magic block is 'The Sliver Cycle'. The set has some decent cards as a starting point and it is certainly cool to be able to get some of this cards in foil form since that was not an option on the older ones. Overall, I would say this set is worth it. There are certainly some questionable omissions though. Essence Sliver is one of my favorites and could have gone a long way on helping make this a much more potent deck. I have to say though for the $40 price point happy with how playable this deck is. Lets hope the intro packs take note or at the very least that Wizards keeps making interesting theme sets such as this one.

What is your take on the Premium Deck Series? Did you like the sliver deck? What deck would you like to see next in the series? Post your thoughts in the comments.