Pointed Discussion

While the text leads me to believe that those are roots, and the sliver is establishing some sort of manabond, it looks like it is relieving itself. I have no problems with different perspectives in art, but this looks a bit strange.

Is he... ***ing out a tree?

There are two sets of Gemhides now? How odd to me.
oh!
There's a difference! This set makes it only "slivers *YOU* control", that's.. I don't know what to make of that yet..

"Lets print Slivers that nothing like they used and completely obsolete all of our old all ready awesome slivers"

-- WotC

"Where is that noose"

-- True Sliver Player

Who knew Gemhide Sliver could get any better? Still hate the art though so it's a 4/5* instead a 5/5*.

Look out Gemhide Sliver, some stupid humanoid thing is trying to steal your gig!

Strictly better than Gemhide Sliver thanks to the sliver changes for M14. I never thought I'd say that.

I like how this card was drawn. The artist put a decent amount of effort into this picture.

It's just a shame Wizards went with a completely different art direction than before for Slivers. They were squiggly lines in Tempest, they were squiggly lines in Legions, they were squiggly lines in the Time Spiral block, and now they're trying to be Changelings.

I think Wizards should've at least included one multi-coloured legendary sliver in this set. I mean, are there going to be Slivers in Theros?

why is this not rated higher? this is copies 5-8 of gemhide sliver, a staple in any sliver deck

Sliver gold, mana ramp and fixing.

@SyntheticDreamer
I think you should mention that it is only strictly better than Gemhide Sliver when you are playing 1-on-1. You can play two-headed giant or other forms of multiply player games where you all play Sliver Tribal... Oh crap ... Ignore what I just said

At least it's uncommon. This at common was lame.

I hated this when it was in Timespiral, and I can safely say, I'm gonna hate it now. What's worse is our sweepers are just plain bad right now, so you can't really punish people for overextending into this either.

If any Sliver needed a strictly better functional reprint, it's Gemhide. I give this guy a solid 4.0 outta 5. Would be higher with better art--more Sliver-like and less evocative of urination--and a proper P/T (2 mana dork for 2 might SEEM a bit much, but it's not truly broken in any sense).

Love the art, not so much the Sliver design. Still... if any card has gotten me close to accepting the 'new' Slivers, this is the one.

(And, yes, I understand the need to change the Sliver design perfectly well but like any die hard nerd I'm a cranky old grump who's allergic to change so just bear with me.)

I don't think that competitive Naya Blitz slivers will want this, but it is a great inclusion if your looking to run 4 or 5 colors with them.

Well, a must for any sliver deck.

I'm a Vorthos. I'm a Vorthos WAY beyond anything else. I'm so much of a Vorthos that I really care and appreciate the work that goes into the Planeswalker Bio pages on the Mothership. *Karn Liberated actually has an awesome one) You know all those tabs that don't even ever have spoilers under them? I always click all of them to check for new Vorthos content. It wasn't even until Knowledge Pool came out that I became ANY sort of Johnny AT ALL. that card just kinda changed me. I suck at building decks unless they're bad silly decks like Knowledge Pool, okay?

I didn't mean on other Sliver posts to sound too much like a Complete Hater. I know that I must have seemed pretty blowhard. I just feel....Lost, and Rejected, and Abandoned to be a Vorthos these days.

When I started the game, it was sometime when my only Magic-playing friend had mostly Ravnica and Time Spiral stuff, and my first product was Xth Edition and Lorwyn. AT THAT TIME, this "Mending" thing was to me, one of the coolest stories I'd ever heard in the history of Ever Ever. They say new players were 'lost and confused' by Time Spiral flavor. I was lost and confused in the sense that I was on pot: THERE WAS SO MUCH TO LEARN and I just didn't have time to do it- I didn't get half the references til years later after hours of reading and research. . . . . so. x3 Time Spiral ROCKED for Vorthoses, and for kids who like to get high on silly game lore. :) Wasn't till FTV started coming out really that I understood half of it XD (If you don't own them: buy the Artifacts Cycle 1 and 2. worth much more than the equivalent of sealed product of any set, PRE or POST Modern.)

But-- I've since come to realize that the Mending might be the very worst thing to happen to Magic. I don't mind the Planeswalker card type is busted. I grew up on the Egyptian God Cards. Planeswalkers need to be MORE busted and should have been made into cards a lot sooner XD

I have read WOTC articles since what seems like forever (actually just since Shadowmoor) and have swallowed half of their explanations, and the other half the time emailed in to get better ones (and usually got them!)

If you look at everything else they've done...it kind of makes sense? It certainly SEEMS to make sense to, I think, anyone that has been with the game from Xth Edition onward and has kept an open mind and heart about things. At FIRST, it seemed like Vorthos was getting Extra Special Treatment in Lorwyn and Shards of Alara.

Zendikar though? Zendikar was definitely the point where "Plane-hopping" and "Worldbuilding" became the new "What we get instead of Vorthos" which should be "Characters" and "Plots". If I want Civilizations: the Gathering, I'll read real history and find out what actual societies look like when they're not made up, because most Planes are ridiculous from a "Worldbuilding" view. BUT HEROES AND MONSTERS AND MAGIC AND VILLAINS MAKE THAT PERFECTLY OKAY! As long as you actually write enough about them!

I DEVOURED the Planeswalker Webcomics and intend to start collecting the Dack Fayden comics soon.
Gatheringmagic.com even had their own special Vorthos column tailor made to talk about stuff WOTC didn't. For a while, at the HEIGHT of Planeswalker AWESOMENESS (sometime very much close to when they made Jace the FACE OF MAGIC), it WAS good to be a Vorthos.

But I've noticed something. The Block Novels stopped. Curse of the Chain Veil got cancelled. Savor the Flavor itself got the axe. The Planeswalker Novels and Webcomics, the NEW replacement for Urza-era Vorthos, nope, not doing them anymore. It only just occurred to me how very little I care about Vraska the Unseen. Considering that I'm a Vorthos, and she's a Planeswalker, it's inexcusable that there's so little Vorthos content supporting her. Tamiyo still doesn't have Vorthos support. Nissa Revane got a whole novel focused on her, and it only served to show how completely a failure she was as a Planeswalker. Considering how old elves should be, I don't know why she's dumber than Chandra Nalaar.

And the unanswered questions from previous blocks? How many months, which is now YEARS in a row that I've mailed in about The Eldrazi? About Nicol Bolas? About the Phyrexians?

-Scars of Mirrodin and forward, we can give a pass saying that 'it's coming, just wait for it'. BUT! WHY have they not given ANY ACKNOWLEDGMENT that they even remember the Eldrazi EXIST?! DOESN'T. COMPUTE. And now they do these New Slivers? They have had enough years for some kind of reference to be made to an event that supposedly threatened the entire existence of the cosmos and has not been acted on in any appreciable way, for enough years that numerous "We forgot that happened" SuperVillains should have eaten everyone ages ago.

Wizards of the Coast is at best apathetic to Vorthos. It's not just about the Slivers. It's NOT. JUST. THE SLIVERS.


-Vorthos, the Lost Psychographic.

"While the text leads me to believe that those are roots, and the sliver is establishing some sort of manabond, it looks like it is relieving itself. I have no problems with different perspectives in art, but this looks a bit strange. "
- MasterOfCruelties

I just can't unsee it now..

A scar in the face of older sliver decks, indeed..

I'm glad I'm not the only one who hate the new Slivers look generic and boring. Before they were cool and unique looking creatures, almost xenomorphic. Now they're just GenericHumanoid.creature

That's not a sliver.

Very interesting card. Out of all the slivers in the set, this is the only one that could have granted its ability to sliver permanents, not just sliver creatures. But I can understand why WotC would stray away from such a concept, as the ability it grants has become one sided and simplified, as well. Gemhide Sliver's effect was a major asset to mostly any sliver deck, and this one will be no different. While some might believe this will completely obsolete Gemihide, I have a feeling the two will be used in tandem more often than not. Gemhide now has an evolved brother-from-another-mother to help in singleton and EDH.

As I've already said about Trevor Claxton's art in Bonescythe Sliver, I usually either love it or dislike it. This is an example of one that I absolutely love. Trevor did a magnificent job with color, light, shade, value, and dynamic movement. While the creature is placed off-center of the image, the dark-green hues used in its tentacled head immediately draw in the eyes. Optical movement is continued right as the green values begin to brighten until it's halted by a darker surrounding. The foreground and background is not so detailed that it distracts from the focal image, but still depicts a sense of depth and angle. Add it all up, and we're given a vibrant and fantastically serene image.

I will agree that maybe the art direction for slivers might have been too abrupt. Muscle Sliver was one of the first slivers to break the mold in terms of appearance, but was still widely accepted for one reason or another. I'd hate to make an "Aliens Vs. Predator" reference, but perhaps WotC should have gone for a more "Alien" look.

Okay, so I'm NOT a Vorthos, not in the way some are, at least. I enjoy the story, but I don't NEED it for this game.

However, all the hate these new slivers are getting is ridiculous. I admit, at first I was a little skeptical, but I didn't juts flat out say NO! like it seems quite a few people are. In fact, after I thought about it, it seemed to make sense.

I don't know a ton about slivers, but of what I know, they're supposed to be near perfect biological beings, able to adapt at a moments notice, or at least adapt the evolution of other slivers nearby. So, slivers adapting humanoid form isn't entirely unreasonable.

They're malleable beings, and taking on humanoid appearances could be an evolutionary step for them. After all, adapting the form of their enemies is a strategic advantage. After all, if humans can effectively fight slivers (at least without a queen or some such), why not take their form to fight more effectively? As well, psychology. If you take on a humanoid appearance, certain humans might hesitate, and a single moment of hesitation is all a sliver needs.

These might not be enough justifications for a dedicated Vorthos, or at least certain ones, but it makes sense to me at least.

But I digress, I felt the need to defend the slivers against the surprising amount of hate directed at them. Or at least, the art direction.

Since Farseek is rotating, I found myself using this simply as an Utopia Tree. Let's hope Theros brings us a better two mana ramp for multicolored decks.

Even on it's own, this sliver is a great inclusion to almost any ramp deck. Bird's of Paradise will always be the premier ramp creature, but this is a close second. It is cheaper then Alloy Myr too.

Don't forget, this can also pump changeling decks.

Remind me why Gemhide Sliver is rated over 4.2 and 4.5 in its two printings while this is rated 3.8 again?

I know I'll draw some hate for this but I don't like what Wizards did with this new cycle of slivers for one reason: they unite the slivers to their controller and not to each other. Sharing abilities with all slivers regardless of the owner was part of what made slivers fun to play with (that and seeing how many abilities you could cram into a deck)! IDK, the art is okay, the change from "all slivers" to "slivers you control" ... epic fail. 0.5/5.

Can turn your Mutavault into a City Of Brass without the drawback.. :D

This is Standard's Birds of Paradise now.

Strictly more beautiful then Gemhide Sliver