E
Ephraim
Guest
Hibernation's End
There are a lot of possibilities with this card, so I am sure that there will not be consensus on what would be the best suite of creatures. I'm going to propose a limitation, then, that ought to keep things orderly. My first thought when I decided to break this card was that it would fit well into a sliver deck so that's what we're going to do. There is a broad enough selection of slivers that there are interesting choices but not so many that the discussion can't move forward.
I think that it would be best to limit the deck to just two colours, possibly with a splash of a third colour. (Hibernation's End makes this especially feasible.) Green must, obviously, be one of the colours, but that's okay because it has an excellent selection of slivers. I'm going to take a moment to list what I believe are the best slivers at each converted mana cost:
1: Screeching, Virulent
2: Sinew, Winged, Muscle, Hunter, Crystaline, Acidic
3: Mnemonic, Horned, Necrotic, Opaline
4: Essence, Toxin, Magma, Fungus
5: Brood, Queen
Ramping up to Queen is very tempting but her mana cost is very daunting. Should you happen to draw her, it would be nice to have an alternate method of playing her. The deck should, therefore, contain at least one Gemhide Sliver, even though it isn't on the 'best' list. My instinct is that a G deck with contributions from U and W would be most effective. I would include at least one of the following slivers: Virulent, Muscle, Winged, Sinew, Gemhide, Mnemonic, Horned, Opaline, Essence, Fungus, Brood, Queen.
Virulent Sliver is not great, but the deck has a limited selection of one-drops. It may actually be better to go with a non-sliver creature here, just because 1cc slivers are not especially exciting. Gemhide is very good as an accelerator, so it probably gets included as a 4-of. Between Muscle and Sinew, there should probably be no more than 5 copies. Winged is no good in multiples, so 2 copies should suffice. Mnemonic is better in multiples because you can always sacrifice the spares to draw cards -- 2 or 3 copies. 2 copies of Horned for the reasons outlined for Winged. Opaline is pretty good, but it's in both of the splash colours, so 2 copies is probably good. At the upper end of the mana curve, probably 1 or 2 copies of each of them would be good. Once you get an Essence Sliver into play, even if you only attack once, you're pretty much set.
It bears mentioning that some slivers not on the 'best' list may be right for the deck anyway. Might Sliver, for example, probably isn't better than Brood Sliver or Sliver Queen, but giving your army +2/+2 may just end the game, even though it's not as splashy or as overtly powerful as the abilities of the other two.
There are a lot of possibilities with this card, so I am sure that there will not be consensus on what would be the best suite of creatures. I'm going to propose a limitation, then, that ought to keep things orderly. My first thought when I decided to break this card was that it would fit well into a sliver deck so that's what we're going to do. There is a broad enough selection of slivers that there are interesting choices but not so many that the discussion can't move forward.
I think that it would be best to limit the deck to just two colours, possibly with a splash of a third colour. (Hibernation's End makes this especially feasible.) Green must, obviously, be one of the colours, but that's okay because it has an excellent selection of slivers. I'm going to take a moment to list what I believe are the best slivers at each converted mana cost:
1: Screeching, Virulent
2: Sinew, Winged, Muscle, Hunter, Crystaline, Acidic
3: Mnemonic, Horned, Necrotic, Opaline
4: Essence, Toxin, Magma, Fungus
5: Brood, Queen
Ramping up to Queen is very tempting but her mana cost is very daunting. Should you happen to draw her, it would be nice to have an alternate method of playing her. The deck should, therefore, contain at least one Gemhide Sliver, even though it isn't on the 'best' list. My instinct is that a G deck with contributions from U and W would be most effective. I would include at least one of the following slivers: Virulent, Muscle, Winged, Sinew, Gemhide, Mnemonic, Horned, Opaline, Essence, Fungus, Brood, Queen.
Virulent Sliver is not great, but the deck has a limited selection of one-drops. It may actually be better to go with a non-sliver creature here, just because 1cc slivers are not especially exciting. Gemhide is very good as an accelerator, so it probably gets included as a 4-of. Between Muscle and Sinew, there should probably be no more than 5 copies. Winged is no good in multiples, so 2 copies should suffice. Mnemonic is better in multiples because you can always sacrifice the spares to draw cards -- 2 or 3 copies. 2 copies of Horned for the reasons outlined for Winged. Opaline is pretty good, but it's in both of the splash colours, so 2 copies is probably good. At the upper end of the mana curve, probably 1 or 2 copies of each of them would be good. Once you get an Essence Sliver into play, even if you only attack once, you're pretty much set.
It bears mentioning that some slivers not on the 'best' list may be right for the deck anyway. Might Sliver, for example, probably isn't better than Brood Sliver or Sliver Queen, but giving your army +2/+2 may just end the game, even though it's not as splashy or as overtly powerful as the abilities of the other two.