Glidergun Wrote:The really frightening thing is that slivers, even at their most cunning, have an animal's psyche. One is a pest; if enough of them get together they become kaiju-class, but they're kaiju-class pests: you can still distract them with food or something shiny. Sliver Yoshida would introduce true tool-using intelligence to the Hive, elevating their threat level considerably.Proginoskes Wrote:On an unrelated note, it's something only other players of Magic: the Gathering can really understand, but I briefly misread "Silver Yoshida" as "%7C%7Ctype=+[Sliver]%7C%7Csubtype=+[Sliver]%7C%7Ctext=+[Sliver]Sliver Yoshida" and feared for the safety of the multiverse.The one with the "snake-like head"? Yeah, that could be a problem. Fortunately, there's just the one, and slivers aren't really a big deal until there's a bunch running around.
On the other hand, when there are a bunch running around, they are probably one of the scariest things around. There is very little I would trust to reliably deal with a full-blown infestation of slivers.
Necratoid Wrote:Personally, I thought if there was a M:TG reference is was how the Loon Trees turn black mana into green mana.I don't think the Loon Trees filter {B} to {G}; it's more like they suppress and eventually destroy the likes of Contaminated Ground, Noxious Field, and Pooling Venom. Sure, they have some filter and storage capability, but their true purpose is to help Naturalize the world.
Quick overview for those unfamiliar:
Slivers are like purely-biological Borg, except they take the most interesting part of The Rant ("You will be assimilated. Your technological and biological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Your culture will adapt to serve ours. Resistance is futile."), which the Borg themselves ignore and leave out, completely seriously. They also take "assimilate" pretty literally: they can't (barring special circumstances) add you to their ranks directly, so they eat you instead, and any slivers born afterwards will have your abilities (flight, lightning reflexes, the ability to cause splitting headaches, or whatever else) in addition to any the Hive already had. At least, flavour/story wise. In gameplay terms, almost every Sliver card grants buffs or abilities to every other sliver on the field, including those under the control of an opponent. The exceptions are either plain vanilla (they don't give the hive any abilities because they don't have any themselves) or Legends that help you add more Slivers to your side of the field (in one case, possibly by taking them away from your opponent). Depending on the player's style, a sliver deck can be fun and silly or it can turn games into life in the Early Middle Ages; but unless her opponents are specifically prepared to deal with swarm strategy, she will win.