Crash Test Magic — Skyfall Sliver
The sweet Sliver Premium Deck Wizards of the Coast recently released got me thinking about those weird polygenomic critters. A lot of Slivers have already been designed, using most of the basic keywords in Magic, but no one’s made a Sliver using one of the most popular current mechanics: Cascade.
Designing a Sliver with Cascade isn’t quite as simple as adding the text, “All Slivers have Cascade,” like you might do with Haste or Flying. Cascade doesn’t have any effect when it appears on a card already in play — it only works as the spell is cast. As a template, I used Homing Sliver, which gives “each Sliver card in each player’s hand” cycling. This way, Slivers have Cascade when you need them to, and they don’t have it when it doesn’t matter (on the Battlefield or in the Graveyard).
I restricted the casting cost because there are a lot of cheap Slivers. If you could grab a free Metallic Sliver every time you cast a Muscle Sliver, things could get pretty broken. The intent here is to create some cool Cascade effects, not make every single Sliver into a 2-for-1. I could probably even raise the limit to a combined casting cost of five or above — when it only works with more expensive creatures, it limits how many Cascading Slivers you can use per turn, and there will probably also be fewer expensive Slivers in a given deck. I think it works well to balance the card.
Another factor that keeps Skyfall Sliver from being too powerful is the fact that it does absolutely nothing by itself. The “gives Slivers Cascade” effect doesn’t start until the Skyfall Sliver is in play. Cascade only works when something is being cast, so it’s too late for Skyfall Sliver to Cascade. It doesn’t work on itself. It’s just a very expensive Grizzly Bear until you play another Sliver. 
Thematically, I always imagined the Slivers as a lot like the Brood. The Brood are aliens frequently encountered by the X-Men that can lay eggs in a non-Brood host. The host eventually becomes a Brood hybrid that retains some of the appearance and all of the abilities of the host. A Brood-infected Ghost Rider was one of the coolest things I ever saw in a comic book. Brood even look a lot like Slivers. So if the Slivers represent some kind of alien invasion of a Magic plane, then the Skyfall Sliver is somehow able to send a signal back to the hive, and the Slivers will soon descend en masse.
Related posts:
December 21st, 2009 3:02 PM
I like the Sky fall sliver, but I’m gonna say right now that without the mana cost clause it’s Broken, but with it it’s useless. All the good slivers are under 4, so the advantage this gives is fairly negligible. This is the card that people will go “WOOHOO! AWESOME!” then put in their deck and discover that it is the only card that gets the cascade boost. This seems like putting Clarion Ultimatum in a EDH deck.
December 21st, 2009 3:20 PM
It will force some interesting deck construction decisions, true. People tend to use bad expensive cards with Cascade because, hey, free card! If all your Fury Slivers came with a random bonus Sliver (say, a Crystalline Sliver? or a Spined Sliver), would you be more likely to use them?
Also, consider Changelings.
December 23rd, 2009 4:47 PM
HOLY SHIT, CHANGELINGS! I wouldn’t mind it with changelings. I don’t own many, so I always forget about them. I wouldn’t mind playing some of those four mana guys.