The Sliver Kids: How Two Nobodies Broke the Pro Tour

[@JacobVanlunen]

Hey! That was me and my buddy Chris! Let me know if you wanna talk about it. Great piece.

[@DenalyMin]

Boosting this

[@pennyplaysgames919]

I remember watching this live. You two were an inspiration to all the Timmy's who wanted to win their own way.

[@zonuphaon]

Glad draft stategy leakage and hate drafting didn't steal your well-deserved win. A game where the meta cannot be disrupted is a stale one at best.

[@j33w22]

Miss playing with you at tabletop!

[@timgalivan2846]

This is super brilliant because, if you think about it, the team next to you hate-drafting wouldn't change your strategy at all. Hate drafting is not the same as having the same strategy and competing for the same cards. If they take slivers you wanted, you can still take great cards they would have otherwise picked from their pass and just get slivers from the packs you open. Meanwhile, the slivers they hate draft aren't building on their own strategy, but the all-around good cards they passed to you do help you. Let me know if I'm on the right train of thought. Is this how it worked out for you guys?

[@CronoDAS]

Q) How many Magic players does it take to change a lightbulb? A) I don't know. They're all still arguing about whether or not it's broken.

[@zeroethsort1071]

lol. back when I played w/ some friends, we had a specific friend we'd literally call, any time there was an argument about how a card's text should work

[@caseysmith544]

Not me I yell at them here is a bulb while arguing that after Scars of meridian set and the first of the next set in 2010, the Wizards of the coast broke the game with the alternate Plain shifter game that could not be played with the original, and I refused to play after this with newer decks as they were way op and could with a single common beat all other cards.

[@scrappybadger4369]

I'm stealing this🤣

[@harryosborne8215]

@@caseysmith544I played back when Planechase came out. What are you talking about lol. Complete nonsense

[@ND-nr6mx]

​@@caseysmith544that sure is a lot of words

[@JacobVanlunen]

Also, a really beautiful thing, my father died last Spring. When my mom went in the safe in his office it only had two things in it. A watch from his father and a signed virulent sliver from my top 4 deck.

[@donngreitontordilla1456]

That's lovely. I'm sorry about your father. Also, I loved your BOAB articles back in the day.

[@7th_Heaven]

Provenance matters. It absolutely matters. Someone can bring a card or a deck to a table which by sheer provenance of cards, and sheer presence can turn the tide of a match toward or against a team. when a deck has that level of impact, even if it loses... it draws. it is not about the amount of breaths you take. *_BUT THE MOMENTS WHICH TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY_*

[@7th_Heaven]

... and Jacob that Virulent sliver is legendary even when Leyline of Singularity is not in play May your father rest in peace. 🥲

[@Daniel16180]

You hyped up how the odds were against them in the final draft and match but didn't really show it. A recap of how the draft went for them as a whole and the 9 turn final would have made this video 1000x better. Felt like the video ended out of nowhere

[@deferencetodusk]

And went the first 6 minutes referencing the format before finally saying what it is

[@gtguilty]

Same, i was hyped for that final draft and match and it just ended

[@thorndrall]

I feel the same, kinda needlessly dragged out a small amount of information without any bangers unfortunately

[@Trashloot]

100% this!

[@d3r3koc]

I just about watched this whole thing, thank you.

[@pjsines4705]

First tournament i ever played i ran a 4 or 5 color sliver deck from Rath cycle with zero mana fixers because i had no idea what i was doing. Almost beat the local legend running a Stasis deck. He and his group gave me their phone numbers and invited me into their group. We played regularly for years. Good memories.

[@Asdayasman]

This is one of the two reasons I quit magic - I _hate_ "builds itself" decks. Elementals around m20 had a similar problem if I recall. What's the point in trying to come up with a cool and fun deck idea if almost everything loses to "ctrl+F sliver"? Absolutely braindead gameplay enabled by awful design.

[@shanechavez3967]

@@Asdayasman bro is mad he cant build better decks

[@Asdayasman]

@@shanechavez3967 Damn right I am. Consider this: is there any activity you start at a level of expertise above zero? No, of course not. Everyone's a beginner at the beginning. To get good, you need to practice. The problem with sliver (or elemental) builds-them-self decks is that you require zero skill to create one of those, but they defeat decks made by people with more than zero deck building skill. You can't tell the difference between how good your decks are when they both autolose to slivers, so you can't learn from the differences and improve. It's much harder for a beginner to get anywhere at all in deck building during a format with an autobuilder.

[@donalddavis7423]

If your opponent has forced you into seriously thinking about counter picking virulent sliver, they already beat you.

[@TheGreatMilksteak]

"our plan worked we managed to hate pick half the slivers from the table". "Crap our deck is garbage why did we do that"

[@tamamo8220]

AHAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHA TRUEEEEEE

[@LucianDevine]

They only ended up doing a couple of hate drafts with effectively their 7-8 picks, effectively hate-drafting anything the sliver kids passed with the intent to wheel, while also not crippling their own decks in the process. With one of those hate-drafts being a Virulent Sliver, which the Sliver Kids would 100% have played, I think it was a valuable hate-draft. They did end up keeping a one-land hand in the first match based on it having 2 Virulent Slivers in it.

[@Laayon19]

That's what I've always said

[@valdemarjrgensen8072]

My older brother got me into magic. Shortly after teaching me the gamr he brought me to an event (not an official licensed tournament, some youth clubs own tournament weekend, with a bit of drafting and modern). On the first night they set up two headed giant star game. So 10 players. A fair bit into the game one player combo'ed off and gained infinite life. No other team at the table had an alternative win con. Except the annoying younger brother of one of the players. So my turn comes. Already had a double strike sliver, dropped a Virulent sliver, swung in for 10poison, gg. My team didn't win, but mister infinite life sure didnt either.

[@justarandomsasquatch1480]

reminds me of a 10 player casual game and one guy that kept dropping congregrate..until I happened to have false cure in hand 'so I gain 400 life (thanks token generators) '..what do you mean?'

[@DreadPirateRobertz]

Goddamn I've always hated the infinite life guys.

[@YoMumLikesMe]

I remember way back in the day Jacob van Lunen ran the weekly 'building on a budget' articles for daily MTG for years, the deck lists were awesome showed heaps of creativity.

[@returningwhisper]

I loved those articles!

[@JacobVanlunen]

Thanks!

[@JacobVanlunen]

Honestly, this made my day

[@esoteridactyl]

@@JacobVanlunen I used to use those as a broke kid lol

[@TehFoamy]

@@JacobVanlunen I remember eagerly awaiting each new article every week! I loved reading your card-by-card deckbuilding decisions, which cards/decks you were aiming to beat, and of course the play-by-play recaps of the practice games that you'd play on Magic Online. I actually built your Incandescent Elementals list in paper and upgraded the lands to play it in Modern! I brought it to GP San Diego in 2013, and while it understandably didn't do great (turn 3 Horde of Notions wasn't nearly as good as turn 3 Karn Liberated, lol), I won over the hearts of the judges when my opponent made a judge call and the judge who came to our table took one look at my board and said "Oh so YOU'RE the Elementals guy! We saw this decklist registered and thought it was awesome, the head judge plays Horde of Notions in EDH and was over the MOON when he saw your list" I also got my old college buddy to build your mono green Warriors list in paper, because he had a shoddy RG Warrior deck that he built out of cards he had lying around that was in desperate need of upgrades. I used the article you wrote for that deck to give him an inexpensive list of cards to buy, and he started stomping the other guys in our playgroup at school, lol You were an integral part of my transition from casual to competitive Magic :) I'm glad I get to tell you how much of an impact you had on me as a Magic player

[@Starfire_Dragon]

>Enter the pro tour without any prior experience >Draft Slivers >Set a record for fastest Pro Tour victory >Refuse to elaborate further >Leaves

[@Alexexclamationpoint]

magic desperately needs more of this kind of video, hope you keep doing these

[@HungryOnPlane]

Oh I certainly will, currently looking to significantly reduce downtime between releases!

[@larshabemund6033]

@@HungryOnPlane last 4 videos made me sub, keep it up 🙂

[@stevedusome]

if i just found the summoning salt of mtg, i will be back

[@lanmarknetworking3034]

This is what made magic great for so many decades! All we can do to survive "the commander years" is to reminisce with magics histories. Ty❤

[@profanemagic5671]

@@HungryOnPlane your first video made me sub, keep it up! I've been playing for most of the events/occurances you've covered so far and it's a nice blast from the past :)

[@justinhowe3878]

Great video, but I did feel the final table portion was too briefly told, I didn't really get a sense of how they ended up overcoming the odds being so stacked against them. Overall, I'm somehow not surprised that their overwhelming results were predicated on slivers, because even as a kid when slivers first came out, I always felt they were extremely powerful in how quickly they could snowball into a death machine.

[@Derek-b9f]

yeah the explanation of how these 2 managed to draft the same deck 7 times(?) against the best players in the world wasn't really elaborated. What gives?

[@NickZimmerman-k1m]

@@Derek-b9f back in the day slivers werent really considered "good", sure they could snow ball but there werent enough good ones to really make them function well, So their strategy was widely overlooked the first day. Even when word got out about their strategy, there really wasnt much that could be done. You can hate draft all day long but at the end of the day all you're really doing is hurting yourself by passing up on the better cards to keep this fringe strategy (that really ONLY could have worked in this unique two headed dragon format) at bay. Cause youre just cycling the generically good cards to your opponents to grab objectively worse cards for a strategy you arent really familiar with. Its easy to draft the same deck over and over again when you build your strategy around cards that generally are considered "bad".

[@jackveith2416]

"once the sliver is out of the proverbial booster pack-" good one.

[@nevermindmeijustinjectedaw9988]

i should use that expression at mtg events instead of the cat and bag one, even if i love cats. nobody will get it and it'll be great

[@petrri323]

Lantern Control is my favorite example of the pro tour being truly "broken" by a certain strategy. It completely warped what winning a game of Magic even means. Imagine sitting down to play some Splinter Twin. Hardcore, cut-throat, no-holds-barred, kick your teeth in, Twin. And the dude who sits across from you goes Lantern turn-1, Codex Shredder turn-2, and another Shredder turn-3 with a Ghoulcaller's Bell. You look at them in utter confusion and disbelief when they then ask if you want to concede. Concede? All they have are some janky artifacts. And you're playing fucking Splinter Twin... All you need is one good draw and the game ends. So you keep playing, but your confidence slowly crumbles as you begin to realize that the draw you were hoping for isn't coming -- no, *they* aren't going to let it come. In fact, the only thing they are going to let you do for the rest of the game is draw and play more lands. You consider concession, but your in too deep and there's no way this jank pile across the table can keep this up, so you push on. Turn after turn. Land - go. Land - go. Land - go. And now here you are, with 17 lands on board, 5 more in your hand, and a Splinter Twin deck sitting in your graveyard, it's turn 26 before you finally mill out. Afterwards you just sit there in disbelief and anger, wishing you had conceded on turn 3. Just think of the absolute whiplash this must have given everyone at that OKC-GP. Crazy stuff.

[@TehFoamy]

The funny thing is that I had seen threads for Lantern Control in old Magic forums like MTG Salvation as far back as 2012 (I think the MTGS thread for it called the deck "Top Control"), but hardly anyone took it seriously. The deck either wasn't being respected by enough people, or it didn't have enough brains in the think tank to really fine-tune the deck and make it fully capable of winning high-level events (or both). But man, as soon as it started placing a few years later, it IMMEDIATELY got jettisoned out of the "niche homebrews" subforum in the Modern section and was solidly plastered under "Top Meta Decks" lmao

[@dark_rit]

I blame lantern control entirely on jace, the mindsculptor. That was the first card with that sort of effect of denying a good draw and it wrecked formats over it because it wasn't even the repeatable brainstorm that made it great, it was the hey I'm stable I'll +2 target you. I'll leave it on top was a dreaded phrase. I didn't really care for lantern control much myself because I played legacy and fetchlands are used there a ton and it took too long to get online against the likes of delver decks and such in legacy. Not to mention combo decks in legacy had a lot of control over the top of their decks compared to modern where preordain and ponder were banned quickly after PT belcher, but legal in legacy.

[@Luckingsworth]

​@@TehFoamy A LOT of Modern decks started on MTGSalvations Modern forum. Humans, Hardened Scales, Lantern, and so on.

[@estocker123]

Were you sitting across from when the first time I played against Lantern??!? ...I flippin' HATE that deck!

[@syrelian]

@@dark_rit There's a reason that we will likely never see Fateseal as a keyword again, and effects like it(eg Jace) will likely never be given any notable quantity if they show up

[@brianh5844]

This is the ultimate Johnny fantasy. I always look to exploit underutilized cards and strategies in draft formats, there's just something so satisfying about winning with the cards everyone else thinks are trash. Most recently, that's been blue strategies (oddly enough) in the last few sets. Blue is generally considered bad in recent sets, but the best blue cards are much better than the mid cards of other colors. So when you're tabling premium cards in your colors because of the meta, all of a sudden it's the best strategy. Many players have capitalized on this to have impressive win rates and rankings with the "worst" archetype on Arena, but getting to do that at the Pro Tour? Chef's kiss.

[@kevinsongxin2551]

Two headed giant draft pro tour sounds absolutely insane

[@HungryOnPlane]

Narrator: it was.

[@nevermindmeijustinjectedaw9988]

i still dont get why it was cancelled. so slivers were slept on and the set was a little crazy, whoopdiedoo. no way any of this wouldve happened with coldsnap, the 10th core set, lorwyn, morningtide, shadowmore and eventide. bc there were no slivers or poison. planeswalkers? sure. tribals? sure. but realistically, what's the worst that couldve happened? those sets were essentially toned down bloomburrow and even that wouldnt have been an issue.

[@dovesr0478]

> Have empirical evidence that a strategy is strong by losing to it > Conclude that it won't work What the hell were those guys on?

[@noniuuk]

Arrogance probably. If you lose it's because your opponents strategy is so stupid you didn't prepare for it, no fault of your own.

[@LibertyMonk]

Empirical yes, but also anecdotal. You lose a match to a lucky pool of a strategy that's not going to work, and it's annoying they wasted your time. If it happens a second time, then you know it's trouble.

[@HungryOnPlane]

Idk but I love it. It's just so strangely silly, thoughtful and brazen and they sent it every draft and won 😅 I didn't even have time to get into all of the rounds after Day 1 that others were starting to play Slivers too.

[@formes2388]

@@noniuuk Nah, you presume sheer dumb luck, presume it's not consistent enough and... oh wait. All you need do is look at the card list and you can run probabilities... Most people are BAD at statistics. People love to think of themselves as logical, but more often than not they are emotionally driven. And that brings us to: Not arrogance, but wilful ignorance. And wilful ignorance, is far worse-especially in leadership of companies, and of countries: Which is why when you look at the trends in national debts, and so on it's absolutely astounding that people keep voting the people in that they do.

[@Will-uj7yu]

No one wants to draft individual slivers card if you're not going for a sliver deck... You either go all in one slivers and hope no one else is or pass most if not all the slivers... No one actually wants to weaken their draft by hate picking slivers.

[@schroecat1]

These last few videos where you've been calling back to old Pro Tours and talking about the storylines of those events is excellent, please make more!

[@89qwyg9yqa34t]

The thing I hate about slivers is that their strength was also supposed to be their weakness. If you gave all slivers flying, you were amping your opponent's sliver deck as well. Today, that's no longer a downside because they're all "all of *your* slivers" abilities. That took away some of the uniqueness of sliver decks, as they're now no longer different from any other tribal deck that gives everything +x/+x, trample, double-strike, haste, etc.

[@connorcrowley560]

The increase in power level of the other cards makes it difficult to balance them, no matter how powerful we feel like slivers are, the power level of the rest of the game really did leave them behind until they started the second type of slivers

Slivers are very all or nothing and considering that they have a legacy of "leave us alone and you die" they do get hated out of games. I also miss the old sliver text too, it's more fun when the effect is symmetrical and it boils down to mind games and good play.

[@Sarkhan69]

if it's the thing you hated then why does it sound like you're mad they're not like that anymore? affecting both sides of the board simply lead to chaos, and probably a lot of stalemates. it'd be pointless to even play your cards anymore. slivers are still VERY different from other tribes. no other tribe has the sheer amount of tricks that slivers do.

[@89qwyg9yqa34t]

@@Sarkhan69 Thank you, hate police. Your concern has been noted.

[@nicholasyost8400]

@@Sarkhan69 A vs sliver game is supposed to look like a weird game of chess is how I like to see it. First player to make a mistake snowballs the opponent so you are forced to play conservatively, so it's less of a stalemate so much as seeing if your opponent makes the first mistake. If you play a plated, I essentially have to play a plated or I risk snowballing you. This is why slivers like dormant and plague were so powerful. No sliver deck usually plays them, so snowballing is less of a risk.

[@wsamkor]

Probably the only time someone broke a limited-format in such a way. Met Van Lunen at Pro Tour Valencia, really nice guy! That pro tour was also something, but not due to someone breaking the format, but the weather broke the pro tour.

[@Ebinsugewa]

Someone I was walking back to my hotel with at night couldn’t see all that well due to the rain. There is a small park right next to the venue on our way back, with a series of canals and bridges. Well.. they didn’t know about the canals and walked directly into the chest-high water.

[@wsamkor]

@@Ebinsugewa Ouch. The park going through the city leading up to the venue became a river. Also the entire city blacked out for a moment. We took shelter at a random bar and drunk whiskey half the night. I overslept the next day... what would have been day 1... luckly for me it was the first time (and only?) the pro tour was postponed.

[@michaelmckenna7405]

slither blade in amonkhet?

[@conkyjoe8932]

​@michaelmckenna7405 This would've been PT Valencia '07 (or '08...I can't recall). Format was Extended (OLD Extended...still the best format I believe MTG has ever had) and a 16-yr old Remi Fortier would win the event w/ CounterTopGoyf.

[@bigdawg6471]

thank you so much Julian for making these, it's appreciated

[@egyptian316]

Knowing and following strong strategies is valuable. I do find that it can also lead to people not knowing how to play against more obscure cards. I had a red/blue Stax deck back in the early days of the game. Rather than deny resources, it punished using them. Black Vice, Manabarbs, stuff like that. I played against a Juzam deck back when that was the elite deck. Opponent gets the nuts hand, drops a Juzam Djinn on turn 1. I play an island, cast Backfire on the Djinn. He's holding a Fork and a Berserk, and can't win without dying. So, instead of taking the draw, he holds back hoping to draw into a Disenchant or something. Next turn I play a Mountain, and cast Psychic Venom on his City of Brass. Game went on for a few more turns. I got out a Black Vice and he folded, and we never saw him at that game store again. His deck was no doubt stronger than mine, but he'd never seen anything like that, and didn't know what to do. Point is, play weird stuff.

[@TehFoamy]

Lol, I was like "??? But you would die before the Backfire kills them??" before remembering that players didn't lose until the end of each phase back then

[@egyptian316]

@@TehFoamy believe me, I get caught up in ways the rules have changed since the olden days ALL the time! :D

[@mikelacroix1882]

The PTQ they won, Lachman was supposed to be my buddies 2HG partner, and van Lunen and I would team up with whoever else was there. The night before, Lachman and van Lunen went to a wedding, and my buddy Ryan Spring and I decided not to go because of the drive to CT from northern Mass because i didnt want to make the drive at 6am.

[@bastokrepublic]

Thank you for your sacrifice to Magic History.

[@HungryOnPlane]

Holy smokes that's incredible! Was the format the same for the PTQ as well? I wonder how long they were peddling the little aliens in 2HG draft for.

[@mikelacroix1882]

The PTQ was Time Spiral Block sealed 2HG sealed. 12 packs (i believe it was 6 and 6), build 2 decks from the combined card pool. PTQs were top 4, I believe it was draft but don't remember. There were quite a few 2HG GPs as well. Bomb pools had multiple volcanic awakenings, which was the best thing you could do essentially.

[@alexmajor2366]

We talking like Fitchburg or like Haverhill or like Adams

[@dark_rit]

@@mikelacroix1882 Crazy how good volcanic awakening was in that format, but sealed is slower than draft and timespiral limited wasn't exactly fast because creatures were still in the middle ground between modern efficiency they have now versus how bad creatures were in the 90's. They were fine, but not great. While storm as a mechanic was so abuseable in limited, they supported it well and if you stone rained a bunch of lands in 2HG you would probably just win. Storm is even more broken in 2HG compared to 1v1 amusingly because you could line up suspend cards to all pop in one turn and on said turn have one player also play a lot of cards before the teammate played volcanic awakening to make it a pseudo one sided geddon.

[@thornthallid950]

It seems I found your channel just as you stated doing these pro tour retrospectives. I'm glad you're continuing them - we certainly don't need yet more commander content.

[@michaelmurray6197]

The problem I see for their opponents is that even if they hate draft slivers they are potentially still benefiting their opponent. They can't play the sliver when it comes up, because it will buff all slivers. So it's a card that you are hate drafting and then can't use at all when you play against that opponent. So maybe it's best not to draft that sliver. You can still draft your good cards, and maybe someone else will hate draft the sliver before it gets back to them. Basically it puts them in a situation where they can destroy the sliver players in drafting, but it also eliminates them from beating the players that aren't hate drafting slivers. I think the evidence of this is that three other players were doing better than them when they went into the top 4. Those were probably players that focused on winning the game rather than focused on trying to make sure their opponents lost. If it was only 2 teams then it would maybe make more sense to focus on making your opponent lose when you are drafting, but with 4 teams drafting you are making choices that make one opponent weaker but could make yourself weaker while also making the other two opponents stronger. It would be a tough balance to strike especially when you don't know what your opponent is taking. Do you even know for sure that they are taking slivers? What if they got unlucky and already have a terrible sliver deck and it doesn't matter what you pass to them? What if they already got super lucky and got great slivers when they first opened the packs and you already can't stop them from winning, do you risk giving up second place and falling to fourth place?

[@cl219]

As someone who played slivers as a kid, I find this hilarious

[@ElmntFire]

I loved that kind of metagming approach when I played more competitively. Breaking metas with homebrew decks was an obsession and I'm loving these stories you find from the Pro Tour.

[@mrpinguimninja]

I'd argue memory jar is more of a poster child, but other than that, great video. I have always wanted some piece of content about the sliver kids, it's great to finally have it

[@HungryOnPlane]

Yeah I was surprised that it hadn't been covered but I knew it was a perfect opportunity to showcase something sweet from the past. Fair about Jar, I think a decent number of cards pass or exceed the bar. Also Jar 100% will get its own video one day.

[@mrpinguimninja]

@@HungryOnPlane oh, for sure, tolarian academy's extended deck is my favorite deck of all time, I'd just put jar above it since jar caused the first emergency banning. But you're also right about many cards of that time being impactful enough to be the poster child. That was a crazy period in magic

[@prosamis]

Memory jar my beloved

[@auroranebula8968]

3:04 ahh the unsleeved duals

[@HungryOnPlane]

I should put an unsleeved duals shot in every vid tbh it gets the people going

[@matthewgagnon9426]

They were like 40 dollars back then. Expensive, but not insane.

[@kobisjeruk]

There was a point in time when sleeves arent allowed in a tournament settings.

[@Gunvillain]

I remember back in 03 buying the Legions Sliver Shivers preconstructed deck from my local card shop. Non of my friends wanted to play that deck. Slivers have come along way since then.

[@jingiz]

seeing unsleaved dual lands is too much for me. I'm so glad sleeves were invented.

[@HungryOnPlane]

I should unironically make a '10 Hour Lofi Unsleeved Duals Compilation' video.

[@markgado8782]

9 turns? In what, 3 games? That's unreal!

[@diegoscartor]

I just got this channel recommended and how could I not recognize Pastry's voice. I loved your storytelling and writing in the Replay files, god I miss that content and this is everything I needed.

[@EveningRain21]

Hey man, I used to love your LoL shoutcasting! Can confirm you're just as excellent at MTG content creation

[@HungryOnPlane]

Oh I also forgot to mention that they later changed the poison rule in 2HG to have you lose at 15 counters not 10 💀 It was quite a bit later than this PT but I'm sure whenever they came to revise it they thought of this event and went "yeah let's just fix that real quick."

[@kindrogue5586]

Yet in edh it's still 10 despite having 40 starting life total.

[@federation2169]

@@kindrogue5586 youre agaisnt 3 people and quickly become targeted down if you get even halfway there

[@PostNoteIt]

"Let's fix it in post.", I guess.

[@cathalmolloy2002]

​@@federation2169 proliferate effects are symmetrical though so getting three people to ten is usually as easy as getting one there

[@federation2169]

@@cathalmolloy2002 not at all. they all see you as the threat so you get targeted by 3 people as soon as you get them to 5 half the time. so proliferating one or 2 is much easier than all 3 together

[@danfelder8062]

I was reading MTG articles when this news was breaking and it was SUCH a cool moment. Watching the finals live was so good. "He's got one forest and no second land but DOUBLE virluent sliver? Keep it!"

[@briank592]

Omg the intro music is from the Orb incremental game! I love that game sooooo much

[@Akoustikus]

This is outstanding content, proud to become a relatively early subscriber so I can see what will clearly be a tremendous glow up for you!

[@Romnonaldao]

Good video, but yeesh dude why did you feel the need to hint at what the format was for 6 minutes? Just say what it is. Also a breakdown of the last match, instead of 5 minutes of vague build up would have been better. You built up this great finals match, and then when we get to it you just brush over it saying it lasted 9 turns. Wish you could have told us what occurred in those 9 turns.

[@BlackDragonStudios1]

Isn't it obvious what format it is? 😂

[@Puschit1]

Yes, especially after pointing out how their main opponents are willing to hate-draft ... so, did they do it?

[@ieatstheinternet]

Kinda agree, so much build up, and circling back. Probably said poison 20 times. By the end i just wanted hear what they picked in in the last round or how the final match went and its brushed over in 2 sentances...

[@BlackDragonStudios1]

@ieatstheinternet you guys realize this is a KZbin video, not a medical report right? People aren't gonna talk 1 or 2 sentences about something they're gonna talk about it for as long as they damn well want.

[@Puschit1]

@@BlackDragonStudios1 There is a lot of room between a medical report and a lazy video with 30 seconds of actual content stretched to 5 minutes. Of course they can do what they want and I am free to not liking it and expressing my opinion about it. Do YOU realize this is the comment section then?

[@CapitanBobby22]

Great feature, had me go back and watch the 2007 top 4 coverage which was also fantastic

[@nickpatrick7021]

So cool. I was late to the party, starting play in 2014, playing blue/black control and mono block devotion, but I was always tinkering with the M14 and M15 slivers. Super cool to hear about them actually forming a successful strategy at the highest level

[@Nexxxeh]

Wild. I'm not into Magic or card games in general, but this was interesting and explained so well that even an outsider could enjoy. And it looks like actual players enjoyed it too. You've nailed it. I won't sub coz this isn't my usual, but it definitely earned a like and comment.

[@ARDIZsq]

As someone who loves poison decks in the Pokemon TCG and is trying to learn more about MTG, it feels great to see such a wild strategy do so well, if even just for one event.

[@charlieagriogianis6140]

God this content is so good. Commenting so you can get more views on this. Love League stars branching out, and you know just the right beats to hit to keep this story tight without over bloating it or cutting anything important.

[@ok-eu5nq]

ive never even played magic but these videos are awesome, keep it up

[@thunderejjim]

Slivers will always hold a hated place in my heart. Back in high school, in the early 2000s, a bunch of us would play MtG during lunch, and one of the guys had the deck that none of us could ever beat. It was a deck full of nothing but Slivers and Counter Spells. A few of us even tried to build decks specifically to beat it, but we never succeeded. I think I may have gotten the closest with a life-gain strategy, so instead of beating me the old-fashioned way he got me to deck out instead. Good times.

[@EionBlue]

This is the dream of every rogue magic player, finding a strategy so offbeat yet so effective, that nobody thought about, but once they lose to it, wish they did.

[@Goldeneye3336]

Some players thought about it. It just was deemed inconsistent (which it still is).

[@miaouew]

Slivers are deceptively good even today in modern. It can hold its own in TP and league and is one of my all time favorite decks to roll around with.

[@briannelson27]

as a diehard sliver player, i love them so much. they are the essence of what a tribal deck is supposed to be. HOWEVER people see you play slivers and target you. Playing slivers is a global taunt. like playing teemo in lol.

[@miaouew]

@@briannelson27 lol yeah. I got a bit too sassy the other day and built a Legacy list because I decided I was going to play MTG as Richard Garfield intended. Got absolutely annihilated over and over again by Psychic Frog/Reanimator lists.

[@skywalker5903]

This video was actually pure perfection for me. I was looking for this type of content for mtg. This reminds me of the opening segments of the "History of Yugioh" series that Cimoooooo does. I absolutely loved this as well as you last Video and the other one in this style.

[@thescubapup623]

This brings me so much joy... The first deck I played when I was in high school was a green elf deck, but I fell out of the game after about 2007. I came back to it when the core 2014 set dropped and what do I find but several slivers (and realizing what these guys could potentially do), which it what I crafted my second deck into. In our little group we didn't have any restrictions on old card except some obvious cards (P9, Tolarian etc), so I went out and found the old slivers to compliment the 2014 set... and one of them was Virulent (along with Queen and Overlord to be cheeky). My deck became unbearable to play against within my group because of the multitude of ways it could win, but the poison counter was the killer and I effectively retired that deck because no one wanted to play against "braindead mode" So for me, seeing these guys go "I have an idea!" and run with it all the way to the top when everyone else is going "How tf is this better???"... that's what brings me joy :)

[@FlashRave]

painting sliver players as underdogs is peak mtg comedy

[@LucianDevine]

So I just watched that top 4 draft, and that pack 1 only had a life gain Sliver, and they didn't want to hate draft that. Plus you don't want to hate draft THAT early. The Sliver Kids didn't also pass any good Slivers with the intent to wheel them out of their first pack either. So 8 cards are gone before the hate drafters get their first sign that they Sliver Kids are drafting Slivers. That said, there were no Slivers for the Sliver Kids to take for pack 1 picks 5 and 6. Though there was a Two-Headed AND a Shadow Sliver for picks 7 and 8... No Slivers from one pack could mean that the guys to their right could have been taking Slivers, maybe throwing them off the scent? Then two Slivers in the next pack could just mean that Slivers just weren't in the previous pack...Again though, it was just picks 5 and 6 when the would-be hate drafters saw the Two-Headed and Shadow Slivers, likely too early in the pack to hate draft. In pack 3 they did hate a Sliver with their 7-8th pick, obviously reading the signs. They also hated a Virulent Sliver 7-8th pick in pack 5. So I feel like they did what they could when they could when they could. The packs just weren't such that they could really do much hate-drafting without severely crippling their own decks in the process.

[@AdoringAdmirer]

Very awesome content. It is beyond me how you are sitting at only ~5k subs. But this type of documentary style content is golden. Would love to see more.

[@m3h767]

"Slivers are evil and slivers are sly; And if you get eaten, then no one will cry." -Mogg children's rhyme

[@ItsRandomKam]

Magic is a game with hundreds of rules where each card bends them a little bit here and there and some well completely break them. That’s how I always defined “broken”

[@RuijsNL]

Great videos! I just got done with the Olle vid, and saw he was in the comments. Another cool story before my time and the persons talked about are in yhe comments again. That must be pretty cool!

[@innocentBystander19]

I had so much nostalgia watching this. I was a sliver kid. They were insanely broken and so much fun to play. Slivers vs slivers made some of the most insane games of my life.

[@graveblanket]

This is like the friend I learned Magic with who moved away. He made 3rd or 5th with a fencing ace enchantments deck. It was wild checking the decks on Star City Games like usual and seeing his name

[@BlazingLee0610]

It felt like something was actually happening in MTG back then. Watching the old Magic Show episodes, it felt like Magic from 2006-2014 something was actually going on. Feels nothing like today! So glad they won the Pro tour!

[@dmc009]

I remember some insane astral slide decks back in the day just being outta control.

[@HungryOnPlane]

There's a great story about an Astral Slide gamer that I've got planned for a future video!

[@AmataTai]

My first ever precon magic deck was a tricolor Sliver deck, so this makes me happy

[@Nananki]

I really enjoy this style of story telling. Entertaining and well told!

[@TheGahta]

"a stupid plan that works isn't a stupid plan" 😂 I can only imagine the giant shit eating grin they must've had poisoning the guys that you tested with and didn't believe it then 😂

[@OmniSoundAI]

I remember the midnight prelease draft for planar chaos and was already a huge fan of playing slivers so when I saw the card list for the set I knew I had to try and play at least a few slivers but first pack I pulled a necrotic sliver and knew it was gonna get crazy. Some people took a few of the slivers but all I was taking was slivers and ended up going WBU as my final colors and won the whole draft was the first time I won a draft and felt pretty good since I was the only kid at the store and most times I'd win a few rounds or lose all of them but still always had fun.

[@marcbodis3257]

You are currently speedrunning to the spot of my favorit youtube channel. Keep up the great work and your subscriber count is going to explode eventually!

[@jevonp]

Bro I KNEW that was you PastryTime! I didn’t know you did esports garage style stuff for other games, I love that channel Subbed instantly this is peak content I love your long form stuff

[@HungryOnPlane]

Why thank you

[@BucksCorner101]

Yep. Gained a sub with this one! Now, to go back and watch everything else you've got. Keep it up, mate!

[@QualquerCoisaAnonima]

This was cool. The part called "The one and only Two-Headed Giant Pro Tour" could've been faster, but fun video, thanks!

[@keyuma]

It was this pro tour that got me into running slivers and I'm grateful to still own the all foil sliver theme deck from many years ago!

[@HungryOnPlane]

Wait this is awesome.

[@CleverRat]

It's 2:30 AM - get recommended a random but interesting MTG video - start listening to it - recognizes voice - "Is this fuckin' PastryTime?" - sees linktree - "Let's fuckin' go it is PastryTime." I guess I have a new backlog of videos to go through. Much love dude

[@dr_volberg]

6:52 - When they fist introduced the 2HG it was 40 life!

[@Jishkared]

I absolutely loved using slivers when I was playing in middle school, and virulent sliver was indeed a 4x in my deck, it was indeed a card that got me wins that i would otherwise not been able to get. I'm floored theses guys were able to do it at the highest level of play. Fucking legends

[@StevenSpady]

Really enjoying these mini docs. It’s clear you care for what you’re writing about, unlike the content farms that flood KZbin. Could the video be shorter? Sure, you can always edit yourself, trim time, and lose pieces that aren’t important to the plot, but ignore the TikTok brained people who have lost their attention spans and think you should rush through and get to a condensed, watered down 3 minutes.

[@darkchiron]

2:55 Dude was playing with original set dual lands unsleeved. Jesus christ.

[@Kazzerscout]

Another great video. These really take me back to watching them as they happened.

[@KolossusB]

Crushed a block PTQ with this very type of strategy, just in constructed. Even had a back up mill strategy. And the presence of summoners pact just made it so consistent. Pact was often just effectively free as you could just insure a game end on it if you already had a virulent sliver, and pacted a 2nd or 3rd one down. Throw in Telekentic Sliver to control the board until you assemble the finish, tap blockers at etb before untapping to swing, or just mess with their mana base on their upkeeps. The slivers in that block were incredible.

[@aaronG916]

Great video. I love learning about pro tour history.

[@kittenisageek]

I was still playing Magic when Slivers first came out. I remember remarking to one of my friends at the time that "Slivers are kinda broken." Had a black/green shade/sliver deck that any time I pulled it out, EVERYONE at the table would exclusively target me. If I remember correctly, I didn't even have any rares -- all the cards were common or uncommon.

[@Grimprospect]

Amazing video. This is the content I need! I feel like this is every magic players dream when they thought about joining the Pro Tour.

[@chrisstorrer]

This is so good, I shared this with my good friend who introduced me to MTG.

[@YoungLiam74]

This is one of the best MTG channels out there!

[@mercenarybdu]

I remember watching all of that way back in 2007 for when it was happening. It is the only 2HG event at the PT level with the top 4 ending rather fastered than not. Can't say about the rest of the season. But it is still something after all these decades. Good times. For when they lasted.

[@ecoKady]

This was awesome. Had two people just run this same strategy in 2HG commander last year. Used Virulent Sliver to wipe everyone out really early (thanks to an abundance of tutors).

[@Char12403]

The craziest part is just how obvious it is. It's wild that nobody else caught on at that table

[@SullySadface]

I got into MtG in 2010 and now I know why my buddy Colin was so keen to build a sliver deck

[@abysscallstoabyss55]

Great video, man! Love the energy. Truly an amazing game! 👌🍻

[@hansoskar1911]

The Bo1 format was chosen bc 2HG usually lead to more controlling decks on each side so the fear was that control decks on all sides could run into time issues. well when peopel didnt draft Volcanic Awakening. bc the metagame was thought of as control dominated people drafted even slower as a metagame adjustement. and then the slivers attacked.

[@rubenhoelz1464]

This might just actually be my favorite Pro Tour and I wasn't even really interested in the format before the event. I still remember it fondly and cheered the "Sliver Guys" on over the whole event. :)

[@jonathanorlandos601]

I just recently got into magic to bond with my stepson. I decided to start with slivers cause they are similar to the mi-go in the call of cthulhu lcg which i play so i figured itd be easy to comprehend. I got the sliver swarm pre con and investigated upgrading it. Vuirlent sliver was one of the ones i got. It has become my main wincon because i either open with it or draw it quickly. It wants to be played, especially with double strike.

[@river7874]

"Slivers are cunning, and Slivers are sly and if you get eaten, then no one will cry."

[@johnbono2384]

What an interesting video! Love stuff like this.

[@Drrgy]

Really awesome video. Surprised to see it has so little views.

[@PokepoppinTV]

Me :plays crystalline sliver only when the guy with the blue deck is tapped out.

[@meinnase]

I find it funny how you can see this being filmed with big tv cameras, but all the footage looks like something someone found on a 30 year old vhs in someones attic lol.

[@Goldeneye3336]

They aint big TV cameras. These are simply mounted.

[@tigriscallidus4477]

soo much talking, so much repetition, its an interesting topic, but this video tries to make out of 8 minutes of content 17+

[@thebolas000]

Could probably get it down to 3 minutes honestly.

[@chrisstorrer]

I thought it was perfect, I came here for all the talking.

[@zoasama9961]

Yeah, and making it interesting '17+' minutes of content.... Is content! I love to hear these backstories, in depth analysis and context of what happend. Otherwise i'd be a quick 3 minutes: 'so there were these guys, they drafted slivers and no one else did and they won a protour. Cool, huh?'. While that is theoretically true, it doesnt do justice to the accomplishment the sliver kids made :)

[@Rabidconscience]

Do you have examples of repetition or…?

[@wizardsmix7961]

@@Rabidconscience The dude says “it’s a format the pro tour only did once” like 5 times.

[@yourstigma1213]

when i drafted back in middle school i always took the cards that other engines might need to win, and just played what was generally good without some combo

[@vxicepickxv]

That was a wild setup that warped a pro tour. Now, if you want just straight up broken, you could look into Flash Hulk or even Grimjar.

[@HungryOnPlane]

Shh don't leak the future video ideas!

[@user-ck9tb4fv2x]

I had a wonderful sliver deck every mana color. Turn one I would hope to get first strike, the tap for mana one, the +2/+2 one, and so on. I found one that had indestructable to all and then trample as well. It was amazing. I love slivers I wish there was a way to make them more viable again without going insane.

[@zenixphoenix4914]

Beautiful this is something i say alot to people ive played with in several events... The reason i win so much is because i dont copy the trend its because i learn the cards n build a deck my way in a way i think will win n disregard criticism... If you think for yourself not only do you understand your deck better but over time you can just naturally plan better both at deck building and play making and not be skewed by popularity bias

[@Rabidconscience]

Really fun video. I hope to see more like it

[@woodpeckerfm5033]

Enjoyed that. Nice work