Plague Sliver

Sliver Gameplay Dynamics

"as they find the game play of a Sliver on Sliver match-up to be frustrating, where you have to often not play your own cards because it helps the opponent more than you." That was part of the fun, figuring out when to strategically play your slivers to help you more in a mirror match than an opponent. It also made Plague Sliver and Dormant Sliver cool interactions.

The players that enjoyed that the most tended to be the Spike-iest players. It’s the same group that got mad when we took mana burn away.

Burn Away Dormant Sliver Game Play Mana Mirror Match Plague Sliver Sliver

Interpretation of Reserved List

If it hadn't already been printed, would Plague Sliver be acceptable under the current interpretation of the Reserved List?

Yes. It’s not the same card. It has an effect Juzam Djinn doesn’t. I agree that we have to be careful with where we split hairs.

Djinns Plague Sliver Sliver The Reserved List

Sliver Design Direction

Does slivers new style of only affecting your board rule out the possibility of another counter sliver like Plague Sliver or could you use the old style as long as they didn't grant state based abilities?

We have no current plans to make Slivers affecting all Slivers.

Plague Sliver Rules Sliver

Slivers Mechanics Viewpoint

Why do you say that Slivers will only affect your Slivers? Having them affect across controllers leads to cool things like Plague Sliver for countering a Sliver deck.

There are pros of having tribal cards affect all creatures of a type. The cons greatly outnumber the pros so we chose not to do them anymore. Also, I believe Plague Sliver was a mistake (I designed it) as it contradicts how all other Slivers work.

Creatures Kindred / Typal Plague Sliver Sliver

Reserve List Alternatives

I know how you feel about Fork vs Reverberate with regard to the Reserve List, but how about Juzam Djinn vs Plague Sliver? Could we see more Plague Sliver-esque attempts at reserved cards?

Those are allowable, but not something we plan to do a lot.

Djinns Plague Sliver Reverberate Sliver

Plague Sliver Debate

"The granting the abilities to the opponent only comes up in mirror matches and was never the intent of the cards." - Except Plague Sliver which was blatantly designed to punish your opponents for playing slivers while having little drawback to yourself, considering creatures weren't quite as pushed then as they are currently and Juzam Djinn was an amazing creature.

Plague Sliver was hotly fought over. Much of R&D didn’t believe it was even a sliver in that it fought the essence of slivers. We almost didn’t print it. If that’s the design space we lose, I think we come out way ahead.

Card Printing Creatures Design Space Djinns Plague Sliver Sliver

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