I decided to take a hint from Magicthegathering.com and do a theme week. Ever since Slivers came out again in Legions, I have been eager to do this. I actually had the idea to do a theme week a long time ago, but I was having difficulty coming up with a topic that would be applicable to enough other members of my group to make this worthwhile. I was also trying to figure out when a good time for it was... And then I realized with my characteristic brilliance that since I was going to be away for at least a week on my honeymoon, this would be the perfect opportunity.

This is how this week's articles are going to work: You will notice, perhaps, that the article title does not have my usual heading. The reason for this is because I only typed these articles. The other members of my weekly group provided for all the content in them; as such, I cannot take the credit for the work.

Each article this week is going to consist of a deck list centering around Slivers, conceptualized and built by someone in my group. I came up with a list of questions for each person and their deck; some of the questions have nothing to do with the deck list. I did this so that the readers might get a better idea of the differing personalities of the people that I spend my time with. Other questions are unique to their lists exclusively, and deal with specific cards in the deck that they have.

I have written articles where I critiqued decks that other members of my group gave to. In this series of articles, the people who built the decks get to answer the questions that I came up with. When I interviewed them individually I was recording their answers, so that what you read here is them speaking - literally!

Hopefully, you'll notice that I got better at which questions to ask as time passed, and in which order. It is possible that you will see some questions asked in the later interviews that the first couple of people did not get asked. Chalk this up to the learning and striving to constantly improve process.

I decided to start off the week with the first person that I got a deck from - the Chaos Mage!

Me:"Hi, there! Okay, first of all, what exactly is your favorite color, anyway?"
Chaos:"Heh, heh, blue, heh heh."

Me:"Why is that?"
Chaos:"Um, because I am the Chaos Mage and blue allows me to manipulate...and, uh, control things."

Me:"What's your least favorite color?"
Chaos:"Um...I would have to say black, 'cause there are just a lot of drawbacks with some of the really good cards."

Me:"Did you think Legions was good or bad because it was all creatures?"
Chaos:"If I had to rate it good or bad, I would have to say good, because they did have a decent amount of good creatures - the only point that I didn't like is like you said, it was all creatures, no spells. If we had the majority of it creatures and just a few spells, that would have been cool... But all creatures? It has its drawbacks, but mainly because we still have so many other Magic cards to choose from."

Me:"What theme would you like to see?"
Chaos:"Yeah, I'd like to see another creature type - one that could rival slivers."

Me:"Are slivers your favorite creature type?"
Chaos:"I would have to say slivers, yeah."

Me:"Do you think the latest batch of slivers are better than what existed already, are worse, or they just successfully add to this creature type's abilities?"
Chaos:"They successfully add to them overall."

Me:"Before Legions came out, was the Crystalline Sliver the most important, must-have sliver? If so, does this still hold true?"
Chaos:"It was true, but it isn't now. I would say that it's now the Ward Sliver."

Me:"What is your favorite sliver amongst the new releases?"
Chaos:"God, there are so many freaking good slivers. I would probably say the most important one right now would have to be the Root Sliver, because it can't be countered. Particularly because now, combined with all the other sliver's effects, only universal stuff can affect them."

Me:"Do you think the new slivers are appropriately costed?"
Chaos:"I would say that with some of the powers that some of them have, they were definitely worth it cost-wise."

Me:"Do you think with this latest batch of slivers that R&D have about covered all of the possible permutations for slivers, or do you think the potential exists, in gold card format or otherwise, to expand?"
Chaos:"They can still expand."

Chaos Mage Sliver Deck
2 Acidic Sliver
4 Muscle Sliver
2 Brood Sliver
2 Toxin Sliver
3 Essence Sliver
3 Crypt Sliver
3 Crystalline Sliver
3 Root Sliver
2 Magma Sliver
3 Heart Sliver
3 Ward Sliver
3 Winged Sliver
3 Shifting Sliver
2 Synapse Sliver
1 Black Lotus
2 Arcane Denial
1 Feldon's Cane
2 Scrubland
4 Plateau
3 Tropical Island
2 Savannah
3 Badlands
2 Underground Sea
4 Bayou
1 Tundra

Me:"Was it the re-release of Slivers that prompted you to build this deck?"
Chaos:"It basically allowed me to re-do the deck, to make it better."

Me:"Do you have a name for the deck?"
Chaos:"Nope. I don't name my decks."

Me:"Are the number of slivers intentional, or based on the number that you own of each?"
Chaos:"Basically, I tried to keep the newer slivers to a minimum. The older slivers are still relatively good as far as casting cost; the more slivers you can get out, the more abilities you have out. The new sliversare nice, but they cost more. In my opinion, the more slivers you have out, the better off you are, and the older slivers tend to help that out by being cheaper. I did intentionally put in two of each so that we would have an overall representation of the new and old. I tried not to have more than three of any particular type however, unless it was really important."

Me:"In the emperor format, what job do you see yourself doing?"
Chaos:"Because of the format that we use, I can just cast the creatures and pass them off to the two generals and they still have their abilities."

Me:"Were you aware that your deck had more slivers requiring blue in their casting cost than any other - and yet, the Black Lotus aside, you have the least number of sources of this color?"
Chaos:"Yes. The blue slivers are cool, but they only require one mana, so all I needed is one land that produced the mana. Plus luck plays a big factor."

Me:"Is this a weakness?"
Chaos:"Not for me, no, not with my playing style. I am usually patient and very lucky, so the odds for me are probably better than for other people."

Me:"Did you intentionally make the deck almost exclusively creatures?"
Chaos:"Yes, because if you want to beat somebody down, it is the safest bet, especially with the Wrath of God players."

Me:"I know that you own two Black Lotuses. Why did you only put one in?"
Chaos:"Because I knew that you were publishing this, I tried to make it slightly legal, since everywhere else people are restricted to a single Lotus."

Me:"With the amount of creatures that are in this deck, and given that you will probably use this deck mostly in the emperor format that we play, teamed up with other sliver decks, what purpose does the Feldon's Cane serve? Usually, emperor games only very rarely go to such time lengths as to be concerned with running out of cards."
Chaos:"With the types of decks that we have and the people who are playing, particularly for combos and such, just in case someone had a Mill or Discard deck, the Cane is in there so that hopefully I could get my hands on it and recover from that."

Me:"I understand the point of including Arcane Denials - but why this Counterspell over any other?"
Chaos:"It only costs one blue. It does give the opposing player two cards - but since it only needs one blue mana, the odds that I will be able to cast it when it's needed goes up."

Me:"Like at least one other member of the group, as I have mentioned, you have almost no non-creature spells. You plan to just be completely unsubtle and hopefully overwhelm your opponents?"
Chaos:"That's what I try to do."

Me:"Other than the two counterspells, you have absolutely no means of removing enchantments, artifacts, or stopping spells that have mass-removal effects. Don't you consider this to be a weakness in the deck?"
Chaos:"Yes. It is the weak point of this deck."

Me:"What do you think is the strong point of this deck?"
Chaos:"The dual lands and the fact that I can probably get slivers out better than someone who is playing with only basic lands."

And there you have it - the first of five interviews of the members of my group with sliver decks. I hope as things progress that my questions will improve; this being the first of all of them, I was still getting things figured out when I did the telephone interview with my friend. Tune in tomorrow, when I will be covering the deck made by my group's Red Mage! Until then, take care.