Victual Sliver MTG Card
1998-03-02 - Number 131
2009-11-20 - Number 15
2015-05-06 - Number 215
| Card sets | Released in 3 setsSee all |
| Mana cost | |
| Converted mana cost | 2 |
| Rarity | Uncommon |
| Type | Creature — Sliver |
| Power | 2 |
| Toughness | 2 |
Key Takeaways
- Victual Sliver turns Slivers into a resource for card advantage, making each a potential asset for drawing cards.
- Utilized at instant speed, it offers flexibility—sacrifice at the perfect moment for life gain or preserving value.
- Although requiring dual-colors, it’s a Sliver-deck staple, ensuring creatures’ resilience against board wipes and targeted removal.
Text of card
Each Sliver gains ", Sacrifice this creature: Gain 4 life."
"We are kinfolk," explained Karn to the sliver queen. "Just as you need your progeny to complete you, so do I need the pieces of the Legacy to make me whole."
Card Pros
Card Advantage: With Victual Sliver in your deck, you have the ability to turn each of your slivers into potential card draw, essentially using your creatures as resources to fuel your hand and keep the pressure on your opponent.
Resource Acceleration: One of the key strengths of Victual Sliver lies in its potential for resource acceleration. By sacrificing a sliver, you gain not just life, but opportunity – the life gained can be a crucial buffer that allows you to stabilize and deploy more costly threats or answers from your hand.
Instant Speed: Victual Sliver’s capability to be utilized at instant speed grants you significant flexibility. You can choose the most opportune moment during the game to sacrifice a sliver, whether that’s to gain life in response to incoming damage, or simply to ensure you don’t lose out on value if faced with a board wipe.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: The Victual Sliver card doesn’t exactly have a discard mechanic, but it does require another resource in the form of sacrificing a sliver. This can often mean having to make tough decisions about board presence versus life gain, especially when you’re up against decks that can easily exploit creatures in the graveyard or punish sacrifice strategies.
Specific Mana Cost: Victual Sliver’s mana cost is specifically green and white, meaning it necessitates a dual-colored deck. This requirement can make it challenging to include in a deck that doesn’t support these colors, limiting its versatility for players who prefer to run mono-color or different color combinations.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a casting cost of two mana, one green and one white, Victual Sliver is neither the cheapest nor the most expensive sliver. However, given its life-gain ability is contingent upon sacrificing another sliver, the two-mana cost may seem steep when considering the additional cost of losing a creature, a key setback when compared to other life-gain or creature-focused cards.
Reasons to Include in Your Collection
Versatility: Victual Sliver offers a universal advantage due to its ability to grant all Sliver creatures the option to regenerate. This makes it a useful addition to any Sliver-based deck, ensuring your critical creatures have staying power in the game.
Combo Potential: When combined with other Slivers that enhance mana generation or produce effects when a creature is regenerated, Victual Sliver moves from a passive survival piece to an active combo enabler, providing the resilience needed to pull off powerful synergies.
Meta-Relevance: In environments where board wipes and targeted removal are prevalent, having a Victual Sliver on the field means your Sliver army can survive where others might crumble, keeping you competitive and maintaining presence on the battlefield.
How to beat
The world of Magic: The Gathering introduces diverse creatures with unique abilities that can turn the tide of battle, one such unique card is Victual Sliver. To adeptly maneuver against this card, it helps to understand its core function of allowing Sliver creatures to gain a player life, which can result in formidable staying power for Sliver decks.
To counteract this, removal spells should be your go-to. Swift action to eliminate it before your opponent can capitalize on its life-gain ability is key. Consider cards like Fatal Push or Path to Exile, which can dispatch Victual Sliver effectively at a low cost. Additionally, graveyard manipulation can thwart recursion tactics, preventing the Sliver from making a comeback. Cards that exile from the graveyard or negate abilities, such as Scavenging Ooze or Stifle, can prove invaluable.
Victual Sliver is a component of a larger ecosystem within a Sliver deck. Isolating it from the hive reduces its impact, suggesting that a broader strategy might be to undermine Sliver synergy altogether. Employing board wipes like Wrath of God could reset the playing field, given the proper timing. In the vast battlefield of MTG, knowing how to stifle such pivotal creatures can mean the difference between victory and defeat.
Cards like Victual Sliver
Victual Sliver provides a unique function among creatures in Magic: The Gathering, offering a life-gaining ability that can be crucial in games involving Sliver decks. It shares similarities with other cards that convert creatures into life points, such as Marrow Bats, which also allows life gain in exchange for paying mana and sacrificing the creature. Unlike Victual Sliver, Marrow Bats requires a heavier mana investment and does not benefit from the shared qualities Slivers offer.
Another card worth mentioning in this category is Disciple of Griselbrand. It shares the core concept of sacrifice for life but lacks the tribal integration that makes Victual Sliver a valuable addition to Sliver decks. Furthermore, Disciple of Griselbrand operates individually, while Victual Sliver applies its ability across your battlefield, affecting all Slivers you control.
When looking at the broader spectrum of life-gain strategies within Magic: The Gathering, Victual Sliver emerges as a tactical choice for players championing Sliver tribes, melding both offense and defense in a synergistic package that enhances the resilience of the Sliver legion on the battlefield.
Cards similar to Victual Sliver by color, type and mana cost
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase Victual Sliver MTG card by a specific set like Stronghold and Premium Deck Series: Slivers, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.
For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.
Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.
Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Victual Sliver and other MTG cards:
- eBay
- TCG Player
- Card Kingdom
- Card Market
- Star City Games
- CoolStuffInc
- MTG Mint Card
- Hareruya
- Troll and Toad
- ABU Games
- Card Hoarder Magic Online
- MTGO Traders Magic Online
See MTG Products
Printings
The Victual Sliver Magic the Gathering card was released in 3 different sets between 1998-03-02 and 2015-05-06. Illustrated by Terese Nielsen.
| # | Released | Name | Code | Symbol | Number | Frame | Layout | Border | Artist |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1998-03-02 | Stronghold | STH | 131 | 1997 | Normal | Black | Terese Nielsen | |
| 2 | 2009-11-20 | Premium Deck Series: Slivers | H09 | 15 | 2003 | Normal | Black | Terese Nielsen | |
| 3 | 2015-05-06 | Tempest Remastered | TPR | 215 | 2015 | Normal | Black | Terese Nielsen |
Legalities
Magic the Gathering formats where Victual Sliver has restrictions
| Format | Legality |
|---|---|
| Commander | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Paupercommander | Restricted |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Premodern | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
| Duel | Legal |
| Predh | Legal |
Rules and information
The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Victual Sliver card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.
| Date | Text |
|---|---|
| 2013-07-01 | Abilities that Slivers grant, as well as power/toughness boosts, are cumulative. However, for some abilities, like flying, having more than one instance of the ability doesn’t provide any additional benefit. |
| 2013-07-01 | If the creature type of a Sliver changes so it’s no longer a Sliver, it will no longer be affected by its own ability. Its ability will continue to affect other Sliver creatures. |
