Number Five in the Stuffy Contest was this white/blue number, sent in by Kevin Gesme.  An interesting note about this one: Another entrant, Brad Collins, also built a deck around this idea, and the two decklists were strikingly similar.  It was a tough decision deciding whose deck the better one was.  I eventually went with Kevin’s but we can say that Kevin and Brad were tied for fifth place if necessary. 

Hey BMoor. I know you don't like stuffy doll decks, so how about a 
stuffy doll/sliver deck? Irritating right? Here's the deck list.

Type 2 Stuffy Slivers Control

Land-20

4 Hallowed Fountains

4 Azouris Chancery

4 Flagstones of Trokair

4 Island

4 Plains

Creature-22

3 Psionic Sliver

3 Telekinetic Sliver

3 Synchronous Sliver

3 Quillied Sliver

3 Watcher Sliver

3 Sinew Sliver

4 Stuffy Doll

Other-

3 Hivestone

4 Remand

4 Rune Snag

3 Muddle The Mixture

4 Mana Thith

The Deck plays like any control deck and ends up with Stuffy Dolls 

becoming slivers from Hivestone (Gotten by transmuting Muddle) and using either 

the Psionic Sliver or the Quilled Sliver pinging ability. Sychronous Sliver 

even lets them attack with a pump from the Sinew Sliver and still ping with 

the other abilities. Although Stuffy is the main target for win condition, 

it does do pretty well as a sliver deck.

-From Kevin Gesme

 

I wasn’t expecting anyone to use Slivers in this contest.  A Sliver strategy looks like it would quickly make Stuffy obsolete, as anyone who’s ever seen them in action knows how they can just randomly win sometimes.  But making Stuffy Doll a Sliver with Hivestone to exploit Quilled and Psionic Sliver seemed reasonable enough.  Quilled Sliver is hardly going to steal away games, and even though Psionic’s ability can technically target creatures or players, it’s the 3 self-damage we’re interested in here.  Most Slivers can only use it once, unless they also happen to be a Stuffy Doll, who turns it into a Shock and a Lava Spike.  Synchronous Sliver was a nice add, allowing Stuffy to attack for zero, then Psionicize itself while its new family Quill the living daylights out of it.  And if you have a Sinew Sliver out, it might even be able to deal combat damage!

 

So, is Kevin’s deck well-built?  Well, yes and no.  As a deck, it’s quite well-built.  It has a good Sliver selection, a good choice of removal spells, and it can tutor for Hivestone or Quilled Sliver with Muddle the Mixture.  But as a Stuffy Doll deck, I’ve got misgivings.  Slivers hardly need a gimmick like this to win, so you’ll often be tempted with this deck to not bother and just go Riptide Project on your opponent’s backside.  This is compounded by the inclusion of two Slivers: Watcher and Telekinetic.  Watcher Sliver seems fine on paper: there’s nothing inherently wrong with giving Stuffy Doll +0/+2.  It protects the Doll from a host of removal spells; Darkblast, Funeral and Piracy Charm, Festering Goblin, Keening Banshee, Shaper Parasite, Feebleness and Enfeeblement, and that’s not even covering Standard.  However, Watcher gives all your Slivers +0/+2, and that allows most of them to use the Psionic ability without dying.  Remember what I’ve been saying about damage effects that can target creatures or players?  If all your Slivers can tap for 2 damage a turn, why bother with Stuffy Doll?  Sure, Stuffy taps to deal 5 damage (3 to the chosen player and 2 wherever you want it), but at that point it’s basically just Venser’s Sliver—a 5-mana Sliver that can swing for 3 and tap for 2 more (which Venser’s Sliver can do if Psionic and Synchronous are out).  Telekinetic Sliver, on the other hand, just seems tangentially related.  It has a tap ability, therefore is good with Synchronous, but the same could be said for any Sliver.  Do you want to use your Stuffy Doll as an Icy Manipulator, or do you want to use it as a free Lava Axe each turn?  I’d say Watcher and Telekinetic would’ve been better for the deck as Sidewinder and Screeching; that way Kevin would have some one-drops that didn’t distract from his goals.

 

This is starting to sound more like Brad Collins’ Sliver line-up, which consisted solely of Psionic, Sidewinder, Sinew, and Opaline.  I picked Kevin’s deck because he had a better suite of counter spells, and Muddle the Mixture showed focus on the combo (and because they were really similar, so I didn’t think it mattered so much).

 

I think I already went into how creative Kevin’s deck is.  I’m not counting it against him, though, since nobody else even touched a Sliver—not even Mistform Ultimus.  And besides, anybody who knows a thing or two about math knows how often big discoveries are made by multiple scholars at the same time, working independently.

 

Will Kevin’s victory be “unexpected and humorous?”  If it comes through Stuffy Doll, then yes.  Nobody expects a Sliver deck to win with anything besides Slivers.  The only trouble is, I foresee a few victories without Stuffy at all.

 

Can Kevin actually win with this deck?  Well, I’ve been going on about how Slivers = auto-win, but people have been tearing up kitchen tables for a long time with those things, and techniques to beat them are fairly well-known.  A Wrath or Damnation will leave Stuffy Doll alone, bereft of his adoptive family, but he could still squeak through a win.  And game-turning spells like that are unlikely to get through the fog of Remand and Rune Snag anyway.  The Slivers probably won’t wipe out anybody without some sort of fight, but I’d take this build to an FNM with confidence.

 

So the Sliver deck only made fifth place—kind of makes you wonder who won, doesn’t it?  You’ll find out soon enough!

 

~BMoor