Shandalar Slivers: Theory and History Posted by Seth Weinstein on May 7, 2013 · 12 Comments

They’re baaaaaaaaaaaaack.

In case you haven’t heard, the much-loved/fiercely-hated creature tribe of Slivers is returning to the 2014 Core Set. The internet is already abuzz with discussion; they’re humanoid now? And the abilities are one-sided? What’s going on here?

I’m curious about that too, but as you may expect, what especially caught my eye was the lore. In the new Sliver card pictured to the right, we see flavor text from a Thunian scout. Thune, as you may recall, is a white-mana area in the plane of Shandalar. We’ve seen Shandalar before as the featured plane in Magic 2013, as well as the setting of a few MtG video games, but you know what we’ve never seen? We’ve never seen Slivers there.

Slivers are, as far as we know, native to Dominaria, the MtG “home plane” and the setting of the Brothers’ War, the Phyrexian Invasion, the Mirari Saga, and parts of the Time Spiral storyline. In a nutshell, kind of a big-deal-of-a-plane. Which is why it’s surprising, especially in the year of Magic’s 20th anniversary, to bring back Slivers without bringing back their crucially-important native plane.

(EDIT: As I have been informed multiple times, no one really knows where Slivers came from. It’s possible they’re simply native to Shandalar, and this whole article is useless! Regardless, Dominaria was the last place we saw them, so the question of “how would they escape?” is still relevant.)

How did they get to Shandalar? My speculative answer relies on some precedent set by powerful planeswalkers, the nature of the plane of Shandalar itself, and a little hand-waving courtesy of the Time Spiral plot. Let’s begin.

Concerning Shandalar

In my research on this plane, I was looking for some sort of hint at the nature of planeswalking being fundamentally different here. I found no such thing, but there were a couple other traits that made me sit up and take notice. Shandalar, like Zendikar, is unusually rich in magical energy; your everyday citizen of the plane knows a handful of magical spells and is aware of the five colors of Magic. In addition, Shandalar is not fixed to a specific point in the Multiverse. Instead, it floats freely through the Blind Eternities, drifting here and there with no real path or purpose. As such, sometimes it comes precariously close to other planes, although it never goes as far as a full-scale Rathi Overlay.

So: mana-rich plane, without a fixed location. With me so far? Cool.

Breaking The Shard

After the devastating Brothers’ War ended with Urza unleashing the Sylex Blast, a protective envelope began to form around Dominaria and a handful of other planes. The Shard of Twelve Worlds, as it was called, cut off these worlds from the rest of the Multiverse and was pretty convenient for the people inside it. Dominaria got majorly messed up by the Brothers’ War, and it needed some time away from Urza and Yawgmoth to heal.

Unfortunately, things are never that easy, and the Sylex Blast that protected Dominaria from the aggressors also began the millennia-long Dominarian Ice Age. In an attempt to escape the Shard, the necromancer Lim-Dûl (left) hatched a plan. Lim-Dûl knew that the plane of Shandalar had wandered relatively close to Dominaria, and his plan was to escape to it using the energy released by the death of a Planeswalker. This was all pre-Mending, when Planeswalkers were still essentially gods, so it stands to reason that one could produce enough energy for a non-Walker to reach a relatively close plane.

Lim-Dûl’s plan didn’t go exactly as he intended, but that’s a story for another time. The point is that it was established that with enough energy, and a close enough proximity between the planes, travel from Dominaria to Shandalar is possible.

The Time Spiral Catalyst

The last time we saw Slivers was in the Time Spiral block, which gives us the final piece of the puzzle. Namely, that Slivers were present during the time-and-space shenanigans that went down during that time.

After the Sylex Blast, the Ice Age, the Phyrexian Invasion, the War of the False God, and countless other apocalypses, Dominaria began to break apart at the seams. Holes opened up in space and time, allowing beings from other ages and planes passage to and from Dominaria. If ever there was going to be an opportunity for Slivers to slip into another plane, this would be it. Just the explosion created when the false god Karona was destroyed alone could possibly have been enough to send Slivers to Shandalar, provided the plane was close enough at the time. Otherwise, it’s just a matter of a curious Sliver wandering past the right planar tear and thinking, “Hey… I smell mana.”

Final Notes on Evolution

Some people have been less-than-pleased with the new humanoid shapes Slivers are taking and the fact that their abilities only affect Slivers you control. As a flavor purist, I get where they’re coming from. I like pointy-headed, one-clawed Slivers as much as the next guy, and I could see how their return might be tainted for some people by these flavor concerns.

However, never underestimate the fact that Slivers evolve, and have done so consistently every single time we’ve seen them. In the beginning, back when they were Rathi immigrants from Dominaria in the Tempest block, their evolution was accelerated by Volrath infiltrating their Hive and modifying some of them, which in turn made the other Slivers evolve to match them. We saw further evolution when they returned via the Riptide Project in Onslaught block, where the ripples of the Mirari’s power sparked further evolution and produced the Sliver Overlord (right).

In their second return, during the chaos of the aforementioned Time Spiral block, they were sentient enough to actively absorb the powers and appearances of other beings they deemed useful. Additionally, the Sliver hivemind itself slowly became sentient, forming the Sliver Legion.

The point is, Slivers have only become more and more powerful and adaptive since we’ve met them. Let’s be real; the snakelike bodies and rigid adherence to the hivemind are cool, but after a while they stop holding up so well in battle. So, the Slivers evolve once again to the more convenient and expressive humanoid forms, and fine-tune their abilities so they only affect the Slivers they want to affect. Isn’t nature great?

I can’t wait to see the new Sliver cards, and I’m excited to find out if my theories on Multiverse travel and Sliver biology hold up to scrutiny when we get the official story. In the meantime, comment below on what the heck you think Slivers are doing on Shandalar!