Lancer Sliver

First strike is the combat keyword that quietly rewrites every trade in the swarm's favor, and this is the node that grants it to the whole tribe. The math cuts both ways: on defense, a wall of 2/2 bodies that all strike first eats equal or smaller attackers without losing a creature, turning each block into a one-sided exchange; on offense, it lets the board push through mirror blockers untouched and makes any power or toughness granter stacked on top lethal before the opponent gets to deal a point back. At it slots in below the pump lords without stalling the tribal engine, which is where a keyword-granter like this earns its keep: cheap enough to land the turn the board needs it, generic enough that it stacks cleanly with every other anthem the deck runs. Alone it is a modest body carrying a rider, but Slivers were never built to be judged one at a time. Each lord multiplies the ones already down, and this one converts a clogged ground into a race it is winning the instant a second Sliver joins it.