The Other 15

Tuition

ToolmasterOfBrainerd

10 September 2016

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The Other 15

Think back to the first sideboard you ever built. For seasoned players, you may have to scratch your head a little and think way back to a time long ago. For newer players, you may still be playing with your first sideboard or you may not even have a sideboard yet. Sideboarding is a vital skill in determining the success of a deck. Think about it; you probably play more second and third games in a best-of-three than first games. Well, the second and third games are sideboard games! So if we play a lot of sideboard games we ought to really have a good grasp of how to construct a sideboard! Yet this part of deckbuilding is also oftentimes the most confusing or least intuitive portion of deckbuilding and piloting. So here I present my introduction to sideboarding, which should hopefully serve as a decent guide to get you started in the art of constructing and then using a sideboard.

Building a sideboard is really an art, not a science. Even among the near solved archetypes with only a handful of flexible spots in the list, the flexible spots themselves have huge effects on your sideboard choices. So even nearly solved decks can have wild variance in the sideboards you could see. Consider the following two decks:

• Deck one
• Deck two

These main decks are actually identical with the exception of 1 fetchland being different, yet the sideboards only share 10 of the 15 cards. Let's look at the differences between the sideboards.

Deck 1: The unique sideboard cards are 1 Faith's Shield, 1 Stony Silence, and 3 Tarmogoyf. Goyf and Shield indicate that this deck really wants to be trying to run away with the game with its creatures post-board in some matchups.

Deck 2: The unique sideboard cards are 1 Dismember, 1 Grafdigger's Cage, 1 Nihil Spellbomb, 1 Ranger of Eos, and 1 Traverse the Ulvenwald. So by seeing what this deck played instead, it's more clear that the matchups where the sideboard differences will be having the most impact is in the midrange matchups where those slower cards come into play. This deck is trying to run away with the game, much like the first deck, but instead of loading up on creatures and trying to get unblocked attackers in by going wide, it would rather load up on more interaction and hate to punch through with the same creatures it had before, but keep the opponent’s creatures from doing anything about it.

So what’s the point? Even the same deck with the same flex slots can have different sideboard plans and approaches, making sideboarding an especially daunting task. So let’s dive in and look at how to construct your own sideboard.

The Plan

We need a very rough plan or set of guidelines to look at that can help us decide which cards to include. I’ve given some suggestions below to help out:

• Introduce overall sideboard options: hate, transform, card upgrades, wishboard, etc.
• What's your deck's context in the meta?
• A cohesive 75: most sideboards should be an extension of the mainboard, not an entirely different deck
• Revisit overall sideboard options to determine the correct plan(s) for your deck
• Each matchup: find your edge
• Balance of a sideboard: how much space to allocate to what you want to include

Advanced Sideboard topics

• Cut your losses and only sideboard for what’s relevant
• Splashing other colors in the board (twin into green, valakut into black, etc)
• Tuning your mainboard flex spots to make the sideboard better

A Little More Detail

• Sideboards are generally filled with hate cards, transformative cards, upgrades, and a wishboard. Hate cards are those that shut down a specific strategy. Think Grafdigger's Cage against graveyard decks. Transformative sideboards may change the overall strategy of a deck. This may include sideboarding many aggressive cards to make a deck significantly faster than it was in game one. Upgrades are cards that improve existing strategies against specific decks. You might be playing Abrupt Decay as removal, but swap to Ancient Grudge when playing artifact heavy decks. Finally a wishboard is a sideboard designed to be utilised with Glittering Wish.
• When considering context think about the role of your deck. Are you aggressive or reactive? Do you control the game or lead the game? By answering these questions you can think about appropriate cards to sideboard. Remember what your deck should be doing and try to synergise with that.
• Remember that decks have to work together as a whole so aim for cohesion. Don’t sideboard in a five mana creature when the rest of your deck is two mana creatures and only has 22 lands. It probably won’t end well.
• After you’ve chosen a few cards check back to see which options help with which opponents. Make sure an overall plan is emerging and that it all “pulls together”. Make sure the chosen cards are appropriate for the deck you want to beat. High mana cost cards probably will not help against aggressive decks, for example.
• Highlight an edge your deck has. What makes it good normally? Use this. If you play Collected Company then try to sideboard creatures, for example.
• Make sure you allocate enough space for each matchup you want to address. If the matchup is terrible it might need four or five slots - but be wary of over-committing! Likewise be aware that one-of hate cards are fantastic but you’re probably not going to draw them. Don’t undercommit either. You might want two or three options instead of just one!
• Don’t waste sideboard slots on matchups that are so rare they’re not relevant. Consider not wasting sideboard slots on matchups you do not feel you can ever win. This is a subjective tip and some disagree, but often it's the case that if a match is completely unwinnable then committing many slots to fixing it is probably not worth it.
• Consider the power of going heavier on a second or third colour after sideboarding. Other colours may present more options! Black can’t usually destroy artifacts - but green can!
• Consider changing one or two cards in your mainboard to accommodate your sideboard concerns. Losing to burn decks all the time? Maybe remove your Eternal Witness for a Kitchen Finks and stick another in the sideboard. Decks are collaborative and it’s good to make sure that everything comes together as a whole!

Thanks for reading my first article on sideboarding. I do hope it was useful. I’ll now open up the floor for any questions you may have! I will also consider writing further to address specific points in more detail!