First attempt at 'Transformative Sideboard' for STD
Standard Deck Help forum
Posted on June 8, 2015, 7:07 p.m. by JANKYARD_DOG
A few days ago I posted about the validity of a transformative sideboard in standard here. I then started work on the idea and this is what I came up with.
RUB it into the RUG Playtest
Standard*
SCORE: 0 | 0 COMMENTS | 3 VIEWSPlease feel free to test, suggest, and constructively criticize the deck. I feel there are a few kinks to work out like the land base for the most part, but everything seems to sync well enough.
You would then want to try and find a pivot point or specific strategy to support before and after sideboard. For instance, you could hinge this around being a Waste Not deck - but more all in than you are currently. The idea behind a transformative board is to either dodge their sideboard cards and strand them with dead cards in hand or respond to cards they are likely to be boarding out by bringing in cards those would be good against.
Like say you do this around Waste Not as a way to dodge around their enhancement hate cards coming in and out. You would need to ensure that something like Mirror Mockery wasn't sticking around. It would need to be part of the planned cuts, or not considered in the first places in order to support this transformative board.
Slycne says... #2
Just to mirror what was said in the other thread a bit, transformative sideboards work best when you're rapidly shifting elements of the deck. Like say a ceature-less control deck siding in Archangel of Thune once the opponent has taken out all their removal. Swapping in a color and shuffling your creatures and planeswalkers a bit isn't really putting your opponent on any pressure to be surprised by the transformation in any meaningful way.
Putting aside whether this is a good idea or not, can we have a short conversation on Surrak, the Hunt Caller specifically? After sideboard you'll have 3 Forest, 4 Mana Confluence, 2 Wooded Foothills. That's 9 sources of green mana in the whole deck! That's 1/2 the number of sources you'd want to have the best odds of playing him on time and still pretty dismal at ever playing him at early stage of the game. With 9 sources you're only going to guarantee having double Green on average around Turn 12.
If you truly want to make this work, ditch the idea of dedicating land slots in the sideboard and build the mana like a 4-color deck. Lands like Opulent Palace and Frontier Bivouac should feature heavily as they do the best job of showing up all your colors.
June 8, 2015 7:30 p.m.