The Art of the Sideboard
by Cameron Veigel
When I was at regionals I was asked by one particular player what I thought of his sideboard, and after I gave my opinion someone else offered theirs. I didn’t agree with much of what they said, but their friends seemed to posses the same opinions, which I saw as fundamentally flawed. It got me to thinking about how the difference in players affects their sideboard construction. I am competitive at heart, so my sideboard is designed with that in mind. How do others do it? Is it right their way? Perhaps not. I have thus decided to share my advice on the sideboard itself and how you should construct one.
Firstly, this advice will assume that you do at least some amount of testing with your deck and sideboard, as the sideboard is essentially an extension of your deck that shores up your weaknesses. You will therefore need to know what these weaknesses are and who they will be exposed against. It does not mean that you will need to play magic every day of your life. Just that you pick up your deck at a time other than a tournament (though, to be fair, FNM for several weeks leading up to a big event can be considered testing for this purpose).
Identify your weaknesses
This can be as broad as general interactions between your deck and your opponents, or as simple as scooping to a resolved Teferi’s Moat. If there are cards or combinations of cards that destroy you, you need to have a way to beat them. Often such cards are not played exclusively maindeck, and if they are they are not present in multiples. People can get away with playing Sower of Temptation maindeck because it is still a flyer that can do something against a control deck. People who play Sphere of Law maindeck are asking to take virtual mulligans. It is more important to be able to beat the maindeck cards, as they are generally the ones that your opponent will lean on to beat you. If the card is good enough to play maindeck and beats you to the extent you think it does, then your opponent won’t need as many sideboard slots for you, which means you are essentially trying to beat the cards you just lost to.
Make sure your deck can still do what it was designed to do
A lot of times when I have had a favourable matchup I have watched my opponent grab the 13 cards they had aside for this situation and mash them into their deck for the next game. Normally I will crush them. If you are playing a red agro deck, lets say goblins, and you board in 13 ways to deal with Engineered Plague, your opponent can more easily beat you without even playing that card. Plague may never stay in play, but how are you going to win? Goblins wins because of the rapidly increasing pressure it puts upon the opponent, not its ability to remove an enchantment. Keep this is mind when sideboarding. Your 60 cards are, in theory, the best 60 you can start with. Don’t sabotage yourself by diluting the power of your deck for subsequent games.
Don’t stock up on redundancy
If you lose to faeries, that’s ok. Pack some hate. Cloudthresher, Squall Line/Hurricane, Raking Canopy, Eyes of the Wisent, Bitterblossom…whatever. Just don’t play all of them. Aside from the reasons outlined above, you should be able to identify what card is best against your opponent in your style of deck. If I were putting bitterblossom in my sideboard, I would play 4. Why? Because it generally isn’t going to be good against faeries on turn 7, even if it resolves. Squall Line you can get away with less copies of, because you aren’t going to run it out there on turn three (usually). Even if there are different variations on the same deck, you should pick the card that works best against all of them. If you aren’t able to sideboard in more than four cards for the faeries matchup, why play more than four hate cards in your sideboard?
Identify your worst cards
This one is pretty important. Too many times have I seen players show me their sideboarding choices game three and they’ve taken out three different burn spells and three different creatures. All you are doing here is reducing the consistency of the cards in your maindeck. You should be able to tell which card is the least powerful against a given opponent. Take those out first. Still need more room? Work out what is next on the list, and remove those. Better to lose a playset of guys then just hope to sack into the right ones at the right time. Sometimes it is correct to split a 4-card swap between two spells, just don’t default to it.
Make sure you can win with the cards you are sideboarding
When Owling Mine was in standard, people were well aware it could not beat Zoo and Gruul, but played Meloku, Threads and other cards in their sideboard to try. What happened? They lost 2-1 to those decks and some crucial games elsewhere. If you are unfavourable no matter what, it’s better to spend those percentage points elsewhere and just hope to get lucky. At Nationals 2006 when I played Solar Flare, most of the other Brisbanites played Sacred Ground in the board for the Magnivore matchup. I didn’t see the point in winning only one game. I put additional cards in the board for the mirror and control decks, and I’m positive that I wouldn’t have won the semi-finals without these cards, and wouldn’t have had a shot at the title without them either. Sure, I didn’t play the Mimeofacture when I should’ve, but that isn’t worse than not having the opportunity. Every slot is precious. You only get fifteen cards, so make sure every card pulls its weight.
Make sure that you can cast your spells
This sounds like a dumb point, but I have seen a lot of people make this mistake. I am not talking about casting them at all; I am talking about casting them when they are relevant. If you put an air wrath in your deck for Faeries, don’t just use Squall Line if your deck splashes green, merely because others say it is better. Turn infinite when you finally rip your second green source, which may or may not come into play tapped, is your Squall Line going to resolve any better than the Hurricane you could have cast seven turns earlier? Probably not. If I have a choice between a devastating card and a great one, I’m going to choose the one that I can cast consistently on the crucial turn. Sure, sometimes you get the best of both worlds. I merely ask that you don’t get awestruck so much by a card’s raw power that you forget you can’t realistically cast it before turn fifteen.
Only transform when it is right
Transformational sideboards are amazing when used correctly, but what is the point of transforming every deck you build? I have actually seen players use their sideboard almost as a different deck to ‘confuse their opponents’. Why did you use the maindeck you chose then? Obviously those aren’t the correct sixty cards. A transformational sideboard is best used when your deck dominates most of the field, but practically scoops to one archetype. Heartbeat combo was a good example of this. It beat most decks, but had a rough time with BW agro so brought in a bunch of fat dudes. In the mirror it was often easier to bash with Kudzus and disrupt your opponent’s combo than it was to combo off yourself. I won a lot of matches with Heartbeat in standard, by transforming only when necessary.
If you are going to play a one-of, make sure it is worth it
There have been a few instances where I have looked at a sideboard then come to the fifteenth card and queried the deck builder. They usually shrug and say they had one slot left and wanted another card to beat agro. Fine, but why are you only playing three copies of Faith’s Fetters then? If you already decided Fetters was the anti-agro card of choice for you, then you may as well fill out the playset rather than introduce another random card as your fifteenth. There are many good decks with one copy of a random something or other in the board. But it is never because the designer had ‘one spare slot’. It’s much harder to cut to fifteen from the cards you want to play. Sometimes that one card is all you can fit in of its kind.
A wish board doesn’t give you the excuse to play bad cards
Wish boards are designed for a few reasons, usually to assist with a combo strategy or allow a deck a variety of answers to specific threats. Wish targets can be narrow, and often are. At the same time, you should be willing to wish for all the cards in your sideboard should the need arise. Each card should be strong enough for you to need to call upon them, even if useful in only one scenario. Finding yourself in that situation then going ‘oh that’s not even going to save me now’ probably means that card could be something better.
Don’t be afraid to put a land in your sideboard
I did it at a Pro Tour. It isn’t exactly a joke. I’m not talking about when you have Living Wish in your deck. Sometimes there are matchups where you just want to hit land drops at least as much as your opponent. Typically this is something that control decks will employ rather than agro decks, but if I’m not mistaken the Tallowisp deck from PT Honolulu played a land in the board as well.
And finally, if you are torn between two cards to put in for different matchups, it is probably better to go for the one that you will need more during the day. That is, the card that beats Faeries rather than little Timmy’s 8-mana agro blue deck. The exception to this rule would be if one matchup is slightly unfavourable and the other is a landslide. Here you are perhaps better off aiding the landslide matchup, but only if it will be a relevant difference. Often you will not be able to cater for every matchup to the degree you might like, so you have to weigh the expectancy of facing each of the decks you are trying to beat against the likelihood of beating them with those cards.
Hopefully there’s a useful nugget in there for someone, and the individual who asked me for advice gets a better idea from me about the rules I believe his sideboard should follow.
Until next time,
Cameron Veigel.