20 cards sideboard, not a bad idea?

[Nessaja]

Like many legacy enthusiasts I think about the format and where it's heading. I also think about how the format would be better or be worse.
Just recently I was thinking about larger sideboard space and I think arguments can be made for it, I was wondering what you (members of the Source) think about the idea.

So why would you want a larger sideboard? Ofcourse you can make the argument that making choices is part of skill in legacy - and I agree, effectively predicting a metagame correctly is - in my opinion - a big part of the success in a legacy tournament.

However, legacy is a format that has grown bigger and bigger and many decks are currently viable. In standard you got 15 cards to prepare for 3-4 archetypes and perhaps 5 other decks that aren't as popular but still a bit popular. Additionally, in standard you don't need to prepare for combo decks (usually, anyway).

Legacy is a whole different ballgame and I currently feel like making a sideboard is partly skill in predicting a metagame and partly luck because it's impossible to prepare for all matchups. If a sideboard of an aggro deck would want to prepare for combo, it would need 5+ graveyard hate for dredge and reanimator and 5+ combo hate for storm decks. This doesn't even cover many of the combo archetypes, this would still leave you cold against a deck like Food Chain or Alluren.

For example, if the metagame consists of 50% combo decks, from which 90% is storm combo and 10% is a mix of other combo decks like Dream Halls, Alluren, Food Chain, Cephalid Life.. I can go on. It is the right metagame call to prepare your sideboard for storm combo decks. But even this "right" metagame call will be punished if statistics are against you. This happens and has nothing to do with skill - as far as I'm concerned.

Because of this decks that are good against everything (but don't excell at anything) are a constant mainstream. I think that's fine but I think the diversity of decks that could enter legacy would increase if a larger amount of sideboard space were available. I know that this statement is a stretch because it's extremely hard to predict what a metagame does when you make such huge changes. But I don't think it's a long shot.

TL;DR Legacy metagame is wide, sideboard space might be suitable for standard but legacy has much more variety, preparing a sideboard becomes a gamble instead of skill.

[Draener]

I would fully endorse this idea. Anything that takes the game away from Rock-paper-scissors is a win in my book.

[Michael Keller]

Sideboards are about quality, not quantity. If your deck is completely cold to certain match-ups where no more than fifteen cards will do, that's a risk you're going to have to assess as a player and deck-builder. I fully believe that it is a fallacy as far as Legacy being "wide open" as many enthusiasts presume it to be when trying to analyze what match-ups to prepare for. If you can't beat a specific group of decks that put up excellent numbers consistently, you're probably already digging yourself a grave to begin with.

The format might be "wide open" as far as accessibility is concerned, but that doesn't mean your knees should buckle when your opponent drops Mirari's Wake and you have no idea how to board against it or play against it, because you just won't come across it that often, be it hybrids or direct variants associated with decks built around that concept. If you're playing in a local meta, it's rather easy to prepare for your worst or most anticipated match-ups because you play against the same people often and if they're not running the same deck, they're more than likely following a pattern of style that becomes easy to predict. This gives you an advantage on how to prepare for those match-ups.

[Nessaja]

@Hollywood, I'm really not talking about a local meta or small tournaments. I'm talking about big tournaments.

My problem is that you can make a perfect - spot on metacall with the right deck and still lose badly due to the open nature of legacy. In an environment where skill should be rewarded I'd say it's a good thing that randomness is minimized.

How can the sideboard space for standard be exactly the same as the legacy sideboards when you consider the formats are so different?

[Lancer]

Sounds somewhat reasonable, although I would endorse the raise of deck size; especially Vintage format the deck size should be 100 cards min..

[Michael Keller]

@Hollywood, I'm really not talking about a local meta or small tournaments. I'm talking about big tournaments.

My problem is that you can make a perfect - spot on metacall with the right deck and still lose badly due to the open nature of legacy. In an environment where skill should be rewarded I'd say it's a good thing that randomness is minimized.

How can the sideboard space for standard be exactly the same as the legacy sideboards when you consider the formats are so different?

If we're dealing with history here, Standard events produce a far larger number of players than Legacy at larger venues simply because Standard is more popular. Now, while the card pool might be smaller, the variance still is on par with what could happen in Legacy because you're looking at playing two to three more rounds of sanctioned games where it is quite conceivable you could run into a multitude of different decks along the way.

Legacy has a vast card pool, but the problem is no one has the balls to pick up a random playable card, build a deck around it, and win a tournament with it because people want to play Follow the Leader. That is where it becomes your job as a deck-builder to make your sixty as strong as possible with a sideboard tailor-made for its absolutely most dire match-ups. Don't play down to your competition, but force them to play up to you. It's really the best thing you can do no matter how many cards are in your sideboard - because it's not about what you play but how you play it.

[brattin]

It's an interesting idea, but it would make it a lot easier for, say, storm combo to transform into tempo thresh. Which I think would be a Bad Thing.

[KevinTrudeau]

Increasing the number of cards a sideboard could have seems like it would probably make the format less diverse; it could potentially kill off the metagame-dependent decks (Dredge being the best example) by giving the U-splash one-three color variants that are already probably the objectively (at face value) best decks more ways to combat their weaknesses. It's like how Stoneforge Mystic was designed with Standard in mind for aggro decks, but instead bolstered control even further. I might be completely wrong on that, though.

[JustPAT4]

It's an interesting idea, but it would make it a lot easier for, say, storm combo to transform into tempo thresh. Which I think would be a Bad Thing.

+1

I'm not saying I haven't had the same thought. Making tough choices to combat certain strategies going into a large tournament can be rough and I never feel completely secure. But I'd be really concerned that transformational strategies would become so easy and probably right for many decks. Especially storm based decks, decks with blue, or heavy control builds. In my opinion, the increased sideboard would be likely to increase the effectiveness and therefore the prevalence of those strategies.

[rufus]

It's an interesting idea, but it would make it a lot easier for, say, storm combo to transform into tempo thresh. Which I think would be a Bad Thing.

Transformational sideboards are already almost possible at 15 cards. 20 cards is bordering on the 'just field 2 decks' model. And, hey, WotC does want people to buy more cards...

[r0ckstAr]

With 15 cards lots of people tend to play 2 different decks in 1, with 20 I think everyone would be forced to do so.
Moreover, more sideboard cards => more ways to fight combo. I think legacy has enough hard-hate (besides discard and Blue) for this not to be a problem... Giving people more hate for combo would somewhat kill the archtype

[Nessaja]

Now, while the card pool might be smaller, the variance still is on par with what could happen in Legacy because you're looking at playing two to three more rounds of sanctioned games

I'm sorry but I very strongly disagree with you here. In the standard meta's of the past ~5 years this variance you are talking about was not present at all. Especially not in the big tourneys.

Legacy has a vast card pool, but the problem is no one has the balls to pick up a random playable card, build a deck around it, and win a tournament with it because people want to play Follow the Leader.

All you're saying here that in an ideal world, the need for bigger sideboards would be greater than it is now.

The current argument seems to be that 5 cards difference would allow transformational sideboards, something we don't really see at all right now. I don't really have a retort to that other then I don't know. That's quite honest and true, I just don't know how the meta would evolve with 20 sb cards and I additionally just am not sure if it suddenly makes a transformational sideboard a good idea (with just 5 cards, I doubt it).

[DragoFireheart]

I think too many people would abuse the trans-formal sideboard to essentially have two decks. Would 20 cards be enough to allow a combo deck like TES switch to something else like SnT? Or how about letting a deck like Team America morph into UBG Landstill? I think if the issue is that the current choice of sideboard cards are not enough then maybe doing some meta-gaming will make up the difference.

[r0ckstAr]

When they metagame, a lot of people are afraid to put stuff in the maindeck, mostly they only use sideboard to adjust while the 60 MD cards remain essentially the same. Depending on the deck, you can consider cards 49-60 to be the first half of your "sideboard".
If you expect loads of combo you CAN maindeck some combo hate (if it synergizes with your deck / if it has more uses it is better), and graveyard hate is not forbidden in the main deck either (that's why Ooze is so good)

[dontbiteitholmes]

20 card sideboards are a terrible idea. 15 card sideboards are perfect size.

With 20 cards it is far too easy to make a transformational sideboard. Granted you can do this now but it is rarely practiced because it is hard to balance SBing enough cards to properly transform the deck while still having enough relevant sideboard cards vs. problem matchups. This would benefit combo and blue exponentially more than aggro as well. Combo can easily jam in a total transformation and still have relevant SB hate, blue has plenty of SB options with a splash and giving them 5x extra cards to work with just gives them too much room to hedge their bets and partially transform + sb in cards against aggro and still have plenty of hate for combo. Aggro can only sideboard out so many threats before they become too watered down to function. It also completely throws out the meta thought required in sideboarding. When the opponent has 20x SB cards it's not out of the question that they could commonly sideboard in 10+ cards. Right now you know the opponent only has so many options available and properly predicting how they will sideboard is crucial to giving yourself that extra edge. 20 card SBs would make that much much harder.

Right now smart sideboarding is such a huge part of the Legacy game. There is a give and take and finding the right balance @15 cards requires cuts and metagame knowledge, testing and prediction/probability. You have to balance running narrow cards that completely house a small section of decks (example cards like Tower of Magistrates, Llawan, Leyline of the Void, Flusterstorm) with picking broader answers that are marginally worse vs. specific decks but useful in a wider variety of matchups (examples Engineered Explosives, Deed, Choke, Humility, Spell Pierce).

Finding the right balance of cards that are silver bullets vs. problem matchups/popular decks with cards that are useful vs. a broad spectrum of decks and determining what choices maximize your chances of winning and what matchups are better ignored is a huge part of the game that separates the winners from the losers. This is the way it should be. With the variance and luck already a built in part of the game smart sideboarding is one of the main factors that gives top tier players the edge against average players and leads to more games overall determined by skill than luck.

[puppektion]

Sounds like a cop-out for mediocre players.

[Humphrey]

70 minimum MB and 20 SB cards would bring a fresh wind into the format. Maybe one day thell do it, but not anytime soon.

[oldbsturgeon]

In the other direction, what would it be like if sideboards were limited to the 10 that the WoW cardgame allowed.
I know when I played it until about fires of outland or the set afterwards, in the one actual event I played in, having only 10 cards made deciding on what to use was more challenging.
I don't want it to 10, but it would really test the person's ability to predict the decks out there.

[TsumiBand]

I would fully endorse this idea. Anything that takes the game away from Rock-paper-scissors is a win in my book.

Oh yeah, because rock/paper/scissors/lizard/Spock is the game we'd all rather secretly be playing.

I sort of love/hate the idea of transformational sideboards being more accessible. Love, because conceptually I love thinking them up and playing them. Hate, because honestly it would make good sideboarding harder than it is now. Srsly, if everyone can bring in as many as 20 new cards, how do you sideboard against that? Make transformational sideboards too easy, and suddenly they're everywhere. Now you don't know if the Bant player across from you is suddenly rocking a Madness deck or some Fish-based monstrosity with Gaddock Teeg, and the Red player might be playing Goblin Sligh the first round and RDW or Burn the second round... holy shit. Ick. Weird.

Sideboards *should* be limited, to prevent a player from bringing 2.5 decks with them to every tournament. Honestly, that would just change the nature of the sideboard too much; it would just become a game of chicken every round, where both players toss their SB into their deck and then remove 20 cards, and you'd have to wonder every time what deck they were actually playing against you. A lot of testing would become pretty meaningless (like I test or something, whatever).

[rufus]

I think too many people would abuse the trans-formal sideboard to essentially have two decks. Would 20 cards be enough to allow a combo deck like TES switch to something else like SnT? Or how about letting a deck like Team America morph into UBG Landstill? I think if the issue is that the current choice of sideboard cards are not enough then maybe doing some meta-gaming will make up the difference.

Well, what variety of archetypes can follow something like

20 land

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Gitaxian Probe

?