Wasted Sideboard Slots

[Uly Van Hammer]

For as long as I can remember, graveyard hate was an auto-include in almost every sideboard I built. But then one day I realized... No one is playing graveyard decks anymore, why am I wasteing my slots on something I will almost never board in? But then I realized that that's a good thing! I could build Ichorid and wreck the field! I built the deck in secret, I even traded for the cards i needed in different cities as to not tip off any patrons of my FLGS. Finally the day had come, and I was very excited but as I walked around before the tournament, I saw many people building their sideboards... all of which had some form of graveyard hate. How can this be. Not a single player has played a graveyard-centric deck at my store since the banning of Mystical Tutor! Why are all these people devoteing 1/3 of their board to combat a ghost problem? I instantly made an audible and switched back to deadguy.

Now of course there is the argument that it would of been a good sideboard choice if I *did* play Ichorid, but seriously.. it's been months. Are graveyard decks so powerful that the need to be hated out even when they are not around?

Well that's my rant. I still havnt played my Dredge deck... If any of you have some thoughts I would be happy to discuss!

[Rico Suave]

Graveyard removal has a variety of purposes in Legacy. It shuts down the Life from the Loam engine, as well as other recursive strategies such as ones revolving around Welder, Reanimate, or Ill-Gotten Gains. It stops a variety of combo decks that just so happen to be vulnerable to it, like the Cephalid Breakfast deck or modern versions of Reanimator (which can still be scary with their nut draws).

Dredge hate? That's so far down the list because it doesn't matter at all. The presence/lack of graveyard hate is so you don't go 0-2 drop instead of 3-2 drop.

[Uly Van Hammer]

I'm not talking about large 5 round tournaments. Im speaking more of local 12-15 player 4 round tournaments. The kind where everyone knows eachother, everyone knows who has what decks.

[Finn]

Well, if you KNOW what you are up against, I don't see the problem. Tailor your sb for that particular metagame. Incoming Standard players have a hard time with this, but there are hundreds of legitimate decks for your sb to handle. The gy hate you see for decks discussed online are mostly for generic strategies. With no way to handle a graveyard you are essentially autolosing to dozens of different decks.

But only if you face them.

[death]

You only play locally with 12-15 players, not all of them packing full GY hate. You know you can play Dredge with 10-12 anti-GY hate in the sideboard. Why even bother bringing people up to this?