Sideboard - Does it up the skillcount?

[Melwis]

So I have a few qustions and toughts about the sideboard that I wish to get answered being the casual player I am. I can start out by saying that I have never played with a real sideboard so I am a real beginner at this. I hope you can bare with me :) Anyways, here we go!

1. Is there alot of "skill" involved when playing with a sideboard?

My personal tought about it is that the sideboard is only a "lame" way to put in anticards (cards that are good only versus very few decks). And how hard is it to know that you should add in your Krosan Grips (example) against certain decks (Stax just to take an example)? Perhaps it's a bit more tricky to know what to exhange for those Grips but after a while you probably know that aswell, or? Please tell me if you think I am completely out of my mind here :P

2. How exactly does the sideboard work in tournaments? I mean, if I am correct, you play the first game without changing the deck in any ways and then after that (when g1 as ended) you get to board in cards that you want versus the deck you're facing? But how hard is it to know what deck you're going to face in a tournament? I mean, if you know that, you can just sideboard in the ubercards even before g1? This is especially true when playing casual. If I know i'm facing my friends Stax deck, can't I just add in the Grips right away or is this "forbidden" lol?

Help me out on this will ya! :tongue:

[TrialByFire]

122. Sideboard Use
If a player wishes to use a sideboard, it must contain exactly fifteen cards.

Before each game begins, players must present their sideboards and allow their opponents to count the number of cards in their sideboards (face down), if requested. Players may look at their sideboards during a game only if the sideboard remains distinguishable from other cards. If a player is resolving a spell or effect that refers to “choosing a card from outside the game,” the player may look at his or her sideboard. (See section 103). The sideboard must be clearly identified and separated from all other cards in the play area. The sideboard may not be kept where it could be confused or switched with other cards.

The deck and sideboard must each be returned to their original compositions before the first game of each match. Cards transferred from a player’s deck to his or her sideboard, and vice versa, must be returned before the player begins a new match. If a penalty causes a player to forfeit the first game in a match before that game began, neither player may use cards from his or her sideboard for the second game.

Before the beginning of the second or subsequent game in a match, players may change the composition of their decks by exchanging cards from their decks for cards in their sideboards. Any card exchange between decks and sideboards must be made on a one-for-one basis to ensure that the sideboards remain at exactly fifteen cards. There are no restrictions on the number of cards a player may exchange this way. Players are not required to reveal how many cards he or she is sideboarding.


There's the answer to your second question. As for the first one, usually having the most broad answers to a number of strategies are good cards for your sideboard. Pithing Needle, for example, is a great sidebaord card because of the number of cards it can singlehandedly shut down for a cheap and universal mana cost. As for skill intensive, it depends on the deck you play. Sometimes you have to guess whether people are sideboarding in cards that will be very effective against your deck's strategy, and then you might have to sidebaord accordingly. An example would be an Ichorid deck siding in Chalice of the Voids to combat their opponents sideboarding in Tormod's Crypts and Engineered Explosives.

Hope that helped.
For more rules, click here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=magic/rules)

[Eldariel]

There is a lot of skill involved in sideboarding, yes, the most difficult part being constructing the proper sideboard for the expected metagame (only 15 slots means you won't be able to prepare for every single strategy in MTG). Also, siding out cards is tricky, as well as the evaluation as to which SB cards are better than the card you're siding out for them (e.g. which of your SB cards would you probably rather see than the corresponding MD card).

Also, sideboarding opens up room for transformational board, turning into a different deck entirely, or taking out keycards opponent will be counteracting to blank their sideboarded cards. These are all strategic options, not something to pull of constantly. It just gives you the option to try fighting fire with ice instead; if your main strategy is graveyard centered and you expect to win G1 on the back of most people not mainboarding graveyard hate, given sufficiently open engine, you could SB into an entirely different archetype for G2 - for example, Threshold.


Basically, sideboard prevents a tournament from getting destroyed by strategies you aren't prepared for. Tribal is an example of a format without sideboards and surprise, surprise, Worship-decks are incredibly dominant since very few decks have MD enchantment removal and Worship can often make you entirely unkillable to many decks.

Sideboard serves to keep linear strategies honest and to give you a fighting chance vs. decks with strategic superiority over you, as well as to enable Wishes and to open up different strategic options vs. opposing sideboard plans.


Basically, sideboarding makes the game more skill intensive. And yes, you're correct - Game 1 is always played with the basic deck and for games 2 and 3, you can swap any number of your maindeck cards for your sideboard cards.

[Sims]

1.) There is skill involved as you have to select 15 cards, no more no less, that will aid you against your poor matchups throughout the day. You have to also be able to exchange those cards 1 for 1 with cards from your maindeck without hurting your game or weakening your strategy significantly. This can be where people fail by having the perfect sideboard but boarding their strategy wrong.

2.) Game 1 you play your game with your maindeck, all 15 sideboard cards in a seperate pile away from the play area. When game one is finished, you can bring 1-15 cards from your sideboard and put them into your maindeck in exchange for 1-15 maindeck cards. You have to make this desicion based on the knowledge you have of the format and on what you saw of the opponents deck during game 1. You may repeat this process between games 2 and 3 if necessary. After game 3 is concluded, you must de-sideboard and return all boarded-out cards to your maindeck, and all card that were boarded in to your sideboard so that your deck matches your decklist that you handed in at the beginning of the tournament. You cannot sideboard before game 1 of a match, that is against tournament rules and is cheating.

All sideboarding desicions are made based on knowledge: Knowledge of the metagame you are playing in, the deck archtypes of the format, and what information you can pick up scouting or during game 1 against your opponent.

The more you know ....


Edit: And yet again, I'm beaten to the punch.

[Nihil Credo]

To get a bit more advanced, Flores has written quite a bit on the subject of how to build a good SB - as opposed to simply slap together 15 Grips, Leylines, Plagues, and Chalices.

The Craft of Sideboarding (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mf115) (starts up from the basics, but includes some really good stuff)

The following articles are from SCG, and are therefore very long, but they do contain points in those walls of text:

Winning the Sideboard War (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/9582.html)

Fulfilling Expectations: How To Build A Sideboard That Isn’t Embarrassing (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14587.html)

Deck Fundamentals: Three-and-a-Half Models for Sideboarding (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11033.html)

Sideboards I Like (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/9837.html)

[Melwis]

Thanks alot for all these awesome answers everyone :)

And I must start out by saying that you've convinced me on the "skill" part of sideboarding to 100%. I especially like the fact that Trial mentioned. That you have to think what you're opponent might be sideboarding in against you and that your best action can be to sideboard in cards to deal with what your opponent is sideboarding in (hope that maked sense lol).

I am a bit uncertain when it comes to casual play though. I mean, eventually, both players would know the other ones sideboard in and out (the deck aswell for that matter) and what he/she always sideboards for. And since a "couple of friends" can not really be compared to an unknown meta I think the beauty of the sideboard dies. I mean the sideboard more or less becomes a place with 15 cards that I want to be able to answer, say, 4-5 decks. And the best part is that I would have the knowledge of exactly what deck everyone would bring! So in my example of 4-5 decks, the sideboard would be a place for 15/5 = 3 pure anticards/deck. I really don't know if this sounds good...

Tell me, how do/would you play this if the only thing you're playing against are friends aka casual?

[Bardo]

Sideboards are a staple of competitive tournament Magic, but pretty much irrelevant when it comes to casual play. I wouldn't over-analyze it, you know?

Come to think of it, in EDH (Elder Dragon Highlander), I don't even have a sideboard.