[Question 27] Sideboards and Such

[Bardo]

Inspired by Melwis' thread in the Community Forum.

1. Generally, what are some of your thought processes when constructing a sideboard; be general, or specific if you have something in mind.

2. Are your chosen maindeck colors ever the result of wanting to have certain sideboard option available to you?

3. Do you have any favorite sideboards you've seen or personally built?

[Pinder]

1. Generally, what are some of your thought processes when constructing a sideboard; be general, or specific if you have something in mind.

The main thing I think about when I'm constructing a sideboard is assembling a group of cards that well help me shore up bad matchups. This can sometimes mean that you have a lopsided board with a ton of cards devoted to a single matchup, but as long as your other matchups are fine, I don't think there's anything wrong with having 8-12 cards against, say, Ichorid if that's your only truly terrible matchup.

Secondly, a sideboard can depend a lot on the type of meta you think you're getting yourself into. Using my previous example, sure, whatever deck you're playing might pack it in to Ichorid, but if you never see Ichorid anywhere then there are probably better uses of sideboard space than shoring up that one bad matchup. Sometimes a board can change dramatically from the accepted board for a deck depending on what you're expecting to see the most often.

In short, the two main things you should keep in mind when constructing a sideboard are 1) Which matchups you need to sideboard for, while also keeping in mind 2) How often any given of those matchups is likely to occur in the metagame you're playing in.

2. Are your chosen maindeck colors ever the result of wanting to have certain sideboard option available to you?

Occasionally, but never if it would compromise the integrity of the maindeck. When I'm designing a deck I focus on which colors will give the deck the strongest game 1, and then look for sideboard options in those colors while I'm building the board. Occasionally I'll change a color if the deck seems to have trouble against an archetype and there isn't sufficient answers in that color for the board, but I never look at board options right at the beginning.

One example was (is?) my hesitancy to drop green from Countersliver after Sinew Sliver was printed. The only green spell in the entire maindeck at that point was Muscle Sliver, and there was a lot of talk of dropping green in favor of black for Hibernation Sliver (and Volt has been pretty successful with his UWb list). However, I was highly reluctant because dropping green would also mean losing Harmonic Sliver out of the board, and Harmonic sliver was just plain re-freakin-diculous in a lot of matches. That's the one time I remember keeping a color just because of the sideboard options it gave me.

3. Do you have any favorite sideboards you've seen or personally built?

I'm actually a really big fan of silver-bullet wishboards, myself. Not every deck can afford to run a Burning/Cunning Wish board, but I always feel like it's incredibly efficient when you can. In the most common 4/4/4/3 split, you get a total of 4 different cards to cover as many matchups as you can, which is why you see a lot of general stuff like Grip and Needle in a lot of boards. The thing I like about wishboards is that they give you a lot of answers which, in exchange for being narrow, are incredibly powerful in the circumstances under which you would grab them. Having 4 wishes in the maindeck essentially lets you run 4 copies of every singleton in your sideboard provided you're willing to pay the extra mana to get them. Along the same lines, moving 1 copy of a card from the maindeck to a wishboard essentially lets you run 7 copies maindeck, again provided you're willing to pony up a few extra mana for 4 of them. And of course there's always the fact that it gives you access to your specific sideboard hate in game 1.

This isn't to say that Wishboards aren't without their drawbacks. The most significant of which is obvious fact that every silver bullet in your wishboard has to be of a specific card type (or in the case of Glittering Wish, more than one color), which can limit the number of effective answers available to you depending on which wish you choose to play. That, and the fact that there are only really two or three playable wishes, and the only one that gets any play currently is Burning Wish. You're never going to see Pithing Needle or Moat as a singleton wish target in a sideboard. As long as you have effective answers in the card type in question, however, I think a wishboard is definitely an option which should be considered.

[freakish777]

1. Generally, what are some of your thought processes when constructing a sideboard; be general, or specific if you have something in mind.

I attempt to make an educated guess at what the field is playing. Just like we can use Hypergeometric Distrubition to give us probabilities of drawing a particular card, we can also apply it to running into a particular deck.

For example:


N, number of other decks at the tournament (number of cards in your library) = 12 (60)
m, number of goblin decks (number of Force of Wills in your deck) = 2 (4)
n, total number of rounds (total number of cards you're drawing) = 4
N - m, non-goblin decks (non Force of Will cards) = 10
k, "desired" outcome (number of Force of Wills drawn, number of Goblin decks played against) = 0


F = (m choose k) (N - m choose n - k)/(N choose n)

F = (2, 0)(10, 4)/(12, 4)
F = 1*210/495
F = 42.42424242% (percentage chance you dodge the 2 out of 12 goblin decks over 4 rounds).

1 - F = 57.57575758% (percentage chance you face at least one goblin deck).

If at your local shop there's two players playing Goblins (out of 12 players not including yourself), you can probably bet you should be packing those Engineered Plagues or Pyroclasms in the board (under the assumption you aren't playing TES).

This is for the "what decks do I know I can accept narrow solutions for" question.

Let's change our equation to be a large tournament:

N = 40
m, number of Ichorid decks = 2
n = 6 (before cut to T8 )
N - m = 38
k = 0


F = (m choose k) (N - m choose n - k)/(N choose n)

F = (2, 0)(38, 6)/(40, 6)
F = 1*2760681/3838380

Fzero = 71.923076923076923076923076923077% chance of dodging 2 Ichorid decks out of 40 players (other than you) through the swiss of a 6 round tournament.

Paired against 1:

Fone = (2, 1)(38, 5)/(40, 6)
Fone = 2*501942/3838380
Fone = 26.153846153846153846153846153846%

Ftwo = 1 - (Fzero + Fone) = 1.9230769230769230769230769230838%

If your deck "just loses" to Ichorid, and "just wins" against everything else (after all 15 sideboard cards have been accounted for), then it doesn't seem unreasonable to not dedicate sideboard slots assuming your guess of 2 out of 40 players choose to play Ichorid is correct.

If you really do just beat everything that isn't Ichorid with the 75 cards between main and sideboard you only have a 1.923% chance of being paired against both to give you a 4-2 record (assuming you actually played out every round, at 4-0 or 4-1 you can draw in likely) and not making the T8.

Note: This assumes your only goal is to T8. At a dual land draft the difference between 1st and 8th while significant isn't exactly same as the difference between 1st and 8th at a Pro Tour...

If those numbers are higher, then you should be able to accept having to have narrow answers in your board. Note that all the narrow cards here must be extremely powerful (see my opening post of the UW(x) Landstill thread for a definition of power if you're unsure what it is) when sideboarding them in is applicable.

After you've determined the narrow answers, people tend to get lazy about what they put in and just say "well I want this card." In general, after I've accepted what narrow answers I need to run, I prefer having broad answers. Cards like Pernicious Deed, when possible, or when in doubt, usually end up in my board (as they're a broad answer).

I almost never sideboard cards that I'd categorize as threats (this includes transformational sideboards, though had I known about the transformational sideboard from UWb Fish boarding into Flash at GP Columbus I should have played that).

Continuation of Note: If at all possible, lean towards the broad answers that actually cover the decks you aren't running a narrow answer against that you have a weak match up against. If you "just lose" to Ichorid, and one of your sideboard choices is between Engineered Explosives and Krosan Grip, the EE helps turn your "just lose" into "hope they don't have a turn 2 kill in hand and that I draw EE and Goyf and two lands, and a lot of other things go right." If you have to go through Ichorid in the T8 to take down first place, a 3% chance of having everything go exactly right is better than a 0.01% chance.

2. Are your chosen maindeck colors ever the result of wanting to have certain sideboard option available to you?

No, very rarely. An example of an exception for this is the black splash for the Wishboard for Cunning Landstill (to give you Edict/Extirepate, etc).

3. Do you have any favorite sideboards you've seen or personally built?

Sideboarding into the Flash combo. Mulletus definitely completely surprised me by boarding into the combo after having played a fairly standard looking Fish deck game one. Surprise can be extremely advantageous in this game, that said I think it's extremely difficult to make a deck with a transformational sideboard that is able to execute both strategies equally well.

A configuration I'm somewhat fond of for large tournaments when playing a(n aggro)control deck is:

4 Anti-Goblin/Aggro Cards (usually EPlague, if I suspect a low Goblin turnout this probably becomes a 2 Threads of Disloyalty and 2 more broad answers)
4 Anti-Graveyard card (usually Tormod's Crypt or Extirpate)
4 Let's play the Counterbalance mirror (usually 4 Krosan Grip)
3 Broad answers (typically 2 Deeds, and one other card)


EDIT: It would be very interesting to establish what the right percentage chance you have of playing against a specific deck that you have a bad match-up (and what that match-up percentage is) against "requires" you to "have a narrow answer against that in your board."

[Nightmare]

1. Generally, what are some of your thought processes when constructing a sideboard; be general, or specific if you have something in mind.

It's really quite simple for me. What does my deck fear the most? Which cards, in my colors, are best at answering these problems? Is there a way to circumvent them? For example, Thresh has a difficult time with early Empty the Warrens, and with opposing Chalices and Counterbalances. Engineered Explosives answers all three of these.

In addition, I always try to find room for answers to the Goblin horde, since I fucking hate losing to it, and to Ichorid, since most hate for other decks isn't as useful against them - it doesn't help that I default to blue. Again, Explosives is excellent vs. Ichorid, but stuff like Blue Blast and Grip are obviously good against Gobs.

If possible, I try to keep my board as versatile as I can, and avoid playing cards dedicated to a single matchup. The more ground you can cover with high-utility spells in the board, the better, unless you're talking about a really, really bad matchup.

2. Are your chosen maindeck colors ever the result of wanting to have certain sideboard option available to you?

In TEC, I chose to splash Black almost exclusively for Plague and Extirpate in the board. I wouldn't reccommend that with every deck, but it worked for TEC. Generally, if I'm splashing for only board cards, it's Green for Grip and Goyf, Black for Plague and Extirpate, or red for Pyroclasm and maybe Ancient Grudge depending on the other MD colors.

3. Do you have any favorite sideboards you've seen or personally built?

Yes. I LOVE the board of the deck I'm playing right now.

[diffy]

1. Generally, what are some of your thought processes when constructing a sideboard; be general, or specific if you have something in mind.

First of all I have a look at the bad matchups of the deck I'm building a sideboard for: I prefer having average matchups against the entire field than some really good and some really bad matchups and so try to build the sideboard in order to make my bad matchups better rather than my good matchups even better.
I then put the probability to face one of these matchups in relation to the number of sideboard slots you'll have to dedicate to make it better and then accordingly to this analysis decide whether to dedicate slots to the matchup or not and if yes, how many. For example, I won't put 8+ cards into the sideboard of Ugw Threshold to fix the bad Ichorid matchup because you face it close to never in tournament play but I will dedicate the amount of slots you need to beat Goblins postboard because the deck is played quite frequently, even if that would take up a large proportion of my available space.
To figure out the correct numbers of slots to dedicate to a certain bad matchup, I then have a look at the maindeck and ask myself what I want to board out for a specific bad matchup. I then put a number of 'dummy cards' for the matchup into my sideboard depending on the amount of cards I want to board out. For example, playing with Ugw Threshold against Goblins, you want to board 8 cards out (4 Counterbalance, 3 Sensei's Divining Top, 1 Hoofprints of the Stag) - I would therefore put 8 anti-Goblins-dummy sideboard cards into my sideboard.
I repeat this step until I have covered all the bad matchups of my deck - you then have quite a large assortment of these 'dummy' cards... most of the time much more than 15.
I then try to find cards that are good in many matchups (read: versatile cards) in order to trim down the number of dummy cards I have. For example, if you have 4 dummy cards for the Aggro Loam matchup and 8 dummy cards for the Goblins matchup, you could just as well add 4 Blue Elemental Blasts to your sideboard because those would cover the 4 Aggro Loam dummy cards and 4 of the 8 Goblins dummy cards basically cutting 8 of your dummy cards for the sole investment of 4 sideboard slots. During this step, I try to keep the cards as broadly usable as anyhow possible, but only if this doesn't reduce the strength of the card in the matchup it is dedicated for.
To finish the sideboard, I then have a think about every single matchup (not only the bad ones now) and how many cards I want to board out in them and try to get this into correlation with the sideboard. If you now find that you can just about cover the number of cards you want to board out in every matchup with some stuff out of your sideboard (give it a margin of one card), your sideboard is perfect as it has the most powerful answers (you designed it with the bad matchups in mind) but also the most versatile answers as you have something to board for most matchups.
If you find some blatant lacks in this last step, you might want to investigate if there's not some niche card you overlooked that is still good in one of your bad matchups but also covers a matchup that you've normally not got anything in the board for - make sure though to not make a compromise that might weaken one of your good matchups though - this last step if just the icing on the cake though.

2. Are your chosen maindeck colors ever the result of wanting to have certain sideboard option available to you?

Splashing a colour only for sideboard options is something you always have to be extremely careful with and I normally only do it if there's no other way to help a common and bad matchup and if the splash doesn't put your consistency and stablility at stake too much.
A good example for this is the black splash in UWb Cunning Landstill: black gives you access to Extirpate which helps a lot in one of your few bad matchups (anything with recursion) which also is played quite a lot in Germany while not hurting the manabase (you can still afford to play 6 basics) and even increasing your consistency as the two off-colour Duals also enable you to cast Engineered Explosives at more than 2.
On the other hand, if while constructing a deck you have the choice between two distinct colours for your maindeck and one offers the more versatile sideboard options, I'd always go with the colour that offers you the possible better postboard game - as long as your mainboard isn't hurt too bad by this.
A good example for this is playing Black over White: the former gives you all the tools of the later (Smother, Ghastly Demise, Diabolic Edict etc. being all good replacements for Swords to Plowshares) while giving you better sideboard options too.

[Peter_Rotten]

I’m only going to answer the first question.

1. Generally, what are some of your thought processes when constructing a sideboard; be general, or specific if you have something in mind.

First, when constructing a SB, I tend to try to hate on archetypes instead of specific decks. In other words, I'll board for storm combo, not specifically for
TES.

Second, I look for cards that will be good in multiple match-ups. For example, if I was playing Goyf-Sligh, I'd consider Pyroclasm a good SB card since it's decent against Goblins, ETW, and random aggro decks like Elves.

Third, I consider my bad match-ups. Are they winnable with the right cards or are they a lost cause? How much better does my game become after I SB? Should I bother creating a board for Dreadstill since it pwns my face so badly or should I simply play the odds of not seeing that bad match? Essentially, I'm asking myself if my game will become significantly better when I SB, and, if not, then are those SB slots better served being other cards.

Lastly, it pays to know the meta.

Let's take a look at this in practice by examing my typical SB (numbers have varied) for my favorite Tier Two deck, Goyf-Sligh:

4 Tormod's Crypt
3 Krosan Grip
3 Shattering Spree
3 Pyroclasm
2 Price of Progress

I have cards that target archetypes instead of specific decks. I've SBed in those Crypts against CephBreak and Ichorid, and the Pyroclasms against Elves and Goblins.

Second, cards like Krosan Grip are good against some the cards I hate to see in multiple decks: Counterbalance, Chalice, Trini, and Jitte.

Next, particularly bad match-ups – or matches that could be difficult – include Dragon Stompy and storm combo like IggyPop. The DStompy match is winnable, especially after some key artifact removal. One Grip or SSPree and I can get my threats back on line. However, the storm combo match is an ugly one, and one I have no hope for. I devote no SB slots to it, and I’ll just take that one on the chin (especially considering the next point).

Lastly, I try to pay attention to the meta. Off the Wall Games is the only place I get to play competitive Legacy, so naturally, I plan for that meta. Popular decks there include Stax, DragonStompy, aggro with Jittes, Dreadstill, and the occasional deck packing Counterbalance. This explains 6 (and sometimes more) slots I devote to artifact hate. I don't see much storm combo there, my match does not significantly improve with various SB options, and I lack truly effective answers to it in the colors I am running. I waste no SB slots for that match.

[Bardo]

1. Generally, what are some of your thought processes when constructing a sideboard; be general, or specific if you have something in mind.

Some questions I'll ask myself:

- What beats the hell out of my deck that I'm reasonably likely to face?
- What are some of the best answers to those decks?
- What's my expected field?
- What are the fair (~50/50) match-ups that can be improved with a good sideboard cards?
- What are the best cards for these things in my colors?

In general, I'm willing to let some bad match-ups remain bad or get worse, post-board. You can't beat them all. And building a sideboard to smash a few specific decks -- that you're not predicting to have an overwhelming metagame presence -- will do more harm than good. So, if something like Rifter/MWC beats the hell out of my deck, I can live with that. If my post-board game against that deck gets worse, well, fine, I'll get some lunch. No problem. Luck is a part of the game and you can't bemoan every bad match-up, provided you've done your homework.

If, on the other hand, I'm picking a deck that has a reasonable game against a solid chunk of the field (i.e. it seems like a good deck to play), but has a poor match-up against few decks I can reasonably expect to play, then I'll probably look to my sideboard to gain some % there.

Ideally, since Legacy is pretty random, I want those sideboard cards to be great against a few decks, and "good enough" against a more. Versus Ichorid, for instance, Extirpate is good for nailing Bridge from Below and other topical targets, it's also a strong tool aganst control decks too.

Krosan Grip is potent against Dreadstill (gets around CB, hits the big guy), but is also useful in so many other match-ups that it's sometimes an appealing thought to maindeck the thing. Etc.

So, that's mainly what I'm looking for in my sideboard cards: cards that are very strong against a few troublesome decks that I can expect to see, but also have broad enough utility and power that they're useful against several other decks in the field, even if they're not an intended target. A good sideboard should improve poor match-ups, and maintain your favorable ones.

2. Are your chosen maindeck colors ever the result of wanting to have certain sideboard option available to you?

I've ran Tropical Islands in my U/B Tog decks just to fetch a Berserk out of the sideboard, or play Pernicious Deed, post-board. I've played Swamps, when I might not otherwise, so that I could board Engineered Plague and Extirpate.

I'm not proud of it, but it happens, on occassion. :)

Usually though, it's the other way around. I'm looking for the most efficient vehicle to develop a particular strategy and will see what my boarding options are after I've settled on the maindeck colors to realize that strategy.

3. Do you have any favorite sideboards you've seen or personally built?

A few of my favorite by others:

Billy Moreno's CB/Top Flash deck that won GP: Columbus:

Sideboard
4 Quirion Dryad (or Phyrexian Negator)
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Massacre
1 Reverent Silence

Sideboard StP and Quirion Dryad in the Greatest Combo Deck of All Time are totally awesome.

Terry Soh's "Troll & Nail" transformational fatty sideboard is very ingenious from Kamigawa/Mirrodin-era Standard:

Sideboard:
4 Troll Ascetic
4 Creeping Mold
3 Iwamori Of The Open Fist
2 Oxidize
1 Molder Slug
1 Viridian Shaman

I like a good transformational sideboard that is more than a cheap gimmick.

Legacy-wise, I love Eldariel's Flash-era UGW Thresh deck that transformed with Flash, Protean Hulk, KJ, etc. I never tested it, but loved the idea.

My own Legacy sideboards are more about utility than cleverness, so nothing really stands out, except for the aforementioned U/B Chalice Tog deck I made circa-GP: Flash.

Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Pernicious Deed
1 Ghastly Demise
1 Shallow Grave
1 Misdirection
1 Naturalize
1 Extirpate
1 Berserk
1 Stifle

That's it for now.