The Sideboard
by Donny Gifford
Thu, 30 Apr 1998

There is a huge selection of articles and information available on deck
construction, strategy and the “metagame”.  Effective use of the sideboard is usually
addressed on a card for card basis.  This article addresses the sideboard as an
extension of your main deck, and gives some tips on how to maximize it’s use.

The purpose of your sideboard is to help you deal with the nasty little
surprises that your opponent throws at you during the first duel of a match.  It is
usually built around a card for card strategy to deal with different expected deck
types.  This is good.  Your sideboard can be better!

You have your killer deck, and you are in the process of “taking on all
comers” to playtest it out.  You can spend countless hours removing and replacing
cards as you deal with different opponents.  Eventually, you get frustrated because
there is no way to deal with all threats.  You must face facts... YOUR DECK IS
NOT PERFECT!  Ouch!  There is reality here though... no deck is perfect.  This is
where your sideboard comes in.  To be tournament legal, a sideboard MUST be
exactly fifteen cards, or  zero cards.  Dem’s da rules.

Let’s take an example of an affordable deck.  A green weenie deck built
along the lines of the world famous Se`nor Stompy.  You have play tested your
pride and joy and found that it is helpless against shadow, blue counterspell decks,
Slivers and creatureless direct damage.  How can you deal with all of these
drawbacks?  Rate each loss against the goal of the deck.  In the case of the green
weenie, the goal is fast victory through the use of creatures.  Remember, it’s not
that you lost the duel... it’s how you lost the duel that builds a good sideboard.

Shadow - your deck has no protection and you lost in the amount of turns
you should have won in.  Although painful, the amount of shadow heavy decks is
relatively small.  You should probably just deal with the loss.  Perhaps a CoP
Shadow (or two) in the sideboard.  This also means adding nonbasic lands like
Gemstone mines.  The CoP supports your strategy, and does not hold you back.
RATING:  Minor irritating threat (a 1).

Counterspell (Blue) - not only do you have no protection, but the slowing
effects of counterspells are killing you a LOT.  You are facing a large group of
blue-based control decks.  Perhaps CoP Blue, maybe a Scragnoth and the Gemstone
Mines will help. RATING: Major threat (a 4).

Slivers - The bane with many colors is hardest to deal with.  The easiest tool
is Nevinyrall’s Disk.  It hurts you too, but shuts down the ever increasing Sliver
ability pool... FAST. RATING: Big threat (a 3). 

Creatureless Direct Damage - The best way is to mess with your
opponent’s land...  Gemstone mines and Armageddon.  RATING: Toss-up threat
(a 2).

Threat rating system.

	4 - Major Threat.  Certain Death against this deck type.  Situation
NOT controllable.
	3 - Big Threat.  You MIGHT win IF you get a good initial hand. 
Cannot control the situation well.
	2 - Toss-up threat.  Fifty-fifty.  You can control most of the time. 
However, one or two little mistakes are a disaster.
	1 - Minor threat.  You hate it when you lose, you had a bad draw, your
temper got control of the game.  This is the excuses threat level.  It might be worth
addressing if it happens a lot.  If it happens a lot, the level should probably be
raised.

Analyze your losses.  Learn from them.  Use the information to build
your sideboard.  If  you are losing a lot.  Analyze your main deck and adjust. 
Each deck has a mission.  That mission is to win.  How the deck wins is also
important to an effective sideboard.  Let’s look at the worst case scenario. You are
losing to all this stuff .  The sideboard might go like this:

4 Gemstone Mines - to trade with forest cards.
2 CoP Blue - to trade with Winter Orbs
2 Scragnoth - to trade with Lhurgoyfs
3 Nevinyrall’s Disks - to trade with Winter Orbs or forest cards
3 Armageddon - to trade with just about anything in the middle of the casting
range.
1 CoP Shadow - just because it makes you mad...  trade it with anything in
the middle of the casting range

	This sideboard deals with the typical threats, does not heavily affect your goal
(fast kill) and still keeps your deck flexible.  Another suggestion; if you have to
sideboard a lot, put the Gemstone Mines in your main deck, replace them and the
Scragnoth in the sideboard with 2 Whirling Dervish and 4 Jolreal’s Centaurs.  The
dervish helps against the dreaded black decks (because it’s basically immune to
black) and the centaurs help in the heavy counterspell environment because they
cannot be targeted by spells and enchantments.

The key to the effective sideboard is knowing your deck’s weaknesses, ranking
them and dealing with the biggest threats to your success.  While you are doing this,
remember not to lose sight of the deck’s method of winning.