![]() ![]() However, another approach is to look for hate cards-single cards that are extremely effective at beating (hating out) a particular deck, color, or strategy. Over the course of a long tournament, you're likely to turn to these cards often, as they'll serve as minor upgrades in a lot of matchups. HATE CARDSĪnswering problems and adding threats are examples of versatile ways to use your sideboard slots. In general, look for planeswalkers and other noncreature threats as excellent sideboard cards against slow decks. That said, there's not a lot they can do to overcome the slow bleed from a Molten Vortex in a protracted game. Control decks will try to shut you down by killing off your creatures and countering your burn spells. One exciting new sideboard card for red decks is Molten Vortex. And the more angles you can attack from, the better chance you have of doing so. It's all about sticking a threat that your opponent cannot effectively answer. Most often, though, you'll sideboard with the goal of diversifying your threats. Sideboarding is about perfecting your deck for the matchup, and a few minor upgrades can be a big part of that. A Goblins deck might be interested in Subterranean Scout against a deck full of annoying blockers. Against a deck with board sweepers, a creature like Hangarback Walker can give you a bit more resilience. During sideboarding, you get to take out some of your ineffective creature removal and increase your concentration of threats, which ought to be tremendously helpful.Īlternatively, you might just make some upgrades to your existing threats. Imagine, for example, that you face a control deck that features very few creatures. You might go about this in a number of different ways.įirst, you might simply add more threats in an attempt to overload your opponent's answers. On the flip side, you can also use your sideboard to find a new threat that your opponent will (hopefully) struggle with. Playing Game 1 ought to show you exactly what "the job" is in the case at hand. Your sideboard lets you find the perfect tool for any job. If he or she has a particularly devastating spell, perhaps Negate is your best bet. ![]() If your opponent is trying to win via a swarm of cheap creatures, you might want a board sweeper like Languish. Similarly, if your opponent has lots of enchantments, you might want to sideboard in more answers to enchantments. However, it's nice to have access to Smash to Smithereens in your sideboard for when you face a deck that's particularly reliant on artifacts-like the one featured toward the end of this article. Except in extreme circumstances, players choose not to main deck cards like Smash to Smithereens out of fear those cards will be dead-useless-against certain opponents. What simpler way is there to accomplish that goal than to bring in the perfect answers for your opponent's threats?Ī classic example of a sideboard card is one that destroys artifacts and/or enchantments. You sideboard with the goal of making your deck better suited for a matchup. Let's go over a few of the useful things your sideboard can do for you. Building and using your sideboard well will be crucial to your tournament success. Sometimes, sideboarding can be the most important factor in determining how two decks will match up against one another. Because your sideboard cards can be more specialized-pinpoint focused for a certain task or matchup-they're often your most powerful tools. For a discussion of sideboarding in Limited, see this article.) Technically speaking, it's legal to play with a deck of more than 60 cards, but at all times your deck must be at least 60 cards and your sideboard must be at most fifteen cards. After Game 1, the players have the option to swap in any number of the fifteen cards from their sideboard in an effort to tailor their deck toward winning the next game. For the first game, both players play with their main decks-their primary 60 cards that will be the same for the start of every match. Tournament matches are typically determined by a best-two-out-of-three set of games. Harder still is the task of conveying just how important those cards are, and how vital it is to choose them carefully. It's a bit more challenging to teach them about the extra fifteen cards that come along with-yet are not part of-the deck. It's easy to explain, even to someone unfamiliar with the game, that a Magic deck consists of 60 cards, with a limit of no more than four copies of any particular card (except for basic lands, of course). ![]()
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