Sideboards: Good or Bad?
General forum
Posted on Aug. 22, 2013, 2:06 a.m. by Jay
I've heard a lot of love and hate for sideboards as a part of Magic, so I wanna hear from you guys.
Personally, I don't like them. Sure some decks naturally beat others, but then isn't that the challenge for the losing build? Making a deck that stands up to it's weakness?
I think they don't promote strong, well-rounded decks, which are important for a healthy deck builder. You can see this in EDH, which packs something for every scenario. Sure it's not as clean-cut, but it takes true skill.
Anyway, that's just my 2 cents. What do you think?
Epochalyptik says... #3
Sideboards are necessary for a healthy meta. They allow decks to exist in the competitive environment even if they aren't perfect. It's not fair for a deck to just flat-out lose to another deck every week if the only other option is to weaken the deck in other respects just to not get flattened by a single build. Sideboards allow a good deck to be flexible.
August 22, 2013 2:19 a.m.
I understand that side, but I feel like some decks having natural advantages is simply part of how it folds out. I think a deck that can reliably win 3/5 games without sideboarding is better than one that wins 5/5 with it. It just feels like the deck's core power is better evaluated.
August 22, 2013 2:24 a.m.
Sideboards good. That is all there is to say on the matter really.
They let you improve bad match ups, without having to weaken the deck in game one. Let you find answers or bring in specific ones. Without it, the format would be just be "what deck has the best match up to everything". Sideboard allows decks to do more interesting things and make it fairer.
August 22, 2013 2:35 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #6
Some decks do have natural advantages, and they are demonstrated in game one of every match. However, as ELPsteel says, it isn't really fair to punish effective deckbuilding by encouraging only the use of rounded decks. Sideboards allow much more variance, and they can help make up for some of the natural weaknesses of decks rather than just letting them lose constantly to the one or two dominant decks in the meta.
While it's fine to want to evaluate the mainboard effectiveness of a deck, you can't really use mainboard-only games as a good reflection of the deck's performance. In many ways, the sideboard is a better reflection of skill and game knowledge than the mainboard because proper sideboard construction requires an understanding of the deck's weaknesses and the meta's strengths.
August 22, 2013 2:35 a.m.
A proper sideboard should just be a 15-card extension of the maindeck anyway. Well-made decks are 75 cards, not 60 with 15 off to the side.
August 22, 2013 2:38 a.m.
I feel ya, Jp3ngulnb0y. I usually don't bother with a sideboard. I see it as over-thinking what may or may not happen in particular instances, usually with specific cards/builds in mind.
That said, I have enjoyed its considerable merits to flexibility. A rather off-the-wall example would be when some newer players net-decked a few topping builds at my local meta. A buddy of mine went 4-0 against them for a few weeks due to sideboarding properly.
August 22, 2013 2:39 a.m.
GreatSword says... #9
Choosing what to use for your sideboard, what to put in and what to take out is part of the skill involved with competitive Magic. It's not always as simple as picking what hoses your opponent; it's about picking what gives you a better match-up given what you've seen or expect to see.
Taking out sideboards would be like taking out extra players in a sport; not every element of a team is relevant on a given day. Recognizing what's important and what's not is part of what separates a skilled player from the random guy who just bought the deck off of SCG last week.
August 22, 2013 2:51 a.m.
Now now, I'm hardly saying take them out. I recognize the necessity for competing. I just don't like the whole premise if changing things around just to mess with the opponent. I guess it's not my style.
August 22, 2013 2:53 a.m.
sideboard helps you to imagine what your weakness will be and how to help avoid it. For me ive had trouble with tron, turn 2 grisel brand and life gain, with Leyline of Punishment and Leyline of the Void in sideboard I can adjust and completely stop up a deck so I can actually compete. If I didnt have a sideboard id be totally worthless going to my shop with burn.
August 22, 2013 2:56 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #12
I mean, players are welcome to not build sideboards for their decks, but the value of sideboards goes beyond the ability to "mess with the opponent." Sideboard design is an integral part of the deckbuilding process, and there are many benefits to sideboards that are demonstrated in what it takes to create and use them properly. They test skills while balancing the game.
August 22, 2013 2:58 a.m.
My experience is just from EDH, mind you. I like making well-rounded decks that have answers - especially things like Acidic Slime that can do double or triple duty (or more even). I admit that in matchups against my playtesting friend, we sometimes get down to a mere contest of answers.
That being said, on a competitive level in multiplayer the politics often makes up for a lack of answers - as long as someone has them and the person with the upper hand socially / politically can tap into that person there is no need to waste their own deck slots on such things.
If the other players at my store used sideboards then I would totally do it. But I'm not going to be the only guy sideboarding at an event. I do see players sometimes modifying a deck while sitting out or after being knocked out of a match - but that's different. I doubt I would do that either since I usually avoid bringing more than 1-3 decks in a night. I'm flexible, though. I should go get a binder now after this revamping dust has settled and think about what I will bring to EDH nights since I will have some actually viable trades for a change.
I'm not against them and know what some of the cards in my sideboards would be already. If they were used then I would have a great deal less trades to offer.
August 22, 2013 3:03 a.m.
fluffybunnypants says... #14
Apples to Oranges, comparing EDH to standard/modern/etc.
I'm not sure what screams well roundedness more than having to use one hundred different cards and intentionally building to face the possibility of facing four or five opponents at the same time. I mean, there are one on one EDH decks out there that are successful (geist edh for instance) but they are really built like standard one on one decks.
In the sixty card meta, it's important to be able to have sideboard cards in order to have a healthy meta (multiple decks, multiple possibilities) as well as reward solid deckbuilding and overall understanding of the game/current meta.
August 22, 2013 8:59 a.m.
Sideboards I think are necessary for tournaments to be possible at all. Tournaments become dependent on luck to win. You would be praying that you don't get matched up against "those decks" and there's not much you can really do about it.
It also adds variety and it's just more fun. You have to know what to expect and you yourself have to know what to do. It's constantly changing.
It's not demoting healthy deckbuilding, it's promoting healthy gameplay.
August 22, 2013 9:19 a.m.
EDH doesn't really need much in the way of a sideboard, does it? With 100 cards and no duplicates, chances are very good that you'd be using some of your 60-card deck "sideboard" cards in your "main" anyway. You're more likely to already have answers somewhere in there.
Aside from the obvious utility of building a 75 card deck rather than a 60, there are some skills that competitive Magic has just turned out to have be necessary. Reading the metagame is one of them. My Modern deck (Melira Pod) is basically built to be able to choose between a pair of main-deck Abrupt Decay or a pair of main-deck Thoughtseize , with the others going into the board. If I expect a lot of combo in my metagame, I'll favor the Thoughtseize , and otherwise I'll do the decays. I also have a half-dozen one-ofs in the board to deal with certain situations, and if I expect to see a lot of that situation, I'll swap one in to the main.
I like having to make these considerations. Metagaming is almost as fun as gaming is, and it's important because if you read the metagame wrong you're at a disadvantage in game one. Without sideboards, you'd be at a disadvantage in every game, and that would promote everyone just playing as safe a deck as possible. That cuts out some level of creativity, imagination, and innovation, and I don't want to play Magic in a world where taking chances is universally punished.
ELPsteel says... #2
In EDH you don't need a sideboard because you have 100 cards in your deck, so that comparison to formats with sideboarding is unfair.
In a format like Standard, a skilled player wants the exact minimum number of cards in his deck, as it is high efficiency and low-variance. There are a huge number of archetypes in the metagame, and no deck could be prepared for all of that in the maindeck unless they were running Battle of Wits brews (which, while fun and hilarious, don't win competitive REL events). Sideboarding is necessary to make an otherwise unwinnable matchup more fair.
The "healthy deck builder" should be building a deck that is synergistic and efficient, not "well-rounded." If every deck needed to be "well-rounded" we'd all be playing control, and aggro would disappear entirely.
August 22, 2013 2:16 a.m.