A sideboard is a collection of extra cards used to modify a deck between games of a match. In traditional, 60-card Constructed games of Magic, players are allowed to bring an additional 7- or 15-card sideboard. The purpose of a sideboard is to make your deck better suited for a matchup by removing bad cards against your opponent’s deck in exchange for better options available from those 15 cards.
In Magic: The Gathering (MTG), a sideboard is a reserved set of up to 15 cards that can be used to modify your main deck between games. This allows players to adapt their deck based on their opponent’s deck or strategy. A classic example of a sideboard card is one that destroys artifacts and/or enchantments.
Sideboarding ties together strategic thinking, preparation, creative deckbuilding, and adaptability. It has an enormous impact on the outcome of matches. In MTG, a sideboard is a 15-card deck that players keep on the side to use between matches. It is a way to customize their deck and helps players adapt their deck based on their opponent’s deck or strategy.
In conclusion, a sideboard is a collection of extra cards used to modify a deck between games of a match. In MTG, players can use these cards to improve their game against opponents by removing bad cards in exchange for better options available from those 15 cards. Sideboarding plays a crucial role in enhancing the overall outcome of matches and promoting creativity and adaptability in the game.
📹 Tolarian Tutor: Sideboarding – A Magic: The Gathering Study Guide
Our Professional Consultant is my own tutor, Emma Handy Twitter: @Em_TeeGee FaceBook: facebook.com/EmmaHandyMTG …
How does a sideboard work?
A sideboard, side deck, or side is a separate set of cards in a collectible card game that allows players to customize their match strategy by changing the composition of the playing deck. In Magic: The Gathering, a player can have a playing deck and an optional sideboard, which can have up to 15 cards in a constructed deck format. The playing deck and sideboard combined can have no more than four copies of one card, except for basic lands. The optional sideboard must contain exactly 15 cards and players must agree to its use before a match.
In a limited deck format, all cards not in the playing deck are part of the sideboard, and the playing deck must have at least 40 cards. Constructed Tournaments require a minimum of 60 cards in the playing deck and up to 15 cards in the sideboard. In tournaments, the sideboard is the only permitted form of deck alteration, and the list of cards in the sideboard must be registered.
What does the sideboard do in Magic?
Magic players have a sideboard, a group of cards outside the game that they can use to modify their deck between matches. This helps them address weaknesses in their deck against their opponent. For example, if a player consistently loses games against red “burn” spells, they may put four Chill or four Ivory Mask in their sideboard to “hose” red by increasing the spells’ playing cost. In conventional games, players can bring at most 7 cards for best-of-one matches and 15 cards for best-of-three matches, including their main deck. In limited games, all unused cards are treated as a sideboard.
How to build a modern sideboard MTG?
Building a sideboard involves assessing the number of decks you care about and the specificity of the 15 cards to be placed in your sideboard. Some powerful sideboard cards only target one or two decks, while most decks opt for less powerful and broad sideboard hate cards. Chalice of the Void is a popular modern sideboard tool, ideal for turning off 0 or 1 mana spells. It is typically used against decks like Living End and Crashing Footfalls, but can also be used against UR Murktide and other decks with a low 1-drop density.
Engineered Explosives is a versatile spell that plays well against Rhinos and other decks, with an 0 mana attack destroying all rhino tokens. It can be used against Hammer Time, Urza’s Saga constructs, Food decks, and Creativity.
Are sideboards allowed in Commander?
The Commander format is a casual multiplayer game for Magic: the Gathering, centered around a legendary creature called the commander. It does not use a sideboard and cards from outside the game must be discussed with the playgroup before being added to the deck. Players can use a companion in addition to their 100-card deck, provided their deck meets the companion’s requirements. The Commander variant is usually played in casual Free-for-All multiplayer games, although two-player games are also popular. Each player starts at 40 life and their deck is headed by a legendary creature. The choice of commander determines which other cards can be played in the deck, except for basic lands.
How does sideboard work in Best of 1?
In traditional Magic games, players can bring an additional 7- or 15-card sideboard for best-of-1 and best-of-3 matches. These cards are not included in the player’s library at the start of the game but are swapped between games to focus strategy against the opponent’s deck. The sideboard must remain separate from the main deck and be clearly identifiable outside the game. Players may not interact with their sideboard during the game unless instructed by a specific effect. The deck must remain legal after sideboarding, and the four card limit applies to all cards in the main deck and sideboard, limiting the number of copies of any card across both, except basic lands.
Can you have lands in your sideboard?
In Limited, the sideboard is comprised of unplaced cards, thereby allowing for unlimited access to basic lands during sideboarding, in contrast to Constructed.
How big can your sideboard be?
Kitchen sideboards are typically 40-80 inches long and 20-24 inches deep, with modern models ranging from 80-100 inches long and 20-24 inches deep. They can be 34-40 inches tall. When choosing a display or storage-focused sideboard, consider the purpose and size. For display purposes, a higher sideboard is recommended, while for storage, a lower sideboard with ample drawers and compartments is recommended. Carefully evaluate your needs and intended use.
What is considered a sideboard?
A sideboard, also known as a buffet, is a traditional dining room furniture item used for serving food, displaying dishes, and storage. It typically consists of cabinets, drawers, and a wooden surface for convenient holding. Sideboards and buffets are interchangeable, but sideboards have shorter legs or a base with no legs, while buffets have longer legs. The earliest versions of sideboards appeared in the 18th century, but gained popularity during the 19th century as households dedicated more rooms to dining. Sideboards were made in various decorative styles and often adorned with costly veneers and inlays.
Antique sideboards are now a desirable and fashionable accessory in traditional formal dining rooms, with finely styled versions from the late 18th or early 19th centuries being the most sought-after and expensive. Modern furniture styles often refer to the form as a server. Early production of sideboards occurred in England, France, Poland, Belgium, and Scotland, with later American designs emerging. Characteristic materials used in historic sideboard manufacture include mahogany, oak, pine, and walnut.
Are sideboards necessary?
Sideboards are popular additions to the dining room and kitchen, especially in apartments and smaller homes where kitchen storage is limited. They provide ample storage for dishes, utensils, glasses, and other items, and can also be used for displaying photographs, fresh flowers, or other decorative items. Sideboards can also be used in the living room, where a wide TV stand with ample storage is preferred. This storage can be used to organize DVDs, Blu-rays, cable boxes, gaming consoles, and other A/V devices.
The traditional style in a sophisticated gray sideboard with doors for easy access and cutouts at the back allows cords to pass through neatly. Overall, sideboards offer a versatile and functional solution for various spaces, making them a versatile and practical addition to any home.
Does Lorcana have a sideboard?
In the game of Magic: The Gathering, sideboards are utilized as a strategic tool. These are small decks of cards that can be employed to alter the deck between games, thereby enhancing the player’s ability to effectively prepare for potential matchups. At the time of writing, Lorcana does not have any rules governing the construction of sideboards. However, it does offer a selection of inkable cards.
How big is sideboard mtg?
In Magic: The Gathering (MTG), a sideboard is a set of up to 15 cards that players can use to modify their main deck between games. This allows them to adapt their deck based on their opponent’s strategy. Sideboarding is typically reserved for “best-two-out-of-three” games and occurs after game one. After a match, players return their deck to its original form for the next round. Sideboarding serves two main purposes: enabling players to adapt to their opponent’s strategy and addressing inherent weaknesses within their deck. Typically, the sideboard includes cards that are highly effective in specific situations.
📹 MTG – An Introduction to Sideboards – How To Build This Important Part Of Magic: The Gathering Decks
Many Magic: The Gathering players approach the sideboard as an afterthought. Their mainboard is often viewed as their full deck, …
Sideboard is what makes competitive magic so different than casual magic. I really am glad you did this article Professor, and I would love to see more on Sideboarding in the future. Even after a season playing competitive magic I feel it is my weakest area of magic because it is such an ephemeral concept, which changes based not only on what happened in a game but on how your opponent perceived your deck to function AND how they think you are going to sideboard as well. It’s really interesting.
A brief example: Modern Naya (non-Nacatl) Burn. My strategy is, obviously, to deal as much direct damage as possible by T4. As a result, the decks I’m most worried about are, in order: 1. Decks that can race me, beating me before I drop that last burn spell. Affinity is the number one target here. But fortunately, it does not compose a significant part of my metagame. Nobody at my LGS plays it. That said, I do keep a playset of Smash to Smithereens around if I go somewhere else to play. 2. Decks that pack maindeck life gain. The two things that come up here are Bogles and Abzan Company. Both decks have a player at my LGS. Therefore, I board in Destructive Revelry for Bogles and Path to deal with Kitchen Finks. (Mainboard includes 4x Skullcrack and 4x Atarka’s Command.) 3. Decks that can stop my gameplan. I’ve found that Fish is a problem. Fortunately, I’ve got access to a cheap boardwipe that deals with that deck in Anger of the Gods. Also, Spreading Seas is a pain, so again, Destructive Revelry comes in.
Prof, I’ve been perusal your website a lot as of late, or rather, since I’ve found it. This is my first comment. Thanks for what your/have been doing. I’m only starting to even think of playing paper Magic. I’ve played a little on Xbox but never live and in person. This post in particular made me think in a lot of critical ways when it comes to strategy and tactics. I look forward to commenting on many more if not all your posts. I think you’ve found a loyal subscriber here. Of course, be prepared for a lot of questions/interactions. Alonzi!
Hello Professor! This article is extremely helpful and I believe you should do more articles like this. Explaining about game play and deck building strategies. I would love to see some coverage of games where you play against friends, where you comment on the reason for the timing of each spell, and demonstrate the match-ups of popular archetypes amongst the modern/legacy meta. I would love to see your merfolk deck in action! I, personally just finished building merfolk in modern with most of the fishies foil and am now 1 FoW away from the legacy list. I am not yet a contributor on Patreon but this would motivate me greatly to become one. Kind Regards, Laurent Maltais
I’m actually really glad you mentioned transformative sideboards as they can be some of the best strategically! My absolute favorite is something I love to do in Modern – when playing UR delver: sideboard in a Splinter Twin package and turn your tempo/aggro deck into a combo deck! It can really catch your opponent off-guard.
I would love one or more articles about how to build decks, basic much, like for expample, a really basic blue deck should have 26 lans, 12 counter, 8 cards to draw, 4 or 5 bombs and the rest some usefull creatures. So with this anyone has a “start” to do something, and from then modify the deck as he pleases. Keep up the good work 🙂
Could you do a article on the best uses for Essence of the Wild in a modern deck? I’ve built my first modern deck around him, but I don’t love the way it plays just yet. could use a fresh perspective on what to do with it and maybe a different way to combo with it. Love the website, keep up the great work.
Another rule I would add for sideboarding is Pick your poison. As a lagecyplayer you cannot sideboard against everything and sometimes even with a sideboardplan your winpercentage increases just by small numbers. I played Grixis-Controll and totaly ignored my worst matchup… Lands… because even with 3-4 dedicated slots the winpercentage wouldn’t be favourable for me… I always said increasing a 25% match to 40% after boarding isn’t worth it. So I could use this slots against matchups, where the slots were used much better.
A point I’ve heard some pro players make is that sometimes it’s not worth developing a sideboard around a match-up that’s simply not in your favor even with the best sideboard against it, because the match-up is still miserable for you; unless you actually expect the deck to make up a large portion of the meta-game (in which case you should probably play a deck that’s stronger against it to begin with if winning is more your goal than just playing the deck you like and having fun). I think it was Brad Nelson I heard at least once saying when he plays Jund in Modern he doesn’t bother building a strong side-board for Tron, but rather uses that card space to make his other closer match-ups stronger. Simply accepting that, if he faces Tron, chances are he would lose regardless.
Cards that fit in pretty much any sideboard and are good against common strategies: Dismember: SInc eyou can pay life instead of black mana, any deck can play this, and it gets rid of some big shit like Tasigur, Gurmag ANgler, Tarmogoyf most of the time, SIege Rhyno…It’s a nice option if you don’t have access to Roast. Dragon Claw: Pretty good against burn, but it’s actually good against anything that plays red in general. For example: Twin and Delver decks can plkay 8 lightning bolts thanks to snapcaster mage. Reducing 1 damage from each of them is gonna make a HUGE difference. Kor Firewalker is better, but you may not play white. Relic of Progenitus: Reanimator and graveyard strategies in general are not THAT common, b ut they do exist and can be pretty annoying. And, if all goes wrong, it at least cantrips ¯\\(ツ)/¯. Apostle’s Blessing: Protects your shit from removal. ¯\\(ツ)/¯ What else do you need?
Professor, you mentioned in the article that your sideboard should strengthen your deck against you opponent’s sideboarded deck, but how would one go about this if they prefer playing homebrewed decks? If your deck is homebrewed then isn’t there a likely chance that your opponent wouldn’t have a sideboard option to combat the way your deck works? How can one sideboard an answer for one’s opponent’s sideboard, when it is uncertain if they will even have a response to your deck?
I have noticed an evolution in sideboards in recent years with a huge change in how sideboards are comprised of. Back in the day, a VERY common sideboard was a 4/4/4/3 setup where you basically sided in one to four of four very important cards you needed in order to counter the biggest threats in the current meta-game (or just general threats you see as being your biggest threats no matter the meta). Sideboards these days seem a bit more random and unfocused, often putting 15 different cards in the sideboard. This is a problem with me not just because it makes the sideboard look random and like an afterthought but also makes getting the cards you need to oppose a bad match up much harder. Some of the sideboard options outright boggle me, like a single planes walker that probably would be better suited for main deck play or a single other creature that doesn’t seem to do anything that to counter any deck (though be it a good creature that’s often worth main decking in many cases). I’ll stick with my 4/4/4/3 or 3/3/3/3/3 as I find that combination to be much more optimal and gives me the edge in getting the answer I need to oppose the deck I am most likely to be facing. Now this changes in Legacy and Vintage with the powerful Wish cards (mainly Living and Cunning) where you can use your side board as part of your main deck strategy but in a format like Standard and even to come degree modern (though there is Glittering Wish, but not nearly as versatile as the original Wishes from Judgement).
Something I feel this should’ve mentioned: don’t fight a losing fight. If you know your deck is so bad in a particular matchup that even post-board, you’ll likely lose, don’t waste the spots on it. Accept that you’ll take the loss either way, and sideboard for closer matchup, to push yourself over the top. Wasting slots in your sideboard for games you can’t win reduced your chances in games you can.
My local meta is helter skelter. Dang near everybody plays something very different or even home brew. I was thinking of doing the transformative thing by going in mono-red and swapping in red-green fetch and dual lands along with Atarkas and Atarka’s Commands or destructive revelry for enchantments and artifacts. Thoughts?
I’m usually stuck playtesting a deck and focus on that, so I usually don’t have a sideboard. I should just do it every time so I don’t get used to not making one. I probably would have continued to not make one if it wasn’t for this article, thank you. You made a mistake on the tips at the end. #1 says “Don’t not sideboard” when it should say Do not sideboard. I’m pretty sure it’s a mistake if I understood what you said. Of course you could have said the wrong thing and the text is correct, but I don’t think that’s the case.
I come from a Yugioh(YGO) background before I started playing MTG and when it comes to the Sideboard I think you can learn more from YGO then from Magic… Just hear me out for a minute. When creating a Sideboard for MTG you are taught to side against “bad matchups” and “the meta”, but you only have 15 slots and your Deck has 60 cards, so how are you supposed to test out these cards in a real setting? If you stack them against an opponent, you “cheat” on your results and if you are unlucky in a regular game you may not be able to test them, or they come way to late, so how are you supposed to know that Surge of Righteousness is so good at what it does and how versatile it is that you could consider even maindecking this “sideboard” card? And also, is Surge of Righteousness then even a sideboard card if people start maindecking it? And here is where new players have problems, they learn deckbuilding one way, and are told the sideboard is built against the meta, but still similar to their own deck, when actually the sideboard is a TOOLKIT. And it is your job to decide and stock up on tools for the job of winning multiple games. And when evaluating cards often times and you look for opinions, often times you just hear draft strategy on the card or people talk about a great sideboard card, but they do mean it’s a great sideboad card in limited (Plummet is something often overestimated by beginners because they hear it is a good sideboard card from some podcast, but they are talking Draft).
Hopefully I can move to a different city where I can find an actual LGS where I can play against lots of people in an official capacity. Otherwise, I am basically stuck playing the same three people who switch decks every single game. I guess the reality is that I am collecting these cards more than I am playing them. So a sideboard has never been a thing for me yet.
Consider your opponent’s wincon. If you come up against a Storm deck and throw in a bunch of Leyline of Sanctity’s, your opponent now has no way to win and may even scoop on turn one as you drop a Leyline from your opening hand for free. In fact, this has become so prevalent that a lot of Storm players sideboard Empty The Warrens simply because of the number of players boarding in Leyline. Sideboards can dictate other Sideboards. Talk about meta.
You keep pushing patreon saying it helps you make articles….you’re really needing 5.5k a MONTH to make these articles? Good grief, I expect Michael Bay style effects next time. I wonder how much revenue he’s getting combined from all the twitch.tv ad revenue, youtube ad reveue, plus the patreon and subscribtions/donations on twitch.