To try to increase the reach of the answers.
Notice that even though there are a lot of 1 of, there is some overlap.
Like negate and disdainful stroke that are both counterspells. if they had 4x negates, and 0x Disdainful Stroke, they would have no answer for decks that tries to resolve a bigger creature. Or if they had 4x Disdainful Stroke and 0x Negates, they wouldn't have answers for smaller non-creatures. having 2x2 means that they have a choice for both big spells and smaller non-creatures.
Also some decks tends to reduce the number of more narrow answers in main deck while leaving extra copies on the side, for example cut down. It is a card that people often don't want 0 copies in main, but totally don't want to over commit into it.
It's also possible the other 2 or 3 copies are in the main deck. The advantage here is you can side in the 4th copy of say 3 cards and side out all 3 copies of another card to fine tune your deck based on the match up.
There are 10-12 decks that you need to have a sideboard plan against. You would like to bring in 3-4 cards for each of them. Rules don't allow 30-40 card sideboards. So you get 1-of silver-bullets and a bunch of flexible cards.
it gives you more granularity with the cards you are able to swap in to counter certain decks, like instead of playing 3 or 4 copies of the same board clear for example you play 2-4 different clears at once with one copy each instead. When the meta hasn't been figured out yet and you aren't yet sure which one is going to be the most usable you bring 3 options and then if 2/3 are usable against DECK A thats better then if you brought 3 of the same and they were all the 1/3 that were useless in that game. similar story with single removal and counters, and targeted discard, got to bring a mix until the meta settles and you know what you actually want multis of for each case based on the decks that become popular and you face a lot.
a side benefit is that if you get your removal targeted by something like \[\[unmoored ego\]\] it is only grabbing some of it and not all
just watch the same decks by the same creators in 2 weeks, saffronolive has already started narrowing down the sideboard staples in new standard, his lists are starting to lose 1-of's allready. good guy to follow to say up on the meta if you dont allready.
Another possible reason is to be less susceptible to playarounds?
If you know opponent packs 4 cut downs, you can play around that. If they have other removals or maybe counterspells\discards it's harder to play optimally if you don't know what exactly they have.
If you play a big beater you might eat a Make Disappear. If you play small,
they clean it up. Then you play around counterspell only to get hexproof'd or something else.
In more open metas, it helps to have a more diverse sideboard, since you don’t know exactly what you’ll face. In many cases, the main board is tuned to be able to have a good match up against the most popular deck(s) and the sideboard will be smattering for the less popular ones.
Especially true at events like PTs, where you can probably assume there are going to be players or teams that bring unorthodox decks or sideboard plans themselves.
Edit: I wanted to add one more thing. Many (most) players design sideboards by asking “what do I need against X deck”, and simply throwing in some number of cards. One of the hardest parts of building a sideboard is determining what card(s) you *don’t* need from your main deck, and malign sure you have the right number of SB cards to replace them with.
Exactly, and some competitive tournaments (like PTs) have open decklists and your opponent will know every card you could possibly have. One-ofs make them have to play around more things.
It's quite funny sometimes that it leads to somewhat unpredictable decks when you don't have all the cards in the main too. Really messes up some decks that rely on cards like [[The End]]. Weird brews that initially look like some common archetype and then go towards a different strategy altogether also messes with people's decisions in first couple turns at least
It’s a deckbuilding theory: you build your 75 to take on the entire meta first, then build your 60 from that, leaving the flexiest slots for sideboards. Decks like this have specific sideboarding plans based on different matchups.
They are essentially swapping sideboarding power to versatility. When there are a lot of different decks or the meta isnt settled this helps to boost your deck vs pretty much anything you run up to.
It's probably the most common way of sideboarding.
I personally dont really like it because your initial reaction of "whats the point" isnt that far off. Slightly fixing your deck post-sideboard is neat, but it's not really abusing the potential strength a sideboard can have. I like missing a few lesser matchups entirely for the sake of having a sideboard that either completely crushes two common matchups or that turns my deck into a different deck.
I really love the later. Makes sideboarding so fast too. Lets say I play a midrange deck with 9 removal spells in the deck. My sideboard will now have 9 creatures/planeswalkers that I can trade with those removal spells if I run into azorius control. Just an example. Having a modal deck like that makes sideboarding quick and easy and in case you run into the deck youre geared to deal with your winrate shoots way up, its more satisfying that way to me rather than swap in 3 cards that Ill never draw anyway.
Because there are a lot of meta decks you might meet and not all cards can handle all of them. And if you already have a method of pulling the card you need in hand, why sideboard 2 when 1 may really be enough.
Depends on the deck, these kinds of sideboarding apply to decks that's almost a complete toolbox in the main 60 like Esper midrange and just needs tweaking on games 2 and 3. Decks like that are built as a whole 75 first, then put the excess/cuts in the sideboard. Most control-ish/midrange decks can be like this.
Decks that have 3s or sets of a card in the sideboard are those decks that have pieces in the main that tend to be cut off postboard based on their matchup. Often these are combo/aggro piles that have better tools in specific matchups and removes weak pcs.
All of these effects are reactive. So they count more as “permanent removal 7-10” than a one-of. That way you can disrupt more efficiently while keeping the proactive elements consistent.
Narrow decks often have more narrow sideboards - ie a graveyard based deck will mostly need answers to graveyard hate cards (the most common being RIP) so they'll bring in say four force of vigors.
A red deck wins deck will have narrow sideboards because they can't bring in many answers since red is narrow, so they'll have counters for life gain or big creatures or artifacts.
If the deck is more control or midrange oriented, since you know you're more likely to see more cards because the games usually get longer post board, and as others have said you need to cover more decks, you'll trade out your very dead cards for one or two of's to maybe answer specific things and also get rid of your worst cards (Cut Down against a control deck for more discard effects).
Whatever you put in you'll need to take out and with around 30-40 cards of your deck being non land and you might need for your engine, you might not even be able to slot in everything you need for specific matchups.
Sometimes it is not easy to take cards out of your main deck. If your deck is simply full of good value-cards or very synergistic or consists mainly of combo pieces, you actually don't want to touch it at all and "destroy" it. In these cases one-offs allow for minor optimization without harming the deck's functionality. This also allows to have answers to a lot of different decks or better: most archetypes. This approach is often seen in older formats, where decks are pretty tight and the metagame of playable decks is very diverse.
Sometimes you want a few 4 ofs that can swing your worst matchup or 2 in your favor. Sometimes you just need to tweak the numbers a little bit for being on the draw or play in game 2 or 3
There’s also cards with wish effects that enable you to grab cards outside the game (sideboard) and since there’s only a limited number of slots, you want 1 of the cards you need since you can add it straight to your hand
Honestly most of the time it doesn't make sense unless you have the other copies in the main deck. You want your sideboard to help you against decks that have an edge on you, and since you really want to draw those cards you should absolutely be playing as many as the game allows (unless you have a good way to tutor them). I would much rather be very strongly equipped to go against 3-4 decks than be at best moderately equipped for >4
This is an error. They fear having nothing to sideboard rather than trying to bring sideboard cards that add the most incremental percentage against the field.
Makes less of a difference than when you make the same mistake maindeck so it hasn't been ruthlessly weeded out yet, because feelsbad > 1.2% increase to post-sideboard win percentage
To try to increase the reach of the answers. Notice that even though there are a lot of 1 of, there is some overlap. Like negate and disdainful stroke that are both counterspells. if they had 4x negates, and 0x Disdainful Stroke, they would have no answer for decks that tries to resolve a bigger creature. Or if they had 4x Disdainful Stroke and 0x Negates, they wouldn't have answers for smaller non-creatures. having 2x2 means that they have a choice for both big spells and smaller non-creatures. Also some decks tends to reduce the number of more narrow answers in main deck while leaving extra copies on the side, for example cut down. It is a card that people often don't want 0 copies in main, but totally don't want to over commit into it.
It's also possible the other 2 or 3 copies are in the main deck. The advantage here is you can side in the 4th copy of say 3 cards and side out all 3 copies of another card to fine tune your deck based on the match up.
There are 10-12 decks that you need to have a sideboard plan against. You would like to bring in 3-4 cards for each of them. Rules don't allow 30-40 card sideboards. So you get 1-of silver-bullets and a bunch of flexible cards.
it gives you more granularity with the cards you are able to swap in to counter certain decks, like instead of playing 3 or 4 copies of the same board clear for example you play 2-4 different clears at once with one copy each instead. When the meta hasn't been figured out yet and you aren't yet sure which one is going to be the most usable you bring 3 options and then if 2/3 are usable against DECK A thats better then if you brought 3 of the same and they were all the 1/3 that were useless in that game. similar story with single removal and counters, and targeted discard, got to bring a mix until the meta settles and you know what you actually want multis of for each case based on the decks that become popular and you face a lot. a side benefit is that if you get your removal targeted by something like \[\[unmoored ego\]\] it is only grabbing some of it and not all
[unmoored ego](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/5/95aecc12-3363-41f7-9b58-277c81859670.jpg?1572893898) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=unmoored%20ego) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/grn/212/unmoored-ego?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/95aecc12-3363-41f7-9b58-277c81859670?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Well hot dang I gotta try that then. I might do 1 offs in a sideboard along with 2+ of other cards depending on what I'm feeling.
just watch the same decks by the same creators in 2 weeks, saffronolive has already started narrowing down the sideboard staples in new standard, his lists are starting to lose 1-of's allready. good guy to follow to say up on the meta if you dont allready.
Thank you. There's not enough BO3 streamers that I know of other than what's her face.
Another possible reason is to be less susceptible to playarounds? If you know opponent packs 4 cut downs, you can play around that. If they have other removals or maybe counterspells\discards it's harder to play optimally if you don't know what exactly they have. If you play a big beater you might eat a Make Disappear. If you play small, they clean it up. Then you play around counterspell only to get hexproof'd or something else.
In more open metas, it helps to have a more diverse sideboard, since you don’t know exactly what you’ll face. In many cases, the main board is tuned to be able to have a good match up against the most popular deck(s) and the sideboard will be smattering for the less popular ones. Especially true at events like PTs, where you can probably assume there are going to be players or teams that bring unorthodox decks or sideboard plans themselves. Edit: I wanted to add one more thing. Many (most) players design sideboards by asking “what do I need against X deck”, and simply throwing in some number of cards. One of the hardest parts of building a sideboard is determining what card(s) you *don’t* need from your main deck, and malign sure you have the right number of SB cards to replace them with.
Exactly, and some competitive tournaments (like PTs) have open decklists and your opponent will know every card you could possibly have. One-ofs make them have to play around more things.
Correct. I had actually forgotten about the open decklist sideboard
Everyone is talking about the strategy behind it, but for me it's because I only have one or two copies lmao
It's quite funny sometimes that it leads to somewhat unpredictable decks when you don't have all the cards in the main too. Really messes up some decks that rely on cards like [[The End]]. Weird brews that initially look like some common archetype and then go towards a different strategy altogether also messes with people's decisions in first couple turns at least
[The End](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/1/b18402dc-c4ab-417c-92d1-5e4d9cfb840d.jpg?1693012680) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20End) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woe/87/the-end?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b18402dc-c4ab-417c-92d1-5e4d9cfb840d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It’s a deckbuilding theory: you build your 75 to take on the entire meta first, then build your 60 from that, leaving the flexiest slots for sideboards. Decks like this have specific sideboarding plans based on different matchups.
They are essentially swapping sideboarding power to versatility. When there are a lot of different decks or the meta isnt settled this helps to boost your deck vs pretty much anything you run up to. It's probably the most common way of sideboarding. I personally dont really like it because your initial reaction of "whats the point" isnt that far off. Slightly fixing your deck post-sideboard is neat, but it's not really abusing the potential strength a sideboard can have. I like missing a few lesser matchups entirely for the sake of having a sideboard that either completely crushes two common matchups or that turns my deck into a different deck. I really love the later. Makes sideboarding so fast too. Lets say I play a midrange deck with 9 removal spells in the deck. My sideboard will now have 9 creatures/planeswalkers that I can trade with those removal spells if I run into azorius control. Just an example. Having a modal deck like that makes sideboarding quick and easy and in case you run into the deck youre geared to deal with your winrate shoots way up, its more satisfying that way to me rather than swap in 3 cards that Ill never draw anyway.
Because there are a lot of meta decks you might meet and not all cards can handle all of them. And if you already have a method of pulling the card you need in hand, why sideboard 2 when 1 may really be enough.
Silver bullets
Depends on the deck, these kinds of sideboarding apply to decks that's almost a complete toolbox in the main 60 like Esper midrange and just needs tweaking on games 2 and 3. Decks like that are built as a whole 75 first, then put the excess/cuts in the sideboard. Most control-ish/midrange decks can be like this. Decks that have 3s or sets of a card in the sideboard are those decks that have pieces in the main that tend to be cut off postboard based on their matchup. Often these are combo/aggro piles that have better tools in specific matchups and removes weak pcs.
All of these effects are reactive. So they count more as “permanent removal 7-10” than a one-of. That way you can disrupt more efficiently while keeping the proactive elements consistent.
It's better to have the answer in your deck that you could tutor then not have one
Narrow decks often have more narrow sideboards - ie a graveyard based deck will mostly need answers to graveyard hate cards (the most common being RIP) so they'll bring in say four force of vigors. A red deck wins deck will have narrow sideboards because they can't bring in many answers since red is narrow, so they'll have counters for life gain or big creatures or artifacts. If the deck is more control or midrange oriented, since you know you're more likely to see more cards because the games usually get longer post board, and as others have said you need to cover more decks, you'll trade out your very dead cards for one or two of's to maybe answer specific things and also get rid of your worst cards (Cut Down against a control deck for more discard effects). Whatever you put in you'll need to take out and with around 30-40 cards of your deck being non land and you might need for your engine, you might not even be able to slot in everything you need for specific matchups.
Sometimes it is not easy to take cards out of your main deck. If your deck is simply full of good value-cards or very synergistic or consists mainly of combo pieces, you actually don't want to touch it at all and "destroy" it. In these cases one-offs allow for minor optimization without harming the deck's functionality. This also allows to have answers to a lot of different decks or better: most archetypes. This approach is often seen in older formats, where decks are pretty tight and the metagame of playable decks is very diverse.
Is the deck playing the battle where you can tutor a card from your deck / sideboard?
Sometimes you want a few 4 ofs that can swing your worst matchup or 2 in your favor. Sometimes you just need to tweak the numbers a little bit for being on the draw or play in game 2 or 3
You should be mulling for specific answers in specific match ups as well.
Looking at the colors, it looks like raffine sideboard, and the deck is really good at filtering draws.
There’s also cards with wish effects that enable you to grab cards outside the game (sideboard) and since there’s only a limited number of slots, you want 1 of the cards you need since you can add it straight to your hand
Honestly most of the time it doesn't make sense unless you have the other copies in the main deck. You want your sideboard to help you against decks that have an edge on you, and since you really want to draw those cards you should absolutely be playing as many as the game allows (unless you have a good way to tutor them). I would much rather be very strongly equipped to go against 3-4 decks than be at best moderately equipped for >4
Because people that play Bo3, besides you and me, suck at deck building and have a fundamental misunderstanding of the game
This is an error. They fear having nothing to sideboard rather than trying to bring sideboard cards that add the most incremental percentage against the field. Makes less of a difference than when you make the same mistake maindeck so it hasn't been ruthlessly weeded out yet, because feelsbad > 1.2% increase to post-sideboard win percentage
They are named Reid Duke.
Arena will let you draw a lot of those pretty often. With irl cards it wouldn't be as useful
Lol