The Sideboard Song Puns

After visiting Cafe Mox around 4 years ago I knew that I wanted to add a cafe on to Cape Fear Games as soon as I had enough money saved up to do so. When the wine store next door moved out last year it was either now or never. I'm happy to announce that we opened yesterday and it's so nice to see cards being tapped next too our food, coffee and drinks. Couldn't have done this without all the support over the years from our amazing customers. https://imgur.com/a/3G866zb

Hello Guys, since the start of the release I have been grinding with a few decks, but I finally spiked in rank from Diamond 4 to 1 using an Azorious control deck. I have been most pleasantly surprised that it can handle aggro much better pre-expansion now with Gideon's Triumph being a powerhouse and Ugin being a finisher that actually makes people scoop outside of the old NoF with Teferi game plan. This is the current deck I am grinding with, but I am currently doing it in best of 1, and am looking for suggestions for building a better sideboard. Right now I feel like the only big concern is making the aggro matchup a little bit better because it seems to punish midrange and other control decks. Thanks for any input you have, and I am of course open and willing to discuss any choices that I have made, and would also love the spikes touch on improving it.

Sorceries and instants:

4x [[Gideon's Triumph]]

1x [[Dovin's Veto]]

4x [[Sinister Sabotage]]

4x [[Absorb]]

3x [[Settle the Wreckage]]

3x [[Chemister's Insight]]

2x [[Cleansing Nova]]

1x [[Commence the Endgame]]

Enchantments:

2x [[Search for Azcanta]]

2x [[Ixalan's Binding]]

Planeswalkers:

2x [[Teferi, Time Raveler]]

4x [[Teferi, Hero of Dominaria]]

3x [[Ugin, the Ineffable]]

Lands:

7x [[Plains]]

8x [[Island]]

4x [[Glacial Fortress]]

4x [[Hallowed Fountain]]

2x [[Blast Zone]]

Sideboard: (Work in progress)

3x [[Dovin's Veto]] // Control Matchup

2x [[Narset's Reversal]] // x/r Control and Mono Red

2x [[Ashiok, Dream Render]] // Drakes or anything with recursion

2x [[Revitalize]] // Aggro matchups

1x [[Ixalan's Binding]] // Any matchups where I need to deal with Enchantments or Artifacts that can hit the board before I can stabilize.

2x [[Dovin, Hand of Control]] // Control and possibly slower midrange decks.

3x [[Lyra Dawnbringer]] // Aggro

So far from the deck I have noticed a few things. I was first very worried about the esper control matchup, but I have rarely lost to it yet. It feels like I always have more interaction in my hand then they have against me. Mini Teferi turn 3 on the draw I do not think has given me a single loss. Games were I keep "hopeful" hands are almost an auto loss after you get hit by turn 2 discard. Overall though the combination of Bindings and Ugin fills that much needed planeswalker removal that Azorious lacked before without having red or black attached to it.

Against aggro you can still get got by an ungodly hand, but having the Gideon's Tri

With the bannings hitting us, and targeting E-tron while leaving other big mana decks intact, it’s starting to look like primeval titan (amulet, field, Valakut) is going to be the deck to beat. Therefore, I want to have a discussion about sideboard options to deal with these decks.

So, for starters, I think going forward 2x damping sphere and 1x ashiok will be standard as they shut of a lot of the game plan of these decks. I’m also going to be trying out one copy of [[Summary Dismissal]] going forward as both a way to beat field/valakut (stifle all the triggers then shoot it with field of ruin so they get no value) that also lets us beat cavern and make Storm players very sad.

The other focus, for me, is pressure. I’ve considered a lot of options, but none seem particularly amazing to me. Geist could be an option but I worry without bolt it’s just not going to be getting through enough. Resto could be an option, but it has low power for a 4 drop and is fairly expensive despite the synergy with all our creatures and blowout potential vs fair decks. Mentor was the final pressure option I’ve considered but I worry that unlike UWx friends we don’t really play enough noncreature spells to support the monk.

What plan will you all be trying going forward? I’m curious to put our heads together and see what we can work out

New players might not know because Mindslaver, Sorin, and Worst Fears don't see too much play these days beyond EDH

I have two rakdos lists (rakdos sarkhan fireblood dragons and rakdos oops all chandra) playing maindeck playsets of Anger of the Gods and some LoTV and Sweltering Suns in the side that absolutely obliterate monoblack lists.

Both lists also play Thoughtseize, Slash, Push, Dreadbore and Angrath Rampage (and the Dragon list also plays K Command) that do great vs the meta. The chandra list abuses Chandras Regulator along with the 3cc Snapcaster Chandra to flash back two spells each turn for extra value. It plays Torbran and Sarkhan the Masterless to end the game quickly.

Sadly, both lists have only one negative prevalent matchup, Field of the Dead decks. My sideboard was ill prepared for Field so I decided to dedicate 5-6 sideboard slots vs Field and need help deciding which options are best and how best to divide up the 5-6 slots. If I can turn the Field matchup into a positive one, I can easily 5-0 with either list.

My best options are...

[[Alpine Moon]]

Pros

Only costs 1 mana.

Can be boarded in to stop either Field of the Dead or Nythos.

It doesnt shut off your own mutavaults/blast zones.

Con

Dies to both Blast Zone and Abrupt Decay and Field decks can tutor up Blast Zone to deal with it.

[[Blood Sun]]

Pros

Costing three mana is not a big deal vs field decks.

It cantrips so it can be boarded in without card disadvantage.

Incidently stops opposing Blast Zones and lands like Mutavaults etc.

Cons

Doesnt stop Nythos.

Stops your own utility lands like Mutavault.

Dies to Abrupt Decay.

[[Crumble to Dust]]

Pro

It cant be destroyed with Abrupt Decay.

Cons

It costs 4 mana making it easy to counter and only viable vs Field if you dont miss land drops and its just too slow to be useful vs Nythos.

It requires the land to be on the board before you can cast it which means they likely already got value out of the Nythos/Field.

Which would you board in to stop Field/Nythos?

Hey everyone,

The 1 year anniversary episode of the Pro Points Podcast is up and it's focused on Standard. I think some of the points we bring up are quite useful for people trying to get better, not just in Standard but in general, and some are specifically useful for Mono Red players, so I'm sharing the episode here.

Here's a rough timestamp guide:

00:15 - What we've been up to and the state of Standard.

6:00 - Legion Warboss - is it overplayed right now?

12:15 - Sideboard guides and underexplored sideboard strategies. When should you sideboard out lands?

34:30 - Mono Red. It's actually not an easy deck to play - what are the mistakes that almost everyone is making with the deck?

44:25 - Is River's Rebuke the most underplayed sideboard card right now?

47:45 - PV Playing Bant Ramp at the Fandom Tournament.

51:35 - What Sam Black would play in Standard.

53:50 - What Siggy would play in Standard.

1:03:30 - Our Patreon is back! It's revamped and there's now a tier that gives you decklists and exclusive MPL footage.

Here are the links:

[Episode] (https://www.patreon.com/posts/ep-47-best-in-27450729)

[Itunes] (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pro-points/id1396304035)

[RSS] (http://feeds.feedburner.com/soundcloud/wtcl)

As always, if you have any comments or feedback let me know!

• PV

{{Sin Collector}} always seemed to be almost good enough to see play in various lists in modern/standard, but with the amount of control lists in the format I think this card has potential. Thoughts?

The Shop & Sideboards

A while ago I made this reddit post talking about how Artifact was going to really throw a lot of traditional card game concepts for a loop. In this next post in what is becoming kind of a series on game design implications relating to Artifact, I want to talk about something pretty opposite, something that is similar to traditional card game concepts but in new wrapping.

First two points of preamble to set the stage:

-- What is a Sideboard? --

Some of you who maybe come from a purely Hearthstone background (or many other digital CCGs/TCGs) might not have heard of a sideboard before:

>A sideboard is a collection of cards (typically about a ¼ of the maindeck size) which a player can substitute for cards in their deck for during an extended series (bo3, bo5, etc).

Due to the ladder being a primary play method of games like Hearthstone, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for them to use a sideboarding system, and as a result of that it also doesn’t make much sense to support a sideboarding system in tournament / esports play. If the audience doesn’t have the same experience when they’re playing on ladder it can be quite bad for viewer interest levels.

In games that use tournament systems for their primary competitive mode (Magic the Gathering being the clearest example, especially in Magic Online’s 5 match tournaments) sideboards are much more common.

-- Why have Sideboards? --

The biggest reason why sideboards are popular amongst competitive players in games like MTG is that they enable your single (and heavily invested in) deck to be tweaked and tuned to be more effective in bad matchups. This is very consumer friendly too:

If you are a Hearthstone player and you find yourself coming up against a 40-60 matchup on the ladder ALL THE TIME, but don’t want to invest in an entire new deck, you’re pretty much required to:

1. Add tech cards to your deck reducing win % against the rest of the field.
2. Wait for the ladder to adapt to the decks causing you trouble
3. Give up and buy a bunch of packs to have another option.

You can see the manifestation of this in competitive format design for Hearthstone too, Hearthstone simply wouldn’t work if you required players to bring only one list - deck win %’s are too disparate based on matchup and as mentioned above **they cannot use a sideboard sys

Detailed Sideboard Guide in the video against the meta decks. Decklist and sideboard guide link down below at bottom.

Hey everyone back with another guide/write up about my current deck I use in Arena to either have some fun or play competitive ladder matches to Mythic Top 1200. Just a friendly advice have fun playing a deck you like and things will be a lot more enjoyable winning or losing. But always hope you guys enjoy my write up, sideboard guides, deck techs and gameplay and will appreciate a subscribe on my YouTube if you enjoy it.

Deck Overview:

So, what is the purpose of this deck and what is it supposed to do you ask? So, the purpose of this deck is to control the game since this is a control deck. We just want to counter the important cards and keep them off tempo and wait to the end game where we just take over and win the game. There is a lot of cheap counter spells and removal to keep them off their game. We win the late game with shark typhoon and valki/Tibalt, currently only have 1 crawling barren in the deck but I think I want to move it to at least 2 as it will work well since there are turns where we don’t play anything.

Key Cards:

1. Counter Spells: Well, these cards are important card obviously as we need it to counter some of their early plays with Negate and Jwari or counter their late stuff with Stroke. The good thing about these 3 counter spells are they are cheap only costing 2 mana so you are able to tap out for some cards during your main phase and still be able to easily hold up 2 mana to counter the late game stuff. Jwari has been MVP early game against both aggro and Control either countering early creatures like Robber the Rich or draw cards like Mazemind Tome. Which leads up to stroke love this card in the fact it can counter every time of card as long as it is turn 4 or up, so I can counter creatures like Vorinclex or Walkers like Vivien or the big stuff like Henge or Cleave. The only one here that I may bring down is Negate since it seems more and more aggro is popping up and it is bad against aggro.

2. Removal/Board Wipe: These cards are clearly important as it buys us time to get to the late game to take over and win, which is why I run 7 cards that are 2 mana to kill creatures and another 4-3 mana removal to top it off at 2 4 drop board wipes and 2 5 drop board wipes. Of the cards Shadows’ Verdict has been the biggest MVP due to the fact it exiles all 3 cost and below unlike extinction

So I am getting into Modern, already have a GB maindeck ready (only diference from the other lists is that I run no elves of deep shadow and use 2-3 Beast Whisperer) What are the currently staples I want to have for possibles SB?

Talismans count towards your blue sources but every now and again I will see players like shok sideboard them away.

Doesn't that mess with your manabase? How far can you stretch your blue sources. After sideboarding, I've seen shok go all the way down to only having 6 islands, tolaria west & field of ruins which seems really light.

The question is in the title. What's missing from sideboards?

Something like [[Leyline of the Void]] or [[Leyline of Sanctity]], where it just shuts down certain match ups.

I'm a little embarrassed because I was Statistics minor in college, but I can't for the life of me remember how to calculate the probability, but I feel like there is still a high chance of aggressively mulliganing to get it if you only have a single copy of a leyline since it's essentially 7 draws of 7 out of a 60 card deck with an 11% chance off getting a leyline on each try.

I've been brewing dimir god Pharaoh's gift and I've been liking the list so far so I am now thinking about sideboard. I liked the idea of damping sphere but I've come across the realisation that it doesn't stop nissa. I'm now questioning it's worth. Any thoughts about the card?

Hey all, I've just bought into this deck and it's been an absolute blast to play. However, I have 0 idea what proper side boarding looks like with it. My main matchups I want to beat able to have an edge against would be Grixis Death Shadow, Eldrazi Stompy, Tron, and UW control. Can I get some advice? I don't post on this site very often so apologies if this isn't formatted correctly.

4 Arid Mesa 4 Blackcleave Cliffs 1 Blood Crypt 1 Godless Shrine 1 Isolated Chapel 4 Marsh Flats 1 Mountain (343) 1 Plains (331) 1 Rugged Prairie 2 Sacred Foundry 3 Shambling Vent 1 Swamp (339) 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn 4 Lightning Skelemental 1 Ajani Vengeant 2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance 3 Nahiri, the Harbinger 3 Anger of the Gods 2 Collective Brutality 2 Fatal Push 3 Inquisition of Kozilek 2 Lightning Bolt 4 Lightning Helix 2 Nihil Spellbomb 4 Path to Exile 2 Thoughtseize 1 Wrath of God

Sideboard 1 Anguished Unmaking 2 Engineered Explosives 4 Goblin Rabblemaster 2 Nevermore 2 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Runed Halo 1 Sorcerous Spyglass 1 Stony Silence 1 Wear/Tear

Hey I am trying to find a VOD where a player played a helm of obedience in game 2 when his opponent played rest in peace. I remember the shout casters being all hyped about the 1 of helm in the sideboard coming out. I think he was playing reanimator and it might have been game 3. Anyways its just one of my favorite pro moments of all time . Thank you in advance. Thank you @evermist for the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8pmYFbtakM

I bought this a few months ago and I’ve been curious about its history ever since. I think the cabinet doors used to be opened with a key but it looks like the locking mechanisms were removed at some point. Any insight you have would be much appreciated!

Sideboard photos

[[wispmare]] [[wear//tear]]

I'm checking out this list.

What interaction am I missing?

Hi all, happy Sunday!

I thought it would be interesting to hear from players who have played against opponents who haven't sideboarding 'correctly', and have brought in cards that had no effect on the game. Maybe they showed you the cards they took out and you thought they should have left them in.

If you could state your deck, the card(s) in question and any reasoning on why they aren't good against your deck that would be much appreicated.

Deck Name

Card(s) in question

Reasoning

I can collate all responses into a table for easy reading in a few days.

Can you recommend any two player games? Trying to go with my friend visiting.