The Truth About Sideboard Guides
Painful Truths, illustration by Winona Nelson. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.
Sideboarding is far and away one of the most, if not the single most, complex and critical aspects of Magic: The Gathering. Effective sideboarding draws on a blend of theory, best practices and intuition from personal experience.
Fortunately, it isn’t hard to find a quality sideboard guide from a reputable player nowadays. But the truth about sideboard guides from other players is that they aren’t always the most reliable - no matter how accomplished that player may be. Many writers will even say as much so that they don’t misguide you.
So why aren’t they always 100% reliable?
It’s not uncommon to find that a sideboard guide doesn’t list all of the relevant matchups you should be prepared for.
Say you’re up against UB Control in Modern but the closest strategy you can find in the deck tech you’re referencing covers the Bant Snow matchup. You can try using your Bant strategy against Dimir, but taking the “they’re somewhat similar” approach isn’t going to cut it, as both Bant Snow and UB Control have entirely different sideboards and win strategies.
Just as deck lists and metagames evolve, sideboarding strategies evolve too. This principle is extremely important to keep in mind, especially if you like to stick with an archetype over a longer period of time. Simply put, how you sideboarded last week may not be optimal for how you should sideboard today, especially in fast-moving formats such as Standard.
Sideboard guides from other players are based on that player’s experience with the deck. They reflect someone else’s perception of what the win looks like in each matchup, which may not necessarily be the most optimal win strategy. In other words, no matter how good a player may be, no one is completely infallible. As I’ll mention below, it’s important to also value your own personal experience with a deck.
Sideboard guides usually don’t account for variances among different types of builds within an archetype (e.g. Temur Reclamation with multiple copies of Nissa, Who Shakes the World and adventure creatures vs. Temur Reclamation with zero planeswalkers and only three copies of Uro). Likewise, most sideboard guides won’t account for any off-the-wall card selections you might see from players at your LGS.
Some sideboard guides are less than optimal, and in rare cases, they can just be flat out wrong.
I’m not listing these reasons to say that you shouldn’t use sideboard guides from other players. What I am saying is that as you reference these guides from other players, you should also have a general understanding of what proper sideboarding looks like if you want to win more and consistently improve.
Simply put, there are many scenarios you’ll face in which the sideboard guide you’re relying on isn’t helpful, and you’ll have to be flexible and able to adjust your sideboarding strategy on the fly.
Finally, as you brew your own decklists, knowing how to sideboard effectively will better position you to assemble and tune the most optimal 75-card deck list (or 94 for Yorion companion lists).
In this article, you’ll learn the fundamentals to developing those essential sideboarding skills so that you can begin thinking for yourself when it comes to this important aspect of the game.
#1: Ask The Right Questions
At their core, sideboard guides are designed to provide an idea of what cards are good or bad in a given matchup, with respect to how the opponent is likely to sideboard against you. And after you’ve read enough sideboard guides, you can begin to use that information to develop and experiment with your own sideboarding theories and techniques. That’s the level-up goal we’re trying to achieve here.
The next time you review a sideboard guide, pay close attention to what cards go in and what cards come out in specific matchups. For cards coming in, ask yourself:
Does this card shore up the deck’s weaknesses in this particular matchup? If so, what weaknesses does it address?
Is this card coming in to attack the opponent’s vulnerabilities?
Is this card part of a transformational sideboard strategy?
How does this card position the deck to win against the opponent’s most optimal sideboard strategy?
For cards going out:
What cards in the opponent’s 75 make this card not ideal for this matchup, and why?
Does taking this card out fulfill our deck’s post-board win strategy or not? Why?
More often than not you’ll be able to figure out the answers to these questions yourself. But if you’re in doubt and can’t get in touch with the writer, review the guide with an experienced player you know. Even if you’re not in doubt, talking to other players about the sideboard strategy will either provide you with additional factors to consider or will confirm that you get the gist of it.
#2: Know The Best Practices
As mentioned above, best practices are an important element of effective sideboarding. They offer some baseline rules you can apply on the fly when you’re unsure of how to board in a particular matchup. If you’re a newer player (or not so new), some of the most common universal best practices for sideboarding you should know include:
Sideboard for the game you’re about to play
Remove cards that are dead pre-board and post-board
Attack your opponent’s primary engines and strategies (e.g., graveyard hate, enchantment removal, countermagic)
Know the meta and understand what cards are good against your deck
Know your deck’s vulnerabilities and how you can sideboard to address those weaknesses
#3: Prioritize Personal Experience, But Be Flexible
No matter how you form your intuitions, you need to be able to trust them if you’re going to sideboard with confidence. If you’re paired against a deck you’ve never seen before, it’s important that you can use your intuition and general gameplay experience in order to be able to create and leverage a post-board gameplan on the fly.
Additionally, if a sideboard guide you found online contradicts your personal experience in how to win a given matchup, err on the side of experience. That said, allow for flexibility in your approach and don’t be afraid to try a new strategy. Which gets us to #4.
#4: Experiment Often, Fail Fast
Trial and error is one of the best ways to learn how to think for yourself in sideboarding. In fact, experimentation is necessary in order to stay ahead of a fast-moving meta such as Standard. In Arena, I like to do a general card search every now and then for the colors I’m playing and see if there’s an underplayed card that might be useful in a relevant matchup. Experimentation is how the Kraul Harpooners and Spectral Sailors of the world tend to make a name for themselves.
#5: Do Your Competitive Research
Knowing how to sideboard against your opponents is only half the battle. Research opposing deck guides and try to understand how opposing decks should optimally sideboard against you. Talk to your friends and don’t be afraid to reach out to the online community.
One final truth: these strategies only scratch the surface of sideboarding. Stay on the look out for an article on sideboarding theory for different archetypes, and until then, don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.
Thanks for reading.
