Sideboard, how?

[Franz]

Now this may sound stupid, but how do you use a sideboard? How does it work?
I was never able to get a clear explanation of his, and would like to know,
in plain English, how to use it.

[Joshua Bardwell]

A sideboard is used in a tournament situation to make your deck viable
against more and different deck types. A sideboard consists of
exactly fifteen cards which are not a part of your regular deck. When
playing a tournament with multi-game matches (for example, a match
consists of the best two games out of three), after the first game of
the match, players may exchange cards in their deck for cards in their
sideboard one-to-one (in other words, you can't exchange two cards in
your sideboard for one card in your deck; for every card you move from
your sideboard to your deck, you have to move one card from your deck
to your sideboard). This is referred to as "sideboarding". If the
match requires a third game, the players would get a chance to
sideboard again before it, and so on for any match after the first
(players must start the first match with their regular deck).

Say, for example, that you're playing a white weenie deck, and you
know that your deck is very vulnerable to red burn decks like Sligh
(which can burn away your little weenie creatures very easily). Let's
say you happen to run four Disenchants in your deck as well. You sit
down at a tournament with a new player and start the match. Turn 1,
he lays a Mountain. Ut-oh... bad news for you! He creams you the
first game. Fortunately, you were thinking ahead, and in your
sideboard are four copies of Absolute Law (all creatures gain
protection from red). You know he doesn't have very many enchantments
or artifacts, so you exchange your four (pretty much useless)
Disenchants for four copies of Absolute Law. Hopefully, you'll have a
better shot at winning the second game of the match.

Note that the red player is also sideboarding. He might sideboard in
four Powder Keg to help him deal with your enchantments (like CoP) or
your weenie creatures. Maybe you're going to end up wishing you'd
kept those Disenchants after all...

Joshua

[ZeusII42]

>Now this may sound stupid, but how do you use a sideboard? How does it work?
>I was never able to get a clear explanation of his, and would like to know,
>in plain English, how to use it.

a sidebaord is ecactly fifteen(15) cards that you have outside your main deck
that are therer specifically to help out against certain other decks you might
face in a given tournament.They are usually color hosers like Chill and Light
of Day but sometimes just extra copies of cards that you dont want against most
decks but might need against certain decks,disenchant is a good example of a
card like this.

you start every match with your main deck but after the first game of a match
you may swap cards from your sideboard on a 1 for 1 basis with cards from your
main deck.

Reese Davis
DCI level 1 Judge(level 2 being processed)
www.lp.org

[yakusoku]

Joshua Bardwell wrote:

> Note that the red player is also sideboarding.  He might sideboard in
> four Powder Keg to help him deal with your enchantments (like CoP)

Then your opponent is pretty foolish.  Forgot what Powder Keg does?
 

POWDER KEG
2
Artifact
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a fuse counter on Powder Keg.
T, Sacrifice Powder Keg: Destroy each artifact and creature with converted mana
cost equal to the number of fuse counters on Powder Keg.
 

D'oh!  It's NOT Nevinyrral's Disk.  It can't get rid of those pesky
enchantments.  Looks like red and black are forced to sideboard in Thran Lens
(Which is why it's often bad to side out Disenchants, because your opponent may
not have any enchantments or artifacts NOW, but after......  [but that's a
.strategy point] )
 

> or your weenie creatures.  Maybe you're going to end up wishing you'd
> kept those Disenchants after all...

Maybe, maybe.  All depends on what your opponent sides in.  It's all a guessing
game sometimes...