Stupid MTG Questions/General Thread

What do you need to know when you make a sideboard in mtg?

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What the more popular decks are

Which of them my deck is not favored to win against

What cards could I easily add to the deck that help increase my chance of winning against those decks without interrupting the general plan of my deck

Well, for one thing, threats that your main deck can't deal with, or deals with poorly.

Is it something you make when you originally conceive your deck, knowing which cards you'll need to slot in and out? Or is it a case by case basis depending on the card being switched in (i.e. Creature for Creature, Instant for Instant, etc.)

I usually build it after deciding on the 60.

Transformation sideboards are an exception though, that I usually build it along side the deck.

For actual sideboarding, I'll shuffle the entire 15 into the deck & then remove cards I don't like against my opponent until I hit 15 again.

While shoring up your weaknesses IS something you want, you'll occasionally need to realize that putting a match closer or even to 50% isn't going to be worth the slots when you could put yourself to favored in a more common, or even just AS common, matchup.

If your meta has one player on deck X, that you could make a 50/50 post board for 4 slots, and 3 players on Y that you can make 55/45 post board with 4 slots, go for the Y option most times.

I'm new enough to the game that I'm not entirely sure what either of you meant by those things.

The 50/50 vs 55/45 thing and the removing cards from the 15 while having 75 cards in the deck thing, specifically.

>The 50/50 vs 55/45
Chance of winning.
You only have 15 slots for your sideboard.
Let's say you've icked 11 cards for your sideboard, so you have to choose where to use 4 of them, and your options are
--> obtain 1/2 chance of winning, 1/2 chance of losing for a terrible matchup that only one player nearby runs
--> obtain 11/20 chance of winnig, 9/20 chance of losing for a bad matchup that three players nearby run
You generally dedicate the 4 slots to the more common matchup.

>15 while having 75
So, your sideboard is 15 cards tops, right? And your deck is 60 cards minimum, right?
If you wanted to, you could put all 15 cards into your deck and take nothing out between games.
That's a legal sideboarding option. But it's a terrible one.
There was a good reason you stick to no more than 60 cards.
And that good reason holds true when using your sideboard, too.
So generally you always take a card out when you put a card in.

What was saying,
is that instead of adding, then removing, then adding, then removing, then adding, then removing cards;
they like adding, then adding. then adding, then removing, then removing, then removing cards.

*picked

Okay, so say I have a deck that's mostly just about human tribal / clues and synergy between those cards.

Do I just want to switch up my method of removal based on the deck? Declaration in Stone vs. that new Collective Effort thing? Mass identical stuff destruction (mainly for token decks) vs. Enchantments and Power 4+ destruction (for big stuff decks).

Or is it more subtle than that?

Hell, when do you bring in Clip Wings, and do you bring in 4?

Post a list.
But don't actually paste it here.
Dump it into TappedOut so we can mouse over cards.
Then link it here.

tappedout.net/mtg-decks/cult-of-sigarda-gw-humansinvestigate/

I've posted an early draft back in the standard threads a while back. I at least tried to participate in game day last set, but got my shit pushed in.

You bring in clip wings if your opponent has fliers.

A sideboard covers your deck's weaknesses to an opponent and gives you options when facing an opponent. Your sideboard needs cards that can handle what your opponent has but can also promote your deck's strategy.

Easy:
>Are we playing legacy/vintage?
>Yes.
>I'm a proud white man or a jew-slave?
>If yes->Get jewish protection trinkets
>If not->Go get dressed up and fire up the gas chamber

Any of you cool guys want to help a newb construct his sealed deck?

Put in cards that are effective against the most popular decks in your area/meta(e.g. Virulent Plague against Token decks in Standard.)

Put in cards that are able to deal with problem cards that can cause frustration for your deck (e.g Infinite Obliteration against powerful or hard to deal with creatures like Ulamog, Worldbreaker, Reflector Mage etc.)

Put in cards that are narrow but are universally useful in some situations you cannot absolutely predict. (Naturalize, Orbs of Warding.)

Quality posting

You can also next level you're opponent and think about cards they will bring in against you & side in against those cards.

>youtube.com/watch?v=Dakyl80hzvQ around 7mins in

>What do you need to know when you make a sideboard in mtg?
If you play your deck against more than 2 people you'll know.

I don't know anything about legacy, but I'm going to assume that Musser was playing a deck that didn't have creatures?

Haas was playing a deck that basically relies on getting lands from his graveyard into his hand.

Musser sided in Rest in Piece, which exiles everything in the graveyard along with anything that tries to go to the graveyard.

Haas sided in Helm of Obedience, which mills the target until a creature ends up in the graveyard.

He used his opponents own Rest in Piece to combo out & win

>Rest In Peace turns all graveyard into exiles
>Helm of Obedience's effect never triggers
Jesus Christ that's some next level shit.

Where is the best place (uk) to pre-order a box?

White and green look open, plus you have fixing

>What cards in my mainboard are useless against this deck?
>What would be a good card to substitute for it?
For example, if your opponent is playing Eldrazi, those ultimate price in your mainboard are literally useless. A substitute would be something such as Grasp of Darkness because a lot of the eldrazi have smaller toughness bar Reality Smasher.
Other things to consider are ways to stop your opponent from mowing you down. If you see your opponent playing a lot of removal in black on you, maybe Display of Dominance from the sideboard will help you survive their shit. If your opponent relies on Stasis Snare, Always Watching, or other enchantments, Natural State is a good card to bring in.

The real question becomes what do I take out of the mainboard?

To be pedantic, it triggers, but it never finishes since it can never fulfill its either of its stop conditions. So it'll keep exiling the top card until there's nothing left.

Of course normally you play RiP/Helm in the same deck. But in this case if you expect your opponent to have Rest in Peace in play for you...yeah.

I got the gist of it, everything's being dumped into a graveyard, therefor it doesn't trigger off the creature's discovery, it triggers off the arrival.

Helm stops when either X cards or a creature hit the graveyard. Since Rest in Peace says nothing ever hits the graveyard, Helm will continue to exile cards until there are no more cards left to exile, and the ability resolves to "no effect" - beyond the fact that your opponent will be drawing from an empty library next turn.

I'm going to FNM tonight and plan on playing a draft. Haven't done any MTG since before Return to Ravnica. Any cards I should keep an eye out for?

Pack Guardian saves lives.

Welcome to dredge in legacy, where you don't sideboard out vs matchups, you side out to beat their side.

Legacy seems like nuclear bombs fighting one another.

just look for removal.
dead weight, fiery temper, puncturing light, angelic purge

There's a reason Force of Will holds the format together and ironically, actually lets the format thrive with weird fucking decks.

You see, Legacy is filled with powerful combo decks that really are nuclear bombs, but they're often fragile, especially to Force, which can fuck them over if they try and combo off.

So in response, they're forced to play targeted discard or other spells to actually interact with their opponent and strip them of threats before they combo off, stopping the premier combo decks from being "lmao I combo off and win gg".

Since combo decks are held in check, especially by blue decks running Force, then there's a huge swath of space in the meta, especially for weird ass rogue decks out of nowhere like Green Stompy or Dragon Stompy to just crush.

Maybe the 1% are onto something after all

Yeah, but the nuclear bombs keep each other in check, so there's lots of room, if we keep with the military analogy, for special forces decks like Death and Taxes/Maverick, or tank division decks like Jund,Shardless, and Delver.

There are still some decks that just go "lmao I combo off and win gg" but they're basically banking on you not having force or some other counter - and they fold if you have it. Oops All Spells and Belcher usually operate this way.

Picked up a playset of these, any competitive decks in a competitive format that can justify my attempt to fill the void in my life?

when is the best scenario to buy a booster box? I love the idea of sitting around during an afternoon and opening a shit ton of boosters, but at the same time I dont want to waste that money when it could be better spent/

When you're hosting a draft?

It's feasibly run-able in the Mental Magic format, insofar as someone might want to Suspend it as a Deep-Sea Kraken.
But it's barely useful there and I can't think of any other situation where it would bee useful.

If you can afford to play 10 mana, you can afford to win without it.
You generally need mutiple card to do that, but Omniscience is useless on it's own as well.
It's (essentially) always a worse Dream Hall.

When it's Eternal Masters. My wife and I opened 3 boxes and each one was more than $300 TCG mid

Is ommnishow still a legacy deck?

No, it's not really about mixing up your removal. Generally you want to run versatile removal mainboard and only swap out removal if you know that your removal will be completely dead against the opponent.

It really all comes down to what your deck is, what decks you have trouble defeating, and whether there are any cards that are superb at improving your odds to win if you play them.

I'm out of touch with standard, so I'll be talking about modern cards.

Let's say that your deck has a bit of a slow start and you find yourself facing red deck wins. Red Deck Wins runs a lot of low cost high power creatures and efficient burn spells. They can kill you in short order, but they tend to exhaust their hand and run out of steam and flounder if they don't kill you fast. Timely reinforcements is a superb sideboard card to play against Red Deck Wins because you're generally guaranteed to gain the soldier tokens to slow down and kill their creatures, and the lifegain to put you out of range of a lucky burn spell long enough for your deck to stabilize and start resolving bigger threats that RDW can't efficiently respond to.

"Pithing Needle" is another example of a good sideboard card. It stays in the sideboard because it isn't very useful against most decks, but it can be extremely useful for shutting down key cards that your deck has extreme difficulty responding too or are instrumental to the opponent's plan (such as a combo piece).

Limited games. 6 players with 6 packs each for sealed constructed or up to 12 players with 3 packs each for draft

Noob here, fiddled around in high school in the late 90s, just now getting back into it.

1- Why is Mana Crypts considered so good? Yeah, you get two mana, but you have a 50% chance to lose 3 health every turn, seems kinda shitty... Also, Does you opponent also lose the three health if they lose the flip, or just the card holder?

2- That new card with the kitten on it harmless gift or something like that, where you give some one control of one of your permanents, what possible scenario would that be useful in?

>he doesn't cube

Fast mana is bonkers in every format. Imagine if in a game like age of empires you started with twice as many workers from the start of the game.

Donate effects are generally niche, but there are a couple cards that can abuse them.

Fuck, also meant to add that the only point of life that matters is the last.

>1 - life as a resource
There is no diference between winning with 1 lie and winning with 20 life.
But it's /a lot/ easier to win quickly with 1 life than with 20.
And the surest way to not lose is to win faster than your opponent.
Go google Necropetence. That card is broken as shit.

>2 - Donate (et al.)
Any card with a downside.The classic option would be Delusions of Grandeur.
Pic related and Harmless Offering are both in Standard at the moment.
Of special interest: "that hasn't been chosen", not "that you haven't chosen".

Thanks for the info!

Honestly it's hard to side if all you think about is hate. Sure you can swap out some creature spells for hate but your losing a lot of tempo and potentially your win.

Also holy shit found a mint foil gitaxian probe in my old magic box, along with a blight steel and some other random mythics. Time to trade for standard staples haha.

That's gonna see so much play in R/B standard

There's no way you can run just R/B. R/B can't destroy enchantments so you need a third color so you have contingencies to get rid of a Pact that's about to kill you

yes, although it's not the best show and tell variant anymore with the banning of dig