Friday, May 13, 2011

Building a Sideboard

Here's another "how to" article, this time about my process for building sideboards.  I'll use my RDW deck throughout.  For reference, here's the decklist:

4 Goblin Guide
1 Grim Lavamancer
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Slith Firewalker

4 Arc Trail
4 Burst Lightning
1 Chain Lightning
3 Flame Javelin
2 Howling Mine
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Rift Bolt

17 Mountain
4 Teetering Peaks

So here's how I built the sideboard:
1)  The first step is to look at obvious cards that hose the deck, anything that an opponent can side in that you have absolutely no way to win against.  I can burn my opponent to death through a Mark of Asylum eventually, but a Kor Firewalker is almost impossible to win against.  How do I beat it?
    I first looked at potential options and my first thought was Ghostfire.  After abandoning that idea, I decided to use four Pyrite Spellbomb and maybe 2 other cards that would kill the Firewalker.

2)  Is there a type of card that makes it hard to win?  The answer I found was in the form of cards like Perimeter Captain and Wall of Omens.  They generally result in a lot of lifegain and are troublesome to kill.  Since most Walls that cost a reasonably small amount have four toughness, I decided to add the fourth Flame Javelin to the side and four copies of Dismember.
    Yes, I put Dismember in a deck that has tons of killspells in the form of burn.  Why?  Consider this:  Flame Rift hits both players for four damage and costs two mana.  A Wall will absorb at least four damage, if not much more.  Dismember kills it instantly and costs one mana.  In short, it's a one-mana Flame Rift that also kills a creature.  Admittedly, it's a niche role, but one that the deck needs.  It is also a plausible answer to Kor Firewalker.

3)  Is there a deck that gives you trouble?  In the case of the red deck, I have problems with decks that can play tons of creatures faster than I can burn them off or kill the opponent.  Arc Trail in the main helps, but I needed another "Arc Trail" in the sideboard.  Perilous Myr came in.  Sweepers also help; I chose to devote two spots for sweepers, a Slagstorm and an Earthquake (I only own one Slagstorm, otherwise I would run two).

Here's where we stand:
4 Dismember
1 Earthquake
1 Flame Javelin
4 Perilous Myr
4 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Slagstorm

4)  Once the sideboard is complete, look at how you can use cards in against it in different matchups.  For example, I noticed that I had both Perilous Myr and Pyrite Spellbomb as reasonable answers to Kor Firewalker.  I really don't need eight cards against him; it was possible to cut one Spellbomb since it's useful in less matchups.

SB: 14

5)  Analyze how you side against various decks.  With regards to RDW, against some decks, I increase my curve significantly (for example, against creature-swarm, I take out Rift Bolt for Perilous Myr and the Mines for my sweepers).  There are other decks I increase my curve against; for this purpose, I thought adding another land would be prudent.  Barbarian Ring became my go-to land of choice since it is yet another option to kill Kor Firewalker, though Smoldering Spires contested this spot for a while, both equally powerful in their own aspects.  I chose the Ring since it enters untapped.

Final sideboard:
1 Barbarian Ring
4 Dismember
1 Earthquake
1 Flame Javelin
4 Perilous Myr
3 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Slagstorm

6)  Repeat the above steps as necessary until you get a final sideboard.

Here's how the process worked for my Tempered Steel deck.

1)  Nothing specific really hoses me, other than cards like Creeping Corrosion.  Spell Pierce was my chosen answer.
2)  Day of Judgement-esque cards are incredibly powerful against me--and they're all sorceries.  Maybe more anti-sorcery counters would be useful.  +2 Negate.  Burn spells can hurt me too.  +3 Mark of Asylum, since the rest of the build works for this purpose.
3)  3/3s can be a pain to defend against.  I chose Porcelain Legionnaire for this purpose.
4)  At this point, I realized how useful counterspells would be.  I changed the lineup from:

  4 Spell Pierce
  2 Negate
  To:
  4 Spell Pierce
  3 Envelop
  1 Negate

5)  Here, the sideboard was complete, step six was unnecessary:

3 Envelop
3 Mark of Asylum
1 Negate
4 Porcelain Legionnaire
4 Spell Pierce

That's just how I do it, but it works well for me.

Until next time, keep playing.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

How to Build

I've posted a lot of decks without describing the exact process by which I come to those decks.  It's something that I feel I should share.  Here's (my) set of steps to deckbuilding:

1)  Find an angle to build around.  Sometimes a decklist can start with a single card.  In my case, I wanted to build a control deck based around Whispering Specter.  The list feel into place from there.

2)  Figure out how to support that angle.  In the above case, I started by trying to splash blue to give me Corrupted Resolve and Blighted Agent.  I naturally looked at other options at this step too, and I found Fallen Ferromancer.  Coupled with Flame Slash, I would have great removal in UR.  I was now stuck; UBR, UR, or UB?

3)  Look at your options.  Maybe you like the deck, but the mana is impossible.  Maybe there's a way to substitute another color to improve mana and give you more options.  In the case of my Infect Control deck, I rejected UBR and UR for the manabase.  I was stuck in UB, though I wanted to play Fallen Ferromancer.

4)  Step back, take a break, and look again a while later.  I looked at it again and realized I was hyping the blue too much; I wanted to build around Whispering Specter, not anything blue.  I decided to try BR.

5)  Fill in the gaps.  Firstly, decide what style the deck is; control, aggro, tribal, ramp, or combo.  Different land counts fit different styles.  Keep this in mind and add cards until you hit the amount of blank spots you need for mana.  Then add the manabase, keeping the deck's colors in mind.

6)  Look at the final list, then re-adjust the balance of cards.  Maybe you added a ton of high-cost creatures and want to add more land?  Maybe the reverse?  Do you want a 4-3 split of Llanowar Elves to Joraga Treespeaker or 3-4?

7)  Shuffle it up and look at what hands you get from random shuffling.  Evaluate your land count, what cards were the most useful, which were least.  Re-adjust your deck until you're happy.

8)  Play it out against a variety of decks.  Re-adjust your deck based on what you see and how cards function in reality rather than a vacuum (for example, removal and discard are useless in vacuum but incredibly powerful in real games).  Find your bad match-ups.

9)  Build a sideboard for these bad matchups.  For example, my red deck has problems with swarm decks than can put tons of blockers out in front of Slith Firewalker or Goblin Guide.  To account for this, my sideboard includes a set or Arc Trails, an Earthquake, and a Slagstorm.

10)  Innovate and adjust as each new set comes out.

That's all I have for you today.  This is how I build decks; other styles have their merits, this one has just proven more consistent for me.

Until next time, play on.