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.