I hate to interrupt this philosophical inquiry into the merits of sideboards with merely pragmatic concerns, but I'm still waiting to hear how a tournament structure is going to: 1) involve three-game matches, 2) not give the finger to everybody playing something other than rush, and 3) last a reasonable amount of time.

Somebody? Anybody? Bueller?

TO F7Eleven:

Nowhere do I claim that it was a blatant insult but this is a very surreptitious way of insulting the gamers here via implication. I can't force you to understand that, by any means, but from the moment you showed up in here, you've been fairly rude. How about the thread where we were all discussing a rules question (Dwarf Cannon Crew) and when James Hata replied with an answer of sorts, and in a way that partially supported what you had also supported, you posted this, "FACE!" - to everyone? Because that's not insulting or snotty at all. Oh no. Until you can manage to respect the community both existing and pre-existent to your arrival here, I'm going to have to just trust Darkdeal's labeling of you as a "troll." I think you mean well but you have a really disrespectful and rude way of showing it, unfortunately.

I'm not at all making the claim that if you weren't around when the game went live and this forum appeared that you somehow are less valid of a player, either. But as has been said frequently (as of late), if you show up to someone's BBQ as a new guest, you might want to be a bit more polite and/or considerate as a newcomer. If that kind of behavior is impossible or untenable for you, you may wish to seek out a better forum for your particular personality. I don't think that's an unfair thing to say at this point based on what I've seen of your interactions here so far (again, for the most part - you've been reasonably civil in some other threads, I'll admit).

Dragging this back on-topic, did some digging around the GenCon Indy registration site, and found a few event types.

King of the Hill:

"Introducing a new alternate tournament format for the Warhammer: Invasion Living Card Game: King of the Hill! There will be several "Hot Seats" and each player in one will take on contenders for the time limit until defeated. Lose and the person who defeats you takes the "Hot Seat". When the time limit is up, the top Kings will compete against each other until a High King rises and claims first prize and the tournament championship."

Worlds will be Swiss, but it doesn't say how many games per round. I'm assuming one-game rounds, but there's no evidence either way. No mention of sideboards either, and since there's no rules in the rulebook for them, I'd say there isn't one.

There's also a Draft event, where you show up with the contents of a copy of the Core set + draft cards only.

While it's not a tournament, there'll also be a league going on through the entire con. There's a orientation Thursday...

"Meet other Warhammer: Invasion players and compete in this casual, weekend-long league. At this orientation, you will receive exclusive league tokens, a league ribbon identifying you as a player, and a souvenir achievements booklet, as well as a briefing on the rules of the league. Play against other league members any time during the Gen Con weekend and meet back on Sunday for awards and prizes. A great way to play several games at Gen Con."

thanks! sounds interesting!

Yeah, those look sweet - I'm hoping to attend at least 2-3 of those.

Overseer Lazarus said:

What a nice glass house you live in. You may want to remember that before you start picking up stones and tossing words like "pedantic" and phrases like "lacking cogency" lest this devolve into an overly articulate name calling contest.

As to the term empirical that is precisely what I meant. Your personal experience is just your personal experience and carries no more weight than anyone else's. Anecdotal implies fictional or fictionalized or unreliable, and I don't doubt the veracity of the statements, I just think you lack proper information to reach a valid conclusion... which was why I asked you about your experience with competitive games with no sideboard and to explain why and how this game with its rules/mechanics would be bettered without mention of your past experience.

Cain_hu said:

Actually this logic is flawed. You run the exact same chances even with a sideboard. How many cards did you include in your side board to answer the deck you are facing and what happens when you draw dead cards because you can't remove enough of them from your deck?

A side board at best minimizes these chances if you have a well rounded deck, but the average player will never develop the skills to make a well rounded deck, depending on their sideboard.

If you can't beat your opponent with good play you made a bad deck. I've seen lots of very powerful but ultimately inflexible decks. Watching this game devolve into a RPS (Rock-Paper-Scissors) card game would be a tragedy, where you know at the sight of your opponents opening hand whether or not you can win and waiting until the side board usage in between games before you have a chance... and of course relying on your opponent not to have the cards in his side board to defeat your own side boarded cards.

At worst I would prefer this game as a variation of RPSLS (Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock), but ideally something more akin to Nightmare Chess is where I think this games true strategic potential could lie.

Hmmm....Not at all how I supposed my early time in this fantastic forum to go at all. What has happened here is one of the litany of reasons that I hate texting so much I could puke. With no vocal inflections or facial expressions, my quirky but usually well-received brand of humor only seems to irritate. That rather bloweth. See, I have one of those self-caricaturing, cartoonish delivery styles in person, kind of like a cross between Chris Farley and Kelsey Grammer. Believe me, I don't mimic anyone. That's just the best way that I can describe it in text. I sort of paint myself as a gunslinging blowhard, but you have to understand that I mean no harm for it to be even remotely charming. And so, I sincerely apologize for ruffling any feathers in even the slightest. To be quite honest, I've become enamored of nearly all the personalities in here, in one way or another. The last thing I want to do is ripple the water. Still, even with that, it's a bit unreasonable to expect that a person who does, indeed, possess strong communication skills will simply allow even mildly boorish behavior to go unchecked. I didn't mean to be arrogant - at all - but I most definitely meant what I said about people trying to exert some sort of esoteric control over the environment. The fact that Wytefang (who, I want to put on the record, I'm becoming a big fan of) saw a direct reference to dormouse is extremely telling in and of itself, no? If you read the post again, it isn't until later that I referenced dormouse at all, yet Wytefang saw it as a targeted jab. I assure you, it wasn't so. I was referring to any and all people to whom it applied. I do believe that there are bullies amongst us, and I do believe that condescension is abound in here. But, I'll do my level best to keep my good humor and not let it rile me up. (If it does, though, I promise that despite how it may seem on the screen, I'm not trying for conflict.)

And now, the moment at least 2 of us have been waiting for. This will be the last thing I have to say about this sideboard nonsense, because I've made all the logical arguments one needs to understand my stance. To somehow imply that the effective and strategic use of a sideboard is anything other than intelligent and highly analytical is short-sighted and biased. What in the world makes deck construction so genius and sideboard construction so remedial, folks? As if it takes some sort of specially designated brainpower to build the first 50 or so cards (yes, which any reliable deck will be) but the next 8 or 15 comes straight from the moronebellum. Do we suppose that a formidable competitior using a standard deck suddenly becomes a dismissable invalid because he had the foresight and accurate assessment skills to account for strategic adjustment? If I were the high-strung sort, I would be a bit insulted by that notion. My main deck is designed to do a particular something, while defending against what I believe to be the most likely set of threats to the execution of that something. With any uncontrolled environment, there are bound to be unforeseen circumstances, or highly singular scenarios, or sheer, dumb luck, that derails the best laid plans. It is only with the sharpest vision that a person can select, beforehand, a small number of cards to bring to the contest and proficiently substitute sideboard cards for main cards, one-for-one, and still maintain functionality in the adjusted deck.

This is my answer to the earlier question posed to me. Like a tree in a thunderstorm, I DODGE NOTHING!! And I won't even waste screen space on explaining why a deck is so obviously more reliable and efficient with the fewest cards allowable. Needing an explanation of that fact signals a headstrong resolution that will almost certainly not be moved. Far be it for humble me to try.

dormouse said:

I'll always prefer being jovial and friendly to adversarial anytime. But if someone's gonna lace up and bring the wood, I'll meet them halfway, believe that. Game on!

Dear dormouse,

I will reply in multiple parts.

dormouse said:

First : Could you explain me why would I have "exact same chances" with SB and without it ? I don't see.

Second : I bolded one of you comment because THIS is what a good sideboard is for. It's not to make your deck invulnerable, it just helps in some bad matchups.

Also, I don't understand why you think that if a player could make a well rounded deck without SB, he will somehow loose his ability to good cards if you will enable him to create a "toolbox". Also, nobody forces you to actually USE the cards in your SB.

Based on your comments I think (maybe I'm wrong on this) that you didn't played much card games with an effective sideboard.

dormouse said:

I turn over your sentence : If you are forced to include some specific narrow effects in your deck to deal with particular combos that's wrong. For example an orc deck have to include Mob Up! or BT+Rip if he wan't a chance against a pulled off Unlimited Gift of Anearion combo.

There are ALWAYS be good and bad matchups in a card game (except if everybody running the exactly same deck), sideboarding in my experience somehow smooth the differences based on suprise factor.

Some end notes :

- Sideboards are not a make of Slanesh to devolve card games

- Even with SB you have to build a well rounded deck (you want to win the first round if possible, and also you could replace a limited number of cards from your SB)

- It gives a better chance to narrow cards to EVER be played (Vaul's Unmaking, Blessing of Isha, Zealot Hunter, Mob up!)

cyberfunk said:

If you think that rush is going to be dominant (and the likelyhood is that it will be) then build your deck with that in mind. Play 3x Will+Judgement, Flames Valaya, Gifts etc in an Order deck and Troll Vomit, Invoke etc in a Destruction. Build decks that hammer rush and do reasonably well against the rest of the field.

As to the rest of this thread players who build large, cumbersome decks that run lots of cards 'for variety' rather than consistency probably don't quite understand the minutiae of a competitive environment and should re-evaluate their arguments. I don't want sideboards, but I wouldn't attempt to defend my position by saying that you can just add more cards to your deck instead.

Overseer Lazarus said:

I stand corrected - I wouldn't want you to feel unwelcome here, by any means. I quite enjoy your sense of quirkiness and humor. I was just worried that you were zinging someone a bit unnecessarily. My apologies.

Cain_hu said:

This is an interesting point, though I suppose one could argue that you could just make the effort to use those kinds of narrower cards in your original deck. I'm finding myself a teensy bit swayed towards the Sideboarding side at the moment though I still think I'd prefer they not be used.

Can someone explain to me how Sideboarding is used in, say, Magic, so I can try it out in a mini-tourney with my friends, to see a bit more about how it works for Magic (we used them a long time ago for Spellfire but I don't remember much about their effect - wasn't really focused on their nuances at the time).

Basically lay out the rules for how they would be utilized in a tournament. Thanks.

By the day I was playing magic (more than 12 years ago ) :

You have your deck list wich is core deck list + sideboard.

best of 3 rounds

Round One you play your core deck

Round Two you play your core deck + Some cards from sideboard, total card = core deck total cards. You exchange cards you can't simply add.

Round Three you can adjust your deck again, always keeping the same size.

Next match you restart with your core deck (and so sideboard is the same that your starting one).

Overseer Lazarus said:

Overseer Lazarus said:

The dictionary and thesaurus I just checked disagree with you regarding anecdote and anecdotal. It does not mean derivided from reports or from personal observation as its main defintions, the first does not appear at all when the second does appear it is much later in the definition, but the first definitions are pertaining to or resembling an anecdote, which comes up as a short story often humerous, sometimes biographical. The words associated with it are fictional, hearsay, unreliable, unscientific.

Like I said I believed your accounts, I just haven't heard anything from you that addresses this game or discusses the competitive games that have no sideboard, such as the other two LCGs which are by far the most similar to this game than any other on the market. Which of course points to empirical being a better word of choice.

I rest my case your honor.

Shindulus said:

Thanks for including this, there may be people here who do not know what a sideboard is or how it traditionally works.

I'll try and come back to this with something more detailed but the basic probabilities of card draw I've been discussing work like this -

50 card deck 7 card starting hand opening draw of 1 card. Your chance of having any given card is 1/50 but should probably be referenced as 3/50 if we can assume you have all important cards x3, and even that could be expressed differently if we were to assume that you do not have the card you need in your opening hand as 3/42.

This is about as deep as most people who talk about min-maxing a deck go. The math is absolutely correct. However a poker player will recognize this as to be utterly meaningless since what matters is not a specific card but any card that increases your probability of winning. Here is where the math starts to get more interesting (and require more time to properly express so I'm going to gloss over this since I don't have the time to do it justice).

But lets keep this relatively simple. I believe we can agree a good deck is not utterly dependent on a single card or card combination, but on a layering of cards where you have multiple card effects that create a built in redundancy, or a over-lapping of cards to create multiple combinations, and ideally full of synergistic effects so that as the game progresses each draw sees you tightening a lock, accelerating your rush, or further disrupting your opponents strategy and tactics while increasing your board and/or card advantage. In a min-maxed deck you vastly limit your ability to include multiple combinations, the amount of effect redundancy, and deck accelerants, as well as including cards that do not further your own goals or protect your strategies from what you perceive to be the most likely played counters.

So ask yourself how many cards with similar effects do you include in your deck? How many combinations do you include in your deck? How central are they to your victory? Can the pieces of those combos be used outside of the combo to good effect? How many counter cards do you include in your deck? From what I've been seeing on the deck forum is about 6 cards of similar effect or stats, no more than two combos in a deck, with usually at least one of the cards having limited usefulness outside of the combination.

Every draw gets us closer to seeing one example of each card in our deck. If we draw a single card a turn we increase the probability of drawing a particular card by 1 each round. Because this game allows us to increase our draw beyond one we can determine an ideal number of cards to draw in a turn and figure out how quickly we are to hit that ideal number based on how many cards would allow for that to happen. Of course this game also has a decking rule, if you draw your last card you lose, which means that we need to be careful not to place the ideal number to high because we may give ourselves a loss even in the process of drawing the card we sought.

If we start the game effectively with a hand size of 8 and a deck of 42 we can safely draw up to three cards a turn with no risk of being decked (unless facing an aggressive siege deck) and possibly as high as five but running a very real risk of being decked even by decks that do not include that as central strategy. We are likely to achieve a draw of three by the third Quest phase in what looks like the average 50 card deck on here and Board Game Geek. That means we go from 3/42 to 3/40 to 3/37 by the third Quest phase and stay relatively consistent there after. So if what you need to draw is a way to remove a specific unit you have maybe as much as six cards that could make that happen though some may require the use of other skills and strategies to make the cards effective. Lets express this as four. So turn three we have a 4/37 probability of getting the card we need.

Now lets look at a larger deck.Say 60 cards. The decks I've been seeing that fall around this number have much higher numbers of redundant effects, multiple ways of accelerating the deck, numerous combinations of cards that can be used to greater effect in large or small combos. They also have a higher ideal number of cards that can be drawn in a turn safely going from 3 to 5 and unsafely from 5 to 8. It certainly takes longer to achieve those maximum numbers but so far it appears that the safe draw is hit no more than a turn later and the unsafe a turn after that (larger decks so far seem to universally use a lot of inexpensive supports and cheap units to allow a larger cycling through of cards from hand into play). If I am looking for a way to remove a specific unit I am likely to have as many as 8 ways with about two of those being dependent on a combination of cards or specific strategy. The probability of drawing what I need is going to be seen as 8/47.

Do you see? One out of every 9.25 cards on turn three in a Min-maxed deck is going to have the effect I need. One out of 5.875 cards is going to have the effect I need in a 60 card deck.

This still doesn't take into account that as the later rounds progress where I am drawing more cards safely than a min-max deck the probability of a card effect I need continues to climb higher and higher, nor does it take into account that by having more redundant effects each individual card is less likely to be deemed "irreplaceable" and so can be safely set down as a development without drastically harming the effectiveness of the deck as a whole.

And with that, it is time for me to drive to Austin.

Shindulus said:

Shindulus said:

Shindulus is right, I just complement his post :

- In MtG the deck size is a minimum 60 cards, there is no maximum (but almost everybody plays exactly 60 cards on tournaments)

- The sideboard is forced to be exactly 15 cards

- The maximum number of cards of a particular card is one playset (sum of main deck + sideboard)

Wytefang :

Several tournament reports in this forum mentioned 8 or 12 card sideboards. I would recommend to make a try with a SB size somewhere there. (more would be too much, less would be ineffective) BTW a sideboard often not only include new options, but more of the same one already included in the deck, but not a full playset of it. (mass removal is a typical candidate for this in MtG)

dormouse said:

You make many very valid points, but I think a more efficient answer might have been that; WH:I's ability to modify the cards you draw, and the validity of multiple combinations of cards leading to victory in a single deck, significantly changes the odds. Though admittedly I think such a small, efficient, sentence might not hammer home enough the point you're trying to make

I'd add to that, that some decks, though the nature of their simplicity, will want to run 50 cards (Blitz in particular), and other decks, because of the combinations of cards they wish to include and the draw engines they want to develop, can have more without significantly changing their ability to win.

As someone coming from an CCG environment where each deck has to be constructed around a specific or unique attribute, and thus all decks are different fundementally in their builds and playstyles I probably get the idea a little easier to digest than someone from a M:TG environment where some ratios are pretty much constant and barely change across decks (he says, not having played since 1996.... things haven't changes in 14 years much I'm sure.......... <cringes expecting assault from on high> )

I'm unconvinced by the insistance on the need for a sideboard, but I really don't mind if one is included in the game to be honest.

I just hope that a set of official floor rules comes out quickly from FFG to to clarify what the position is, and then we can go forward as a group of players with a consistancy in approach to the issue.

I <3 BountyHunter. So well said. I won't be insanely annoyed if we get stuck with side-boarding but I'd just as soon not have them, when all is said and done. I've read Dormouse's treatise (if you will) before on BGG (when him and Darkdeal went at it about this previously there) and it's some very interesting and convincing stuff.

There is no mention of sideboards in the rule book so why are you even talking about them........

Do i need my dictionary yet.......

Competitive destroys lets all have some fun

Wytefang said:

dormouse said:

dormouse said:

Main Entry: an•ec•dot•al
Function: adjective
Date: 1836
1 a : of, relating to, or consisting of anecdotes <an anecdotal biography> b : anecdotic 2 <my anecdotal uncle>
2 : based on or consisting of reports or observations of usually unscientific observers <anecdotal evidence>
3 : of, relating to, or being the depiction of a scene suggesting a story <anecdotal details>

I know me some English, homeboy.

I tried to avoid chopping up Dormouse’s post and answering piecemeal as it risks distorting their argument, but as the post is quite long I’ve had to so as to avoid confusion. The forum didn't like the quotes so I've italicised his post

I'll try and come back to this with something more detailed but the basic probabilities of card draw I've been discussing work like this -
50 card deck 7 card starting hand opening draw of 1 card. Your chance of having any given card is 1/50 but should probably be referenced as 3/50 if we can assume you have all important cards x3, and even that could be expressed differently if we were to assume that you do not have the card you need in your opening hand as 3/42.

This is incorrect. Probability is not calculated in the way that you describe. The easiest way to calculate this is to use the hypergeometric distribution function in Excel (unless you want to spend time calculating lots of factorials by hand). If you want to know the percentage chance of drawing at least one copy of a card use the following fuction:

=100%-HYPGEOMDIST(A,B,C,D)

where:
A is the exact number of cards you wish to draw. This will be zero as what you want to calculate is the chance of drawing anything other than zero copies.
B is your handsize at the time.
C is the number of copies of that card in your deck.
D is the size of your deck.

Using this the chance of drawing at least one copy of a card in your starting hand from a fifty-card deck is:

=100%-HYPGEOMDIST(0,7,3,50)

or a 37% chance. 3/42 is a 7% chance.

For a better explanation on this, here’s an article I found.

But lets keep this relatively simple. I believe we can agree a good deck is not utterly dependent on a single card or card combination, but on a layering of cards where you have multiple card effects that create a built in redundancy, or a over-lapping of cards to create multiple combinations, and ideally full of synergistic effects so that as the game progresses each draw sees you tightening a lock, accelerating your rush, or further disrupting your opponents strategy and tactics while increasing your board and/or card advantage. In a min-maxed deck you vastly limit your ability to include multiple combinations, the amount of effect redundancy, and deck accelerants, as well as including cards that do not further your own goals or protect your strategies from what you perceive to be the most likely played counters.

I agree that unless a card combination is incredibly powerful (probably to the point of broken) you shouldn’t rely on it alone, but I disagree with your idea of a smaller deck being limiting. Not every card is equal so you want to see the best cards as often as possible whereas every card after that dilutes your deck’s primary goal. If I could play a 50 card deck that was say, 36 Spider Riders and 14 Warpstone Excavation then I would (as a starting point) as my strategy of playing three Spider Riders each turn whilst drawing three cards. The problem with this deck is that it is massively susceptible to disruption.

So ask yourself how many cards with similar effects do you include in your deck? How many combinations do you include in your deck? How central are they to your victory? Can the pieces of those combos be used outside of the combo to good effect? How many counter cards do you include in your deck? From what I've been seeing on the deck forum is about 6 cards of similar effect or stats, no more than two combos in a deck, with usually at least one of the cards having limited usefulness outside of the combination.

Every draw gets us closer to seeing one example of each card in our deck. If we draw a single card a turn we increase the probability of drawing a particular card by 1 each round. Because this game allows us to increase our draw beyond one we can determine an ideal number of cards to draw in a turn and figure out how quickly we are to hit that ideal number based on how many cards would allow for that to happen. Of course this game also has a decking rule, if you draw your last card you lose, which means that we need to be careful not to place the ideal number to high because we may give ourselves a loss even in the process of drawing the card we sought.

Firstly a quick point on decking: if your deck is not efficient enough to win most games before you deck yourself when drawing 5 cards a turn then it’s highly likely that your deck is weak.

Every card you draw increases the chances of seeing the card you need by x% or x/y, 1 in isolation is meaningless.

If a card is good enough to act as a duplicate of one of the cards that fit your central build idea then it goes in and pushes out a weaker card. Every argument you can make for duplication/redundancy and card draw in a larger deck applies to a 50-card deck as well, plus the 50-card deck is smaller so you’re more likely to see the card in the first place.

If we start the game effectively with a hand size of 8 and a deck of 42 we can safely draw up to three cards a turn with no risk of being decked (unless facing an aggressive siege deck) and possibly as high as five but running a very real risk of being decked even by decks that do not include that as central strategy. We are likely to achieve a draw of three by the third Quest phase in what looks like the average 50 card deck on here and Board Game Geek. That means we go from 3/42 to 3/40 to 3/37 by the third Quest phase and stay relatively consistent there after. So if what you need to draw is a way to remove a specific unit you have maybe as much as six cards that could make that happen though some may require the use of other skills and strategies to make the cards effective. Lets express this as four. So turn three we have a 4/37 probability of getting the card we need.

Again, the maths is incorrect. What I would say here is that if you have enough resources (in the general sense) to win the game you want to draw as many cards as you can in one go (that won’t cause you to lose immediately). I would love to have the option with my Empire deck on about my 5th turn to draw the entire deck-1 cards. The only reason in any given turn not to draw deck-1 cards is that you cannot win that turn. If your deck is designed to win in a reasonable number of turns then you want to draw as many cards as possible during each of those turns.

Now lets look at a larger deck.Say 60 cards. The decks I've been seeing that fall around this number have much higher numbers of redundant effects, multiple ways of accelerating the deck, numerous combinations of cards that can be used to greater effect in large or small combos. They also have a higher ideal number of cards that can be drawn in a turn safely going from 3 to 5 and unsafely from 5 to 8. It certainly takes longer to achieve those maximum numbers but so far it appears that the safe draw is hit no more than a turn later and the unsafe a turn after that (larger decks so far seem to universally use a lot of inexpensive supports and cheap units to allow a larger cycling through of cards from hand into play). If I am looking for a way to remove a specific unit I am likely to have as many as 8 ways with about two of those being dependent on a combination of cards or specific strategy. The probability of drawing what I need is going to be seen as 8/47.

Do you see? One out of every 9.25 cards on turn three in a Min-maxed deck is going to have the effect I need. One out of 5.875 cards is going to have the effect I need in a 60 card deck.
This still doesn't take into account that as the later rounds progress where I am drawing more cards safely than a min-max deck the probability of a card effect I need continues to climb higher and higher, nor does it take into account that by having more redundant effects each individual card is less likely to be deemed "irreplaceable" and so can be safely set down as a development without drastically harming the effectiveness of the deck as a whole.

Obviously the maths is incorrect. Also bear in mind what I said about card draw. Saying that you can draw more cards each turn in a larger deck is disingenuous as you have created an artificial limit on how many cards a smaller deck can draw each turn. Ideally a deck would be able to increase or decrease its card draw each turn dependant upon circumstances (which is one of the reasons why Pistoliers are so good).

As my imaginary Spider Rider deck shows, if a card is good enough to be a duplicate of another powerful card then it goes in the deck. The difference is that I’m removing a weaker card rather than just adding a card which will reduce the chances of me seeing the cards I need.

I can understand the argument you’re making, but it doesn’t hold up without putting artificial limits on the 50-card deck. Also consider that if we have similar decks, mine being 25 of card A and 25 of card B, yours being a 30/30 split (A being a series of different but very similar cards and B being another set of different but very similar cards), you’re more likely to see all As or all Bs as a hand because you have a greater number of each, which could be terrible.

I think that your argument is really that you want to build a deck that has answers to (almost) everything and that a smaller deck can’t hold all those answers. I’d be inclined to agree if there weren’t cards in the pool that had powerful general effects. These let you cover a range of threats for fewer card spaces. The other problem your deck will have is that you have less chance of seeing a specific type of answer to a threat (bearing in mind that we’re both playing the good general cards so your extra choices are likely to be more narrow answers) and you’ve also reduced the chances of seeing your deck’s key cards that advance your own victory.

How does all this relate to sideboards?

You’re prepared to put extra cards in your deck so that you have more answers. Most players who understand the benefits of small decks do not. Of us, some want the chance to play those answers without having to make difficult decisions about which cards to play without seeing a specific deck (sideboarding in cards after game 1). Others prefer to emphasise the skill in deckbuilding which comes with making those difficult decisions, knowing that it could come back to bite us during an event if we made the wrong decision. I believe that the latter of those two options makes for a better environment.