I've been mulling over how to properly sideboard my Modern deck. Right now, I can't help but to put at least two copies of a card in the sideboard if it's not already present in the mainboard. More copies means more likely to draw it when you need it right? That was until I was watching Pro Tour Born of the Gods and seeing Shaun McLaren's sideboard for his UWR Control deck. His sideboard contained several "one of" copies of cards that were not present in his mainboard, yet he still used them to great effect; most notably Threads of Disloyalty. I'm confused on the compensation between singular sideboard cards that offer a large array of answers at the cost of less likely drawing them. Simply put, is it better to have more "one of" cards in the sideboard rather than 2+ copies of one card that is more likely to show up? Or does it depend on the deck being played?
I think it depends on the type of deck that you are playing.
The idea is that since you are playing control the games will go longer naturally and you therefore have more time to draw those cards and all these one offs will then give you more options in the late game. At least that is what I read somewhere. I know that Adrian Sullivan also builds the maindeck of his Standard UW Control deck with a lot of one offs for example.
Like many things, it's dependent on the deck. And a bit on the player, I'd say.
Some cards are just so powerful yet so useless in multiples that drawing the one effectively wins the game while drawing extra copies just wastes slots. Some decks can just dig hard enough even with the neutered manipulation options so as to negate the statistical details of singletons. Hell, some can just randomly tutor those singletons out!
So it's an issue over what you're trying to stop, how powerful your sideboard tech is, the benefits of playing it in multiples, your deck's own quirks, and probably a few other things.
Oh, and perhaps a small bit of having a certain critical mass of redundancy. Like, in typical 4-card search uses of Gifts Ungiven, you could dig out 4 singletons that effectively do the same thing, and that sort of redundancy gives you 4x the effect under 4x the name diversity, somewhat obfuscating just how little the singleton distribution really matters.
It's usually a matter of flexibility. You just don't have enough room to run such narrow focused cards in your sideboard. By running more one ofs that have slight overlap in functionality I can be better suited to deal with a wide array of threats. Take a look at Celestial Purge and Wear//Tear. I run a 1/1 split with this card as well and always bring both in to deal with Blood Moon and Pyromancer's Ascension. Now technically wear//tear does this job a bit better since it costs me one less mana, but I run one of each instead for flexibility. I can also bring my wear//tear in against affinity, pod, hatebears, and bogle to deal with cards in those match ups but my purge is a little useless. However my purge is useful against Jund, RDW, Kiki-Jikki and certain infect variants where my wear//tear is useless. Having the 1/1 split instead of a 2/0 split gives me more sideboard options against multiple decks.
Unfortunately every try hard from Sacramento to Shanghai preaches from the top of their 27 lands + Mana Reflection that Tooth and Nail and Time Stretch are fine to play in the same turn but Armageddon is unfair.
One of's are good for things that are upgrades to your G1 plan, but not really useful in multiples. Threads of Disloyalty is a good example of a card that can be very good removal, but is not something you want 2 of in your opener. Having it along side path/bolt is very good though and since sideboard slots are at a premium there is no reason to have more.
Most of the time the only 4 of's in a sideboard are cards like Rest in Peace or Leyline of Sanctity. Ones where having it in a matchup means the game is massively in your favor.
I'm confused on the compensation between singular sideboard cards that offer a large array of answers at the cost of less likely drawing them.
When you play a sideboard full of 1s, you are NOT less likely to draw into an answer if you board in the same number of cards as you would otherwise.
For example: let's say I have two partial sideboards that look like this:
Sideboard A is no less equipped to deal with 3 toughness creatures than Sideboard B or vice versa. The cards in sideboard B all do the same thing as sideboard A, so they can all be brought in in the same matchups. Regardless of which sideboard you play, you always have 4 cards to bring in against decks with a weakness to 3-damage mass removal.
Something similar is going on here with McLaren's sideboard - despite it being comprised of a bunch of 1-ofs, he can always side in 5+ cards per matchup because of their versatility. Against Storm for example he might side 1 Purge, 1 Counterflux, 1 Logic Knot, 2 RIP, and 1 Wear/Tear (6 cards total, 4 of which are 1-ofs).
I'm confused on the compensation between singular sideboard cards that offer a large array of answers at the cost of less likely drawing them.
When you play a sideboard full of 1s, you are NOT less likely to draw into an answer if you board in the same number of cards as you would otherwise.
For example: let's say I have two partial sideboards that look like this:
Sideboard A is no less equipped to deal with 3 toughness creatures than Sideboard B or vice versa. The cards in sideboard B all do the same thing as sideboard A, so they can all be brought in in the same matchups. Regardless of which sideboard you play, you always have 4 cards to bring in against decks with a weakness to 3-damage mass removal.
Something similar is going on here with McLaren's sideboard - despite it being comprised of a bunch of 1-ofs, he can always side in 5+ cards per matchup because of their versatility. Against Storm for example he might side 1 Purge, 1 Counterflux, 1 Logic Knot, 2 RIP, and 1 Wear/Tear (6 cards total, 4 of which are 1-ofs).
Thanks your post really cleared this issue up for me. I really appreciate the responses thus far and I think I understand the premise now.
https://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/ptbng14/top_8_decks
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My 540 Card Cube (WIP)
The idea is that since you are playing control the games will go longer naturally and you therefore have more time to draw those cards and all these one offs will then give you more options in the late game. At least that is what I read somewhere. I know that Adrian Sullivan also builds the maindeck of his Standard UW Control deck with a lot of one offs for example.
Some cards are just so powerful yet so useless in multiples that drawing the one effectively wins the game while drawing extra copies just wastes slots. Some decks can just dig hard enough even with the neutered manipulation options so as to negate the statistical details of singletons. Hell, some can just randomly tutor those singletons out!
So it's an issue over what you're trying to stop, how powerful your sideboard tech is, the benefits of playing it in multiples, your deck's own quirks, and probably a few other things.
Oh, and perhaps a small bit of having a certain critical mass of redundancy. Like, in typical 4-card search uses of Gifts Ungiven, you could dig out 4 singletons that effectively do the same thing, and that sort of redundancy gives you 4x the effect under 4x the name diversity, somewhat obfuscating just how little the singleton distribution really matters.
Most of the time the only 4 of's in a sideboard are cards like Rest in Peace or Leyline of Sanctity. Ones where having it in a matchup means the game is massively in your favor.
When you play a sideboard full of 1s, you are NOT less likely to draw into an answer if you board in the same number of cards as you would otherwise.
For example: let's say I have two partial sideboards that look like this:
1 Firespout
1 Slagstorm
1 Flamebreak
Sideboard A is no less equipped to deal with 3 toughness creatures than Sideboard B or vice versa. The cards in sideboard B all do the same thing as sideboard A, so they can all be brought in in the same matchups. Regardless of which sideboard you play, you always have 4 cards to bring in against decks with a weakness to 3-damage mass removal.
Something similar is going on here with McLaren's sideboard - despite it being comprised of a bunch of 1-ofs, he can always side in 5+ cards per matchup because of their versatility. Against Storm for example he might side 1 Purge, 1 Counterflux, 1 Logic Knot, 2 RIP, and 1 Wear/Tear (6 cards total, 4 of which are 1-ofs).
| Ad Nauseam
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Big Johnny.
Thanks your post really cleared this issue up for me. I really appreciate the responses thus far and I think I understand the premise now.
Credit to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the Avatar & Miraculous Recovery for the Banner.
My 540 Card Cube (WIP)