Sideboard discussion for $T4KS

[ELD]

Today I played my first tourny with $T4KS and swept through the four rounds.  I'm playing the exact deck off the Starcitygames article $T4KS: "The Four Thousand Dollar Solution" To The Type One Metagame Round one was sui and the other 3 were keeper style decks.  The only interesting thing about it is I didn't sideboard at all.  It was a proxie tourny and I had bloodmoon and rebs staring at me but they never went in.  I felt better with the main deck and felt like I would have diluted the combo and struggle to get 3 or 4 non-workshop mana for bloodmoon.  

So to get to the point, what do you experianced $T4KS players board in and most importantly what do you take out.  I've always believed that the sideboard is where matches are won and lost.  I'm used to playing decks that sideboard amazingly well.   Out with the obviously suboptimal cards and in with some devestating game ending hate.  Hopefully this deck can do the same and I'm just not seeing it yet.  
Thanks for the feedback.  

Peace,
Eric
ELD

[Smmenen]

I'm glad you enjoyed the article enough to try the deck.

There was a bit of a debate over the course of revising and editing the article (a process of over a month) about how to deal with SB tables - with each of us (Matthieu and myself) passing the buck.  

We had drawn up some extended SB tables with great detail, but in the end the article was already long and detailed enough, and we felt that the upcoming changes in the metagame might not warrant us taking a permenant stance - that's why we just made some suggestions.

The starting point for most SBing is to figure out which cards are best in certain matchups.  

For example, against decks where you are likely to wreck the board, the the game isn't likely to be over quickly, Yawgmoth's Will is a bomb. Against Combo, it should generally be SBed out.  Triskelion only functions optimally in certain matchups as well, such as Sligh, TnT, and the mirror as well as random aggro and a few others.  Against Combo, I would SB him out.  

The first cards to get SBed out alot of the times are Windfall and other draw7s.  

One big learning experience for me is that you RARELY, if EVER SB out Meditates.  Time Walk can be SBed out at leisure if you feel there is a stronger card to put in.  It is also better in certain matchups - like Combo, where your acceleration is really, really important.  

In the current environment, I wouldn't advise alot of REBs, but I would advise Blood Moons, Fire/Ices, and other goodies .

Steve Menendian

[MoreFling]

Quote (Smmenen @ July 22 2003,12:12)In the current environment, I wouldn't advise alot of REBs, but I would advise Blood Moons, Fire/Ices, and other goodies .

Most notably Cap, which I could very well see deserving a maindeck slot as another broke one-of.

[Smmenen]

Not most notable, but worthy of inclusion is cap, yes.

Steve

[David Hernandez]

i've started running 2-3 Caps in my board.  i'm testing one in the main.

also, i'm now running 3 REB and 1 Pyroblast in the board to combat Cabal Therapy (don't want to lose all of them to one common card...)

here is how i boarded at National's: http://www.themanadrain.com/cgi-bin....ry99825

contrary to what smmenen suggests, i boarded out my Meditate's a lot.  i'm not disagreeing with him (in fact i am inclined to agree that the Meditate's should stay in no matter what), but at the time i felt that giving the opponent an extra turn would hurt me more than help.  I only lost to GAT in the finals using this strategy, and those games were over in about 3 turns each (i went 1-2).

i think boarding out the Meditates is something that should be looked at on a case-by-case basis.  Know your metagame and don't be afraid to board out some key cards if you can put something in that will win the match.

--dave.

[MoreFling]

Dave: how are you liking the 1cap maindeck? Here, in testing, roy played one in the main and found it to be a really good tinker target, and against the current meta, it's hardly a dead draw, since most decks only have a few win conditions. Also, the element of surprise is on your side, which is always fun

[David Hernandez]

MoreFling: I'm really liking the Cap in the main.  I'm testing it alternately in the Time Vault slot and the Windfall slot.  If i run it, i will probably remove the Windfall because the Time Vault still offers an alternate win condition.

Not only is the cap a great Tinker target (as you mentioned), but i'm never sorry to see it.  It wrecks certain combo decks, and with Welder's it becomes almost uncounterable (and is recurring).  I had looked at cards like Coffin Purge and Tormod's Crypt, but i finally decided that Cap's work really well in this deck.

in it's worst case, i can use it as an animated creature with Karn.

--dave.