What I've Learned: Side Decking

YCS Phily was sure one hell of a weekend, I'll tell you that. I learned so much about this game in just one weekend of playing it was pretty remarkable. I could talk about that experience all day. Although my biggest lesson I learned the entire time was in the Marriot Hotel's lobby from a guy you've probably all heard of, Billy Brake.

It was really late and everyone who hadn't gone to bed was hanging out and playing for cards. So Billy walked into the room and asked me if I wanted to trade seeing as we were the only ones not really doing anything (I was watching my friend play and backseat dueling like a mofo). We looked through both of our binders but were only seeing small stuff so we just decided to play for a Caius. I had played lots of good saber mirrors but never in my life have I played one as good as this with the exception of game 1. I went 2nd and my hand was:

So I set my Darksoul and got Fautroll when he attacked into it with his Emmersblade. I proceeded to absolutely destroy him because I sacked the shit out of him. YYYYYYYYYYUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
He was a good sport and it didn't really seem to bother him. The pesky Emmersblade was disposed of pretty easily and I'm pretty sure I killed him that turn. The real fun began in game 2. Brake just completely outplayed me. For those of you who don't remember, YCS Phily was VERY early in the format to the point where people weren't exactly sure what to side just yet. Both of us started decent hands, none of that Cold Wave crap. I sided a couple of basic cards in for the matchup that everyone at that point had found out to be at least somewhat useful (Nobleman, Effect Veiler, Thunder King etc) and sided out my shitty gimick cards I was playing (Come on, you know everyone was playing them in the begining of this format) . But Billy sided in much better than me. I remember feeling pretty annoyed attacking into his set snowman eater with my Fullhelmknight late game and the last thing I would expect at that point was having to take down a heavily protected Banisher of the Radiance (which killed more than its share of my Darksouls and Emmersblades). That game really showed me what side decking can do.

My opponent sided into a completely different deck and it caught me off guard. Brake heavily cut down on his Saber lineup and sided in a bunch of anti meta cards. Even though his side was heavily geared towards the mirror that game was really an eyeopener. It showed me what some of the best side deck cards in the format were and made me value side decking even more then I did before (and I've always thought it was very important). I knew Brake was and still is a lot better than me as a player even though I think I'm a lot better than I was back then, I didn't realize how outplayed I had gotten. Game 3 ended with me winning due to an awful hand on Brake's part, but the prize of victory from what I had learned from that match was worth much more than an ultra Caius.

The moral of the story is: side decking wins games. Think hard about what cards are in your side deck and if they deserve a slot. Don't randomly choose filler for your side deck. Every slot should be used to counter a good deck and help steer the way towards victory in your favor. That being said, here is a list of some great cards to side deck this format:

-Snowman Eater
-Thunder King Rai-Oh
-Doomcaliber Knight
-Banisher of the Radiance
-Effect Veiler
-Spirit Reaper
-Cyber Dragon
-Nobleman of Crossout
-MST (If not mained)
-Starlight Road
-Pulling the Rug
-Gottoms Emergency Call
-Mind Crush

Well I hope that article helped! Thanks for reading! Remember that if you ever want to write for this site just shoot me an email: worldbystorm55@aim.com

-Alex