Unlocking the Vault #21: Sideboarding in Classic

Posted on March 27, 2012 by enderfall

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  1. “Pulverize” now that we have it online might see more play? espec with affinity. gobbys>????
    Thanks for the comment on the LF open!!
    Love the article!

  2. Ah, Pulverize. Nice one. Limited to Goblins and RDW, it certainly is a way for those decks to deal with Workshop and Affinity. No other deck is going to want to play with 2 mountains, let alone sacrifice them to pay the alt cost, though.

  4. Hi enderfall,
    another article I really enjoyed. I agree that many players do not pay the attention to the sideboard when building a deck as it deserves to get. However, I have a few comments/ questions:

    “Throne of Geth — Here’s another card along the lines of Spawning Pit, but which can’t quite handle multiple Orchards. Its benefit is that it doesn’t require mana to draw the cards.”
    I don’t really get the message. Maybe you were thinking of a different card?

    I hope I don’t seem to be too pedantic but I just wanted to point out that Mindbreak Trap’s alternate cost is not a trigger. This is important to discriminate since the alternate cost is not counterable (say with Stifle).

    How does this whole redirecting/ targeting itself of spells work exactly? I thought the targets need to be chosen before the spell is actually on the stack.

    Is Extirpate played in Classic? Or is Surgical Extraction strictly better due to the manaless casting cost?

    Thanks again for a very detailed and informative article which I think doesn’t only help Classic players to improve.

    P.S.: There is a typo in the “TraSNformational Sideboards” header

  5. Shoot, I forgot to fill in my name xD
    In the process, I want to ask you where you live or what time zone you’re in?

  6. Thanks for the notes High_Gene!

    You are right, instead of Throne of Geth, the card should be Culling Dias (same set, wrong card!). I also incorrectly guessed that it didn’t require mana to activate it’s ability. I’ll have Planetwalls fix that.

    The Mindbreak trap alternate cost should not be labeled a trigger. it was simply a poor choice of word to describe it’s alt cost. I’ll have that revised as well.

    Surgical Extraction is light years better than Extirpate for a couple reasons; first, it can be cast when on the play. Second, it can be cast without mana in the event that your opponent goes off while you are tapped out with something like a Yawg Will or the like.

    Finally, Misdirection… When you cast misdirection, presumably there are spells already on the stack…let’s say my opponent casts pyroblast on my jace and we exchange counter spells (one from my opponent, one from me countering the opponents original pyroblast). So, with Misdirection, I have a couple choices for how I want to handle this. I can either misdirect the pyroblast (which can target anything but will do nothing unless the target is blue unlike red elemental blast which can only target another blue target) or misdirect my opponents counter spell to counter the misdirection. If I choose to misdirect the pyroblast, I would click on the pyroblast when i cast misdirection. misdirection will go on the stack and when it resolves I get to choose a new target for pyroblast, which can be any other permanent. If I choose to misdirect my opponents counterspell, the same thing goes, once misdirection resolves, I can choose the counter spell to target the misdirection and when the counter spell is next to resolve, it is effectively countered because it doesn’t have a target anymore (since the misdirection is already in the graveyard).

    I hope that clears things up…it is a little tricky when factoring in so many targets and how the stack works. Of course, if I am wrong, feel free to correct me since I am no judge :)

    By the way, I live in NJ.

  8. Yes, a fellow East-Coaster…to be fair though, when I started writing for MTGO Academy I was living in California. I moved back in September.