YuGiOh! Art of Siding #1 & #2

YuGiOh! Art of Siding #1(#2 is near the end)

     Hello again YuGiOh! community! After much request by some peers, I'm going to go into details on how to effectively side. As a competitive player, I can honestly say this is probably the most important step, next to correct deck building, that a player has to make before going into any major event; or simply playing against your local Meta. This is going to be a series of techniques that I use for building a side deck, siding in and out, and finally the do's and don'ts of siding. So whether you're 'Pro' or just getting into the game, learn and take some wisdom that I wish to share with each and every one of you.

     For starters, what really is a Side Deck? It's important to note that a Side Deck isn't just a bunch of random 15 cards that you think may make your deck better; also, it's equally important to note that the Side Deck is not a bunch of cool techs that you and some friends came up with. The Side Deck is a compilation of answers for certain match-ups that you may or may not be presented with in every duel, that you will use in games two and three to help overcome your opponent, and hopefully win the match!

     Before we dive into building a Side Deck, I want to go over some rules that need to be known when building your actual Main Deck, to build the effective side deck. First off, what will you be facing at an event? You want to build your Main Deck to be effective against a variety of match-ups, as well as, keep overall consistency for your strategy or plays that you will be doing in game one. So let's look at my Spellbook decklist for the January 2014 format:

Monsters: 10
2 World of Prophecy
1 High Priestess of Prophecy
3 Spellbook Magician of Prophecy
3 Temperance of Prophecy
1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

Spells: 18
3 Spellbook of Secrets
2 Spellbook of the Master
2 The Grand Spellbook Tower
1 Spellbook Library of the Crescent
1 Spellbook of Power
1 Spellbook of Wisdom
1 Spellbook of Life
1 Spellbook of Fate
1 Spellbook of Eternity
3 Pot of Duality
2 Mystical Space Typhoon

Traps: 12
3 Reckless Greed
2 Fiendish Chain
2 Divine Wrath
2 Raigeki Break
1 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Solemn Warning

 

A quick, really quick, rundown of how a Spellbook deck works is: the deck likes to maintain card advantage through The Grand Spellbook Tower, recycle Spellbook of Fate to abuse on every turn, force a big push from your opponent, then end all hopes with World of Prophecy. That is generally what the deck wants to do. So to accomplish this, we have a lot of draw to ensure we have Spellbooks in hand for World's effect, a lot of protection to prevent OTKs, and finally discard outlets for if we were to draw World of Prophecy. Once you have your Main Deck set, it's time to find out what we are going to be able to side out of our deck to keep that overall consistency.

First you have to analyze what is not needed for this strategy to go through. Obviously, we wouldn't side out Spellbook of Secrets or World of Prophecy correct? How about Bottomless Trap Hole? These are the thoughts you have to think about before we build our Side Deck. To make things easier, on this particular decklist I could side out: Solemn Warning, Torrential Tribute, Bottomless Trap Hole, 1-2 Fiendish Chain, Breaker the Magical Warrior, 1-2 Mystical Space Typhoon, and 1-3 Pot of Duality. That is a total of 11 cards that I could side out at the maximum for a match-up. Now, obviously I'm not going to side out all these cards because you would never want to over-side, but the key thing to note here is what can and cannot be sided out of your deck!

Personally, I like to build my decks for a 2-3 card auto-side. An auto-side is a term that you may or may not have heard before, but in this case, it's 2-3 cards that no matter what, I can comfortably side them out of my deck and simply not miss those cards. These are typically support cards that you feel cover any generally deck and aren't specific. My auto-side out in this particular decklist is, 1 Pot of Duality, 1 Torrential Tribute, and 1 Bottomless Trap Hole. Spellbooks are probably the most consistent deck to ever be put together, next to Dragon Rulers with the mini companions assembled with them, so missing 1 Pot of Duality isn't going to do that much damage. Bottomless Trap Hole and Torrential Tribute are cards that are excellent staples in deck building, but going into games two and three we have to make room for cards that are going to have similar outcomes, but better results!

Any experienced deck builder understands Card Interactions. It may sound simple, but understanding fully what you are trying to accomplish is going to give you an edge over your opponent and building the Side Deck easier on you. What does Bottomless Trap Hole and Torrential Tribute really do? Bottomless Trap Hole will banish any threat to where your opponent will lose access to it for later use; Torrential Tribute will punish your opponent when they over-extend without proper setup. Bottomless Trap Hole has less of a risk, but Torrential Tribute also makes you lose your monsters as well! So when we go into siding in for our match-up, we want to have similar outcomes, but better results!

The next step in Side Decking is to find out what your deck is weak against, that we think our opponent will use against us come games two and three. In this example, Spellbooks lose to cards like, Mistake, Naturia Beast, Light-Imprisoning Mirror(which stops High Priestess of Prophecy and World of Prophecy), and Thunder King Rai-Oh. So we have to keep this in mind when we are building our side decks that we try to not side similar cards in, and to maximize the effectiveness of our side, we want to get answers for their strategy, as well as prevent these cards from hurting us as best we can. Once you have a list of possible cards and understand how they will be used against you, we can move on to the next step and find answers for our opponents' decks!

Looking forward at my next regional, I have been 'scouting' possible match-ups that I should be seeing, and from recent reports and tops, I have concluded possibly seeing Fire Fists, Spellbooks, Geragia-Kuri, Karakuri, Inzektors, Fire Kings, Harpie, and Hieratics. Next to that, what was good last format and didn't get hit that much? Buijin and Noble Knights were on a rise towards the end of the September 2013 format, so I am keeping these decks in mind when preparing my Side Deck, as well as the presented Meta thus far. So now that we have our list of decks, what matchups are in our favor? Buijin and Noble Knights have trouble dealing with Spellbook of Fate, so I'm not too concerned with them. Karakuri and Geargia are reliant on effects going through and over-extending, so the 2 Fiendish Chain, 2 Divine Wrath, and Torrential Tribute help against these match-ups. Fate banishes Garunix, so Fire Kings shouldn't be too bad. Hieratics seem to be an issue solely because of Wingbeat of a Giant Dragon, but hopefully Raigeki Break can put a stop to those shenanigans. The Spellbook mirror match is going to be interesting, but I think if I can force Spellbook of Fate to activate, then banish it with mine or prevent a Spellcaster from staying on board, I should be fine game 1. Harpies and Fire Fists seem to be the tougher matchups because of the overall speed and the pluses off of Brotherhood of the Fire Fist - Bear and Harpies' Hunting Ground. So now we have the list of match-ups let's look into what we can side!

We want to be looking for cards that are have Chain-Ability or that prevent our opponent from advancing gamestate. Chain-Ability is a term that you may or may not have heard before, but it is simply a card that can be chained or activated at any point in gamestate. Looking into the last two formats, Vanities Emptiness seen a lot of play around the competetive scene. The idea was to prevent Dragon Rulers, or any deck that had mass summoning, from pulling off special summoning shenanigans. This would prevent our opponent from advancing in gamestate and give you enough time to gather resources and beat your opponent with established boards. Looking into this format, cards such as Overworked and Mind Crush are seeing a lot of play to combat serveral decks of the format. So when you are looking for effective cards in your side, you want to ensure you can be ready to use them at any time and not be restricted by any means. Next, you want to ensure the sided cards fit the mechanics of your deck. If you are building an OTK based deck, you may want to side in Trap Stun or Royal Decree to ensure your pushes go through, but be aware that should you use any of these cards, it probably wouldn't be wise to restrict your traps as well, unless you were for sure going for game.

A lot of the problems I see when watching matches is Over-Siding. It is never a good idea to side all the hate in the world for a specific deck, if it is going to interfere with your decks consistency. A lesson learned on my part was at the 2013 NA WCQ, when going into my Evilswarm matchup. I was playing Karakuri and won every Dragon Ruler and Spellbook match-up I had up until I had to play Evilswarms. I knew the bane of my deck was lurking around the tables as the budget players were trying to counter all hopes for Dragons to top. The deck literally shut down my entire strategy, preventing me from summoning my synchros, and after I won game one, I sided 8 cards! For those who play Karakuri, you understand the danger that I was putting myself into, but being nervous of losing this match-up, I wanted all the answers. Long story short, I prevented the Ophion from seeing board, but was beat down by two Evilswarm Mandragora, with the inability to summon a single Karakuri. I ended up losing to two Evilswarm players and crushing all hopes of toping my first WCQ. The lesson learned was to never over-side and trust that your Main Deck will see you through the game one, and that your Side Deck helps fill in the tiny gaps that your Main Deck has for a given match-up.

That's all that I have on the philosphy behind building your Side Deck and rules that I hope you follow. The first major step in building your side deck, is preparing the Main Deck for the overall Meta you will be playing and keeping overall consistency for your plays. Once you have the Main Deck figured out and ideas on how you will be playing games two and three for a given match-up join me on my next article on how you should be siding in and out. Thanks for reading and I hope I made a better competetor out you.

Mike Centers

The Art of Siding #2

Hello once again YuGiOh! community! It's taken a while to get to this point of the guide, but every step thus far has been important to understand how we must prepare for sideing. Keep in mind that I will still be using my Spellbook decklist throughout this guide. If you missed the decklist, stop here for a second and check it out on the first segment in siding titled “YuGiOh! The Art of Siding #1” where we went over the philosophy and mindset when looking at what will be in your Side Deck, as well as, the preperations of your Main Deck going into a major event.

Now looking at our possible match-ups, what will give us the most problems? As a Spellbook player, Karakuri can make Naturia Beast but with our trap lineup, we should be able to prevent him from seeing play. My bets are on Fire Fists and Harpies being the toughest and most prominent pairings. It's important to note that we want to prevent our opponent from playing YuGiOh! or doing much of anything in games two and three; the idea is that if we can prevent them from doing anything, we should sweep an easy victory. Also note, we want to side cards that could effect a range of decks when putting your side deck together! To start, how can we prevent Fire Fists from playing?

Fire Fist monsters need to have Fire Formation spell/trap cards to use their effects, also, it's important to note that each Fire Formation card increases the attack of all their monsters. Looking back at the Auto-Side cards that I mentioned in the first artcle; Pot of Duality, Torrential Tribute, and Bottomless Trap Hole, cards like Fairy Wind and Overworked seem to be effective cards here that have similar outcomes but better results! The idea is Chain-ability! A card has Chain-Ability when it can be activated at any point of Game State. The problem with Torrential Tribute and Bottomless Trap Hole is timing. You have to use them in response to a summon, so replacing them with cards such as Overworked and Fairy Wind help make dealing with their plays a lot easier. You could be saying why not side Effect Veiler instead? Wouldn't it cover a lot of our other match-ups, including all the Fire Fist monsters? You are correct that Effect Veiler is a great card at what it does, but the problem is the -1 it creates. Now that the format has slowed down to where a multitude of decks can grind once again, Veiler doesn't create enough advantage that we would want. Sure, there are decks that can side Effect Veiler effectively but it could be because they can't use other cards in that particular match-up. Overworked used against Fire Fist is, in a way, a lot like Effect Veiler, in how it would prevent the effect from ever happening by removing the monster from the field. Also, if multiple Fire Fist monsters are on board, we can remove all of them, at any point, when a Fire Formation card is faceup; similar to Torrential Tribute only we don't have to wait for a summon and our monsters won't be affected by it! Now we see how Overworked is good, what about Fairy Wind? As stated earlier, our opponent needs Fire Formation cards to do plays, so now we have an outlet of preventing them from gaining advantage. Seeing as to how we need The Grand Spellbook Tower to recycle our Spellbook of Fate, it is important to keep that in mind when we go to use Fairy Wind; we could lose our Tower. So why not just side 3 Overworked and not use Fairy Wind at all and rely on cards like Raigeki Break and Mystical Space Typhoon to deal with the Fire Formation cards, if I were to be playing Spellbooks? The answer lies in what they can side against Spellbooks. Mistake and DNA Surgery are major problems that prevent Spellbooks from making plays, and Fairy Wind helps get rid of those issues at the cost of our Field Spell, should it be face-up. So siding four cards, two Overworked and two Fairy Wind, in the Fire Fist pairing, is there anything else we could comfortably side? With the amount of removal our Main Deck has, possibly 1 Mystical Space Typhoon rallying our side to look like this:

-1 Pot of Duality

-1 Bottomless Trap Hole

-1 Torrential Tribute

-2 Fiendish Chain

+2 Overworked

+2 Fairy Wind

+1 Mystical Space Typhoon

This is what we are looking at siding for a Fire Fist match. But how do we go about doing this correctly? Do we want to side in all 5 for game 2? Fiendish Chain is a great card that also prevents the effects of their monsters, as well as prevents Bear from destroying a monster and searching for a Fire Formation Spell/Trap. The answer is preference and the outcome of game one. If I won game one with relative ease, chances are I would not side in the third Mystical Space Typhoon and keep one of my Fiendish Chains in for game 2. This would allow me, if need be, to side the Mystical Space Typhoon in for game 3. It's all on how comfortable you are with your side. Remember, your Main Deck has a generally coverage of the overall Meta, and with the assistance of 4 cards, it should be more than enough. Everything is deck dependable, in that you will have to test and come to you're own conclusion for the limitations of your deck. My goal is to find a comfortable 4-5 card side for any particular matchup to avoid over-siding.

Next up, we have Harpies! Like before, we start with what Harpies do to win, and that is prevent your backrow from affecting their pushes. Harpies do this through their Field Spell, Harpies' Hunting Ground! Now we have an issue seeing as to how I'm playing Spellbooks and have an inherent responsibility of keeping my field spell active for as long as I can. Next to that, Harpies have a spell card that can add three Harpie cards that would keep them pumping out their plays, and a trap card that can swarm the field for a mid to late game push! Overall, I feel this will be one of my tougher matchups because Spellbook of Fate doesn't do anything special that my traps can't do and now I will have to continually play field spell wars to stay in the game. But if I can prevent their field spell from seeing play and prevent the pushes from Hysteric Party, I think I will be fine staying ahead in the grind game. So going into games two and three, I can definitely see Mystical Space Typhoon being a must here! Also, what does their field spell do; increase their winged beasts attack. So Overworked can put in some work here if my opponent were to get ahead in the field spell wars and make pushes with Hysteric Party. So there would be three cards to side in for our Auto-Side, what else could we get in to help create advantage? Introducing my favorite Side Deck card of the format, Mind Crush! Think about why this card is good for a minute. In my case, I need to stay ahead in the field spell wars and a way that Harpies get their field spell, is through Harpie Queen! Since Harpies try everyway possible to get Hysteric Sign to go off, we can allow it to happen, then after they add Harpie Queen to hand, we can remove the threat entirely or remove any of the other monsters should we be prepared for Harpies' Hunting Ground. That rallies together 5 cards to meet our goal of siding 5 effective cards to make our side like this:

-1 Pot of Duality

-1 Bottomless Trap Hole

-1 Torrential Tribute

-2 Fiendish Chain

+2 Mind Crush

+2 Overworked

+1 Mystical Space Typhoon

Going into this match-up, I would probably side all 5 cards for both games, seeing as to how Fiendish Chain is probably going to get destroyed by Harpies' Hunting Ground before I could use it. This would maximize my Chain-Ability and provide a solid backrow to prevent the field spell from ever seeing play. That is my approach to beating Harpies and I would advise you to do the same. One benefit of this match-up is that Mistake puts my opponent at a disadvantage as well, but doesn't hurt them as much as it hurts me. DNA Surgery would probably come in as well, so I would have to watch for these sides as I use Mystical Space Typhoon on the activation of Harpies' Hunting Ground, saving my Spellbook Tower.

Next up, we have Hieratics. This deck has been on the rise, with the support of the Dragon Rulers, due to the OTKs the deck can produce. If that isn't enough to kill off your deck, this is where the Dragon Rulers come in to continually grind you out of resources. Now this deck is very interesting but lacks what a lot of other tiered decks have; which is stability. The deck does provide a solid and consistent OTK effort, but has nothing for your attacks on the deck. So if you can break key parts of the plays, you can effectively kill the deck with one or two cards. Probably the best support the deck has is a surprise attack from Wingbeat of a Giant Dragon. This card is effectively a Heavy Storm and enables the deck to OTK, but understanding Card Interaction will allow us to overcome this play. Wingbeat requires you to return a level 5 or higher Dragon type monster to hand; also, it is important to note that there is no cost in the activation of Wingbeat. Meaning that if we can get rid of the monster first, then our spells and traps would be safe! Now that we have a clue of what the deck can do, what are we going to side against them? Right off the bat, Maxx "C" comes to mind. The deck does so much Special Summoning, the deck could probably cause you to deck out before you start your turn, but chances are this will not happen. Also, when speaking of OTK decks, cards like Battle Fader and Swift Scarecrow come to mind in stopping attacks from going through. But I'm going to go for a slightly different approach. This is where correct deck building and understanding Card Interaction comes into play.

In my deck list I run a lot of draw and search power, whether it is through Tower, Reckless Greed, Pot of Duality, Spellbook of Secrets, or Spellbook Magician, I should never have a want for a card that I need. You may be running three Upstart Goblin or similar cards for getting draws. What does Maxx "C" really do? It puts your opponent in a position of either allowing you to continually draw cards or stop plays. When thinking about siding cards like Maxx "C", for instance, you open the list a little more of what can be sided out. As stated earlier, when you go to side out of your deck, you want cards that have similar effects, but better outcomes; Pot of Duality, what does it do? It grabs one of the top three cards of your deck at the cost of you Special Summoning. Assuming I have a World of Prophecy play following a massive push from my opponent, Pot of Duality becomes a "dead" card in my hand. The idea behind Pot of Duality is to maximize consistency; wouldn't Maxx "C" do the same, as well as prevent massive pushes, and if the opponent would take the Maxx "C" Challenge; also, it would increase our chances of drawing into a hand trap to prevent the attack!

So we know of one weakness Hieratics have, is there anything else that could put them at a complete stop? Most of the main plays consist of using Atum to Special Summon a monster from the deck and using the Hieratics themselves to Special Summon a vanilla dragon. The main thing to note is the vanillas. Hieratics require a vanilla dragon to be available in the hand, deck, or graveyard to make plays; also, the attack and defence of these monsters, once special summoned, are 0 atk and 0 def. My plan of attack on this deck is to completely remove the vanillas from play. This would hopefully prevent any of the shenanigans from ever happening and force them out of plays. This is why I feel the deck isn't going to be that stable; Maxx "C", D.D. Crow, Spellbook of Fate, and Chain Disappearance completely kill the deck. So moving on, how can we side against this?

-3 Pot of Duality

-2 Fiendish Chain

-1 Bottomless Trap Hole

-1 Breaker the Magical Warrior

+3 Maxx "C"

+2 Chain Disappearance/D.D. Crow

+1 Starlight Road

+1 Tragoedia

That's a massive seven card side! Is that much really necessary? In short it's not really siding seven cards. Referring back to Card Interactions, you are really siding 4 cards. Maxx "C" replaces Pot of Duality with more of a defensive approach that in this particular matchup, does a better job than Pot of Duality. The goal here is to prevent an OTK and if the opponent chooses to push through, hopefully draw into Tragoedia to stop the massive push and prevent further damage. Tragoedia lost a lot of play due to players fearing a Main Phase 2, Number 11: Big Eye, turning Tragoedia into a Dracossack summon. This format I feel that play is going to rarely happen and no one is going to be able to steal Tragoedia from you, giving you a massive monster that is going to be terrible to deal with. I'm currently in debate for Chain Disappearance and D.D. Crow in my side deck. Inzektors seem to be gaining a rise in popularity and in this particular matchup, when Atum or any of the Hieratics summon a dragon, following the tribute, it's attack is 0 and I can then look through and banish all copies of the monster with Chain Disappearance. Seeing as to how I'm playing Maxx "C" and hand traps seem to be safer in the Hieratic match-up, I feel D.D. Crow is going to win out, due to Chain-Ability. Also, it has an effective answer for an array of decks. Starlight Road is to answer Wingbeat of a Giant Dragon. I feel that Hieratics are going to need to successfully get that card off to get through my massive backrow. The overall goal is to prevent Wingbeat of a Giant Dragon from blowing up my backrow, as well as give me a Stardust to prevent further use!

That concludes this article in side decking! I hope you take notice of what cards are being sided in and out going into games two and three. Just remember the rules of building your Side Deck! Try building your Main Deck to accommodate a 4-5 card side out. Once you have the main deck prepared and understand the card interactions, you can now move towards the steps of finding answers for your prepared Meta. Thanks for reading and I hope I helped a lot of players understand, The Art of Siding.

Mike Centers