Welcome back readers.
Today I am talking about Side Decks, and how important
they really are. Side decks have been covered by many
other Featured Writers here on Pojo.Com, and are widely
discussed on Pojo.Com , but today, I am hoping to bring
more insight in on the subject.
The basic rules of a side deck are fairly simple
1. The side deck may have only 15 cards, or no cards. If
you don't have the 15 cards, then you don't have the
side deck period =].
2. Your side deck cannot break any of the main deck
rules, if you have 2 Kinetic Soldiers in your main deck,
you can only have one in the side deck, to make a grand
total of three.
But the problem with most players today, is that they
don't believe the side deck matters at all. It usually
takes a while for the average duelist to get the grasp
of the Side deck and just how amazingly important it is.
In my case, I just started playing competitively in late
October of 2004, I qualified at my first regional, going
undefeated in Swiss rounds, my deck looked like this...
18 Monsters
D.D. Assailant
D.D. Assailant
D.D. Assailant
D.D. Warrior Lady
D.D. Warrior Lady
D.D. Warrior Lady
Blade Knight
Don Zaloog
Don Zaloog
Breaker The Magical Warrior
Tribe Infecting Virus
Sinister Serpent
Black Luster Soldier - Envoy Of The Beginning
Jinzo
Airknight
Magical Scientist
Fiber Jar
Exiled
17 Spells
Pot
Forceful
Confi
RoTA
RoTA
Heavy
MST
Nobleman
Smashing Ground
Smashing Ground
Snatch
Premature
Swords
Change
Painful
Scapegoat
Scapegoat
7 Traps
Call
Torrential
Ring
Bottomless
Bottomless
Sakuretsu
Sakuretsu
Side Deck
Kycoo
Kycoo
Nobleman
Dust Tornado
Dust Tornado
Other stuff ;p
That is off the top of my head. As you can see, a basic
side deck should help tear this deck apart! Some kinetic
soldiers should certainly help, I would surely attack
into your face down kinetic to take 2000+ right?
My side deck was an important part o my strategy, I
would almost always side out Dons for Kycoos, as well as
siding out Confiscation for Nobleman when going 2nd,
etc.
One of the main reason I went 8-0 that day, was because
the players I was playing against were just not ready
for this type of deck. In round 3 when I was playing
2-0's, I was still playing people with no Fusion/Side
deck, it was disappointing. Although later on in the
day, I did play some solid players from Team GroundZero,
a local team. I played Jimbo Robinson in the later
rounds, he ended up 2 nd place, while I had 3rd place,
losing to the guy who I beat in Swiss, he would always
flip fiber and rip Painful, BLS, Mataza, and Axe =/.
Lucksack.
To make your own side deck, you have to look at your
meta first. Netdecking a side deck isn't very wise at
all, that person may side for Zombies and Chaos, where
in your meta people play Water and Burn. Its just not
going to work. Some commons cards side decked are...
King Tiger Wanghu
Dust Tornado
Mobius
MsLv2
And a lot of other cards, you are going to want to side
for Burn most of the time, but sometimes I don't. If you
are really good, you can go to regional with a side deck
focused on Chaos, and other forms of chaos ;x. Then,
when you enter top 9 at 7-1, your only loss is to a OTK
Deckout deck ;\.
Over all, side decks are a very important concept to
grasp in the competitive environment. My next article
will have me breaking down and analyzing side decks that
are showing up in the top 8 of Nationals/Sjc's.
-Rj
