What is a sideboard?
Sideboard (Alt: side-board & side board. No matter how you spell it, you need it.)
[It's not a noun, it's an imperative.]
Definition: The last 15 cards in your 75 card deck, required to have fun and win game two.
Casual or Competitive, for money or for fun, you should make a sideboard and I'll tell you why. I'll first start with the Casual reasons to sideboard, because the Competitive reasons are a bit more obvious.
Casual: If you only play for fun, you might think you don't need to sideboard for your Squirrel deck, but here's why you should. Chances are you'll eventually play someone who's getting way too much satisfaction from stomping your Squirrels into the ground and they're not being at all polite about it, that's when you bring in your sideboard and teach them to treat Squirrels with more respect or pay the consequences. ;) A more important reason: sideboards break the monotony, they turn one deck into many decks, you can practically go from mono-blue to mono-red inbetween games, from Mill to Burn in 15 cards or less, so you can tailor your favorite deck to your mood and play whatever you feel like playing without having to make multiple decks. Sideboarding is an economical way to help prevent burnout, it keeps the game interesting.
Casual Sideboarding Idea:
UnSideboard - Just about everybody likes UnSets, but since they aren't tournament legal alot of semi-casual or pro players only buy a couple boosters instead of a whole deck's worth and they never get to see how fun it is to actually PLAY an UnSet; to take avantage of this trend in spending, make a hilarious UnSideboard for your favorite deck. Take your semi-Casual play to the next UnLevel. The Divine vs Demonic duel pack is begging for an
Infernal Spawn of Evil. ;) ["
It's coming!"]
Competitive: Alot of amatuer players don't make sideboards, that's one reason they're amatuers. If you want to play competitively, the reason to sideboard is simple: No sideboard = No trophy. How many people win Pro Tours without sideboards? Not many. I Googled "won without a sideboard" and got ONE hit, ONE, and it was about playtesting, not the Pro Tour. If you compete you will be surrounded by people who all think they have the best deck and they typically think that for good reasons, so you need cards which efficiently disrupt their decks while helping yours, but there are so many decks out there that the cards you have in your main deck will probably not work well against ALL of them, thus you will have weaknesses against specific decks and weakness does not win trophies. Also, if your deck is any good, serious players will have their friends play decks specifically designed to beat yours in the early rounds and chances are pretty good they will beat you since they are specifially dedicated to exploiting the weaknesses of your deck: your color, your tribe, your mana curve, there are plenty of things to exploit and they WILL be exploited.
Labels: casual, competitive, metagame, side board, side-board, sideboard, sideboarding, squirrel power, unset, unsideboard
Tom wanted Mono-Red Elves, so I did my best. :)
You could use all Mountains, but at first glace the closest you could get to Mono-Red Elves is Red Green Elves, or Red Green White:
Radha, Heir to Keld rg
Yavimaya Barbarian rg
Knotvine Mystic rgw
Mayael the Anima rgw
Marhault Elsdragon 3rrg
Radha, Heir to Keld rg Legendary Creature - Elf Warrior Whenever Radha, Heir to Keld attacks, you may add rr to your mana pool. Tap: Add g to your mana pool. (planar chaos)
Yavimaya Barbarian rg Creature - Elf Barbarian Protection from blue 2 2 (invasion)
Knotvine Mystic rgw Creature - Elf Druid , tap: Add rgw to your mana pool. 2 2 (conflux)
Mayael the Anima rgw Legendary Creature - Elf Shaman , 3rgw: Look at the top five cards of your library. You may put a creature card with power 5 or greater from among them into play. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order. 2 3 (alara)
Marhault Elsdragon 3rrg Legendary Creature - Elf Warrior Rampage 1 (Whenever this creature becomes blocked, it gets +1/+1 until end of turn for each creature blocking it beyond the first.) 4 6
You could paint them red after they're in play with spells like Crimson Wisps.
You could paint them Red before they're in play with Painter's Servant, but that would make them Multicolored-Red.
Other than that, you'll have to go to
the only Mono-Red Elves there are:
Fire-belly Changeling 1r
Blades of Velis Vel 1r
Taurean Mauler 2r
Changeling Berserker 3r
Warspike Changeling 3r You can use Mono-Red "Elves" with spells like Shared Animosity (2r) and Door of Destinies (4), naming Elves, but you could just as easily name it Mono-Red Zombie Squirrels.
Door of Destinies 4 Artifact As Door of Destinies comes into play, choose a creature type. Whenever you play a Zombie Squirrel spell, put a charge counter on Door of Destinies. Zombie Squirrels you control get +1/+1 for each charge counter on Door of Destinies.
Note you only have to "play" the spell, not have have it resolve, so this would be nice against control decks and you may also consider bouncing and recursion, like Fossil Find r/g.
Viola! Mono-Red Elves. :)
Elves, Squirrels, what's the diference? ^_^
But if you stray from your colors just a tad, look what you can get!
Lord of the Undead Squirrels 1bb Creature - Zombie Other Zombie Squirrel creatures get +1/+1. 1b,Tap: Return target Zombie Squrriel card from your graveyard to your hand. 2/2
...endless recursion of Nameless Inversion?
SQUIRREL POWER! ^_^
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Blades of Velis Vel 1r Tribal Instant - Shapeshifter Changeling (This card is every creature type at all times.) Up to two target creatures each get +2/+0 and gain all creature types until end of turn.
Fire-Belly Changeling 1r Creature - Shapeshifter Changeling (This card is every creature type at all times.) r: Fire-Belly Changeling gets +1/+0 until end of turn. Play this ability no more than twice each turn. 1 1
Mutavault Land tap: Add 1 to your mana pool. 1: Mutavault becomes a 2/2 creature with all creature types until end of turn. It's still a land.
Taurean Mauler 2r Creature - Shapeshifter Changeling (This card is every creature type at all times.) Whenever an opponent plays a spell, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Taurean Mauler.
Changeling Berserker 3r Creature - Shapeshifter Changeling (This card is every creature type at all times.) Haste Champion a creature (When this comes into play, sacrifice it unless you remove another creature you control from the game. When this leaves play, that card returns to play.) 5 3
War-Spike Changeling 3r Creature - Shapeshifter Changeling (This card is every creature type at all times.) r: War-Spike Changeling gains first strike until end of turn.
Door of Destinies 4 Artifact As Door of Destinies comes into play, choose a creature type. Whenever you play a spell of the chosen type [Elf], put a charge counter on Door of Destinies. Creatures you control of the chosen type get +1/+1 for each charge counter on Door of Destinies.
Shared Animosity 2r Enchantment Whenever a creature you control attacks, it gets +1/+0 until end of turn for each other attacking creature that shares a creature type with it.
Labels: elves, mono red, mono-red, Mono-Red Elves, monored, squirrel power
