Arcane Teachings: Sideboard Planning on Starcitygames.com
Seasoned players tend to talk about “sideboarding plans,” which is not a surprise since sideboarding well is really all about planning. Tom looks at some decks and asks you to think about how their sideboards do or do not fit with the decks’ game plans. He wants to convince you that you need to be aware of and take into account your deck’s plans to build the most effective sideboard you can.
Enjoy!
November 27th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
How elegantly designed, do you think, is Arcane Teachings? I’m looking at it more and more. It’s obviously a limited card, but I’m wondering how bomby it was to open. It certainly forces a player into making some neat decisions.
November 27th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
It was a big mistake as a common because it is too good, but a fine card otherwise. I distinctly remember splashing it into any deck in Odyssey block regardless of color, which isn’t something you want people doing with a common.
November 28th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
Interesting, so the way you’d control it would be changing its rarity. How about keeping it common but making it cost 1RR?
November 28th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Part of the issue was the format. OTJ was SLOOOOOW to the point that a 7 mana 3 damage cantrip was more than just playable - it was good. Other things like the Phantom mechanic and an overall lack of ‘destory target creature’ and bounce meant that the inherant risk of a 2 for 1 was minor at best. The other problem was that splashing was absurdly easy in that format (due to the common sac for any color lands, among other cards), so ‘fitting it into your mana base’ was something you didn’t have to work too hard on. Basically, this was one of those perfect storm cards that would have been good, but reasonable (even as a common) in other formats, but was totally overpowered in OTJ. Sort of like Nameless Inversion in the current set, or Spikeshot Goblin in Mirrodin.
For limited, the power of cards is directly proprtional to the nature format. Springleaf Drum would have been unreal good in RRG or especally RGD due to the nature of the format. ‘add any color’ was really REALLY good there. Shock was very good in Tempest block and OLS because it killed a majority of the creatures under 4 mana in tempest, and morphs in OLS. Put it in another set like Masques or Ravnica, and the value goes down due to creatures being slightly larger on the back end.
Throw it in Xth as a common instead of an uncommon, and it is still good, but it lacks the OMBGWTFBBQness of it orignally. There are just more answers for it in the format. A first pick? Yeah, but not a slam pick every time.