Hey guys! I went through my Deck lists in OCTGN lately and realized I have no Side Deck for up to 80% of my old decks. I started building Side Decks once Wave 3 and 4 were implemented into the client, especially after the game introduced Micromasters and Battlemasters, as well as Secret Actions. Still, I believe I don't really get the hang of it. How do you approach building your Side Deck? Do you just focus on your own strategy or do you have the meta in mind?
I build mine based on flaws in my deck when playing. I go in and see what I have no chance to counter against and put cards in it that will help. For instance I played my Springer deck against an Overwhelming Advantage Shockwave deck. I ended up adding System Reboot to my sideboard to make sure my opponent had to scrap his hand to not pull off the play
Agreed, there's 2 general strategies with a side deck, either shoring up your decklist against problematic matchups, or transforming your deck to perform differently. Both are valid. Right now most side decks I have include x2 Disarms and atleast x2 Hijacks to deal with Galaxy Commander Prime and the Daring Escape Deck. My character choice for the sideboard is generally transformative (going from a 4 wide to a 2 wide, or a 3 wide to a "1" wide) and then sideboard cards to either facilitate the transformation or answer other threats.
Ref the transformative part of sideboarding, when play testing you will want to practice playing the deck in its sideboarded version as well as main version. For example, when I played in that local SR tourney that I had plugged here, I went from playing General Optimus Prime, Barrage & Firedrive to playing the General & OPBL without understanding how the deck played differently and the difference in matchups with me going from 3 wide to 2 wide.
After going through some of my older Side Decks and comparing them to newer ones I start to see a trend on the way I personally approach these things. - In an Orange/Bolt aggressive deck I often put Bashing Shield and Enforcement Batons in - In a Blue (well most of them are Blue-Black) I put "The Bigger They Are" into the Main Deck, while "Heavy-Handed" chills in the Side Deck I also integrate more and more Secret Actions. I like to switch these around in between games just to toy around with my opponent.
