Let me tell you a funny story about sideboarding in modern.

One time, Toronto Tron legend and inventive sideboarder Andrew Gordon sat down for a friendly match of Magic. Andrew’s opponent was on Affinity, and after game one, both had some tough decisions to make as they reached for their sideboards.

After some consideration, Andrew’s opponent decided that [Card]Blood Moon[/Card] was a good choice for this one. He reasons that [Card]Blood Moon[/Card] would keep Andrew off Tron, and allow him to beat down with his army of unscrupulous robots against his helpless, Urza-land-loving enemy.

We go to game two. An exciting affair where, after some early back and forth, Andrew’s opponent stuck his Blood Moon and prepares for certain victory. With his robots in play, and Andrew having access to a mere four mana, Tron’s plan A has just evaporated into a puff of cosmic, ruby justice.

Yet the appearance of an [Card]Oblivion Stone[/Card] causes Andrew’s opponent some distress: once the Stone goes off, Andrew will once again be free to Tron, Tron, Tron.

But wait. Something’s not right.

The O-Stone places a fate counter in a most unexpected place…Andrew un-taps and clears the board…of everything but the [Card]Blood Moon[/Card]!

You see, little does Andrew’s opponent know that Andrew, for reasons that mystify me to this day, also has [Card]Blood Moon[/Card]s in his sideboard.

Not only that: he actually boarded them in against Affinity.

Without the [Card]Inkmoth Nexus[/Card] and [Card]Blinkmoth Nexus[/Card] to clean up after the Oblivion Stone, Andrew simply makes his land-drops, plays [Card]Wurmcoil Engine[/Card]s, and coasts to victory on the back of his opponent’s [Card]Blood Moon[/Card].

Moral of the story? Sideboarding in Modern is a bit weird.

In most formats, your sideboard consists of 15 cards. You pick some that seem good in your bad matchups, or counter what your opponent might be sideboarding against you. You shuffle up, and pit the best version of your deck against theirs.

In general, your sideboard is supposed to help you improve against an expected metagame: if you predict the field correctly, and you put effective cards in your sideboard to match that, you should have a pretty good day. You’ll draw your [Card]Stony Silence[/Card] against KCI, your [Card]Anger of the Gods[/Card] against Humans, and your [Card]Blood Moon[/Card]s against Affinity (?!?).

But in Modern, it’s pretty hard to predict metagames with any accuracy, since the field is so big. You can’t possibly prepare for everything, and you can’t see into the future.

Here’s some of the common reasons people put a card in their sideboard:

1) It’s narrow and/or powerful, and can singlehandedly take over a game ([Card]Blood Moon[/Card], [Card]Worship[/Card])

2) It’s versatile, and increases your win percentage against a decent portion of the field ([Card]Damnation[/Card], [Card]Abrupt Decay[/Card])

3) It offers strategic variety by giving you a different angle of attack from your maindeck ([Card]Jace, the Mind Sculptor[/Card], [Card]Geist of Saint Traft[/Card])

4) It offers an upgrade over a main deck card that has to come out in certain matchups ([Card]Master of Etherium[/Card] versus [Card]Etched Champion[/Card], [Card]Negate[/Card] versus [Card]Path to Exile[/Card])

5) It answers a card you expect to see from your opponent post-board ([Card]Lightning Bolt[/Card], [Card]Abrade[/Card])

Now all of these cards see play in Modern sideboards, but—here’s the kicker—they also see play in main decks, depending on the metagame.

While especially versatile cards will always be maindeck-able regardless of the format, Modern takes this to a whole new level: Thalia? [Card]Meddling Mage[/Card]? [Card]Blood Moon[/Card]?

People are playing these regularly in their 60, and I think I have an idea why that is.

I’m going to make the case that in Modern, you actually shouldn’t limit yourself to a 15 card sideboard: you should think about your whole 75—everything from the archetype you select to the individual cards in your maindeck and sideboard—as part of your sideboard.
Your whole deck, in other words, needs to have a strategy against the decks you expect to see in the field, because your sideboard is simply not capable of doing that on its own.

But before I get into that, it’s worth thinking about why this sideboarding thing is so weird in Modern right now, and why it doesn’t tend to happen in other formats as much.

Modern Rotation

As some people have noticed, modern hasn’t had a clear top deck in some time. Since the dominance of Grixis Shadow last year (and it’s eventual fall to Tier 2), decks have been cycling up and down through the Modern metagame, with no real deck holding the crown for more than a month or two.

Just as people were clamouring for a Grixis Shadow ban, the deck became unplayable overnight. Just terribly, horribly bad (I should know, I was playing it at the time). All of sudden there were control and Elves decks everywhere, and everyone had a great plan for beating Grixis.

Flash forward to earlier this year when Humans was running the show, or Jund after the much awaited return of [Card]Bloodbraid Elf[/Card]; even the recent control decks making use of [Card]Search for Azcanta[/Card] and Teferi seemed unbeatable for awhile.

But then something changed. The format adapted, and the good decks became sort of…meh.

Remember when Jeskai Nahiri was all the rage, knocking down tournaments? Didn’t last very long did it?

And the reason for that is that Modern—very sneakily—is actually a rotating format.

Not because the card pool changes, but because Modern is so diverse that there is always some powerful strategy capable of mixing things up.

Top decks are Humans, Jund and Control? Sweet, I’ll play Tron.

Field is all Valakut, Amulet, and Jeskai? Good thing there’s a deck that can main deck [Card]Blood Moon[/Card] and not be embarrassing.

This is the main reason that Modern is, in practice, a rotating format. There are tonnes of powerful strategies that have enough, inherent power to be playable in a relatively open field, while also being a hard counter against the best decks.

Until there comes a deck that’s powerful enough to beat 30 other decks that are actively trying to destroy it, I think we’re going to see this pattern continue. Since the banning of [Card]Splinter Twin[/Card] (and [Card]Eye of Ugin[/Card]shortly afterwards), the power level of decks in Modern have been surprisingly even, and constantly moving up and down in the field.

In Standard (and Legacy arguably) the card pool is shallow enough that dominant decks and/or strategies tend to cement themselves. In good Standard formats, you see decks outplaying one another while trying to stay competitive against the field. While this is fun while it lasts, it’s very rare to see a truly unsolved format for very long.

In Legacy there is more diversity, but you’re still looking at a format where [Card]Brainstorm[/Card] decks are 2/3s of the field. There is no realistic way to combat [Card]Brainstorm[/Card] decks without going to drastic measures (like the Chalice decks, or Lands decks), and very few (if any) of those are capable of taking on the format as whole.

When we recognize this quality in Modern, our strategy needs to change. Playing the same deck every week is madness because the format itself is quicksand: at one moment it’s as hard as a stone, and the next it is sucking you down, down, down….into the 0-3 bracket.

Why Your Main Deck is Actually Your Sideboard…And Why Your Sideboard is Also Still Your Sideboard

If you can’t always adjust your sideboard to take on a diverse field, you have to start using your maindeck like a sideboard to recoup the kinds of advantages you used to get from sideboarding proactively and intelligently.

In practice, that means taking a hard look at the meta, taking stock the general trends in the format, and making a bold metagame call. Not because you want to, but because you have to.

If you try to play against everything, you’re resigning yourself to mediocre finishes. You need to dodge a few bad matchups: there’s just no way around it. The best you can do is decide which matchups you’re going to lose, and which you’re going to crush.

And because the power level of cards is so high in Modern, you’re not constrained by narrow sideboard cards the way you are in standard.

[Card]Kitchen Finks[/Card] is insane against Burn, but it’s also just powerful enough to hang out in your main deck, if the format is right. It can be role player against Jund and Control, and it can also be a win-condition with infinite life.

When you find a metagame that is truly soft to [Card]Kitchen Finks[/Card], don’t put it in your sideboard: instead, play the best deck that is capable of putting it in the main. Rather than put stress on your sideboard to deal with the majority of the field, let your maindeck do that part. Then, use your sideboard to fine tune matchups that are winnable with a little help.

If Tron is popular, and you have a bad Tron matchup, just do not play your deck. Don’t do it.

You can add [Card]Fulminator Mage[/Card]s and Blood Moons all you want, but then you’ll be lost in a whole bunch of close matchups where those sideboard slots might actually do you some good.

By staying flexible in terms of both macro strategy (aggro/control/midrange) and composition (card choices), you’ll give yourself a better chance of good finishes.

What Does it all Mean?

Rotating format. Check.

Sideboard is just whole 75 for some reason. Check.

Well then. If you want to find some success in Modern, here’s what you can do:

1) If your deck isn’t good against the top decks, don’t play it. Play something else.

Don’t try to put weird cards in your main deck that don’t belong there. Don’t remake your sideboard to fix your KCI matchup. All you’ll do is dilute your deck against all the random stuff that you still have to beat. Let your deck be good in it’s natural format/environment, rather than force it to be good where it doesn’t belong.

2) Contrary to popular belief, don’t put yourself on a single deck and only play that deck.

You will learn your matchups, it’s true, and that will be super useful for the rest of your Modern career. But the format is going to swing from time to time, and sometimes you’ll get left behind.

3) Learn a handful of decks, and try to keep different macro strategies in your range (and collection).

If control is bad, it’s likely that the decks that struggle against control could be good again. That might be the time to play your Bant Midrange deck, or your Eldrazi deck that can’t beat a [Card]Wrath of God[/Card] to save its life.

4) Try to think about where the metagame is, where it’s going next, and stay just a half step ahead of the curve.

Modern is slow to adapt, especially at the local level. Even if control is terrible, it could be months before people really stop playing it. When you’re trying to beat the top decks in the format, keep an eye on what was popular in the last while: there will still be plenty of that stuff around.

This last point is probably why “emerging” top decks seem to be unbeatable, and great against the entire field: they were built to beat the dominant decks of last week, as well as the field in general. Until people stop playing the outdated best deck (let’s say Grixis Shadow as an example), the “dominant” deck will still have plenty of favourable matchups (as U/W control would as Grixis recedes in meta share).

In these situations, the “old” dominant gets pushed on both sides: it becomes the prey of some new deck(s) designed to crush it, while it also starts losing the good matchups that it used to prey on. It slowly disappears, reaching equilibrium on tier 2+, putting up a finish every now and then.

Modern is tough, and lately it hasn’t been staying in one spot for too long. If you’re trying to predict the modern meta and you get it wrong, you’re no worse off than you would be just playing a random deck.

But if you’re right, then you’re going to tear through the field like a hot white enchantment through robots.