IS SIDE DECKING UNFAIR? Side deck guide, tips & arguments! | Heart of the Cast #17 

This was the best discussion so far, man I really enjoyed this one. Side decking is not talked about enough and this information is massive for newer players. An episode about the strongest archetypes of all time, tier zero formats, and how certain decks from different formats would scale against modern s tier decks now would be really dope. Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone 😊🎉

21:11 This chat is just awesome: "Big nationals = no mat with big naturals" LOL.

I don't think BO3 without side deck is a bad idea, I like the type of deck building it encourages. It could be tried as a side event in a YCS or something like that.

After playing master duel alot recently, i really appreciate BO3 with a side deck. Yes having the complete blowout side cards is not ideal, but the alternative is so much worse

Hear me out, a show where you get someone like Theonejame or someone similar who has a pretty indepth experience with other card games and ask about what other card games do really well, and how those things could be ported over into yugioh to make it better.

Phenomenal episode. First one I came across and had to sub, learned a lot, keep up the good work guys.

They should bring Dylan from Yugioh Everything to talk about how a lack of an anime affects new player introductions and card design.

Every continuous floodgate needs to just be banned or limited to one depending on its severity (skill drain for example can unironically go to one). Every blowout one turn floodgate like d-barrier needs to be banned without prejudice. Once you do that the side decking becomes much more fun and what is intended. My hot take is also that evenly matched should also probably be a limited card. Thrust exists to search it for ppl going 2nd, and it bypasses a lot of protection effects basically making it so it’s the modern raigeki in a way in how it clears your board. I think with those changes the most problematic parts of side decking are gone.

Smokescreen side decks come in and out of vogue a lot in Goats. The theory is generally that your opponent sees your main, sides in cards to address that, and then you smokescreen into a strategy that doesn’t care about your opponent’s side deck cards. Wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happens in other retro formats sometimes, but idk. It’s probably a much less fragile strategy when going first is less busted.

You guys should bring Paul from Team APS on here! With all his discussion videos, I think it’d make for a great episode Edit: spelling

Thanks for these, just a amazing channel here from josh and have quickly also became a fan a farfa from this series as well.

Regarding the RC discussion, why not ditch the silly tins and replace them with an end of year collection containing all the chase cards and bangers in all the rarities? That sounds like a good idea to me, since the set structure is amazing and this way they coudl also guarantee good reprints.

I got a box of RC2. 5 QCRs, including Dragoon, Punisher, Underworld Goddess, Crossout, and Cosmic Cyclone, among other things. I got everything else I wanted, but based on what I have seen, I think I just got extremely lucky. I've seen a lot of dogwater pulls, and I dont blame anyone for buying singles instead. I only did it out of curiosity.

Siding in floodgates is the only issue. Countering a whole deck with one card is stupid af and makes me frustrated that my opponent got a free win for basically doing nothing

One guest I would love to see in the podcast is Hardleg Joe, I know you guys focus on the competitive aspect of the game but not everyone enjoy the game the same way, so it would be great to hear a conversation with him.

In other tcgs there is a special format called 2 deck format. I wish it became more of an official format since it will really make yugioh players must decide hard on what to play and is more impactful on deck building and preparing for any meta. Rules: Best 2/3 wins in the match. Each player must play with 2 different decks (usually with a rule of must be different themes, colors, clans/nations, etc). Maybe for yugioh make it either one cardlist or make them have to play different decks with different types/attributes or archetypes. If you win with a deck you can't use it for any of the remaining games. But the loser has an option to keep their first deck or switch it to another deck. Then if it makes it to game 3 both players have to use the deck they haven't gotten a win with and finish the match then and there. Lets take example: Player 1 has two decks. A: Dark Magician B: Blue Eyes Player 2 has the following: A: Galaxy B: Fur Hire Game 1 both players can decide to use any deck to open with (for simplicity lets say both players use deck A) -Player 1 loses. Player 2 is now forced to only use deck B for the remaining 2 games -Player 1 decides to keep using deck A but decides to go first. Player 1 wins and player 2 loses. -Game 3 of the match both players are using both deck B for the final. By also having a two deck format it will save a lot of time and potential cheating/disqualified players since they can't swap out cards between decks. Plus it could help out showcase deck diversity.

So from how you described it: a best of 2 is like a game of Payload in Team Fortress 2. Each player gets an opportunity to play attack and defense. Honestly, with how much modern Yugioh resembles a game of king of the hill: that might be worth experimenting with. It encourages the use of turn-agnostic cards in the main deck (since your main deck needs to be able to win going first and second during swiss if you want to get a W and not a draw), less games would go to time before top cut, and it'd force Konami into a position where they have to be more liberal about hitting degenerate going first decks like Floow or stun, as well as banning cards/combos like Sanctifire lock, Calamity lock or what have you. Basically under this system: swiss would be 2 games of master duel and then top cut could still be best of 3. And hey, with this sort of ruleset: all of a sudden the skills you learn from Master Duel are more easily transferable to the paper game (at least up until top cut). The only downside is that it could completely kill going second decks like HERO or what have you. They just aren't likely to win going first. HERO in particular is built with best of 3 in mind and wants to go second, and it only sometimes survives going first because of floodgates. Do we just let HERO keep their angel lock or whatever since its a rogue deck, even though its as degenerate as any other lock and wouldn't be consistent with the treatment of decks like Centur-Ion or Branded? I mean, we don't expect everyone to run Anima in their main deck for the off chance that they run into that stupid card. Like, this best of 2 question requires us to completely re-evaluate the game as a whole.

Would love to hear y’all’s thoughts on chess time rules, basically how master duel works. One of the most frustrating parts of yugioh is getting slow played into time only to lose to burn / life gain. Chess time makes slow playing completely fake since you’re only running your own clock

feet ash mats will explode in price

great podcast as always

Regarding siding engine cards in for matchups in unchained format: I liked siding in extra copies of abominable unchained soul for going second. A card you never wanted to draw going first but going second offered a lot of utility for playing through boards. In toss I played Endymion, and mythical beast Garuda was a nice searchable card off Cerberus that made playing through floodgates easier. I like when you can play archetypal cards that offer utility over cards I have to draw to use

37:51 My focus was divided and I didn't hear "Purrely" and I though Farfa said Stri... I was like "floowandereeze?"

Honestly side decking is interesting, but it creates a lot of toxic things. EER, D. Barrier, Anti-Spell, and even on the other side the boardbreakers make it so that engine barely even matters anymore. In fact, the less you have the better it is.

I've been a fan of adding the duel links ban system to the tcg/ocg system and having both exist at the same time.

Hey guys, i dmed Josh on discord about a topic idea i had with some notes on discussion points for an episode. And a friend of mine also asked Nahdir about the idea as well. Im not a super well known name im just another person at the end of the day but id love to guest on it and run it with you guys cuz i think my knowledge on the topic is very informative.

Konami did something really good with Rarity Collection 1, the sealed box was worth opening for the end consumer. For the second one, since is almost double the price, is better just to buy the singles, just like every other Yu-Gi-Oh product besides the first rarity collection.

It'd be fun to watch a smokescreen only tournament

1:09:48 Chat has a really fun idea for a custom format: "hear me out: best of 4 with 2 decks each". So then a match would turn into two best-of-2 (Lorcana) matches with each player having two potentially completely different decks. I think, we are on to something here. I really like the idea that each player can then just play 2 decks that are played completely differently. At least for an inofficial custom format, sounds fun. (And even better ... If both players are smoke screening, then both players are actually playing like 4 different decks. I like.)

What about adding an additional forbidden list for the side deck? That way, if you want to main floodgate traps and blow out cards, you have to main them.

Describing a side banlist: THis is a niche of a niche, but MTG has a fanmade format called Canadian Highlander with a point based banlist, while otherwise following the vintage banlist.

I'd go to bat for Skilled Drain as something that is fine in the main and toxic in the side, as it has been a fun build around many times. But I have a soft spot for it in general for having some of the most engaging counterplay of any floodgate. Snake Eyes has shifted my opinion since it can turn them off at will.

Shout ot HotC crew for trying out timestamps, hope it's here to stay!!

Here's how much aesthetics matter in YuGiOh. People will pay 50x more for the same card with a thin layer of tin foil embedded in it.

I always try to have my main deck and extra deck sleeves match the theme of the deck using Dragon Shields. In terms of siding I do have a problem with oversiding at times so I’ll end up drawing all side cards a little to no engine or all engine no side cards

I mean having a side deck ban mist is always have option have it really strict so if you want floodgates like skilldrain you have to take up main deck space rather than just chuck if into the side deck Say what you want about master fuel but it gif es you to think about potential weaknesses and put in pre-entice counters and find the balance

Side Decking is generally just a Monster Hunter prepping for a specific hunt. Each card in the side deck these days are just "Counters" your current deck can't deal with. Hand Traps, Floodgates, Backrow removal against Backrow decks, etc. It's like a Hunter going "Oh I fought that werewolf and lost or nearly lost...Let me load up silver bullets!" then next game is like "Oh that's a Vampire...Better bring Sunlight Grenades!". "Oh I'm up against Super Heavy Sam? Better side in my Droll", "It's a Mass Summon deck? Nibiru goes in this Duel!", "It's a Fusion Only deck? D-Barrier!" The Side Deck can't be saved imo. As for the Best of 2 idea, that seems more interesting if they go with a Point System like Lorecana. Look at Master Saga with Dzeef, Farfa, and Gage. They get 2 games and gain points per win. It works.

RC1 definitely is the better set for card list, but I've been really happy with the quality control in RC2. All the luxury rares actually look good

What if you could only side between game 1 and 2? Assigning blowouts for playing first or second would be less of a thing as much as having blowouts for that certain matchup which I believe rewards skill and knowledge moreso than just knowing what boardbreaker works best going second and what floodgate works best going first

Hi, this is very off topic but I have a question: I'm not a very active Yugioh player but sometimes I'm having Yugioh phases and now is one of them. I've reached Master I today with Salamangreat and I'm wondering wether that is something that requires some skill or is it very basic and everyone is able to do it? I have literally no clue because I rarely play and watch Yugioh when I'm not in such a "phase".

I have a question on smoke screening siding, can you “fake side” in your other engine, or would that be considered cheating? As an example can you choose like 7-8 cards of your side deck replace 7-8 cards of your other engine and then just replace the 7-8 cards that you just put in with your original 7-8 you took out?

I personally have never been a fan of the side deck. the best of 3 is to try to mitigate variants between bad hands and prefect hands but the side deck eliminates that purpose, so might as all do a best of 1 or get rid of the side deck and build a more versatile deck for best of 3 with no side decking. I also don't see an issue with playing a deck that loses to a certain match up, if someone brought a certain non meta deck to the tournament as a meta call because they thought it will beat the decks they expect to see then take the L and give respect to the person who made the right call. This is what happens in the Pokemon TCG, certain decks win a tournament, then next tournament it does poorly as its tech'd against, then might appear again in a the next tournament or one after as the tech's are removed only to win again. I do think a best of 2 is better especially with a point system, you can have the winner decided based on points or have the top 2-8 players restart have a best of 2 to see who wins.

Are ocg Konami sleeves and playmats countered as a Konami officially licensed product, or are they preventing their use like what they do with ocg cards

Is this the episode that gets recorded after Josh's 17 hours of Paleo where he only plays 2 games *but somehow, thankfully* does activate 2 trap cards for his dailies?

Do a shot every time Josh says "at the end of the day"

Weren't official konami sleeves already required for any event larger than locals per the tournament rules? I always keep a set of those crappy albaz sleeves in case I ever attend a regionals, nats, worlds or WCS. Prohibiting use of custom swf mats is the primary issue, correct?

I know it's technically a different game at this point, but I'd like an ep to talk about the OCG side of YGO

If you side in Nibiru, please make sure you have a plan to out the token.

God, if I could get a hoodie/sweatshirt with a full display of card art wrapped around it, I'd spend more money on this IP than on food. I would BEG for a Stardust Dragon or Machina Citadel jacket with all the art in high quality

1:08:22 Interesting concept that in Lorcana you play best of 2 and you have to win both games in order to win the match - otherwise it's a draw. However, I think, it wouldn't really work in Yu-Gi-Oh. Think about it: If in Yu-Gi-Oh, each player could just go first once each, then a lot of games would result in a draw, because often times the player who goes first simply wins.

Bro if I can't use my forest spellground mat with my traptrix imma be kinda mad >_>

can you buy konami sleeves from japan and use them in a tcg tourney?

RE:Time Rules, do you think a Chess clock could work in Yugioh TCG? Players would tap it when passing priority, like in Master Duel

talking about smoke screening, isn't the rule for the master duel tournaments being held that you side from your entire collection as many cards as you want. bio is that going to be something when people play full power snek and then side into full power tenpai withou having to deal with the flexebility issue or that you are restricted to having to put the entire engine within 15 cards

I think a field center is plenty to determine zones, I will never use a playmat with actual printed zones on it.

I would entertain a smaller side deck. Maybe 6-10 cards

Konami updated the borders of the platinum secret rares. I thought I had so many more QCRs BUT my side deck is getting so many Platinums

I don’t think Side Deck is unfair but I do think it adds an element of unnecessary toxicity because all the side deck is are a bunch of floodgates and hand traps. I would much rather see deck building made to be able to handle a variety of circumstances without having to swap in 15 FG/HT’s between every match. I don’t see how just using a bunch of cards that make it so your opponent can’t play at all is a ‘skill expression’.

I got everything I needed from rarity collection 2 just from one box and decent qcr’s

Gotta invest in the Konami Traptrix playmat or the Live Twin mat I guess 😔

I believe we are at a point were side deck should be reduced in size at least. Many strong single card techs and small & strong consistent engines around, the main deck strategy changes so much post side deck from the original plan and capabilities. Personally i like the idea of the side deck in BO3, but nowadays every single strong deck in basically a small engine which means you can change your whole deck just by side decking 10- 15 cards from it without even hurting the consistency

I feel like the format they have for Clash Royal could be very interesting, the way it works is best of three, but you have 4 pre-built decks and you cannot use a card in two decks, and you can only use a deck once per BO3. obviously, economically it could price out a lot of players because having to build 4 decks in each format is far too expensive, but I do think it would be interesting.

I didn't watch a pod cast , i saw an ad with a bit of pod cast

Listen everyone, I got the perfect solution for everything! Imagine this: From now on all the good decks have such good in-archteype cards that they are dual-use: They are your starter/extender in your main combos, but they are also each a hand trap. (Imagine e.g. Aluber also being Ash Blossum.) Then we probalby hardly need a side deck, since nobody would play generic hand traps, since they are only single-use. Also we could just ban all floodgates then, and it would just be fine. (And maybe we have the a slight effect advantage going 2nd like Incredible Ecclesia.) And instead of siding generic cards, everyone would just side more engine cards against other engine cards that allow them to do different combo lines. So instead of siding sacky blow-outs, people will just mostly adapt by PLAYING their engine differently. That would be nice. What I just described will probably happen at some point anyways due to power creep. We already see the start of this with cards like the Bystials (can be combo-piece, but also a DD Crow) and multiple effects on cards, out of which some start your combo, while the other effect gives you an advantage against an opponent's play (like Branded Opening starts your combo but also protects your board) - or best examples are actually Runicks: They all either summon stuff and get you stuff going, or they are your answer to certain cards of the opponent.

Oh well big shame on mat situation. Time to cash out on my decks and stay on Master Duel >_

As an anime fan, i've always thought bo1 is a lot more impactful and hype than bo3

Example of Side Decking in todays meta: Playing vs Tenapi. Take out the Effect Veilers and drop in the Ghost Ogres. That field spell needs to be popped.

36:33 instructions unclear, my going second starting hand is only 4 cards 👀

"Laggia turbo shit" Aww, I miss playing this deck at locals. Good times. This format's more fun than Edison (in my memory, idk if it'd hold up)

I was to distracted at how much bigger Josh´s head is

Best of 3, side deck, but instead of the loser getting to pick you have to roll/flip each game? So you get the neutral state of masterduel/game 1 but you can still side based on your matchup. Are you siding in that skill drain still if you're not sure you're going first?

Farfa singing the alphabet: "A, etcetera, etcetera"

What if they have a banlist for the side deck?

Heart of the Pod-Cast of Greed when?

Best of 2 is worth trying at least

What is a "best of 2", Farfa?

Rarity 2 felt better to open, I got all the cards I wanted. I got almost every card in one box, got 2 playsets of Droll, playset of Crossout, 2 Accesscode, 2 Apo. Rarity collection had better cards but my pulls were worse had a lot of good cards, some of the best staple cards but also a lot of pack filler in rarity collection 1

40:14 Hm, I didn't know about this. In big official events, you would have to re-sleeve when siding in extra deck cards? That's like super annoying. Maybe that is one more reason people rarely do this. At our locals, this rule has not really been enforced, I guess. Because for any potential person, that could say "please re-sleeve your side deck cards, when siding in extra deck cards", there are at least one or two dozen people, who would more likely say: "Dude, why do you take so long siding? We only got 45 minutes." I think, if we have this time limit, this rule doesn't make sense. I think, we should only have one or the other. Why is this rule a thing even? What is the rationale behing this? At locals it works fine, as long as we got at least one separator between extra and side in our deck boxes.

Yall need to get Steven Santolli on the podcast some time

19:00 For better or for worse, I think they are capitalizing in this by making them have to buy officially licensed accessories.

Side decking is a very important part of the game, but cards like D Barrier being silver bullets for not just 1 deck, but several is problematic. I don't even feel good winning with those cards, and wish they weren't in the game.

This BO2 without siding Sounds very Good to me. Your deck hast to be Good AT going first and going second, if not, you dont stand a Chance of winning a tournament.

The "Best of 2" system makes way ore sense for Yugioh than whan a Bset of 1/3.

Time rules should be adjusted to work better for BO3, it does kinda suck for someone that loses because their Opp was allowed to play Yugioh longer than them. BO1 is unfun and unfair, maybe we show each other what we side in and when we are satisfied, we play game 2/3.

The side deck in best-of-three format promotes plenty of toxicity due to the cards that most players tend put in (floodgates, board breakers & more handtraps). It doesn't feel inherent or organic, and it ends up in a less interactive experience. So, instead of side deck cards that can counter with what your main deck can't do, I suggest to side deck an alternate strategy that can perform along the main one. For example, as a Dinomorphia player, my side deck consists in a Lair of Darkness engine. My main approach is pure Dinomorphia and my side strategy is Lair Dinomorphia.

I think you need to emphasize the price point on rarity collection. Rarity collection 2 boxes in America are 18 packs of 9 cards, on tcg player they are charging $110 usd ($165 aud) Rarity collection 2 in Australia is 24 packs of 9 cards standard price without discount is $480 aud ($318 usd)……. If you manage to buy at a discount it’s roughly $400 aud ($265 usd) You basically asking someone if they would prefer to buy 3 booster boxes of a core set or 1 box of rarity collection 2. It’s just total bullishit how much of a price hike it is.

The argument with the value of the rarity collection feels similar to people judged every new archetype to the power sealing to Tearlaments. To where if it's not strong as Tear its not good enough...then that deck got massacred and then we got Snake Eyes

While I do understand that on a competitive level "winning is winning", even if I win after using a sidedeck blowout card (either going 1st or 2nd) it just doesnt feel as satisfactory. Becauae at that point me winning had less to do with out-playing and out-skilling my opponent, and more to do with out-variance-ing them (getting luckier). I think this is a minority opinion though, since it seems that most players enjoy the idea of drawing very targeted sidedeck cards to blowout/hard counter the opponent. But to me it takes a bit of the fun out of trying to actually outplay your opponent through your gameplay (as opposed to outplaying them through drawing high impact cards).

Josh trying to get Lab sent to the shadow realm next ban list by Konomi with some toxic gibberish smh 😭

Side decking is fine when floodgates don’t exist. The worst use for side decking is just throwing in garbage floodgates that often auto win games on their own.

My guess is we might begin to see individuals start to ‘partner’ w konami and produce ‘konami offical product’ then konami will most likely take a percentage of the profit. But with this argument that means konami would have to COMMUNICATE and we all know how that goes…

Those rarity collection two takes is very one sided. Retail price for a rarity collection 2 box is 180$, yet it flopped so hard vendors have to sell it for under 100$ now. A good set is one that is balanced with good value for players and enough of an incentive for people to buy boxes of to help vendors.

Side decking makes deck construction lazier, I think. You can deliberately go all out on combo or floodgates and just side in the out if you run into it instead of being punished for being greedy. Maybe the reason people can play 18 hand traps is precisely because they can side some out if it's too much.

Can yall get Paul on the podcast?

Ah yes the Transformational Sideboard. Always fun, but if meta is likely unhealthy.

Side decking can both healthy and skillful, the problem is autowin cards like dimensional barrier and HFD against a back row deck. And before someone says "no one uses dimensional barrier right now" yes, snake eyes doesn't care about it, but it will eventually become relevant again.

Simply even having a side board makes card design across the board worse. It gives the devs leeway to make cards and archetypes that are grossly powerful or imbalanced with overly specific damning weaknesses justified by the fact you can just side in your outs in games 2 and 3. It also encourages them to make overly narrow and disproportionately powerful answers that are worse than useless in some matchups and instantly game winning in others, because those cards can just permanently live in the sideboard. The sideboard's existence incentivizes them to make cards that exist only in sideboards and cards that need to be answered by the sideboard. Not to mention sideboard silver bullets create totally dreadful gameplay themselves, many game 2 and 3s being reduced to if you drew your busted going second staple in your opener or not.

I've pretty much given up on Side Decking EVER being able to be done in a balanced manner after seeing all the anti-climactic conclusions to big events via floodgates over the years, and the janky smokescreening Tenpai has allowed decks like Centurion and even LABRYNTH to pull so they never have to fear going second in game 3 lately just highlights all the problems siding causes when deck lists are concealed between players. At this point I'd rather the card lists are set in stone, and if changes ARE allowed to made, that the initial game 1 just leave the lists open to both players so they aren't blindsided by some sacky board wipe or hand trap they couldn't prepare for without getting hit by that's only there because of some uncompetitive level of surprise. It also means less idiots playing into things like Nibiru and Evenly Matched without a plan, and possibly discourages the use of "greedy" decks in general that lose to a singular disruption point or board wipe like those things, knowing what they might have to deal with instead of guessing might be enough to encourage variety in play lines as opposed to just going for the "max disruptions" option every time.

You guys say you dont shill konami but rarity collection missed the mark and it feels as a product for little jimmy that doesnt google whats in it. Like the reprinted branded stuff but not quem? And some cards were just missing like thrust, diviner, chaos angel, dis pater, fenrir etc. Or like a bigger amount of middle of the pack cards: like gameciel would have been better then mst or the hamster. This set only has accesscode. So just by singles!!

In my 10 years, side decking is the most overpowered but also the "luckiest" mechanic and most disappointing thing I've ever seen. I've sided 12 at a regionals and not drawn a single card and lost for it, and I've sided 3 and drawn all 3 opening hand and couldn't play. The side deck could make certain matchups an instant win if you draw them, but if you dont draw them at all or draw too many it just feels so fucking bad.

A lot of the arguments defending RC02 are very odd to me. They say it's not a reprint set, which is funny be a use no one said that about rc01, and they didn't start saying it about RC02 until they realized it would be a dogshit reprint set, it's just blatant goalpost moving. Also "there are no bad cards" what about mst that had 2 cent versions and 70ish printings in a dozen different rarities already? Who wanted the sol and luna reprint? It's also insane that we're in a state where tenpai is considered a budget deck when the average topping list is like 400 bucks and the only meta relevant reprints are like, purrely core and 2 of the 6 expensive cards out of branded. I feel like there are so many misses coupled with the game being so expensive right now that it flopping is insane.