Deckbuilding: Side Deck

This is part of a series of articles on the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game, written to assist players participating in the Cup of Greed tournament, hosted by Pod of Greed (the only podcast officially sponsored by KaibaCorp).

 

I've pretty much only played casually and online, where games are typically just one duel, so I am not the person to ask about building a Side Deck. But I'll do the best I can.

Some guy in college once told me that the gun is the Great Equalizer. Now I'm pretty sure that death is the Great Equalizer, but actually we're both wrong: the only true equalizer is the Side Deck. We do at least have documented evidence that cards are stronger than guns.

The Side Deck contains up to 15 cards. Between duels of a Match, you can switch cards from your Main Deck (or Extra Deck, though this is rare) with those from your Side Deck. You cannot increase or decrease the number of cards in any deck; you can only exchange them.

The purpose of the Side Deck is to change your deck's composition to more effectively deal with your opponent's deck. These changes can be what I would call "generic" or "specific". A generic Side Deck card would be something like Dust Tornado. If your opponent has lots of Spells and Traps, in game two you side in your Dust Tornadoes. Alternatively, if your opponent is using Monster Mash (a deck which employs one (1) Trap), you'll side out your MSTs and replace them with something else. A specific Side Deck card on the other hand exists to deal with a specific threat. Corridor of Agony has one, and only one, use: to stop Gladiator Beasts. There is no reason you would run Corridor of Agony in your Main Deck; it's a pure Side Deck card.

In short, I see the Side Deck as covering four basic functions. These are:

• Shoring up your weaknesses: This corresponds to siding in Dust Tornadoes above. There are some things your deck doesn't do so well, and the Side Deck can correct for that.
• Targeting your opponent's strengths: This corresponds to siding in Corridor of Agony. The Side Deck includes cards to target specific problem decks. Light- and Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror are other obvious cards of this variety.
• Changing build: This is uncommon, but very fun. It's possible, but unusual, to use the Side Deck to change what your deck does. The only time I've seen this strategy employed is in Chaos Dragons (an early ZEXAL deck), which would swap out to the control-oriented Disaster Dragons in game two.
• Entering Serious Mode: This is something I actually did in Cup of Greed '22 with my Gadget Deck. I intentionally included a few on-theme but sub-optimal cards (Magical Mallet, Swords of Revealing Light, Overload Fusion, Limiter Removal), and intentionally excluded a few optimal cards (Snipe Hunter, Neo-Spacian Grand Mole, Trap Dustshoot, Gorz, Breaker). This way, I could bring out the big guns only against a competitive deck.
  

In a typical tournament, every player has a pretty good idea of what they're going to be facing and can build their Side Deck accordingly. In Cup of Greed, rogue decks are the rule, and you never know who you're going to run into next. But I think this actually doesn't impact Side Deck construction too much. Sure, you could prepare some epic sides to totally own, uh, Naturias, if you want. But you know what Naturias can't do? Gateway of the Six, Kageki, Kagemusha, Shi En, Gateway, Kizan, Gateway, Kizan, Kizan = 2500 + 2100 + 2100 + 2100 = 8800 damage in one turn. So you should probably worry more about Six Samurai instead. In general, your biggest (but not only) fear should probably be mass Special Summons.

A few Side Deck recommendations:

• Maxx "C": A hand trap. After discarding it, every time your opponent Special Summons for the rest of the turn, you draw a card. Maximizing the potential of Maxx "C" (or maxing Maxx "C") requires knowledge of the game and the plays your opponent can make, but it's effective even when used in a basic way. If your opponent summons Junk Synchron and uses its effect, you can discard Maxx "C". You're guaranteed 1 card. Then your opponent has to choose between Synchro Summoning and giving you a second card, or deferring and leaving themselves with a crappy field.
• Thunder King Rai-Oh: Rai-Oh, does not one but two things: he stops either player from adding cards from the Deck to the hand in any way other than drawing them, and he can sacrifice himself to negate a Special Summon. Oh, and he has 1900 ATK. Just one of those effects on a 1900 ATK body would be good, but Rai-Oh gets two. Rai-Oh is a hard counter to both Six Samurai and Dragunities, and inconveniences almost everything else as well.
• D.D. Crow: A hand trap that banishes a card from your opponent's Graveyard, and is a Quick Effect. Monster Reborn? Banish the target. Junk Synchron? Banish the target. Vayu? Banish the target. Stardust Dragon? Banish before it revives. Pot of Avarice? That, too.
• Vanity's Emptiness: An unusual Continuous Trap that forbids all Special Summons, but is destroyed if a card is sent from the field or deck to your Graveyard. Since Royal Oppression has been specially banned for this tournament, Vanity's Emptiness is probably your best bet for a mass sealing of Special Summons.
• Rivalry of Warlords & Gozen Match: Each of these Continuous Traps force both players to control only one Type (Rivalry) or Attribute (Gozen) of monster. Depending on your own deck composition, this can be a harsh double-edged sword or it could not affect you at all. These two cards are actually more limiting than they look, because they prevent you from even attempting to put a monster of a different Type/Attribute on the field.
• Various staple cards: Even if they didn't fit in your Main Deck, it might find a place in your Side Deck. I made a list of Staple Cards, you know.
  

A final word

While it may be tempting to put in a copy of every potentially useful card in your Side Deck to cover every imaginable eventuality, I recommend doing your best to focus on a smaller number of cards, and running them at three or two. After all, a card can't do anything for you unless you draw it!