One of the things that always bothered me in LotR is the lack of a sideboard. because of this, we usually have to make the decks slightly bigger than we'd like them to be, to acomodate answers to threats that may come our way.
You see, in Magic, we have our 60-card minimum decks, and we have a "sideboard", made of EXACTLY 15 cards. Between matches, we may swap any number of cards from our deck for cards in our sideboards, although the total number of cards in the main deck has to remain the same (you can't simply add cards, if one comes in, one must come out). Also, the sideboard is "part" of the deck, in a sense that if you have 3 copies of a card in your main deck, only 1 other can be in your sideboard, for a grand total of 4.
Why I like this idea? It opens up A LOT of creativity space, since you can make your main decks smaller (and thus quicker and more reliable) while still pack answers to certain things, even if only for games 2 and 3. Also, creating a sideboard is harder than it seems, since when you march up to a big tournament, you have no idea what exactly you'll be facing. Sure, you know the popular archetypes, but they may pack a single card in there that you didn't expect, OR they may have found a nice toll in their sideboard that you didn't see coming, and completly trash you in games 2 and 3. Not to mention, ok, you have stuff to come in, but... what will come out?
I've been toying with trying to transfer the idea to LotR (the game IS dead anyway, and the players are even making their own formats and X-Lists, which basically means playing the game is all about the fun). Now, OF COURSE playing best 2 out of 3 matches in LotR is CRAZY, so that'd be off the table. However, I devised a way to make it "work", and I'd like the opinion of you guys. Basically, you'd have a sideboard (number crunch is not necessary right now), and you'd get, like, X minutes (this has to be a small amount of time to keep it fun) to look through each other's deck PRIOR to the match. Then, you'd get to sideboard. So, for instance, you could pack
Frodo, Resolute Hobbit in your sideboard, and switch your Frodo if you were up against a corruption deck, for one. NOw, the downside is that this ruins PART of the fun of playing a deck you've never seen. HOWEVER, in big MtG tournaments (like Worlds), the Top 8 players get a copy of ALL the decks their opponents will be playing 1 day prior, to study it and prepare, so as to make for great matches. Also, since you'd have a SMALL amount of time to do so, you'd basically have to glean over the list, and although you might get the general idea, there STILL might b some interactiosn you will miss (for instance, a player looking Fruit Loops for the first time, in a small window of time, would still never be able to grasp exactly what the deck did). This would allow for "cleaner" deckbuilding (as you'd have to cram less stuff in your deck), and actually more cool match-ups (since you wouldn't have to pack a 1-of or 2-of as a solution to something that completly wrecks you, you could pack a full set, and bring it in just for that match) as the decks would be more finely tuned to face each other. Also, this allows for a NEW design space, which is anticipating what they'll do. You'd get to look at each others MAIN decks, NOT the sideboards, so for instance, you might anticipate that they'll bring in anti-archery stuff against your archery Shadow, and actually dedicate your whole sideboard to shadow cards only, "switching" your shadow pre-game (you'd see their deck, notice that it's a good match-up for you, and anticipate what they'd bring in, so you'd counter their strategy by switching yours and catching them unprepared).
So, what do you guys think about the idea? Do you think it could go somewhere? That it might be cool? If you have any questions (since this is not a concept present in a lot of card games), fire them away.
PS: I know this is a HUGE change to what you are used to, but I'd like you to have an open mind and think about it before flaming me.
Topic: LotR Sideboard (Read 6877 times)
