Cactus Game Design Message Boards

I couldn't seem to figure out where the main side boarding post went, so I started this one.

1. Obviously ROOT would need to be best of 3.

2. How many cards are going to be in the side board, a percentage of your deck size, a set number like 15 . . .?

3. How long will players have between games to change cards in their side board?

4. Do we need to take measures to ensure people aren't cheating, if so what measures?

5. Any other thoughts questions or concerns need worked out? If so what?

Side boarding is having an additional amount of cards on the side. After the first game with your opponent you get to exchange cards from your side boarding with cards in your deck. Your opponent does the same thing and you play game 2. If necessary you repeat the steps and play game 3.

Wyatt, there was a whole discussion on sideboarding here that you should read up on. Additionally, a lot of the questions you ask can be answered if you utilize the search function, which can be found in the upper right hand corner of the page.

I love the concept of side-boarding, but finding the proper number to use is tricky, because most decks don't go past 50 or 51 cards, and certainly not past 57. This means that even a small number like 15 means you can essentially replace an entire offense or defense if you wanted to, which may not be desirable. My thought is we should either use a very small number, like 5, or use a larger number like 15 and discontinue checking in multiple decks (which I'm an advocate of regardless, since that heavily favors players with more money). Deck checking is tricky, because even top-tier players are switching cards the night before big tournaments. Having to submit a deck list before the tournament is a good idea on paper, but for those of us who literally build our decks the night before, that's easier said and done. I was trying to purchase cards for my deck about five minutes before T12P deck checking closed this year, and I was not the only one. Yet, it seems like with a sidebar, some such option is required. As an aside, I also support discontinuing deck checking at the beginning of large tournaments in favor of random deck checks throughout the day, since that will make people more honest than the current system anyway.

Maybe the number could be half of the number of LS in your deck (round up).  This way, small decks can't replace their entire offense and larger decks have the advantage of more selections.

Finding a good number for the side is just going to take a bit of trial and error in ROOT. From personal experience in other CCG's that use a side deck, 15 cards never seemed enough, you always wanted to fit in one more card that could help...and that was playing with 40 card decks. I don't find the side deck being used to fuel switching out an entire offense or defense to be a problem at all...after all, that's essentially what side decks are used for, to give yourself (hopefully) better matchups against certain decks. It's also not a practice that is anywhere near highly used since it's focus is so narrow in range, rather than having a metaphorical toolbox to deal with most any matchup.

I liked the idea of having a side deck equal to the number of lost souls per deck, I think that's a great starting point to testing it out. Although I am also a big fan of having just one concrete number across all decks. I also liked the idea of doing away with more than one deck in a tournament in favor of a larger side deck...side decks do what multiple decks do, only a lot better. Sure, Plot takes a hit from this change, but that was kind of the reason multiple decks were dropped from 10 to 3 in the first place. -_-

1. Obviously ROOT would need to be best of 3.
2. How many cards are going to be in the side board, a percentage of your deck size, a set number like 15 . . .?
3. How long will players have between games to change cards in their side board?
4. Do we need to take measures to ensure people aren't cheating, if so what measures?
5. Any other thoughts questions or concerns need worked out? If so what?

1.  I agree, that for ROOT the number of games would have to be most VPs out of 3 games.
So a player would win if they:
won 2 games completely = 6VPs
won 1 game and had 2 ties = 6VPs
won 1 game with a tie and a timeout loss = 5.5VPs
won 1 game and had 2 timeout losses = 5VPs
won 1 game with a timeout win = 5 VPs

2.  For number of cards in the sideboard, I would appreciate some feedback in this thread from people who actually try this out using different sizes.  My current leaning would be to just use the number of LSs in a deck.

3.  My current leaning is to allow NO time between games to change things, but have the sideboard actually be part of the deck on RTS.

4.  My current leaning is still to use the "other Prof's" suggestion for accountability, which is basically to start with a deck of X+Y (where X is your preferred deck size, and Y is the sideboard size).  Then when the game starts to search your deck for the Y cards that you don't want, take them into your hand, and set them aside face-down.
Then you can shuffle all your remaining cards back into your deck and d8 to start the game.

5.  My other question is whether it is better to use sideboarding between games, or rather to do in-game sideboarding as brought up in the previous thread.

I like:
- lost soul count = dominant cap = site cap = Sideboard cap.  Simplicity in deck-building rules makes things simpler on judges and players.
- in-game use of sideboard.  Best-of-3 just doesn't work in most tournaments.  My favorite option ties access to your sideboard to your drawing of lost souls.  Whenever you draw a lost soul and put it in play, you may place a card from your hand into your sideboard to shuffle a card from your sideboard into your deck.  Then draw 1.

Do those work?

I like:
- lost soul count = dominant cap = site cap = Sideboard cap.  Simplicity in deck-building rules makes things simpler on judges and players.
- in-game use of sideboard.  Best-of-3 just doesn't work in most tournaments.  My favorite option ties access to your sideboard to your drawing of lost souls.  Whenever you draw a lost soul and put it in play, you may place a card from your hand into your sideboard to shuffle a card from your sideboard into your deck.  Then draw 1.

Do those work?

I really like these ideas. Consistency in deck building amounts helps occasional hosts (such as myself) keep the rules straight, and a built-in way to access your sideboard would be a great way to implement it. Question for you Gabe: Would the exchange/shuffle/draw after a LS replace the plain old draw currently in the game, or does it come after as an extra draw? If it's the former, I think that's fine; however, I think the latter might be a bit too strong. Being able to draw an extra card every time you draw a LS for the simple cost of exchanging the worst card in your hand for a better one in your sideboard seems a bit much.

Being able to draw an extra card every time you draw a LS for the simple cost of exchanging the worst card in your hand for a better one in your sideboard seems a bit much.

Actually I don't think it's too strong.  If you don't get to draw a card for the one you put in your sideboard, then you actually just decreased your hand size by 1 just to have the chance to draw a card later.

I think that if we go the route of ingame sideboarding, then when you trade a card in your hand for a card in your sideboard, that you should either:
- put the sideboard card directly in your hand
or
- shuffle it into your draw pile, and draw 1 card

While in-game siding is plausible towards staying within the time limits of normal Redemption tournaments, one of the key benefits of traditional siding was also the added benefit of best 2 of 3. That is perhaps the bigger issue here, even moreso than siding itself. It's just that traditional siding goes hand in hand with best 2 of 3 as well.

I also have reservations of trading cards in hand only at very specific times for sideboard cards. Your non-optimal cards will not always float to hand when you need to side them, especially only every time you draw a lost soul. It sort of defeats the purpose of siding those unproductive cards out completely and replacing them with cards that serve a better matchup if the stars don't align and you don't even get the chance to do so.

I also have reservations of trading cards in hand only at very specific times for sideboard cards. Your non-optimal cards will not always float to hand when you need to side them, especially only every time you draw a lost soul. It sort of defeats the purpose of siding those unproductive cards out completely and replacing them with cards that serve a better matchup if the stars don't align and you don't even get the chance to do so.

If I don't draw lost souls, then I probably don't need to get a sideboard card to stay competitive in the game.  Since drawing lost souls is generally considered a "bad luck" part of the game, I thought we could mitigate that aspect by giving the player a simultaneous "optional reward."

As for siding out "unproductive" cards, that isn't the only strategy.  I'd generally sideboard out a card that I can't use now, but know I will need later.  For example, I could sideboard out my New Jerusalem or Falling Away or AoCp, and shuffle it back into my deck the next time I draw a lost soul.  The cards you sideboard are only the cards you can't use at the moment.  You generally can find one of those in your hand.

except there are still going to be X number of cards that you cant use.

what I'm saying i that you will still only be allowed to play the amount of cards that are allowed with the number of souls in your deck. you still will only be able to play up to 56 cards with seven lost sou7ld, its just that you can have more options ready, in case you really do need them. like if you want some artifacts like Golden Calf in case you run into a FbtNB deck and you dont want to keep it in your deck. you still are able to use it, but you have to decide on what to take out first.