Yugioh Question

[Kura]

I have a question about a Yugioh deck. I can't seem to find it anywhere on the internet. It seems so simple.. but I don't get it.

Well side decks.. I know they consist of 15 cards, and you can swap the cards in the side deck with the ones in your main deck, but.. it's like.. I don't understand if it can be any card in the side deck.. or if you can look at your card first before swapping it, or what?

._. Please explain this whole side-deck thing to me in more detail, please..

 

[Eon-Rider]

There are 3 Duels in 1 Match. You switch any number of cards between the Duels to increase your chance of winning so you can look at the cards. You can only switch cards. You can't add cards from your Side deck without taking some cards from your main deck.

 

[digi-kun]

Ok, so usually tournament games are played with 3 maximum rounds (2 of 3)
The main deck you play with the first. Then, between rounds, you may swap any number of cards in your main deck with the any number of cards in your side deck (Side Deck's max = 15 cards)
This is pretty much to adjust to strategies that your normal deck may be weak to, in addition to getting rid of cards that may be useless against the opponent with cards better suited for that deck type.
If casual, you could probably change the cards around before hand if you know what the opponent is playing XD

 

[Kura]

Ok, so usually tournament games are played with 3 maximum rounds (2 of 3)
The main deck you play with the first. Then, between rounds, you may swap any number of cards in your main deck with the any number of cards in your side deck (Side Deck's max = 15 cards)
This is pretty much to adjust to strategies that your normal deck may be weak to, in addition to getting rid of cards that may be useless against the opponent with cards better suited for that deck type.
If casual, you could probably change the cards around before hand if you know what the opponent is playing XD

Rounds? o_o So like.. before you actually start a game or something?
o_o Because I was confused and thought that you had to swap them between TURNS..
:/

 

[Eon-Rider]

No...

Go read Victory Dragon's effect. If you don't understand what the point of its effect is, then I'll know what you don't understand.

 

[Alter Ego]

No...

Go read Victory Dragon's effect. If you don't understand what the point of its effect is, then I'll know what you don't understand.

Umm...she might have caught on, actually. So basically, everyone's probably been quite thorough in explaining that matches are played as three games each, right? Yeah, I think they have. The side-deck is accessed in-between those games, so you can't use it before the first game, and as Digi-kun explained you can't 'add' cards from side to main, only exchange them on a one-for-one basis.

But no, it's not done between turns. Gawd, that would be so broken. I mean, you'd get a cheap way to just shuffle out bad topdecks (created by Phoenix Wing or the Wind Monarch, forst insace) and such.

 

[Frostweaver]

Also, just because you may access the sidedeck between game, you don't HAVE to. Some people smokescreen by asking to utilize the sidedeck, but did not make any substitution of cards at all, only to try to throw people off thinking that a few cards are gone and new cards are in when in fact that it's the same deck again.

Remember like what Alter Ego said: exchanges are made on a 1-1 basis. Before the next round begins, the sidedeck must have 15 cards again!

 

[MegaDitto]

Many people get that mixed up so it's nothing to be worry about. ^_^

With side decks, it's just be good to make it varies.

 

[Melody]

I use a side deck to adjust my deck to cover weaknesses during a round...If a certain card or cards kicks my posterior in the first round then i make sure that i get something from my side deck to come back at it...
The side deck is nothing more than a supplement to match play...It makes thing just that much harder to predict...and it lets you counter something that is common or powerful in your opponent's deck that you couldnt counter with your previous deck configuration...

 

[Baker's Bulbasaur]

As has been more or less already explained, your side deck come into play only between the individual rounds of a duel which are always best of 3. At which time you can choose to switch cards in your deck with those in your side deck. Yes you can look at your deck and side and pick which ones, but you must end up with 15 cards still in your side deck afterwards before starting the next round.
Side decks are extremely useful as there are a lot of decks that you really need certain types of cards to get around, take a Burn deck for example - these decks nearly always contain a lot of spell and trap cards to stop you from attacking so that they can burn you down with effect cards as oppose to attacking with monsters, so when facing a burn deck it's a good idea to side in cards that destroy spells and traps such as Mobius The Frost Monarch, Dust Tornadoes, Heavy Storm (Although storm is a card that should be in your main deck all the time) etc etc.

But some players use their side decks to completely change their deck theme between rounds, making it impossible for their opponent to predict what cards they should side in, for example.

If you were playing me in a duel and I was maining Royal Decree- a trap which negates all other trap cards on the field, whilst you had a deck with lots of trap cards, after round one your instinct may be to switch your trap cards out of your main deck and side in a load of other random stuff, but at the same time I may side out my Decrees meaning that in the next round you would have sided our your traps for no reason, whilst I 1: Don't have to worry about your traps 2: Don't have 1/2/3 decrees still in my deck making them dead draws against a deck with little or no traps.

But then again, players could double bluff and whilst I am siding out my decrees, you would actually keep your traps and just make it look like your siding them out (see shadowballing at the bottom of the page) so I would have mistakenly sided out my decrees.

Siding is as dangerous as it is useful as one wrong sided card could lose you the game, an example of this was UK Nationals 05 in the top 8 match between James Pennicott and and 05 nats champ Adam Kruzinsci, James was playing a Horus deck, and in round 3 sided out his Horus LV8 in fear of drawing it at the wrong time and costing him the duel, but as gthe match went on James got his LV6 out and had the oppurtunity to level it up which would have won him the game in aabout 1 turn, but as he has sided it out he couldn't and Adam pulled back.

Shadowballing - A technique used by a lot of Pro duelests where between round you shuffle all 15 cards from your side, into your main deck and then remove 15, this way your opponent has no wal of telling how many cards you have sided wether it be none or 15, even if they stare at you while siding lol.


Hope this has helped.

 

[Frostweaver]

Sometimes sidedeck allows some flexible main deck to totally change their deck strategy. Decree is listed as an example earlier, but the main monster lineup may still be the same. However, for example, back then Stein OTK often shifts into a burn deck two banlists ago. Sometimes, 15 cards are all it needs for a deck to totally look like another deck instead.

 

[Kenny_C.002]

Sometimes sidedeck allows some flexible main deck to totally change their deck strategy. Decree is listed as an example earlier, but the main monster lineup may still be the same. However, for example, back then Stein OTK often shifts into a burn deck two banlists ago. Sometimes, 15 cards are all it needs for a deck to totally look like another deck instead.

This is dubbed the term "transformative sidedecking". Seriously, 15 cards is almost half a deck. It should be much easier to have a transformative SD in YGO than mtg...