The most important skill that an MTG player has to know is how to sideboard. Sideboarding always dictates how your next matches will be since you’re now going to adjust your deck based on your matchups. For this article, I’m going to discuss how to sideboard with Simic Flash against the top decks in the meta.
How Does Simic Flash’s Sideboard Guide Work?
The guide that I am about show you was used during my 20-game run yesterday afternoon and evening. I won 16 out of 20 games with an 80% win-rate. And out of the 16 games that I won, I had 6 2-1 records, which gave me an 70.21% game win rate.
I am not claiming to be an expert in Simic Flash, nor do I take full credit for the creation of this decklist.
This is my current decklist as of the moment, which you can view from Streamdecker:
But before I move on to the sideboard guide, I have to address the elephant in the room.
Why Is Growth Spiral There?
Growth Spiral is a draw engine that lets you play an additional land from your hand when available. In a ladder that’s dominated by Ramp, Scapeshift, and even Dinosaurs, being able to race them in terms of land drops makes a huge difference.
It also lets me keep up with casting Sinister Sabotage and Frilled Mystic, as well as giving me a chance to drop Nightpack Ambusher very early. It also provides me with a surprise sequence that catches a lot of my opponents of guards.
Sideboard Guide
This sideboard guide is not perfect and should be taken with a grain of salt. Through trial and error in between the ladder matches, this is what I think is the ideal sideboard for certain matchups.
Against Esper Control/Esper Hero
Esper Control is a slow deck but it does have access to board wipe and some spot removals. The goal here is to be fast, but methodical. You want to catch certain spells such as Teferi, Time Raveler, Thought Erasure, and Oath of Kaya to give you an edge.
IN: +3 Veil of Summer, +2 Spell Pierce
Veil of Summer prevents you and your creatures from being targeted by spot removals or spells such as Thought Erasure.
Additional Spell Pierce can help you catch the spells that usually force him to tap out all of his mana.
OUT: -2 Essence Scatter, -1 Spectral Sailor, -2 Unsummon
Esper Control may not really run a lot of creatures, even with Essence Scatter so this is a dead card for this deck. Same goes for Unsummon. You now have Veil of Summer, so there’s no need to return your creature to your hand when they’re being targeted by a spot removal.
Against Temur Elementals
Temur Elementals is more of a ramp deck than anything, so it’s a lot quicker at dropping its bombs than you. However, there are tons of variations of this deck so it’s hard to build a sideboard around it. What you are going after are their Chandra, Awakened Inferno and Shifting Ceratops.
The playstyle here against Temur Elementals is to prevent them from getting their engine started, and this includes getting their Risen Reef and Omnath, Locus of the Roil.
IN: +3 Aether Gust
Aether Gust is meant to catch the two big cards that Temur Elementals drop against you: Chandra, Awakened Inferno and Shifting Ceratops. You may not be able to counter them, but you are going to just prevent them from casting it for one more turn. This should give you enough time to put the pressure on them.
OUT: -2 Negate, -1 Essence Scatter
You’re just cutting out your Negate and Essence Scatter to make way for Aether Gust.
Against Orzhov Vampires
To be honest, I haven’t really gone up against Orzhov Vampires a lot of times in the ladder so I have not been able to tune this sideboard.
IN: +3 Veil of Summer
Veil of Summer’s purpose here is similar to why it’s used in Esper Control. During your postboard matches, your opponent will have Duress and some spot removals that’re going to make it difficult for you to control the board. And because they’re playing Black spells, you’re also going to get a draw from Veil of Summer.
OUT: -1 Negate, -1 Unsummon, -1 Spectral Sailor
I keep 1 copy of Negate to catch Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord, just in case. I don’t really want to remove my Essence Scatter since this is a creature-heavy deck.
Against Grixis Control
Grixis Control has pretty much the same sideboard with Esper Control, but they’re going to have access to a wide-range of removals and Nicol Bolas, Dragon God.
IN: +3 Veil of Summer, +2 Spell Pierce
Veil of Summer and Spell Pierce are here for the same reason as why they’re in Esper Control. Veil of Summer prevents you and your creatures from being targeted while Spell Pierce gives you additional counter spells to run on your deck in the postboard matches.
OUT: -2 Essence Scatter, -1 Spectral Sailor, -2 Unsummon
Essence Scatter doesn’t get completely removed since the deck runs Nicol Bolas, the Ravager. Same goes for Unsummon. You just want a copy of it to return your creature to your hand in case you don’t draw out Veil of Summer
Against Mono Blue Tempo
Mono Blue is pretty much easy to sideboard against since you only need to add Shifting Ceratops to dominate them in the later matches.
In: +3 Shifting Ceratops
The fact that Shifting Ceratops can’t be countered means that this is usually just game-over for Mono Blue. Their only hope here is to run Aether Gust, which I’m sure they’ll run 2 or 3 copies of.
Out: -1 Frilled Mystic, -1 Nightpack Ambusher, -1 Unsummon
You’re now going to remove 1 copy each of your 4-drops, Nightpack Ambusher and Frilled Mystic, to keep your curve intact.
What About Bant Scapeshift?
To be honest, I don’t really have anything solid just yet to sideboard against Bant Scapeshift.
Most of the time, I’ve lost more games against them simply because I can’t counter their lands. I also don’t have access to board-wipe, which makes it difficult to mow down their Zombie tokens.
Check out TheNerduckt’s video on how this decklist is played out:
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