Magic World Championship XXVI has now concluded, with 16 of the best players in the world bringing their finely tuned decks for a very high stakes tournament. No doubt many players will be looking to use these decks for grinding events and climbing the ladder! For reference, you can view all 16 decklists from the tournament here.

In this guide, we will present to you how some of these players sideboarded (and why) in their featured matches that we have recorded over the past three days while doing our live text coverage of the tournament. For players that prefer best-of-three matches or wanting to get into it, we hope you find this useful as we did as an opportunity to learn from the best of the best! In order to yield the best results, be sure to read until the end to help apply the knowledge into your everyday MTG Arena experience.

Azorius Control – PVDDR

We will first have a look the sideboard plan from our World Champion in the grand finals!

This is a straightforward matchup for Paulo where it gets even better after sideboard.

Mono Red Aggro – Seth Manfield

In the mirror match, it’s all about exchanging removal spells for creatures. Tibalt generates two creatures and Experimental Frenzy can be a good clutch card when you’re both running out of cards.

On the play, we are taking out the slower cards like Torbran and the creatures with least impact. Pump spell from Rimrock Knight and Embercleave becomes less good especially if the opponent is also looking to remove your creatures.

On the draw, you want to be more aggressive so we are keeping the one drops in, but a land is taken out to account for the additional draw step. Runaway Steam-Kin is less good when you’re on the draw, since it requires a bit of set up.

Opponent In Out Temur Reclamation – Chris Kvartek None None

Seth Manfield opted not to sideboard any cards against Chris Kvartek’s Temur Reclamation, given his sideboard cards mostly look to interact with the opponent’s creatures. You could make a case for Experimental Frenzy or Chandra, Acolyte of Flame as the opposing deck will look to bring in Scorching Dragonfire or Aether Gust but they may be deemed too slow for this matchup.

Likewise, Sebastian Pozzo also made very minimal changes to his deck against Matias Leveratto’s Temur Reclamation. Claim the Firstborn will be mainly used for the opposing Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath.

Jeskai Fires – Gabriel Nassif

One of the key cards out of 4th place Gabriel Nassif’s sideboard from this tournament was Robber of the Rich, which he credited to JdoubleR2 who used the same deck archetype to reach number 1 on the Mythic ladder during the January ranked season. It is especially good on the play and against slower control decks, when you are more likely to have less cards in your hand than your opponent’s.

The counterspells are crucial for resolving your key spells, namely a Teferi, Time Raveler or Fires of Invention.

Deafening Clarion has no role in this matchup, though it may come in handy on the first game to clear Pegasus Tokens generated by Archon of Sun’s Grace.

Kenrith is best against aggro decks and is considered to be the least impactful creature in the lineup as the lifegain is less relevant and the card draw may be a bit too slow.

Similar plan to the Azorius Control matchup.

Elspeth Conquers Death and Disenchant give ways to interact with Wilderness Reclamation.

Giant Killer is for the opposing Nightpack Ambusher, that Nassif knew Autumn Burchett had in their sideboard.

Same as above, except Kvartek’s gameplan was slightly different with the inclusion of Nissa, Who Shakes the World, and Nassif needed to apply pressure a little bit faster.

Jeskai Fires – Marcio Carvalho

Legion Warboss acts similarly to Nassif’s Robber of the Rich, it is a cheap, must-answer threat which can apply pressure on its own and can snowball quickly.

Tithe Taker causes problems in the gameplan making counterspells cost more and apply pressure as early as turn 2.

The slower cards are taken out for the appropriate removal spells.

The single copies of the cards may seem strange, but they can be found relatively well with the help of Sphinx of Foresight and the Temples.

Nassif opted to board in Elspeth Conquers Death in this matchup, but it looks like Carvalho deemed it a little bit too slow.

Jund Sacrifice – Piotr Glogowski

As the underdog in this matchup, Jund Sacrifice is looking to disrupt the game plan with additional hand disruption to remove the key cards that otherwise it cannot deal with.

Slower cards that don’t do much in the matchup are removed, and Noxious Grasp are added mainly for Nissa (which the other Temur Reclamation decks don’t have).

Temur Reclamation – Autumn Burchett

In this matchup, Aether Gust and Mystical Dispute are versatile counterspells to ensure Fires of Invention does not come down on the battlefield.

Nightpack Ambusher is a great card out of the sideboard to pressure opponents and give an angle other than the Explosion combo to win the game.

Fry is mainly for Teferi, Time Raveler, the deck’s main weakness.

In the mirror match, we cut the removal spells as these are largely creatureless spell-heavy decks.

The advantage of Hydroid Krasis and Uro is less good, as one Expansion // Explosion combo is enough to finish the game.

We want to have plenty of counterspells as a backup to our combo or to prevent theirs.

As before, Nightpack Ambusher is just a cheap creature that can run away with the game on its own, and we can expect less resistance from the opponent to remove it, other than an Explosion for 4. Combined with Growth Spiral it can even come down a turn earlier!

Conclusion

We hope this round up gave you a bit of insight in regards to how the players assessed the sideboard cards and when it deemed appropriate to board in. Rather than take all this information as face value, it is always best to adjust your main deck and sideboard according to your playstyle and metagame.

The Magic World Championship was only a small tournament and players could expect what they would play against relatively well, whereas in the larger environment such as the MTG Arena ladder queue or MagicFests, you will face a larger variety of decks and different builds.