THe cirrent side deck and is it healthy for the game? How can it evolve?

[Genexwrecker]

Currently a lot of player's side decks consist of the following if they are not already maindecked

1.) Hand trps
2.) Floodgates
3.) Archetypal specific massive removal cards(system down)

A lot of these floodgates consist of cards like Anti spell fragrance, Skilldrain, Mistake, thunder king, ect.
A lot of these hand traps consist of Ash, ghost ogre, winter cherries, evenly matched, ect.

The side deck is a great thing in the game and shows the true skill of a plyer if they cn build the side deck properly to top events in the format and for some actually win. However the main issue is are these lock out cards too powerful with little drawback?

Currently if you open second with evenly matched and your opp happend to not open an out to your turn 1 hand trap they basically auto lose with all but 1 of their resources being effectively permanently removed from the game. If you open a floodgate and any of the solemn cards and your opp does not open an out you also basically auto win. The card exciton knight was a card a lot of decks could maindeck and it was banned mainly because it promoted bad play and rewarded players for having little to no resources on their side. Evenly matched Rewards a player simply for drawing it first. If you draw into it later on in the game yes it would brick and be mostly useless. But does this downside of this basically a win button balance it out alongside the no battle phase?

Cards like thunder king, droll and lock, and ash blossom all stop searching. However thunder king and droll can lock your opp out for essentailly an entire turn for free. If you go neg `1 to activate but stop your opp from playing ygo then it basically becomes a plus for all those search cards that are now dead bricks. If you open hand traps there is no good counter to those. No good way to play around them unless it is a 1 time use handtrap.

Floodgates are seemingly more favored by the community as balanced as pretty much all of them are subject to almost any kind of field removal making them much easier to deal with and play around. They also make you think when to activate them. AGain there is always the issue that you auto lose simply because you did not open the out to the floodgates.

What are your opinions of the side deck atm? ARE certain cards more viable in this format for the side deck? What cards might be too powerful in the side deck? What might be considered to be more of a maindecked side card for the format? Whd kind of changes would you like to see side decks adapt?

I like competitive play and yes it can get very salty when your opp opens evenly games 2 nd 3 but siding is an important aspect of the game and i still wish to know if many of you find the siding to hold the value it did in previous formats?

[Lost in Illusions]

shut up man wtf every day new essay.....

[flaming_ice]

side decking is the skillfull part of the game... thats why we need to delete singles in rated....

[rebellion]

A lot competitive deck has very similar main deck but different side deck. Meta deck may have some good play that everyone do so that they have the best play and if everyone do the same thing, everyone can get counter by the same thing too, that is how important side deck is. Side deck is good, because it need good card management and some predict work to win game which is a lot harder than main deck.

[knyteii]

Side decks are not necessary. I have come in second in every tournament I have been through. Except one in which I came in third behind a Yata deck and the Light deck where I went toe-to-toe with. I have tried 41 card decks. I had a great 45 card deck. But, I have found that I do my best with 60 card decks. And I have never even had a side deck.