Masatoshi Togawa’s performance at the 2004 World Championships was stellar from a lot of different perspectives. He played incredibly well, his main deck was a great example of a Chaos Beatdown/Control hybrid, and his play style switched gears from defensive to offensive with the speed of a true veteran. But a good amount of his genius at the event rested in his side deck. Togawa’s side deck was balanced perfectly between cards that would allow him to play as a dedicated Chaos Control deck or dedicated Chaos Beatdown deck. The result was that his play style and his entire deck could switch gears on the fly, and he still had room for some tech on the side. It’s possibly the single best side deck in the game, and the two-way balance system of building a side deck is one that will likely be emulated by future champions.
However, that time hasn’t arrived yet. Battle City Amsterdam’s side decks are prime examples of all the side-decking methods prevalent for the past several years, with the exception of Togawa’s balanced method. A mishmash of every side decking priority was present. Some players devoted their side deck to work against decks that give them trouble, and this was especially prevalent amongst the handful of Exodia players. While anti-Chaos tech was usually the only form of tech played, many players in Amsterdam tweaked their decks in other ways as well. One of the frequent selections was Mask of Darkness, yet another sign that nails are being pounded into Jinzo’s coffin. Prohibition was featured in several side decks as well, providing an interesting source of tech against First Turn KO decks in particular. Prohibition also punishes players that rely on particular key cards and sacrifice Mystical Space Typhoon and Heavy Storm in order to dedicate more slots to their theme.
Also popular was the “I need more options” technique. Warrior, Fiend, Beatdown, and Chaos Beatdown decks favored this type of side deck, which uses fifteen cards that didn’t fit into the first 40–43 cards of the main deck and thus got bumped to the side. The advantage is that you’ll have wiggle room to really exploit your chosen theme. The drawback is that you’re stuck in the constraints of that particular theme, and if you come across something you weren’t expecting, you likely won’t be able to easily deal with it.
The total conversion method—having fifteen cards that you can rotate into your main deck to convert the entire theme—was not as popular as it often is in other metagames. Canadian Champion Leung demonstrated this method, which is very easy to play but difficult to play well, several months ago in the Canadian Championship. Leung could change his deck from an anti-Chaos Beatdown deck to a Gravekeeper deck at a moment’s notice. The strength of this strategy and the wisdom of such a plan is easily called into question. Not many players used this strategy in Battle City Amsterdam.
Overall, Battle City Amsterdam was a varied pool of side-decking techniques, but on the whole, it was slightly better than was what was seen at US and Canadian Nationals. Duelists avoided many of the side-decking pitfalls that one can often encounter, and although there is still nothing to unseat Togawa’s side deck as a true work of side-decking art, the side decks present showed a great deal of thought and foresight as some of the best in recent history.