Sideboarding with 5 Color Urza

What’s happening everyone, MoxAmethyst here and back to share with you my sideboard guide for 5c Urza, if you missed my last article breaking down the deck you can find it here.

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Now let’s remind ourselves of the list, I’ve made 2 very slight changes to Mondays decklist. Nothing too dramatic, the main deck Grafdigger’s Cage is now a Nihil Spellbomb as the draw effect is relevant, and having a one-shot exile effect is better against cards like Wrenn and Six. The other change is I’ve swapped the Nature’s Claim in the Sideboard for a Wear//Tear. Since we’re already playing White this just seems like a strict upgrade that I initially missed.

Creatures:
3x Goblin Engineer
4x Urza, Lord High Artificer
Planeswalkers:
1x Teferi, Time Raveler
Instants:
1x Galvanic Blast
3x Whir of Invention
Artifacts:
4x Mox Opal
4x Mishra's Bauble
4x Arcum's Astrolabe
2x Chromatic Star
1x Nihil Spellbomb 
2x Pithing Needle
1x Pyrite Spellbomb
1x Ichor Wellspring
2x Welding Jar
4x Thopter Foundry 
2x Sword of the Meek
1x Ensnaring Bridge
Lands:
4x Snow-Covered Island
1x Snow-Covered Mountain
1x Snow-Covered Swamp
1x Breeding Pool
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Steam Vents
1x Watery Grave
1x Spire of Industry
1x Inventor's Fair 
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Polluted Delta

Sideboard:
2x Assassin's Trophy 
2x Ceremonious Rejection 
1x Damping Sphere 
1x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Fatal Push 
1x Wear//Tear
2x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas 
3x Thoughtseize  

So that’s the list, now let’s look at how I would sideboard vs the decks that I expect to see in this new format, we’ll start with an old favourite.

Vs Jund

In:
2x Assassin's Trophy
3x Fatal Push
2x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Out:
1x Teferi, Time Raveler
2x Whir of Invention
1x Mox Opal
2x Chromatic Star
1x Pyrite Spellbomb 

This isn’t too complicated a plan, we bring in some removal for their planeswalkers/creatures, and an additional threat in Tezzeret. We board out a couple of Whir because they are quite slow and clunky, and with the expected rise in Kolaghan’s Command out of the Jund decks it’s more difficult to use the improvise on this card effectively, the rest of the cuts are just trimming on the less effective 1 and 2 ofs.

Vs UW Control/Stoneblade

In:
2x Assassin's Trophy 
1x Wear//Tear
3x Thoughtseize
2x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Out:
1x Goblin Engineer
2x Mox Opal
1x Welding Jar
2x Chromatic Star
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Ensnaring Bridge

I expect most UW lists to still have some number of Rest in Peace in the sideboard even with Gaak out of the picture, so we’re cutting the Stars and the Nihil Spellbomb for that reason. Trimming on Opal happens alot as you’ll see, in this matchup we can afford to trim 2 as they don’t play artifact destruction, and the games are likely to go on for a little while, so Mox Opal becomes less necessary.

Vs UrzaSword

In:
2x Assassin's Trophy
2x Fatal Push
3x Thoughtseize
Out:
1x Goblin Engineer
1x Mox Opal
2x Chromatic Star
1x Pithing Needle
1x Pyrite Spellbomb
1x Ensnaring Bridge

In the mirror match your best bet is to race to the combo and try and disrupt your opponent doing the same, so we’re cutting some of our do nothing cards for a little bit of interaction.

Vs Burn

In:
2x Assassin's Trophy
3x Fatal Push
Out:
1x Teferi, Time Raveler
1x Mox Opal
1x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Pithing Needle

In this matchup we just want to survive long enough to stabilise with Thopter Foundry and then combo off or kill them with an ammassing army of Thopters.

Vs Grixis Death’s Shadow

In:
3x Fatal Push
1x Ensnaring Bridge
2x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
Out
2x Whir of Invention
1x Mox Opal
2x Pithing Needle
1x Ichor Wellspring

I’m expecting people to move back towards Grixis as the Shadow flavour of choice, with an expected uptick in UW Control decks access to Stubborn Denial looks very important. With that in mind we’re bringing in some removal spells for Shadow, a second bridge to try and shut them out from attacking and another win condition in Tezzeret that Grixis Shadow struggles to beat outside of combat. Were trimming Whir because of it’s poor matchup with Stubborn Denial, and Pithing needle and wellspring as the worst cards in our deck vs the Grixis Shadow plan.

Vs Tron

In:
2x Assassin's Trophy
2x Ceremonious Rejection
1x Damping Sphere
3x Thoughtseize 
Out:
3x Goblin Engineer
1x Mox Opal
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Pyrite Spellbomb
2x Welding Jar

This is pretty straightforward, were not brining in some interaction and we’re cutting the cards that don’t do very much. The reason we cut Engineer here is two-fold, firstly it is quite slow against turn 3 Karns and Wurmcoils. Also Tron will still be playing Relics, so we don’t want to run straight into relic activations for no good reason. Whir is enough here to find your pieces.

So there’s my sideboard plan for the 6 decks I would most expect to play against at an event this weekend. Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and if you’re looking to pickup any of the cards in this article for yourself you can follow the links to find them on TCGPlayer, any purchases through the link helps us out a bunch! Cheers for taking the time to read, and pop back this weekend for A Second Look at Horizons #2, where we will be looking at the Modern Horizons cards that play well with a certain Kor who’s just re-entered the modern pool. Until then this is MoxAmethyst Tapping out.