Sideboarding

Ten cards, four of which answer Gear, and one that is dead against half the field.

Meta snapshot · August 2026. Dated starting configurations from the source guide, not live, not auto-updated, and not immutable plans.

vs LeBlanc Baited Hook

Your role · Their removal never targets youStay on Tempered.

21shuffled units after boarding✓ Stable

1416 floor22

21 shuffled units after boarding · at or above the floor of 16.

Bring in

1×unit

2×unit

2×spell / gear

Take out

2×spell / gear

1×spell / gear

Qualifications

Their outlets kill their own units rather than yours, so untargetable bodies do far less here than the card text suggests. Boarding protection against a deck that never wanted to choose your units is slots spent on nothing.

Baited Hook is a Gear. kills one on play with no rune requirement; Barbara needs seven runes first, so count them before you rely on her.

takes a Mind card and LeBlanc is Order and Mind, so it always has something to take.

Preserve · Their scoring needs a body at a battlefield when the Beginning Phase resolves. Moving it is worth more than killing it and is the one answer they cannot convert into value.

Avoid · Boarding untargetable bodies in as protection

Sideboard philosophy in §12 · role assignment in §1.

Take it to the table

Every matchup on one sheet, in and out, printed as paper rather than as a screenshot of this page. The reminder lines can be turned off there, which is what decides whether a long matchup list runs to a second sheet.

Open the printable sideboard sheet Fill in a registration sheet

Memory aids

Structural problem → the card that answers it. Each sideboard slot exists for a specific structural reason, not a general one.

Alone means no other friendly unit thereMaster Yi, Wuju Bladesman

Untargetable is not unkillable. Combat still worksRuin Runner

Chosen only while she is in combatAkali, Silent

Recall is not a move, so move triggers do not fireZhonya’s Hourglass

Deflect taxes the choice, it does not refuse itSteel Paws

Counters 4 Energy or less AND 1 Power or lessDefy

Pay the Power. The +2 lands before damageRampage

Needs 7 runes, or it is only a bodyTomb-Raider Barbara

From the guide . §12 Sideboarding

takes a Mind card specifically. Against a list with no Mind in it the card does nothing at all, so the domain check comes before the boarding decision rather than after.

Rules note only kills a gear if you control seven or more runes when she is played. Before that she is a four-Might body and nothing else. has no such condition.

That difference is the whole reason both are in the board. Rake answers a gear on turn three; Barbara answers one later and leaves a bigger body behind.

is the only card here that answers a wide board, and it gains XP per kill, which matters more than it looks in the games where Tempered is close to six.