Best of 5

Wizards decided to make a change to how sideboarding functions in best-of-five matches played on Sunday at Pro Tours and the Magic: The Gathering World Championship. Starting with Pro Tour Shadows over Innistrad in Madrid, Spain. The first two games played in a best-of-five playoff match on Sunday will be pre-sideboard games. After Game 2 is completed, players may change cards in and out from their sideboards and main decks in between games.

In my opinion, it is a possitive change. Imagine, you are in the finals. Five digits prize for being a winner. You lost game one, just because. Some deck are really difficult to stop pre-sideboard if they have a decent starting hand, for instance Affinity in Modern. In second game you got a screw and you are out of tournament. You may say life or shit happens, but Magic the Gathering is not a lottery and the luck factor should be minimalized if it is possible. Best of 5 is one of the ways the to do it. It favors better players. However, the fact is that some deck will benefit more on this change than others. I'm speaking of decks which have higher percentage winning rate pre-sideboard. But still, there is no deck which wins every game pre-sideboard. Assume, it is 80% of games. So, winning two games in a row pre-sideboard is only 64%. Competition will be more balanced.