Hosted in Machala, Ecuador on July 25th, 2026, this 44 player Goat Grand Prix was historic for its community as they mark their entry into the global competitive community. Summarized well on the event's instagram page by Ricardo Salcedo, translated, with Top 8 lists to follow:

The winner and semifinalist of the tournament were both on Chaos Turbo capable of siding into Royal Decree, Scapegoat, and Metamorphosis, but subtle differences in their lists are worth examining. Wasbrum's list only runs two copies of Gravekeeper's Spy, lowering the overall monster count and minimizing the odds that two will accumulate in hand making the teched mained Mind Control fail to exploit an opposing Spy. One might argue that three in deck makes Mind Control always live in that common scenario, but then the dead Spy in hand phenomenon becomes increasingly likely. Mind Control's utility outside of the mirror match would be to enable direct damage from Chaos monsters by temporarily getting their monster out of the way regardless of its battle position. The ability to loop it with Magician of Faith can make it a menace of a card choice. 

Luis Cada also topped with Turbo, omitting Card Destruction as well to deny rival Turbo decks free cards from their Thunder Dragons, Night Assailants, and Sinister Serpents and packing a Spell Canceller in the side, but also Jowgen! Jorge Garcia Hesny brought a spicy Dimension Fusion Turbo build featuring: DMoC, Jinzo, Cannon Soldier, Gravekeeper's Guard, Sacred Crane, Enemy Controller, Monster Reincarnation, Brain Control, Magic Jammer, and Ceasefire! You have to admire it for a moment. Ceasefire actually makes a lot of sense, rather than being a "random" burn card it serves as a way for a resolved Dimension Fusion to get the win if attacking is insufficient to do the job and doubles as FLIP negator and Chaos Sorcerer banishment aid. Sacred Crane makes every Dimension Fusion profitable even more. Lots of theft and dump Spells make tribute monsters more playable while also serving as indirect removal in the context of Cannon Soldier, who is Sangan-able, and co-operates with Ceasefire to turn large numbers of monsters brought in from Dimension Fusion into direct damage for the opponent. Skull Invitation come in a pair to compound the damage from the sideboard, what a list!

Earth Aggro, Reasoning Gate Turbo (RGT), and Panda Burn round out the tournament's highest performing decks, other than another Chaos Turbo deck, but you'll notice something different about these lists as other than RGT every other list goes over 40 cards! Earth Aggro theorists have long debated the potential value of cards like Solemn Judgment and Return from the Different Dimension, and it seems Joseph Manobanda has fallen firmly into the "Gigantes isn't a reason to not use the best backrow card for an aggro deck" camp with a win-button thrown in for good measure.

Diego Murillo's RGT list features a pair of Airknight Parshath, a card that once used to be Scapegoat's nemesis but now mostly sits in a binder afraid of Gravekeeper's Spy and Blade Knight; when you summon it "for free", however, it hits different and with the Parshaths and two Cranes, if a game shot hasn't been assembled yet, it can be dug for. Perhaps the Spell Cancellers in other player's  boards are for all the Dimension Fusions. Should the card ever truly break the format as some fear it could, it seems we have an answer from this metagame for that scenario.

Magic Cylinder in the main feels very 41st card and it can be quite potent. Lava Golem in the sideboard is a classic, but an interesting way to punish players that attempt to pressure Christian Soledispa's Panda Burn build with more aggression and is another means by which sheep tokens and problem monsters can be removed.

Ronald Angel's decision to run a 42 card Chaos Turbo deck with Upstarts and a pair of JoGs is interesting in terms of probabilities but likely reflects the addition of a Mind Control and Trap Dustshoot in main to handle the ever-prevalent Chaos Turbo. Anti-Spell Fragrance making an appearance hints again at preparation for OTK decks.

On June 14th of this year, Colombia hosted a GGP with an insane top finish. This event, the first of its kind, had a whopping 97 players and 3 invites! This event was not only a monumental success for a nation’s first GGP, but also one against all odds.

​This author may be late to the party, but with this much format love and insane tech we had to give the top 8 some eyeballs.

​Both first and second place for this event were won by Chaos Turbo, and given the sick jank in the rest of the top 8 this makes some sense. What’s most notable though is that both of these players LOVE their Kycoos. Runner-up Diego Ferrer had 3 of the Ghost-Destroyer in the board, and our champion Andrés Camelo had 3 IN THE MAIN (and 3 Sakuretsu Armor too, by the way). In fifth place was Gustavo Camargo running only 2 Kycoo and 2 Sakuretsu armor. Perhaps he didn’t have enough Kycoos to take the cake (or perhaps Night Assailant isn’t so good in a turbo deck with few flips and no Card Destruction). Lastly, it feels worth noting the highly nontraditional sides of these decks, with a high focus on hate cards (Decree, Canceller, Jinzo, etc.) over the removal we see in the online meta. Congratulations to these players for their stellar and Kycoo-loving performances!

​Straying from the trend was Ricardo Castillo with his sixth place finish. This list looks a lot more suited for the online meta, and if I had to guess would have done incredibly against a mirror with any of the previous three players, or even our third place player. This author speculates Ricardo fell to the absolute sick-nastiness of our fourth place player specifically (read on, you’ll see). That aside, I see a lot I like in this list that I think players can take some notes on for the current online/European meta. Congratulations to Ricardo for making it happen!

In third place is a deck I’m affectionately calling “Batshit Burn,” because its composition is, well…  batshit! How else might you describe a 41-card burn deck with quantities like these? Though it may look like an eyesore, a careful look at why play these quantities of cards tells a lot more of a story: 2 Cannon Soldier and 3 Scapegoat combo to empty your burn and convert the goats into burn when you’re ready; 2 Ojama trio because we don’t have tools to ojama lock, don’t prioritize the burn traps as our only burn, and don’t want to brick on multiple copies; 2 Wave-Motion Cannon because we have enough redundant burn not to max it out; 1 Metamorphosis because we can only really use it with a Goat Token and Sangan, and we don’t want to TER more than once in a game anyway; etc. With all of that, the only head-scratcher left is why Erick’s on 1 Area B and 1 Bind instead of 2 Area B or the traditional 2 of each. This deck looks like it had what it takes to go all the way for this event, especially since neither first nor second place ran Mystik Wok for Lava Golem. I for one am a certified Batshit Burn believer! Congratulations to Erick on third place and the third invite!

In fourth place is the absolutely sick-nasty Reasoning Gate Horus Goat Control piloted by Juan Guillermo Bernal. The deck maximizes summoning King Dragun and Horus the Black Flame Dragon Lv8, then protecting from what little left can out them with My Body as a Shield and Solemn Judgement. What really impresses me most about this deck is its redundancy and its willingness to use Reasoning with that redundancy. Say what you will be no player is calling 1, 3, 5, or 7 in the blind (even 6 is questionable), leading to an instant fatty and free summon most of the time. Using redundancy and protection over reactive answers to push through is a rare approach and always a cool one to see succeed.

This author is thrilled both that the deck has seen success before and to see possible room for future growth. Congratulations to Juan for bringing Horus into the limelight once again!

​Last but certainly not least are two unique Zombie decks in 7th and 8th. Samuel Chaves Monge ran a Decree Earth aggro variant with Stein and Will to trigger off tribute summon Kokki or Exiled Force. Most of the deck’s monsters are extremely durable normal summons and are equally capable of converting into explosive finishes.

Ramón Gonzáles, on the other hand, opted for Skill Drain over Decree. Notable is the 2 Vampire Lord and 1 Ryu Kokki over the traditional 2 Kokki 1 (or 0) Lord. Also highly respectable is the use of Goats and Creature Swap WITHOUT shoehorning Metamorphosis. Sometimes the threat of TER is scarier than the TER, and Ramón opted for Enemy Controller in the side to better take advantage of the Goats. Both continuous traps seem to have cut the mustard for top 8, but neither brought their pilots further. Congratulations to both players for a great Swiss!

In closing, Raidenxix said it best:
​

​    “May this be the start of many more major events for the community, and thank you all very much for your participation and support. See you at the next tournaments.”
​

The Retro Reborn series hit Fort Myers Florida, and with it another Floridian GGP. This event yielded an extremely cool top 8 which is both atypical for the current Goat meta at large and extremely typical for Florida specifically.

Our first and second place were two Chaos Turbo decks: One in the hands of RichiePR and one in the hands of Ryan Spicer. If you look at the two lists, you’ll notice that Richie’s has a slight edge in the mirror due to Phoenix Wing Wind Blast and Night Assailant. Spicy’s deck definitely has more of an all-rounder appeal, but in a mirror specifically it’s no wonder Richie took the cake. In third place was yet another Turbo player, Yasiel Antonio Gonzales. Any other year I would call 3 Chaos Turbo decks for 1st to 3rd an absolute snooze, but this season that’s a bit of an exciting development! Congratulations to all of these players for great Chaos Turbo finishes.

​In 4th and 6th place were two Panda Burn players: Nick Dupras in 4th and certified-Shane-Gillis-lookalike Jakob Patterson in 6th. Both of these decks look quite unique, but both take after the more deliberate and stall-driven Panda Burns that worlds suggested are the best. I myself am pleased to see Mask of Darkness, Solemn Judgement, Magic Jammer, and Mask of Restrict all in regular rotation. Congratulations to both of these players on their tops.

In 5th place we had a Swaggr on Earth Aggro, using 3 Decree and a Giant Trunade for back row removal over the traditional 3 Dust Tornadoes. A lot of this deck’s design looks like it originally had 2 Last Will and a Cyber Stein that got swapped out last second, especially the main deck Amazons Archer. Nonetheless, things certainly seemed to work out with the hyper aggressive strategy. Always pleasure to see a Florida Man go smash.

In 7th place was none other than Daniella Fitzgerald, aka LZ (pronounced “liz”) the Heretic. The Heretic was rocking a mostly standard Warrior deck with a hell of a flip package, 1 JoG to go with 1 Xing Zhen Hou (it’s a little combo, do you see it?), and a main deck Spirit Reaper.

Last but certainly not least was Justin Katz playing Last Turn! This deck is an absolute favorite of the author’s, and it’s exciting to see a list so different than any other that’s seen success. However, I do have to say to whomever faced Katz round 1: If you have Serpent in hand and your opponent shotguns LT in standby phase, you win. Get the Serp back, normal summon it in main phase, and attack over Jowgen during the regular battle phase. Was this LT the sauce, or is LT simply overpowered in a room full of people who don’t know how it works? This author intends to find out eventually…

Once again, congratulations to all these players for their stellar performances!

The 41st Format Library Championship has come to a close: 205 players, a new champion, a new best for a committed rogue player, and the rumblings of Chaos Turbo’s comeback.

As with the previous FLC, FLC 41 was an asynchronous Swiss event with each round played over 2-3 days. This opens the event up to many people of many timezones who wouldn’t otherwise be able to play, though some do abstain from the tournament structure. Nonetheless, the event boasted 205 attendees making for 6 offered invites and loads of strong competition.

Returning from the top 4 of the last FLC, our FLC 41 champion is Ludipableone, or just Ludi for short. Ludi loaded the same extremely-solid Warrior list as last FLC. The only two changes were second Kinetic Solider over second Berserk Gorilla, and second Book of Moon over third Sakuretsu armor. While those changes seem small, who would have ever thought that it would be correct not to play 3 Saku in such a Warrior-heavy meta? That kind of change shows a level of consideration and testing that really shows how Ludi excels. Ludi himself told me he’s tired of playing Warriors, so have fun picking up some jank and congratulations on becoming the newest FLC champion!

Our runner up was Alephya2 playing Angel Chaos Return. Aleph has been on a Chaos Warrior Return deck along with his brother for quite a while, so this was a stark change from what we’ve seen the rest of the year (though not compared to his past). Congratulations on the second place and the invite!

Overall, our top 16 had 5 (count em, FIVE) Chaos Turbo decks. This is the first time in a while that Turbo has had more representation than Chaos Control, let alone more success. This seems to coincide with Turbo sides dropping Goat/Meta for more traditional Warrior hate like Zombyra and Sakuretsu armor. Is this a coincidence? Was Turbo siding Goat/Meta a collective delusion that hurt the deck's performance and players finally figured that out? Who’s to say!

The spiciest turbo deck of this event was Soldierpenguin21's, running 3 Phoenix Wing Wind Blast and 2 Mask of Darkness. Combined with Tsukuyomi, these two cards give turbo an alternate win con in draw-locking the opponent:

As we've seen throughout this season, top cut also had a ton of Warriors and Chaos Control, 4 of each to be exact. There was also one Warrior Turbo deck in top 16.

​The spiciest techs of the event were without a doubt Krebz and Pax. Krebz sided a Trunade and two Big Bang Shot to go with his Asura Priest and potentially OTK players with Scapegoats. Pax, meanwhile, ran 2 THUNDER NYAN NYAN (yes, really) in his Chaos Control against Warrior. I have not a clue what made this the right choice, but a huge pat on the back is an order nonetheless.

The biggest story of this event by far was Apoptosis (pronounced “ah-puh-toe-sis”) making top 16 with Clown Control. This is not only Apop’s (pronounced “ay-pop”) best Goat Format finish, but the best finish for Clown Control in Goat Format history. Like many Goat Format rogue decks, Stumbling was clearly a card Konami wanted to give a lot of options that ended up being nothing more than deck building traps. Apop has truly condensed the concept down to its best features (Stumbling and Clown) and found the best “good cards” to facilitate this strategy. Where Stumbling really shines is the sideboard, which features multiple effect monsters that are a total pain to play around… if they can be in face up defense mode. Stumbling decks are the only good home for Banisher of Light, the best home for Protector of Sanctuary, and the second best home for Jowgen the Spiritualist (besides Last Turn). More than anything, this top is a testament to how a dedicated player can make any deck shine. I wonder who else might pick up the Clown now that it’s proven itself a little more…

Notably absent were any unfair decks, which continue to absolutely flounder in the face of Warriors. In theory, Panda Burn should be quite well positioned to make use of Mask of Restrict and punish the predictable field. In practice, however, the author is quite far from the Queen she used to be. With Ludi pivoting decks, maybe we’ll see some more great spice in our next event. And we have a 3v3 coming up! The 3v3 championships certainly have a way of making things interesting.

​Format Library Championship 41 Results: [1-2] [1-2] [2-1] [1-2] [DROP]

​Waboku is an edge case I’m choosing over puy’s Threatening Roar suggestion because of the frequency with which we can crash with monsters like Blade Knight or Jirai Gumo. This option is fine because we don’t really fear Mystic Swordsman LV2 and we can often use Drain to turn off the D.D. monsters that could otherwise trouble us. Lightning Vortex I’m stubborn about just because it works in so many matchups. She leans into what’s needed so you can get to plowing through the opposition faster, as the deck has been more or less de-bricked and up-removaled into a serious contender with unique strengths and answers for its weaknesses. With some testing though, a question arises regarding the optimal usage of Skill Drain and necessity of RAC: "why am I using a Spell card to have a bigger monster when i could just have a bigger monster?" asked puy.

It’s worth examining, what does this deck do better or different than just, Drain Beat? (she linked me to one of don’t copy’s old lists that was pretty gnarly: https://formatlibrary.com/decks/861). RAC inherently makes you more vulnerable to disruption, and it bricks in multiples.

My argument is that the monsters occupy a better balance of function with or without Drain up. Drain shifts our own needle less while Drain guarantees that Emissary can trade profitably with Blade Knight even if we may have to throw a Slate under the bus and crash with a Duck or Silpheed to stop a Gumo offense. Our ceiling is higher since with RAC, 2200 ATK is the WIND suite’s floor, barring Twin-Headed, with the other beaters entering at 2400 and 2500 under those conditions. If this article wound up successfully selling the merits of Skill Drain more than it did Rising Air Current, I would not be surprised. Skill Drain is great vs Warrior except for two monsters, Exiled Force who can ignore it, and Zombyra who gets massively pumped by it. Gumo offers two Jirai Gumo and a Swift Gaia as opposition also, and Slate can get over them both under RAC. Silpheed significantly advances the clock while beating over enough of the metagame to be a relevant attacker, and its effect triggers in the GY, safe from Skill Drain.

Manticore being cute at one, a disaster that goes well rarely at two, as puy had said earlier, makes me want to push the deck back out a little bit more (read: re-insert bricks and adjust), but at risk of slowing it down for a chance at a higher ceiling, make no mistake about what putting high level monsters in decks does. If you still want to play Necrofear and Manticore, these ratios seem good as one gets. A single Silpheed remains because WIND monsters are abundant, including 4 non-Fiends 3 of which are tutorable. The Fiend count is increased to 9 total by adding a third Shadowknight Archfiend to make Necrofear available earlier and just to have another beater that is 2000 ATK without RAC.

https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=20561723 [CompromisedJoy]

To anyone’s complete lack of surprise the match that got me thinking hard about Emissary was one with AlephYa2. There’s also been good discussion in the Discord lately about the viability of Necrofear and Manticore, not together, but also completely separate from this deck’s development so it may just be that the universe was trying to manifest this deck. Who knows. But it’s a blast to play and can go toe-to-toe with most aggro strategies out there while often shutting down Warriors and critical FLIP effects. In my mind, RAC + Drain is the most viable WIND strategy I have seen so far, and while I don’t have the time to grind for competition like I should, I know that good recipes are meant to be shared.

Shep in 2021 made a pretty sick list [https://formatlibrary.com/decks/2074] that topped FLC 16 classified as “Emissary Beat” by Format Library featuring the Duck at 2 copies (Manticore and RAC reward us for maxing them), AlephYa2 shows up next in the archetype for topping with an Emissary focused list in 2022 [https://formatlibrary.com/decks/19914]. Puy was an immensely helpful collaborator on the Modifications section and gave some great tips. Spooky helped me tighten the article up and cut some bloat too. I would like to thank Alderoth as a fellow chef, Riksaah and Alison as amiable early testers, as well as the NoVA Goat Format Community for being a dope locals helping me fine tune this (special thanks to bluetooth for crushing my Winged Beast build, Desi for throwing insane ATK values at me and ⛧sᴛᴀʀ∴ꜰɪʀᴇ⛥ for all the Gumo runbacks).

-C.G.

I've played a lot of games with WIND Aggro, call me a true believer, and I believe that WIND Aggro should utilize the unique opportunity Rising Air Current (RAC) represents in regards to structuring its offense, and I believe I have found a method that utilizes it best, by being able to win without it but really leaning into it when we get it. The real meat and potatoes is in the eclectic menagerie assembled here to capitalize on it. I’ve been chewing on how to master the Manticore of Darkness and wound up including my favorite monster (other than D.D. Warrior Lady), Dark Necrofear, along the way, which may also be the best deck I can think to fit her into. RAC addresses one barrier all decks must be able to climb over or blow through; when the winds are high the 2000 DEF Gravekeeper’s Spy is no obstacle.

The above is the list I entered in Format Library Championship 41. As you can see, it is more or less Emissary WIND Aggro. The idea is simple with Rising Air Current: most Monster cards deemed playable happen to be DARK, LIGHT, and EARTH, with some few exceptional WATER Attribute monsters commonly seen as well. WIND and FIRE monsters thus benefit more from their Field Spells, since their application is almost guaranteed to be asymmetrical given their Attribute’s extremely small footprint in the metagame. Asymmetrical ATK boosts lead to increased pressure on opposing monsters and the opponent’s LP while multiplying advantage across your front row. 

What advantages does RAC provide over a card like Banner of Courage or Graceful Dice? Persistent power: a standard +500 ATK -400 DEF that pushes Level 4 monsters into contention with tribute monsters in terms of raw strength, and it applies the whole time, not just during a battle phase in particular. The Field Spell zone also leaves your five Spell and Trap card zones open, should you build towards a heavier backrow element. Field Spells do represent concentrated risk, however as they can be removed in untimely fashion, like an opposing Dust Tornado during your attack declaration. Distributing risk is one way to mitigate this, which explains most of the monster choices.

We are usually playing around Heavy Storm in one way or another, and that means we are in a race against time to maximize impact before it can be drawn in some games, but in many it can be baited with just one of the two high-impact field-redefining cards we use. We will get to Skill Drain later. A 2:1 RAC:Terraforming ratio was chosen versus 3 copies of RAC in order to reduce clog and is probably the ideal ratio for decks not fully dependent on the Field Spell they’re using. Array of Revealing Light remains an underexplored sideboard option for Terraforming mains.

Nothing rocks the 1900 ATK monster slot quite like Slate Warrior. Slate adds a unique effect to your Book of Moon, in which if you have a manual battle position change available, it can give Slate Warrior +500 ATK/DEF. The FLIP effect never goes off, you should virtually never Set this card without planning to use Return From the Different Dimension, Dimension Fusion, or Solemn Judgment. The Nobleman of Crossout hit is brutal. If Slate gets run over by anything other than Blade Knight attacking alone or Mystic Swordsman LV2, the threat gets softened up by its stat drop effect; the ATK tiers being what they are, it’s bound to come up. 

A Zombyra the Dark drops to a surmountable 1400 ATK after a Slate kill, Jirai Gumo down to 1700 like Duck. The same difference RAC adds, a Slate can subtract from anyone but a solo Blade Knight. Since Slate’s second effect activates in the GY Skill Drain won’t negate it and sometimes the inevitability of a -500 ATK/DEF penalty can reduce an opponent’s offensive momentum. Generally you will be happy you have a 1900 that has multiple paths to 2400 ATK and feeds your boss monster. Strangely, Slate was one of the later cards to be added, despite being the best WIND Aggro monster one could ask for, as at first the Fiend direction had not yet been decided. Initially the deck focused on Winged Beasts like Birdface, Garuda the Wind Spirit, and Cyber Harpie Lady, but the ceiling was too low even when Manticore of Darkness was identified as a possible asset in a deck built around floating on a Rising Air Current.


Emissary of the Afterlife presents a unique challenge to decks with three copies of Sakuretsu Armor in their 55s, as like a 1600 ATK Sangan battle traps activate its effect and bring a stronger monster to your hand. Your opponent will most likely not have any Level 3 Normal monsters to search their Deck for when Emissary goes off. Asymmetrical application of symmetrical effects is a theme here. Being a DARK Attribute seems unhelpful until you realize that in most games Emissary functionally is a WIND Attribute monster and Winged Beast monster while adding to your Fiend count. A well-timed Skill Drain can also turn a Blade Knight attack into a beneficial trade.

Sonic Duck has a few interesting properties. First, at 1700 ATK, it is the strongest level 3 Normal monster, making it the best target searchable by Emissary of the Afterlife in raw numbers and giving it the natural ability to slip under Gravity Bind and Level Limit Area - B. Second, Duck is also a WIND Attribute monster. Third, as a Winged Beast that can be tutored for, there is probably no better way to feed Manticore consistently working with these ATK values. At some point it did occur to me that Emissary, Slate Warrior, and Shadowknight Archfiend allowed for the summon of something stronger than Garuda who it would be competing with for food: our rogue deck’s own mini-Black Luster Soldier – Envoy of the Beginning: Dark Necrofear.

Necrofear feels relevant in this build. Emissary hitting GY is always an upgrade and your Slates are likely to eat Sakus, but you have adequate defenses against your opponent's Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer. By design, I wanted to maximize the number of aggressive “floaters”, a term used to describe monsters that replace themselves with another card when played. This allows me to keep up consistent pressure by replacing my monsters with new options when they are destroyed and simultaneously thins my deck of Monster cards, reducing the odds that one will be drawn rather than a Spell or Trap card that could make my next turns more dynamic since we are limited to one Normal Summon per turn.

Dark Necrofear turns into Snatch Steal when removal is used on it, whereas BLS just goes to grave when it attacks into a battle trap. Kinda like how it really sucks to use Mystical Space Typhoon on a Jar of Greed (this sentence aged well), your opponent will not have great options to stall your offense in full swing. Monsters that punish effect-based and attack-based destruction can be difficult to remove safely, and that’s the goal. 

It’s important to know that if an opponent uses Solemn Judgment to negate its summon, like Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys and Vampire Lord, it is destroyed by a card effect, and sent to the GY. So, its effect will still trigger and it will become an Equip Spell card. Unfortunately, we are playing after the errata which corrected her function such that she will not continue to come back as an Equip Spell once she is in Equip Spell form if destroyed. She must be a monster and under your control going to your GY for her effect to work not unlike Last Will, so despite the deck having many possible applications for Creature Swap, this is not one of them. Summoning her when your opponent doesn’t have a monster to steal but does have a backrow is risky.

Manticore of Darkness provides another use for the Ducks while also being a 2300 ATK monster that can sometimes be played from GY and doesn’t need RAC to be strong. Additionally, getting one out per game the cheesy way is actually common given the number of discards available like Tribe-Infecting Virus, Graceful Charity, Card Destruction and the opponent’s Delinquent Duo. What if your Swift Gaia just plain refused to stay dead? Brain Control in main of course exists to support the Manticore, but, if you have two in hand, you really just have one with an extra life that your opponent will need to play around, so it also feels less bricky to brick that way. With good timing, it’s doable to get them both on the board that way, pitching a Manticore for Manticore then pitching a Duck for the discarded Manticore. 

Twin-Headed Behemoth also exists to support Manticore plays, as the presence of a Behemoth nearly guarantees you can drop one the next turn, or, that your opponent will use a D.D. Warrior Lady on it instead of your Manticore, which can be +EV. “EV” or Expected Value is a broad term used to describe an exchange of cards or resources for the player, under the idea that asymmetry in resources dictates game outcomes: DDWL is a good game piece to remove from the board at the cost of a normal summonable monster. Similarly to Emissary, Twin-Headed is part of the aggressive floater policy that allows me to omit some S/T removal from my mainboard, reaching 2000 ATK under Rising Air Current as a Level 3 isn’t too bad, and if it blocks an attack, you can use the added 1000 or 1500 ATK on your side as more damage when you swing back or as a critical obstacle buying you another turn.

Shadowknight Archfiend is often seen as unwieldy even within Archfiend focused decks because its effect halves the damage it deals. We are running the only two WIND Fiends legal in Goat Format, so better options don’t exist, but we could do worse, even if 900 LP per controller Standby Phase (Skill Drain doesn’t stop it) is expensive. Two copies is the most I would care to run because it is well-balanced, emphasis on balanced. You pay a fair price for its good stats, relevant Type, and relevant Attribute, and 1/6th chance to negate a Saku or Snatch or Exiled Force. Shadowknight prevents us from using Solemns which is a significant drawback, but it crashes Blade Knight and has enough DEF to stop weak monsters. Not folding to Tsukuyomi matters. With RAC up it is a 2500 ATK monster that runs over common beaters and tribute monsters alike. If a BLS whacks a Slate and drops to 2500, you have a path to crash. Rising Air Current, with a Dark Necrofear to feed, is the best possible overlap in use case for this monster in my opinion.

​I cook a lot with another duelist that has a strong Wind affinity, and when he saw I had Skill Drain in the sideboard, he said “no, you main that right now.” So, I tried it, and yes, having a build where all your stuff has GY triggers and you use Normals unironically means it is nearly all upside. It also forces your opponent to use their S/T removal more wisely, as Skill Drain can stop Breaker or Mobius cold on its own, but having both it and a Field Spell that boosts ATK to worry about can put a lot of strain on any Warrior hand not containing Heavy Storm. Obviously our ideal board state has Rising Air Current and Skill Drain up at the same time, so Sakuretsu Armors exist also to punish opponents for holding their S/T removal too much, since we don’t absolutely need both to establish battlefield control. A Dust Tornado would be useful, especially if a Raigeki Break comes too, as the opponent’s End Phase is the ideal time to Set a Skill Drain with Dust or discard a Manticore for Break. Break’s flexibility is unrivaled and also plays nice with Dust. See, the deck is truly about 34-36 cards, with a good amount of flex slot availability.

I personally consider Twin-Headed Behemoth to be excellent but not absolutely necessary. Further cuts and adjustments could of course be made, frameworks lifted, etc, but, if you wanted to expand on it here isn’t a bad place to start. A playset of Solemn Judgment if made workable would be oppressive. Jar of Greeds would continue to make Storm worse in the absence of Solemn and could have utility despite being a bad topdeck, but given that Manticore is here, Magic Jammer might not be a bad outlet to have access to either. 

The sideboard is somewhat well-thought out, the most important piece other than extra battle traps is Chiron, who can pitch redundant or useless Spells to take out floodgates or Royal Decree and can himself be pitched to revive a Manticore. King Tiger Wanghu is also an option but Spear Dragon feels better under RAC and Drain and is well supported by traps. Nobleman of Crossout didn’t feel right to omit completely from the 55—vs Turbo Chaos obviously. Given Chaos Control’s resurgence, putting them back in main might not be a bad call, but Skill Drain is pretty effective at slowing down the crazy stuff it can do, in theory

Our newest GFCEU champion is none other than long-time legend Carl Waite!

Check out the top 16 decks from GGP Munich 2026!

The yearly GGP Munich has come and gone. Despite a horrendous heatwave, 189 players pulled up to throw down for the chance at 5 invites to the Goat Format World Championship!

The Germans’ choice of decks seem reflective of the online metagame, and show important trends to look out for in the season’s near future: Warrior’s recent dominance has brought Chaos Control back to the forefront, and by that I mean it’s in vogue to shove Scapegoat, Metamorphosis, and Creature Swap into what we’d otherwise call a Chaos Turbo deck. Whether they’re in the main deck (Chaos Control) or in the side deck (Chaos Turbo), it’s a good time to pack your Wanghus!

​To drive the point home, our Munich top 4 for 2026 was none other than 3 Chaos Control decks and one Chaos Turbo deck siding 2 Goat, 1 Meta, and a Swap. Taking home the gold is the newly-crowned back-2-back champion Mythic Piper. Both Piper and Daniel “Bohne” Wiebking packed a little spice by siding Roulette Barrel, while CC runner-up Fernando Torres packed a more traditional side. Lastly was Bernd Weber packed a Night Assailant/Card Destruction Chaos Turbo that converts into control for warrior. Congratulations to all four of these players for having their finger on the pulse for this event!

In top 8 there was online regular Oddisee on his trustee Warriors, Edi Khachatyrnan on 42-card Chaos Control with Return from the Different Dimension and Mind Crush. There were also not one but TWO different Stein/Will/Archer/Goats (SWAG) decks.

In 9th and 10th we had two guys named Tobias playing Warrior, and in 11th and 12th we had a Joker(88) on Turbo siding into control and a Killer(9208) on Warrior.

Last but not least, we had Leuh on Turbo siding a bunch of recruiters (a refreshing twist), Max Grandll on Warrior siding Goats for other Warriors and Asura for other Goats, Simon Polz on Warrior, and Gunshotti on Turbo siding into control. Congratulations to all these players for making the podium at such a sizable event.

Notably absent from this top 16 are any Panda Burn players, a usual mainstay at GGPs. This author’s guess is the high uptick in Raigeki Breaks, Creature Swaps, and Dark Balters from otherwise relatively helpless Turbo players has made things quite tough in Swiss. Also absent are any combo decks (unless you count SWAG), which is likely attributable to the high uptick in Warriors.

What an amazing and competitive event! Congrats again to MythicPiper for beating the heat and beating the competition once again!