So who's ready for the biggest free online Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament of all time? I know we are! Without further ado, here's all of the info for our SJC Freeroll, in which we're giving away SJC prize card Dark End Dragon!
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When: Saturdays 8/10/2019, 8/17/2019, 8/24/2019, and 8/31/2019 at 1 PM EST (10 AM PST, 6 PM UK time)
How to enter: Entry will be in the #tournaments channel of our discord server. Signups will start approximately 2 hours before the tournament does. You must submit your decklist when you enter.
Simulator: DuelingBook.com only
Decks: Locked. You cannot change any cards in your deck between rounds.
Rounds: Double elimination, no time limits. All rounds are played "live." Once pairings are announced, you will have 20 minutes to find your opponent before you are given a match loss.
Prizes: Winner's bracket finalist will move onto the winner's bracket of stage 2 of the tournament (see below). The loser's bracket finalist will move onto the loser's bracket of stage 2.
Glitch/disconnect policy: Any provable glitches that render the game unplayable will result in a redo of the game in progress. Glitches caused by one particular player (such as the "hand reveal glitch") will result in that player being given a game loss. All disconnections will result in a game loss (unless they occur during sidedecking).
Expected total tournament duration: 7-8 hours
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When: 9/1/2019 and onwards, until the tournament concludes
How to enter: You will automatically be entered for being a winner's bracket or loser's bracket finalist in one of the four qualifiers above. You must submit your decklist when you enter.
Simulator: DuelingBook.com only
Decks: Locked. You cannot change any cards in your deck between rounds. However, you may use a different deck than the one that you played in the qualifiers.
Rounds: Double elimination, no time limits. All rounds are played "non-live" (arrange a time with your opponent to play). All replays of your matches must be sent to staff.
Prizes: 1st place = SJC Dark End Dragon. If you wish, we will buy it back from you for $300, which is about 30% of its market value.
​Glitch/disconnect policy: Any provable glitches that render the game unplayable will result in a redo of the game in progress. Glitches caused by one particular player (such as the "hand reveal glitch") will result in that player being given a game loss. All disconnections will result in a game loss (unless they occur during sidedecking).
Expected total tournament duration: 15 days
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We anticipate the demand for this tournament to be extremely high, and thus our goal was to create a tournament structure that would be easy for our staff to run and provide the maximum potential for participation. Because of this, we decided to run a tournament in what is often called a "pool" structure.

The three double elimination tournaments that we ran in the past have all gone exceptionally well in terms of time-to-completion and player satisfaction, so we want to keep doing what's working. However, running this as one double elimination tournament would have the issue of the tournament taking a long time to conclude and providing interested players with only one particular date that they could enter; if they had something else going on that day, they would miss their one and only chance to win their SJC Dark End Dragon. By doing this hybrid pool structure, we feel that we will provide almost every player a chance to enter and win this tournament, regardless of whether they've got a wedding to attend on one particular Saturday or whether they live in America or Europe.

Our playoffs are effectively a continuation of these double elimination pools from stage 1, with one difference. It will be run "non-live" (aka "find your opponent"). Although these non-live tournaments tend to have inherent issues associated with them, we believe that these issues will be mitigated based on the fact that this stage of the tournament will only have 8 players, all of which will be highly motivated to find their opponents, as they will have a lot of skin in the game in that they will be very close to winning the big prize.

Although this pool structure may seem a bit complicated to those who are not familiar with it, we believe that it will overall offer the best possible experience for the Goat Format player-base. Pick a Saturday or two in August, make sure you've got several hours set aside, and you'll have a chance to win your very own SJC prize card, Dark End Dragon! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask us in the comments.

​The Goat Format community sure has come a long way since Jazz and Ynusgridorh hosted the inaugural Format Library Championship back in early 2018. Ironically enough, that first installment of the series remains to this day both the largest and only one of two that was actually won by a Goat Control deck. I remember telling myself that Sunday that I would win with Empty Jar when I finally got a chance to play in one, but that didn't exactly pan out; instead, I ran the old "undefeated in Swiss, lose in top cut to Burn" at FLC3 that March with Goat Control of all things, a deck I'm not exactly known for piloting well (or at all, for that matter).

​Six FLCs and over a year later, I finally got my chance to show the world what Morphing Jar and Cyber Jar can do in Goat Format at FLC9 this past weekend in what is likely to be one of my last serious tournament showings of the year, given that I'll be following in the footsteps of the great Jae Kim and starting law school in a few months and won't be able to play in anything for a while after that.

Goat Format in 2019 is good and all, but does it really compare to going to a SJC in 2005, when you could compete for prize cards worth thousand of dollars? Well now you can do that in 2019 too. That's because in August, we will be giving away a Near Mint SJCS-EN007 Dark End Dragon. This is among the rarest cards in Yu-Gi-Oh!'s history. There are none available to buy at any store listed on TCGplayer.com, and the only copies listed on eBay command a price tag of $1000+.

As we stated in our last tournament announcement, the date for this tournament will be August, TBD. And yes, like all of our tournaments, anyone can participate for free. We anticipate a huge turnout for what will be, by far, the modern Goat Format tournament with the highest prize support of all time. Thus, the logistics of this tournament will need careful consideration in order to ensure that all of our players will have a high-quality experience. Once the date(s) and exact structure of the tournament is determined, you all will be the first to know, so be sure to check back regularly for more announcements.

Please read our last announcement regarding tournaments here if you have not done so already. We have a smaller tournament coming up this Saturday (2 days from today) in which we're giving out a cool shirt and VIP memberships. The VIP membership will be especially valuable for this next month, as VIPs will get a small seeding advantage for the big Dark End Dragon tournament. I wouldn't miss this opportunity if I were you.

Check out the action in the finals of Format Library Championship 9!

Check out the top decklists from Format Library Championship 9!