​Alt-win, burn, and combo, collectively known as the ABCs, maintain a significant presence in the online Yu-Gi-Oh! Goat Format meta. In most control decks, a large portion of the sidedeck, typically about 10 cards, is dedicated to countering these ABC decks. Having the tools to beat the ABC decks are essential to achieving a high winrate in the format. All of the best counters to each of these hazardous decks are listed below.

GoatFormat.com is testing out tournament ideas, and we'd like to give you the opportunity to participate. This tournament pays out $20 to 1st place and is free for anyone to enter. All of the information about the tournament can be found below.

When: Saturday 1/5/2019 at 1 PM EST, 10 AM PST
How to enter: Entry will be in the #tournaments channel of our discord server. Signups will start approximately 1 hour before the tournament does. You must submit your decklist when you enter.
Decks: Locked. You cannot change decks between rounds.
Rounds: Double elimination, no time limits. First round byes (if needed) will go to the highest ranked players first. All other seeding will be done randomly. 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: 1st place = $20, by paypal or another payment app. 1st must submit a replay of the grand finals in order to claim their prize.
Glitch/disconnect policy: Opening hand glitches are a replay (do not reconstruct). Other glitches that render the game unplayable will result in a reconstruct. First disconnection for each player in the tournament is a reconstruct. All future disconnections will result in a game loss (unless they occur during sidedecking).
Expected total tournament duration: 7-9 hours

GoatFormat.com staff with serve as the judges for this tournament. Once a judge has given their ruling, it is considered final. Persistently arguing with the judges or other unsportsmanlike conduct will result in penalties being awarded, up to disqualification if appropriate.

​When most players are dealt a poor hand, they resign themselves to losing, whether they are aware of it or not. Some players freeze up, hoping the opponent also has a bad hand. Some players continue to play as normal, going through the motions. Some players even admit defeat far before their lifepoints are reduced to zero. In this article, I will explain why I believe all of the above are the wrong approach.

There have been a lot of suggestions speculation regarding what major Goat Format tournaments we will run, if any. We want to let the community have a say before we announce anything, so please help us out by giving your opinions by reading this proposal and filling out this brief survey.
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Prizes: 1st = $100, 2nd = $40, 3rd = $10
Entry: 14 players will qualify using one of the methods specified below before the tournament begins

• Method 1: Finish in the top7 of our ranked ladder on discord by winning ranked matches.
• Method 2: Finish in the top7 of a new "contribution ladder" where one earns points for completing tasks that keep the community healthy. For example: 1 point for your first discord message each day, 2 points for playing a ranked match, 100 points for making an article/video, and a referral incentive such that whenever someone that you referred to the discord gains points, you do too.
• Method 3: If someone who qualifies for the tournament via method 1 or 2 is unable or does not wish to play, they may give away their invitation to someone else.

Tournament style: Double elimination, 3 days to play each round, and #1 in both ladders get a first round bye. Decklists will be required, all replays will be forwarded to the tournament staff.
Coverage: Using the replays, all matches will be reviewed, analyzed, and uploaded to our YouTube channel.
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Author's Note: My article titled "Who's Winning?" was originally posted to The Game Academy's article hub (now defunct) in 2010. It became one of the most praised pieces of my article writing career for the way that it illuminated the both the most basic fundamentals of the game as well as the factors that should be used to evaluate a gamestate. This article has been given some contextual updates from its original form to reflect the Goat Format metagame.

This Sunday at 3PM EST, we plan to do a talk show-style stream called "Talking Goats" in which some of our GoatFormat.com contributors will get together and discuss topics that are relevant to the Goat Format community. It will be streamed live at our Twitch channel and then the recording will be uploaded to our YouTube channel afterwards.

This first episode will feature ACP, Skully, and Mascis, and it will be about 30 minutes long. The topics that we will be discussing are:
1. What would make more people start playing Goat Format?
2. What should the future of online Goat Format tournaments look like?
3. And a third topic selected by our viewers.

Be sure you don't miss it!

One of the biggest Yugitubers in the community, Jon Moore aka House of Champs, talked about his thoughts on goatformat.com in today's Yu-Gi-Oh! Market Watch. For those who don't know, Jon Moore and his good friend Billy Brake are both big fans of Goat Format, and we hope to see them do some Goat Format videos or streams soon. From one Yu-Gi-Oh! content creator to another, thank you House of Cards for the work that you do for the community.