What is Flip Control?
Flip Control (also known as “Flip Flop” or “Tsukuyomi Lock”) is a Yu-Gi-Oh! Goat Format deck distinguished by its 3 copies of Tsukuyomi, which it uses with several flip effect monsters, including but not limited to 2-3 Mask of Darkness, 2-3 Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive, and 2 Magician of Faith. It also plays a heavy trap lineup with 3 Solemn Judgments to protect its monsters and to add back to the hand with Mask of Darkness.
Flip Control Strategy
Flip Control is arguably the most passive deck in the entire Goat Format. It seeks to set monsters, back them up with set traps, and then repeatedly activate flip effects via Tsukuyomi. After accumulating enough card advantage, it will either peck the opponent to death with cards like Dekoichi, the Battlechanted Locomotive and Mask of Darkness, or play a Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning backed by Solemn Judgment, Book of Moon, or Compulsory Evacuation Device.
Flip Control Core Interactions
Flip Control’s one and only key interaction is any flip effect monster + Tsukuyomi. This leads to a +1 in card advantage on each turn that the combo goes unanswered, which can get out of hand quickly. Tsukuyomi + Mask of Darkness can setup soft locks by repeatedly getting Solemn Judgment back from the graveyard to negate whatever your opponent throws at you. If you have Time Seal in your graveyard, you can instead lock your opponent out of a draw phase every turn, much like the Yata-Garasu decks from the old days. Mask of Darkness and Magician of Faith are also good for just reusing power cards such as Mirror Force or Pot of Greed.
Flip Control Deck Skeleton
3 Tsukuyomi
2 Mask of Darkness 2 Dekoichi, the Battlechanted Locomotive 2 Magician of Faith 1 Sangan 1 Breaker the Magical Warrior 1 Sinister Serpent 1 Pot of Greed 1 Graceful Charity 1 Delinquent Duo 2 Nobleman of Crossout 2 Book of Moon 1 Snatch Steal 1 Mirror Force 1 Torrential Tribute 1 Ring of Destruction 3 Solemn Judgment 2 Sakuretsu Armor Flip Control Example Decklists
Standard Flip Control: https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=2819149
Strengths and Weaknesses of Flip Control
Flip Control has the tendency to be very annoying for chaos decks to deal with because of the fact that Chaos Sorcerer can only banish face-up monsters. Flip Control does even better against Chaos Control in particular, which plays 3 Metamorphosis without a way to tribute the Thousand-Eyes Restrict. Just Solemn Judgment their key threats and cruise to a win off of your Tsukuyomi combos.
Flip Control has a hard time dealing with Royal Decree due to its heavy trap lineup. This is a notable weakness due to the fact that Royal Decree is one of the more common sidedeck cards in the format. This can be mitigated by sidedecking Mobius the Frost Monarch, but that requires some setup. Otherwise, you’ll just have to hope to catch their Royal Decree with Solemn Judgment. Solemn Judgment can put a Flip Control player in some awkward situations, which is arguably a weakness of the deck. You have to be careful about how you use them, as there are a few decks in the format that can bait one out and then easily finish off the rest of your lifepoints afterwards. These decks include Reasoning Gate Combo, Burn, and Anti-Meta Warriors. However, none of these matchups are unwinnable by any means. Common Misconceptions About Flip Control
A completely different deck featuring cards that can flip themselves facedown (Des Lacooda, Swarm of Scarabs, etc.) is also sometimes mistakenly called Flip Control. We will refer to this deck by its more common name, “PACMAN.” PACMAN did not make our first usage-based tier list, but it may begin to see enough play to make a future one. In the past year or so, Flip Control has seen more play than PACMAN, but there’s some evidence to indicate that this trend may be reversing. We intend to keep a watchful eye on it.
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If you're building a Flip Control deck, you want want to consider an important question: Can I Play 3 of a Flip?
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What is Reasoning Gate Combo?
Reasoning Gate Combo (also sometimes known as "Reasoning Gate Turbo" or "H.A.M.") is a Yu-Gi-Oh! Goat Format deck distinguished by 3 copies of Reasoning and 3 copies of Monster Gate to special summon powerful monsters like 2-3 Sacred Crane, 1 Jinzo, and 1 Dark Magician of Chaos from the deck. These monsters are light and dark attributed in order to support 3 Chaos Sorcerer and 1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning. While the deck can win purely off the advantage from powerful tribute monsters or quick access to chaos monsters, the deck also runs 2-3 Dimension Fusion as a finisher, with Heavy Storm or Giant Trunade to clear all spells/traps before the big kill.
Reasoning Gate Combo Strategy
Reasoning Gate Combo is a high-synergy combo deck that plays a passive early game until it can build a big board with Reasonings and Monster Gates. These cards put plenty of lights and darks in the grave for the deck’s chaos monsters. Then you can bring back your entire banished zone with Dimension Fusion. This allows the Reasoning Gate Combo to establish an overwhelming field advantage, if not win the game outright.
Reasoning Gate Combo Core Interactions
Both Reasoning and Monster Gate will mill several cards from the deck to the graveyard until they find a monster that can be normal summoned. They will either find a game-changing monster like Dark Magician of Chaos or Jinzo, or they will find a Sacred Crane for a light and a card draw. Going through the deck rapidly allows Reasoning Gate Combo to summon its chaos monsters much faster than most decks, and a full graveyard provides more spell targets for Dark Magician of Chaos. To maximize the effect of Reasoning and Monster Gate, the deck plays only a few monsters, each with different levels to make Reasoning difficult to guess correctly.
Like many decks in Goat Format, Scapegoat can play a very integral part in Reasoning Gate Combo’s strategy with 3 copies of Scapegoat and usually 3 copies of Metamorphosis. Scapegoat is great for stalling the game until the deck has enough combo pieces to go off. More importantly however, the Scapegoat tokens can be used as tribute for Monster Gate, so Scapegoat itself is arguably a key combo piece for the deck. Reasoning Gate Combo will seek to combine Heavy Storm or Giant Trunade (and, in some decklists, Byser Shock) with Dimension Fusion to set up a one-turn kill. Dimension Fusion is the deck’s big finisher, and it interacts well with the deck’s chaos monsters as well as Dark Magician of Chaos. Dark Magician of Chaos can easily bring back several spells in one game (often including the Dimension Fusion itself) by using Dimension Fusion to bring it back from the banished zone. Banishing Dark Magician of Chaos via tribute for Monster Gate in order to bring it back with Dimension Fusion is quite common. Reasoning Gate Combo Deck Skeleton
1 Dark Magician of Chaos
1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning 3 Chaos Sorcerer 1 Jinzo 2 Sacred Crane 3 Monster Gate 3 Reasoning 3 Dimension Fusion 1 Pot of Greed 1 Graceful Charity 1 Heavy Storm 1 Giant Trunade 1 Premature Burial Reasoning Gate Combo Example Decklists
Standard Reasoning Gate Combo: https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=3350010
Reasoning Gate Dedicated OTK: https://www.duelingbook.com/deck?id=2813757 Strengths and Weaknesses of Reasoning Gate Combo
Reasoning Gate Combo is the definition of a high variance deck with high risk and high reward, though you can lower variance through deck building choices. It has potential to have complete blowout wins with a good hand, without giving the opponent a chance for counter-play. However, the deck’s biggest weakness is its potential to have unplayable hands. It relies on cheating out huge monsters with Reasoning and Monster Gate which forces the deck to run a low amount monster count, many of which are often unplayable when drawn early. Your hand can be clogged with tribute monsters, chaos monsters without any lights and darks in grave, Dimension Fusion, Monster Gate or Metamorphosis without a target, and so on.
Reasoning Gate Combo has a surprisingly good matchup against the most popular deck in the format, Goat Control. Reasoning Combo is great at taking advantage of Goat Control’s slow starts by overwhelming them with early Airknight Parshaths. It cannot do anything to stop Dimension Fusion, which should be easy to kill off of as long as you watch out for Scapegoat. Goat Control plays a variety of cards that are on average very poor against Reasoning Gate Combo, such as Nobleman of Crossout and spell/trap removal like Dust Tornado and Heavy Storm. Playing against Chaos Control can be difficult due to the fact that it plays fewer dead cards than Goat Control and has more ways to deal with your threats. The presence of the opposing chaos monsters can also make your Dimension Fusions a little worse, as you’ll be bringing back their monsters too. The fact that Chaos Control has one of the best early games in the format can make it a bit harder for Reasoning Gate Combo to overwhelm them in the first turns of the game. Common Misconceptions About Reasoning Gate Combo
Many players believe Reasoning Gate players play the deck because they are not skillful enough to pilot more difficult control decks. It is true to an extent that the deck can allow players with a lower technical skill set to steal games from more skillful players. However, some players use this deck because they like to special summon a lot of boss monsters and prefer faster games. Other players use this deck as a metagame pick since players may not be familiar with the deck, and are not likely to have sideboard slots tailored for the match up. Players may bring the deck to a long tournament with many rounds to lower the risk of misplaying in later rounds due to fatigue. The deck is a fun and powerful deck with high variance which players bring for a variety of reasons.
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Are you interested in winning in Goat Format with combo or alt-win decks? Check out these other deck guides:
Do you have any questions about Reasoning Gate Combo or want to share your own Reasoning Gate Combo decklist? We’d love to hear from you in the comments. Want expert help to construct your own Reasoning Gate Combo deck? Then join our Discord server.
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