Last week, our Discord users debated this topic: What is Goat Control's worst/hardest matchup? Assume that all players are competent and have fairly standard maindeck and sidedeck choices. For your convenience, we've given you a summary all of the impassioned arguments that our Discord users made below.

​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.

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.