Goat Format Championship 7 Coverage

Goat Format Championship Series 7 was hosted on May 30th. The tournament had a total of 71 players! Our largest tournament to date. Check out the top 8 deck list as well as player interviews. You can view the bracket on Challonge, and watch the stream of the video on YouTube.​ This was a really a great tournament with awesome commentary/stories from Kris Perovic and Dale Bellido, crazy runs from players like Neckies who took third after a 9 match win streak! Thank you to all the players who entered and all of the GoatFormat.com Staff/Commentators for making this tournament a success. A big congratulations to everfall for winning their first GFC and qualifying for the Goat Format World Championship in October 2020.

​ Goatformat.com: First off feel free to introduce yourself to our readers.
everfall: Hi, I'm everfall. I'm a 25-year-old guy from San Francisco, CA, and recently graduated from music school in Boston, MA. Growing up, I loved Yu-Gi-Oh! and played casually with friends, but stopped playing after graduating high school in 2013. Now that I have some free time, I decided to play some Goat Format online, mainly due to nostalgia for the good old days.

GF: What are your past Yu-Gi-Oh accomplishments and how did you get into Goat Format? Do you play in real life too or just online?
everfall: I have no Yu-Gi-Oh! accomplishments prior to playing Goat Format online in 2020. My only accomplishment before GFC7 was getting Top 8 in GFC6, which was the first Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament I've entered (ever since a single local more than 8 years ago). I initially heard about Goat Format in late 2018/early 2019, as some Yu-Gi-Oh! Youtubers occasionally referenced it as a popular old-school format that's still currently being played. I became really into learning about it in mid-2019 because I wanted to play old-school Yu-Gi-Oh! again, and stumbled upon online articles on sites such as Pojo.com, YGOProDeck.com, FormatLibrary.com, and, of course, GoatFormat.com. I don't play Goat Format in real life, but I hope to change that in the future.

GF: Tell us about the deck. What was the inspiration? Why?
everfall: Specifically, my deck was inspired by Jazz's Youtube video, "Goat Format Deck Profile - Goat Control". I used his build in the video as a template for my GFC6 deck. Then, I made some further revisions to my past build for GFC7, as I found "Airknight Parshath" to be less effective than I expected.

Since I'm relatively new to Goat Format, my main goal for entering both GFC6 and GFC7 was simply to learn more about the game through playing against others. I chose to play Goat Control for the past two GFCs since I wanted to use a fun, interactive deck (rather than having any real insight into current metagame trends). I've read that Goat Control is one of the more challenging decks to play, so I figured there was a lot I could learn about Goat Format, as a whole, through playing Goat Control.

GF: Can you give a quick overview of the main goal of the deck? How does it work?
everfall: This deck plays like the standard Goat Control deck, and aims to pressure the opponent with its powerful "Scapegoat" + "Metamorphosis"/"Creature Swap" combos.

GF: Some of the card choices are pretty interesting. Why [x] over [y]?
everfall: This deck uses the simpler "Mobius the Frost Monarch" over the more conditional "Airknight Parshath" as the tribute monster of choice. "Mobius the Frost Monarch" synergizes well with "Gravekeeper's Spy", which is excellent at stopping aggression but sometimes merely sits on the field. So, like "Airknight", "Mobius" can be used to tribute "Thousand-Eyes Restrict" off the field whenever I want to push for advantage.  Since dropping "Airknight" lowers the Light monster count for "Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning", the deck uses two copies of "Asura Priest" to fill that void. As a bonus, "Asura" also synergizes well with "Creature Swap".

GF: What are the deck’s best match-ups? What decks do you fear most?
everfall: I built this deck on a whim the week before GFC 7, and haven't played it much. Along with my inexperience with Goat Format, I honestly have no idea which matchups this deck does best against. I'm not even sure if this deck is favored against geistD's Chaos Warriors, which I initially designed this deck to combat, because I haven't played against any Chaos Warrior decks throughout my run. However, from my experience in GFC 7, I do think this deck is well-rounded, since it uses the classic Goat Control deck skeleton, and stands a decent chance against many decks.

GF: What are some key interactions in the deck you think readers should know about? Any tips they might not already know?
everfall: If your opponent has a single monster on the field, using "Scapegoat" during the opponent's End Phase in preparation for a "Metamorphosis" or "Creature Swap" play can be extremely powerful. Also, remember that you can switch a Goat token to Attack position before using "Creature Swap", as this might enable you to attack into the token for game. (However, this sequence might not be the correct move all the time, especially if your own Life Points are low and if you suspect your opponent has a set spell/trap to counter your "Creature Swap" play.)

 GF: What was your MVP card?
 everfall: I don't think any one card was the MVP, but was pleasantly surprised by how strong "Asura Priest" was in practice. Likewise, the two side-decked copies of "Mind Crush" was very effective throughout my run, especially during the finals.

GF: What changes would you make to your deck/side, if any, going forward?
 everfall: As of now, I believe the main deck is fine as is. For the side deck, I think I was too focused on beating geistD's Chaos Warriors, and would like to replace the third "Legendary Jujitsu Master", the third "Mobius the Frost Monarch", and "Widespread Ruin" with some other options.

 GF: Do you have any advice for players wanting to compete in Goat Format?
everfall: Stay hydrated and use the bathroom often, especially during tournaments. I don't think anyone wants their performance to be negatively affected by factors outside the game, so try your best to minimize any potential issues.

GF: Are there any shoutouts that you want to make?
everfall: I want to give a big thanks to Disaster Area, a friend I met through playing competitive Pokemon, who also happens to play Goat Format. I really appreciate that he was rooting for me and cheering me on throughout the entire tournament, from start to finish.
Also, I want to thank the entire Goat Format community, for creating a place where new and old Goat players can play, compete, and learn from one another. I'm not just referring to the amazing work GoatFormat.com has done, but also to the countless articles, forum posts, and Youtube videos that have been created over the years. It's only due to these factors that a newcomer such as myself is able to go as far as I did, and I'm truly grateful. Finally, thanks to a close friend back home, who doesn't play Goats (or Yu-Gi-Oh!) at all. Honestly, winning GFC 7 wouldn't feel nearly as good without a good IRL friend to share the experience with, and being able to do so means the world to me.

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Randage: I'd like to open up by saying siwski and I are good friends, and that I personally requested to conduct this interview. So siwski, please feel free to introduce yourself to our readers and for anyone unfamiliar with who you are.
Siwski: Hello everyone, my name is siwski, swiski, swishkas, kiwiss, sowksi, sijsdki, soajosi, siiasomsiki or whichever combinations of words you end up typing when you smash your keyboard in the general direction of letters s, i and k. I am 23 years old and I come from Slovenia. I started getting into goats more "competitively" at the launch of goatformat.com's discord server, but I played for fun before that. You may find some games from that era on Randage's channel, featuring brain-melting plays such as turn 1 set Heavy + set Charity + set monster -> pass.

Randage: 1. So, I'm sure everybody already familiar with you would love to know - what made siwski decide to play Chaos Turbo?
​Siwski: Laziness. I was too lazy to prepare well with Goat Control, but another huge factor is absence of my friend Nicey with which we often discuss Goat Control theories in great depth. Besides all that, I do enjoy relaxing and playing Chaos Turbo every now and then. Feels good if the wheelchair drives itself, sometimes.

Randage: Surely for you it must feel weird not playing Goat Control - how are you liking Chaos Turbo?
​Siwski: Naturally, I think the deck is very strong. I would say that I miss feeling my own victories and my own losses, like I do when playing Goat Control - with Chaos Turbo a lot of the times it feels like you won because you couldn't have possibly lost or you lost because you couldn't have possibly won. But in general I really like playing the deck (and I hate playing against it).

Randage: For anyone unfamiliar - hows the deck work? What's the core strategy?
​Siwski: The main strategy is to stabilize early game with Chaos-themed monsters that tend to (in the worst case scenario) pay for themselves such as Dekoichi, Tomato, Magician of Faith, and in the best case scenario win the game by themselves (beatdown by resolved Dekoichi). Once that is done, you further work on your position by snowballing card advantage with power plays such as Graceful Charity, Card Destruction... in combination with Thunder Dragons, Night Assailants and Sinister Serpent and for course removing any face-up threats with Chaos monsters... All of this is glued together by 3-of flips, 3-of Tomatos, 2-of Upstarts which thin the deck either by getting Nobleman'd (flips), crashing into opposing monsters (Tomato) or just by being Upstarts :). Anyhow, Jazz (who is also the creator of this deck, basically) has written a guide on this deck, but I currently don't have a link to it so I would kindly ask the editor of this post to make sure to append the link to that somewhere. https://www.formatlibrary.com/goat-deck-gallery/chaos-flip-turbo

​Randage: Let's talk a little about your list - I notice you're main decking Gravekeeper's Spy, how come?
​Siwski: My list is heavily teched for the Aggro matchup, in fact every slot that I consider not-100%-fixed was anti-Aggro tech choice. These are of course double Spies, Mirror Force and Snatch Steal, as well as heavily armed side deck. I didn't get awarded for my anti-Aggro preparation, since I only played 1 such matchup.

Randage: Your most talked about card was Upstart Goblin - How much are you liking it?
​Siwski: If you ask me it is 100% staple in this deck. Turboing trough the deck is super important, there aren't any other engine cards to run, sometimes 2 Upstarts seems 1 too few. There is of course also another aspect of Upstart, which is making Magician of Faith (which is ran at 3) playable by turn 1.

Randage: What's your toughest matchup, and how do you play against it?
​Siwski: I think I auto-lose to PACMAN and I don't (or didn't) care because it's not represented right now. The more realistic bad matchup are well-equipped control decks, which I ended up losing 2 matches to :). You play against it by preparing for it either in the main or in the side, which I didn't do because, as you know, I prioritized Aggro matchup. More specifically, multiple Scapegoats are annoying to deal with, so for that you would need Lightning Vortex or perhaps any combination of Asura, Tribe or even Torrential. Luckily, this deck already manages Creature Swaps and Mind Controls relatively well, because of the Mystic Tomatos. Fighting vs Dustshoots and Mind Crushes never felt crucial for me, unless of course you get spanked by 3 of them by turn 2, in which case there's not much you can do.

Randage: You finished 2nd on Sunday - who were you most anticipating dueling, and what was your favorite match?
​Siwski: Honestly I didn't look at the bracket at all, when waiting in loser's finals I was coding for my project and I didn't even know what my opponent was playing. Likewise I didn't know what Everfall was playing, LOL. I would say my favorite match was the early swiss match, in which I was losing from the start of game 3 but I ended up winning by resolving Cyber Jar, adding it back with Assailant and somehow resolving it again, then finishing the game with Card Destruction, decking my opponent out.

Randage: Are you overall happy with deck? Would you make any changes?
​Siwski: The only changes I'd make to this deck are the tech-choice slots based on what I'm expecting to play against and the side deck. For example, in the past I ran 3x Dekoichi and Return from Different Dimension, in the future I want to try out Tsukuyomi.

Randage: How many times have you already watched your replays? 
​Siwski: Zer0! I'll maybe make a commentary / replay review on some of them, since now I have my Blue Yeti Nano back!

Randage: How does it feel for siwski to fall short in the finals - and ultimately, lose to double Asura Priest? 
​Siwski: All I'm going to say is: double Asura decklist has never not-won a tournament.

Randage: Should we look out for siwski in Sleeper Meta 4? :randage:
​Siwski: I hope that I can join but right now I'm thinking that I maybe want to commentate on it more than play. We'll see how things turn out.

Randage: Would you like to make any closing remarks or shoutouts?
​Siwski: First of all shoutouts to all my teammates who help me improve (you know who you are), shoutouts to HORSEMEN, very important shoutouts to Chris and Peter, shoutouts to my friend Jaka who introduced me to goats, shoutouts to Randage for epic video intros (WTFFFFFFFOISJIGOIJNGON??), shoutouts to goatformat.com and Format Library and every other platform that helps goats grow and finally shoutouts to my girlfriend who always sacks me with Chaos Turbo.

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