Goat Format Championship 8 Coverage

Goat Format Championship Series 8 was hosted on June 20th. The tournament had a total of 72 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.​ 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 The Mensch for winning their first GFC and qualifying for the Goat Format World Championship in October 2020.

GoatFormat.com: how often do you attend live events or compete online?
Not very often.
The Mensch: I don't play live events anymore and I don't have a lot of time to play online.

GoatFormat.com: How did you prepare for the tournament?
The Mensch: I didn't prepare very much. I just made a deck that I thought was good, went 10-0 in rated with it, and then decided that those results were good enough to probably do well in the GFC with it.

GoatFormat.com: What matchups were you most prepared for? 
The Mensch: Any deck with 3 Chaos Sorcerers in it.

GoatFormat.com: who were you not looking forward to playing against?
The Mensch: Any really good goat control players. Everfall's deck from GFC7 would've been hard to beat.

GoatFormat.com: MVP card of the tourney? 
The Mensch: Delinquent Duo? Just kidding, probably Skill Drain. It caught a lot of people off guard and was better than even I expected it to be.

GoatFormat.com: What are your past accomplishments in ygo / goat format?
The Mensch: 3rd in GFC6. I also top8ed a regional in 2005 goat format but was not able to qualify for nationals.

GoatFormat.com: what changes would you make to your deck / side if any going forward?
The Mensch: Nothing comes to mind. I think both the main and side are very good.

GoatFormat.com: Any advice you have for players wanting to compete in tournaments?
The Mensch: You should play Mirror Force, Torrential Tribute, Snatch Steal, and Breaker the Magical Warrior. They are good cards.

GoatFormat.com: Any shoutouts you wanna make?
The Mensch: ​Shoutouts to my friend John from the army. We've been playing goat format together on and off since 2005. Shoutouts to my mom. She used to always call me a Mensch, which is how I picked my username.

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GoatFormat.com (Lucas Gustafsson): Hi! Congratulations on achieving second place in GFC8 and qualifying for the Goat Format World Championship! Please introduce yourself to our readers!


IAMZ1: Hi! My name is Sohaib Ikram. I’m a financial reporting and accounting manager for a construction company in Canada. I’m 29 years old, and a father to a lovely son and husband to a beautiful wife.

GF: What’s your history playing Yu-Gi-Oh! before goat format?
IAMZ1: I played back in 2004, but quit the game just before the actual goat format. I then came back to the game during the synchro era, but stopped playing current a few years ago. My two best results playing the game were topping two regionals: one in 2016 and another in 2017.

GF: What’s your history playing Goat Format?
IAMZ1: Autumn last year my friend introduced me to the format and got me back into the game. Then, after the ranked ladder was added to duelingbook.com, I started playing more online and came to hear of the Goat Format Championship Series. I’ve competed once before in GFC5 where I achieved 5th place under the name lodachooze.

GF: What were your thoughts going into the tournament? Did you have any predictions on what decks other players would bring?
IAMZ1: I thought a lot of players would play lists similar to the Chaos list played by the 2nd place finisher siwski in the last Goat Format Championship. The deck is very strong, and with the recent tournament success it should be a popular choice. 

GF: Your deck is somewhat similar to the list played by siwski. However, it contains quite a few notable differences. Why did you decide to bring this version, rather than doing as many others did and bring a version more similar to siwski’s?
IAMZ1: A significant difference is playing Solemn Judgment rather than staples such as Ring of Destruction, Mirror Force, and Snatch Steal. The reason for this is partially due to the expected meta. In the chaos matchups the said staple cards do not respond very well to a set monster when on the draw, and can be quite lackluster overall in the Chaos matchup. Solemn Judgment, however, is very strong in the Chaos matchup. Solemn Judgment is also overall a very strong card and very useful in a wide variety of situations against a wide range of decks. Another notable difference is the inclusion of Jar of Greed rather than Upstart Goblin. This is simply because the life points gained from Upstart Goblin are very significant.

GF: Another difference is choosing to run a two copies of Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive and Magician of Faith in contrast to many others playing in the tournament who were opting to run three copies of each.
IAMZ1: Firstly, getting hit by a Nobleman of Crossout when running three copies of each can be bad. Games often come down to deck out, and by differentiating I have access to a few more threats if I was to be hit by a couple of Nobleman of Crossout. Additionally, I have a couple of additional cards left in the deck, and delaying deck out by a turn or two can be important. More significantly, opening Magician of Faith can be awkward at times as this deck runs somewhat few spell cards. Thus, two is a better number. If you were to play a third Magician of Faith that would necessitate running Upstart Goblin rather than Jar of Greed, which isn’t desirable. Removing the staple cards mentioned above leaves the deck a bit weaker to aggressive strategies, but only running two Dekoichi, the Battlechanted Locomotive rather than the full playset makes it less likely to get blown out by a Blade Knight.


GF: Looking at your side deck, I notice there are a lot of cards I presume are geared towards dealing with aggressive strategies and other chaos decks. Care to tell us about those choices?
IAMZ1: Yes, against aggressive strategies the playset of Messenger of Peace, playset Royal Decree, Newdoria, and Swarm of Locusts are brought in to replace all the main deck trap cards. There are players who willingly play Royal Decree alongside trap cards of their own. I’m of the opinion this is not something that should be done without careful consideration as it can lead to very awkward draws. Against other chaos variants the pair of Mind Control and playset of Trap Dustshoot are brought in.

GF: The Swarm of Locusts stands out to me. What’s the thought process behind it?
IAMZ1: Swarm of Locusts hiding behind a Messenger of Peace is almost impossible to beat for aggressive decks. Being searchable with Mystic Tomato and Sangan means a single copy can often be found when needed.

GF: Mind Control is a card which players have different opinions on. Why did you decide to play it?
IAMZ1: Mind Control can always steal a chaos monster to banish itself, which is fine. It’s very strong when it steals a set flip monster, such as Magician of Faith. However, said set monster could also be a Mystic Tomato or something along those lines, which is very bad. It comes down to be a bit of a gamble, where the reward outweighs the risk.

GF: Apart from Trap Dustshoot, there are not a lot of cards to bring in against combo decks such as Library FTK, Empty Jar, and Reasoning Gate. How come?
IAMZ1: Solemn Judgment is generally very good in these matchups. However, Reasoning Gate is admittedly tough to beat as it is one of few decks in the format that outpaces the Chaos “Turbo” decks. Also, against Reasoning Gate specifically, Messenger of Peace is brought in as the Reasoning Gate deck can’t push any damage through it. They do have access to Giant Trunade to return the Messenger of Peace to the hand, but we can protect it with Solemn Judgment. While not outright winning the game every time, the card can cause a lot of trouble for Reasoning Gate and can steal games on its own every now and then.

GF: What are your best and worst matchups with the deck?
IAMZ1: Best matchup would be Goat Control, they just can’t keep up with the incredible pace of the deck. The worst matchup is probably Reasoning Gate.

GF: Did you have an MVP card over the weekend? Is there any card that surprised you or that you think is overlooked by a lot of players?
IAMZ1: Solemn Judgment is great, and we’ll be seeing more of it going forward in several different strategies. The Messenger of Peace side deck plan has caught on, however. A lot of players overlook how strong Swarm of Scarabs and Swarm of Locusts are in conjunction with this strategy. Tomato can attack freely under Messenger of Peace to find the Swarms which will then take over the game.

GF: Would you make any changes to the deck?
IAMZ1: Yes! I have already made a couple of changes. In the main deck I cut the pair of Dekoichi the Battlechanted Locomotive for a Morphing Jar and a third Gravekeeper’s Spy. Morphing Jar is another card I believe to be underexplored and overlooked in Chaos Turbo decks. In the side, I decided to add a Swarm of Scarabs to go along with the Swarm of Locusts in favor of a copy of Newdoria.

GF: Do you have any tips for players picking up your deck?
IAMZ1: Play Cyber Jar properly. It’s among the best monsters in the deck. In conjunction with Solemn Judgment you can push through Cyber Jar plays and try for game-shots very effectively. In the mirror, where it’s slightly worse, it’s made up for once again by the inclusion of Solemn Judgment to prevent your opponents from utilizing the cards added by the Cyber Jar. A common play is to search Cyber Jar through Mystic Tomato and then use Book of Moon during your turn to flip it and trigger the effect. Another thing worth mentioning is baiting your opponent’s Scapegoats out the turn you’re flipping Cyber Jar. If your opponent has activated Scapegoat during the turn Cyber Jar is flipped, they’re not allowed to summon any other monsters due to the restrictions of Scapegoat. This means any level 4 or lower monsters they reveal to Cyber Jar’s effect are sent to the graveyard rather than summoned to the field, resulting in gaining potentially massive card advantage. 

GF: Thanks for your time and congratulations once more!

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