Goat Format Championship 11 Deck Tech: Skull Servant Zombie!

Halloween may have been months ago, but it looks like Ghibo decided we didn't get enough spooky scary skeletons, so he's brought them to today's event! With an impressive 2-1 record in the tournament so far, his Skull Servant Zombie deck seems like it just might have caught our players off guard!

Deck List

Overview

Similar to traditional zombie decks, Skull Servant Zombie uses Pyramid Turtle and Vampire Lord to great effect. However, there are some key differences, as this deck also has a large focus on Skull Servant and his king. Pyramid Turtle makes finding either of them quite simple, so it's not uncommon for King of the Skull Servants to become  large enough to go toe-to-toe with likes of Black Luster Soldier. 

Player Insight

Ghibo had a lot of valuable information to give when asked about his deck. King of the Skull Servants is one of his favorite cards, after all. 
​

Ghibo: 
The goal of the deck is to summon the King of the Skull Servants with an attack power of 3000 or more, but it is not always easy. It is good to combine this main strategy with Thousand-Eyes Restrict (TER) to stall the game. Summoning TER with Metamorphosis (Meta) is really easy because the large number of level one monsters included in the deck.
Vampire Lord is good versus some specific strategies, and it can discard important cards from the opponent's deck (I always recommend declaring trap card).
​You want to maximize the possibility of calling Skull Servant into the field as soon as possible. This way, you can use it in combination with Metamorphosis or Creature Swap, or tribute for Vampire Lord. Pyramid Turtle is useful for this, or for summoning King or Vampire Lord.
​Book of Life is another core card to summon from GY a zombie and banishing a card to the opponent's GY (serpent for example, light or dark monster). Nobleman of Crossout is a big absence from the main deck but I didn't find space. Set monsters are usually the ideal target of Thousand-Eyes Restrict. ​

Indeed! Metamorphosis targeting Skull Servant is a great way to bring out one of the format's most powerful fusion monsters, Thousand-Eyes Restrict! Doing so will also boost your King of the Skull Servant's attack power by sending the tributed Servant to the graveyard. The king himself can even be used as fodder for Metamorphosis if you're in a pickle. With an absence of Nobleman of Crossout, Thousand-Eyes Restrict does seem important as an answer to face-down monsters. This could also help explain the three Scapegoat included in the list. 

Creature Swap looks like it can also do double the work here compared to other zombie decks. Pyramid Turtle is often the go-to target, since attacking it after it has been swapped means you can get your opponent's creature as well as your previously-owned turtle's on-death effect. Ghibo also plays three Mystic Tomato, which give additional Creature Swap potential. Additionally, simply forcing the unfair trade of a measly Skull Servant or Scapegoat token with whatever they own at the time is a great play as well! 

As Ghibo mentioned, too, Book of Life seems stellar in a meta full of players trying to summon chaos monsters. Using it to keep lights and darks out of the graveyard is a powerful strategy, and one that can maximize the effectiveness of Vampire Lord, who is otherwise vulnerable the the banish effects of chaos monsters. What's more, the card can also be used to prevent the resurrection of pesky threats through Premature Burial or Call of the Haunted. 

Ghibo has some spicy tech in the sideboard as well, but we'll save that discussion for after the event. ​

Conclusion

As far as his performance in the event so far​, Ghibo had this to say:
​

Ghibo: 
The tournament is going better than I expected. I won the first game versus Goat Control thanks to 2 King of the Skull Servants with 3000 attack. Then I managed to get to the third game against a Chaos Turbo.

We're excited to see such a novel strategy doing well in the event, and wish Ghibo the best of luck!