Goat Format World Championship 2022 Deck Tech: Peter Werthju's Goat Control

Our second tech of the day brings us to likely the most well-known strategy in the format: Goat Control. Despite the popularity of the archetype, I can promise this is a Goat Control list like no other. Peter Werthju (AKA GeistD) fought his way to day two of the world championship with one of the most interesting Goat Control lists we've seen in a long time. 

Deck List

Goat Control is the namesake of the format and is itself named after its use of Scapegoat as means of defending life points and gaining advantage. The strategy aims to tribute goats to Metamorphosis and summon Thousand Eyes Restrict, which it then combines with Tsukuyomi for an infinitely repeatable removal/card advantage engine. Flip effect monsters that are easily abused with Tsukuyomi, like Magician of Faith, are also staples. 

​Werthju's list has quite a few interesting techs, as well as some neat decisions related to card numbers. These include (but are not limited to) the Cyber Jar and Dark Magician of Chaos, which are rarely seen in the control deck. 

Player Insight

​As unconventional as some of the cards included seem to be, we can't argue with the results. In an event this prestigious, it should go without saying that every single card in a player's 55 is in there for a reason. So, we asked Werthju about his list, and he spoke at length about his reasoning regarding why he chose to play this particular build of Goat Control, as well as some general strategy related to these choices. 

​This is a tough question. In general, control is my favorite type of deck, and I was decently successful with this particular build in the past. When our team was discussing our worlds lists, they were asking me if this list would be a candidate, and my answer was roughly this: "No man, Goat Control is a nice deck, but for worlds I'm going to play something more GTO (game theoretic optimal). Goat Control really shines in a field with bad or average players because its probably "the deck" that exploits opponent's mistakes the most. As it bricks very rarely and makes games long, it gives enough room for technical plays. Also time might be a factor and running three Solemns in a slow deck that cant make any damage might deathly." At the end I thought maybe I can turn this time issue I might have into a benefit and just side out Solemns for emergency provisions and old men while stalling with goats. Also I thought with almost 80 players being qualified the skill level isn't as high as I expected initially so I just went for it.  A last thing I want to point out is that GC is obviously good because its almost dead so people don't play three Book of Moon in Chaos and Warrior anymore (as it was done in the past when GC was a thing).

​I think one of the main choices were the two Trap Dustshoots (which I'm usually not a big fan of). Initially, I was playing only one (which for me is also more than I usually do), but the idea of it in this deck is really that I play three cards (namely Abyss, Morphing Jar, and cyber Jar) that brings my opponents cards into their hand. Also, in general, resolving a TDS after a jar is really impactful. Another point of this deck is to avoid any "filler cards" like for example book of moon which is never really impactful. Instead, I maxed out Jar of Greed, which is one of my favorites cards. I also like Upstart, but as I said before this deck has problems with dealing a lot of damage, so I decided to not use it. I don't know what else is special about this deck, maybe one can say that I tired to max out all these game changer cards like Abyss Soldier, DMoC with Premature, MJar and CJar, and Creature Swap. All those things can be game changing when drawn in the right spot, and with the five jars in total, I have enough draw power to put some combos together while hedging them with the Solemns (which are great in those grindy long lasting matches).

With a 6-1 record headed into day 2, Werthju seems to be proving that Goat Control isn't as dead of an archetype as other players may have thought. We asked him about some of his favorite moments from the event so far, and he had one specific game in mind: 

I have to admit, I have drawn very well so far. I saw a lot of Pot/Graceful DMoC + Premature, BLS action. The best game was against j4droiun where he played Pot, Grace (with two NA), Duo, CardD (again with two NA and two TD), which alone is +6 if I counted correctly. Nevertheless, he made a lot of mistakes in that game (in my opinion) and I baited out all his resources until I had my OTK together and just won.