Goat Format World Championship 2025 Deck Tech: NovaEthos's Zombie Goat Control

NovaEthos continues to ignite the spice as they tackle the world championship event with a control variant of Zombies! 

Deck List

Overview

Though some form of zombie decks have existed since the historic era, Zombies as a competitive deck usually takes its modern form from Delinkquent's FLC17 list. A heavily aggressive deck, that version showcased 3 Berserk Gorilla alongside a zombie package of turtles and Kokki's, as well as 3 Royal Decree and 3 Tribute to the Doomed to clear the way for damage. 

NovaEthos' list today does borrow some elements from Delinkquent's FLC17 deck. However, where this version differs is the approach to aggression, or rather, the lack of it. With a Scapegoat and Meta package, Magical Mercahnt, and Magician of Faith, this deck leans much more into control. One of the more interesting and spicey inclusions is that of Double Coston, which can be tributed to summon the might Dark Magician of Chaos, or return to play off of Book of Life, since it's a zombie. 

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Player Insight

Zombies are a deck very near and dear to me. I've tried everything under the sun in the past 2 years when it comes to this strategy: more mid-range, more combo, decree aggro, etc. I always knew Zombies + goat control could be strong, as there's a lot of synergy with Decree, Creature Swap, Pyramid Turtle and Scapegoat. 

I built an earlier more mid-range version of this but it was just getting smoked by Warrior (shoutout to my team for helping me test!) So I opted to change my trap lineup to 3 Decree and 1 Ring instead. I looked at some of the lists the duelist Pattn13 put together, who topped an FLC with warrior goat control with decree, as well as a GGP with zombie decree. I really liked the ratios in his lists and they're working great so far. I thought 18 monsters might be a bit much with 3 scapegoat but it's proving to be strong!

I did something I've never done before which is play 1 Book of Life in a zombie list. I was always of the opinion -- if you're playing zombies, you have to commit to the bit, and play at least 2 Book of Life and 8 zombies. My ratio is 1 BoL to 7 zombies. To be honest, I do occasionally miss the second, as it can be a great board extender, but I'd have to make room for an eighth zombie as well as a second Book of Life. Space is tight in the list. Three card choices that are a bit unorthodox are Cyber Stein, Morphing Jar, and Double Coston. I play Stein because I thought the deck needed a bit more extra aggression and it pairs with Decree, but to be honest it's been underperforming. The deck can probably do without it. Morphing Jar has been a lot of fun, although I set a Graceful behind during a match and it got hit with MST haha. And then Double Coston -- it does have synergy with DMOC of course, but it really provides the extra aggression the deck needs. Also, being able to convert on your Turtle Swap plays are key, and Coston has helped that a lot.

[So far, I have] wins vs. 2 Turbo, 1 Warrior, and 1 Burn. Losses vs Turbo and Chaos Warrior. The deck can both win instantly (I had a turn where I prema'd a DMOC to resolve Graceful twice and then summon BLS for 7k on board -- HUGE sack) and play a longer, grindy game. I really enjoyed my Game 3 on stream in Round 3 vs Chen, even though I lost. Also, in my burn matchup, I actually used my opponent's Morphing Jar + my own Book of Moon and attacked it with an Ojama token to give myself some more card advantage, which felt like a crazy move at the time, but it ended up paying off. This deck is consistently surprising me in the lines it can win with, and that's a mark of a fun deck for me -- creativity in the deckbuilding, creativity in the playstyle!

​Shoutout to Mrs (Poyo) Ethos and Team Otherworld!! They helped me so much to prepare this list and for the tournament in the last few days. Ignite the spice!! Goat Format still has room to innovate!