TheNano's Challenge

6/4/2021

DUELING BOOK LADDER CHALLENGE

TheNano here! I am back writing for GoatFormat.com and this time I have a challenge for the Goat Format Community!

This ranked session on DuelingBook will be over in a month or so, and I wanted to make the next one a little more exciting by putting out a challenge.

For the next ranked season, I will be accepting up to four players to play in this challenge. There will be an award to whoever succeeds! The challenge consists in playing the same combo strategy for the full ranked season and finishing the season in the top four.

There is a lot of controversy about combo decks in Goat Format. Many players don't like to play against them. Some players think they are the best decks, but not popular, and some think they don't get results often because they are inconsistent. Still others believe combo decks would ruin the format if they became popular, either from winning too much or from making games boring with no interaction.

Regarding fun, power level, or skill, I don't think this is the case. Personally, I really like combo decks. They open new dimensions of gameplay. Because they approach the game in a different way, combo decks require unique in-game skills both for playing with them as well as playing against them. If they became popular, competitive players would have to learn more matchups, and have more options when choosing what deck to use. They would also have a more challenging deckbuilding task, as they would need to cover more matchups, rather than just be consistent against aggro and flip-based decks.

I also think that because these types of decks are so underrepresented, they haven't had the chance to evolve like other more contemporary strategies, like Chaos Turbo or Warriors, which have had so many people playing them that they are regularly updated and improved. It's rare to encounter combo players, so most players don't have a good game plan when facing them, likely making obvious mistakes or not considering them during deck building. Having to play against such strategies more often would make everybody learn the match-ups better. It would also help combo players perfect their skills and deck building by having to deal with more prepared players.

The presence of more deck strategies surely makes the game less monotone and more appealing to new players who might want to pick the strategy that suits them the best. It might be that combo decks are just not good enough to match the S tier decks, but it also may be true that they are even better or at least another competitive strategy. There's no way to be sure until we get more data and perfect these strategies!

Given all these thoughts, I'm going to give an incentive to people who would like to prove that combo decks are strong enough to achieve consistent results over 100s of games. I hope this will be a growing experience for the challengers who want to perfect their skills and deck lists. I also hope for for those of us who are not experts that this will be helpful to understand these strategies better and be more aware when facing them, rather than just randomly hating on someone who wanted to play something different.

Also, this should be enjoyable for anyone who likes watching Goat Format material!

RULES AND CONDITIONS

1) I will be accepting up to four players for the challenge. I will be selecting them personally by playing and/or talking with them. To apply, just direct message TheNano on Discord.

2) Players will have to submit a deck list for the challenge, and stick to the same strategy for the full season. The challenge consists in piloting that deck to the top four of ranked ladder and stay there until the end of the season. Any deck dedicated combo will be accepted, but only such decks. No decks that are primarily aggro or burn which happen to contain combos will be allowed. Nor will decks with incidental combo finishes. Some examples of acceptable decks are:

Empty Jar
Last Turn
Library FTK
Spell Economics FTK
Reversal Quiz OTK
Heavy Slump
Anything else you invented or you consider a combo deck might be accepted

If you are unsure if a strategy would fit the criteria, you are more than welcome to message me and ask.

You will be allowed to make changes to your deck list at any time, but you will have to stick to the same strategy. There are cut-off points that will determine when some changes will no longer be allowed. This will be decided before the start of the season.

3) Any player that succeeds in this challenge will receive $100 for each month that the season lasted. So, if the ranked season finishes after three months, I will award successful players $300. If it lasts a whole year, then $1200, etc.

4) It will be a requirement that every match played will be streamed live and put on YouTube. Simply saving Duelingbook replays will not be enough. I know this requires extra effort, but it's not much more effort than just playing a full ranked season. Commentary will not be required for daily updates, and streams can be kept private if requested. However, some level of commentary and infrequent streams with chat participation will be expected. So, the reward should be worth it, as you might even get some side benefits from your streaming. The reasons for these requirements are three-fold:

Prevent cheating
- I know that even in streaming the event it is possible that somebody may que with friends to soft-play or otherwise gain favorable matchups. I'm simply doing what I can to prevent this.
Provide access to information
- With every match available to the player pool, players can understand these decks and learn how to pilot them, how to play against them and how to adapt in a meta game that also includes the
Provide a more differentiated Goat Format experience
- Anybody that wants to get into the game or enjoy watching games will have access to a more varied set of media.

This is meant to be a growing opportunity for the challengers and the community. I'm not going to require anything that was not written in this post, but I do ask that you are dedicated to the challenge, and are open to others watching you play. This way, less experienced players can learn from you, and you will receive more feedback to fix your own mistakes. You might even learn new approaches or a different thought processes!

I will be watching every match of the challengers during the season, and I will be very happy to propose similar challenges in the future if I find it to go in a stimulating and exciting way. Alternatively, I will not do events like this in the future if I believe players to be taking advantage of loopholes, or otherwise abusing the spirit of the challenge. So, I encourage everybody not participating to just try as hard as possible to defeat our challengers!

28 Comments

The Great HuWhite Goat

6/5/2021 01:06:43 pm

could you further explain the cut off point section? Are you deck locked (all 55) after a certain point?

gl with your challenge event and all the participants.

TheNano link

6/6/2021 02:05:11 am

Its fine to make changes to main and side and i incentive that cause the purpose Is also to try improving these decks
There's Just going to be a few things that need to stay the same to make sure you dont deviate from deck strategy but its not going to be very restrictive

Ahkmund

6/6/2021 03:40:23 am

Why are you encouraging people to play loathsome decks? These types of decks being played result in a net loss of people joining the community. The overwhelming majority of players find these decks immensely unfun to play against. I understand that these decks require skill to pilot, and I understand that it may take skill to beat these decks. That is not the issue.

The issue is that these games take an insane amount of time to complete, and the victim has to watch their opponent play solitaire for the majority of that time.

You claim that the presence of more decks 'makes the game less monotone'. This may be technically true, but at what cost? The benefits of injecting a larger variety of decks into the meta is totally negated by the fact that people will have to suffer through long agonizing games where they barely get to even play,

6/6/2021 04:56:52 am

Piloting these decks can be fun to many players and i dont like them being 'bullied' into not playing such decks, i think that's not fun.

Also i think the main reason people doesnt consider It fun to play against these decks Is not knowing them well enough, and the challenge Is also meant as a service to everyone to understand these decks Better so they can also be more prepared, lose less often in a stupid manner and know whats going on rather than watching opponent solitarie.

If the combo players become more skilled and aware of their deck It doesnt take more than very few minutes to perform full comboes, and if their opponent start to understand how the comboes work they Will also learn when they can scoop rather than Watch for no reason.

This Is meant to give a huge amount of data also to prove my point that a very big % of times combo decks will use their cards as interaction, face interaction, be impacted by card advantage and be put in front of grindy/mind games just like any other deck and can easily add fun and complexity to the format.

tutuko

6/9/2021 05:21:47 am

This site claims library FTK has an FTK rate of ~50%. So if a library player wins RPS 25% of the time their opponent will not get to play a single card. How is a 25% chance of not playing the game fun?

Even if they lose RPS since their opponent most likely doesn't main deck cards to counter the FTK that 25% chance would stand. (G1, OTK turn 2, Lose G2, FTK G3) People could maindeck 3 Solemn but a) there is a high chance they won't draw Solemn first turn, b) they still get sacked when going second.

People don't consider FTKs fun to play against these decks because a significant, if not most, of the time they don't get to play a single card and assume the role of an AI. Keep in mind that not only is that % higher than 25% for an entire match for Library FTK, since the opposing player could fail to draw their outs in their second, or even third turn, but also that this % is basically 0 for all non-degenerate decks.

I don't doubt some have fun piloting non-interactive degenerate FTKs, but no one has fun getting FTKed. People are welcome to Gumblar loop unsuspecting AIs in YGO Omega if they find it fun.

6/10/2021 09:45:52 am

You said quote, "Also i think the main reason people doesnt consider It fun to play against these decks Is not knowing them well enough."

This could not be more wrong. The reason people hate playing against FTK decks is because you are forced to watch someone play solitaire for an extended period of time, and in many instances, you literally do not get to play a single meaningful card, or any card at all!

You claim that a "big percentage of the time", FTK decks will use their cards as interaction. Let's assume you are running a Chaos deck with 3 Solemns, and 3 Raigeki Break. You have an approximate 65% chance to open one of those, and sometimes times you need to open 2 of those to win, which is a ~22% chance.

If the FTK deck goes first, they have a ~50% chance to outright win before you can even take your deck out of your deck box. Then, even if you go first, you only have a ~65% chance to draw meaningful cards in your opening hand. Basically, you could almost flip a coin to see if you even get to play the game.

Let's be generous and assume that in game 2, you manage to draw your side deck cards, and the game has a lot of meaningful interaction. That's great! Game 3, you have a 50% chance to lose before even getting a turn.

Finally, your strongest point, your saving grace... is that... at least players will learn when to give up rather than watch someone play solitaire! Actually, that just demonstrates how demoralizing and misery inducing it is to face these decks.

Johnny Li

6/9/2021 04:46:31 pm

If you believe that the games take longer for combo matchups and that it's about watching the opponent play solitaire, then your claim that you understand the skill required to play with or against these decks is untrue.

p-epoxy

6/7/2021 10:08:58 pm

i've never heard of heavy slump "combo." what's the win condition?

6/8/2021 02:10:10 am

that's similar to empty jar.
you fill your opponent's hand with cyber jar, trunade, compulsory and such and you flip heavy slump for a +10 or so.

Lui Lui Lui

6/8/2021 11:33:36 am

I don't have the time for this but I would like to donate my deck idea to anyone brave enough to try out the strategy.

It is a Combo deck that relies on getting monsters on the board for enough damage to win in one turn by using reasoning, monster gate, cyber stein, last will, and serial spell. I use monsters that can potentially clear the board, along with odd levels not typically called by Reasoning. Additionally, Limiter Removal can deal extra damage by battle or by Catapult Turtle.

Serial Spell can be tricky since it requires a cost of having a hand, but interestingly enough you will not have to pay any cost associated with the card it copies. This is best used with Reasoning, Monster Gate, or Pot of Greed.

The Decklist:

2x Barrel Dragon
2x Blowback Dragon
1x Byser Shock
1x Catapult Turtle
1x Cyber-Stein

2x Brain Control
1x Giant Trunade
1x Graceful Charity
1x Heavy Storm
1x Mystical Space Typhoon
3x Last Will
1x Limiter Removal
2x Metamorphosis
3x Monster Gate
1x Pot of Greed
1x Premature Burial
3x Reasoning
3x Scapegoat
3x Serial Spell
1x Snatch Steal

1x Torrential Tribute
1x Mirror Force
1x Ring of Destruction
1x Embodiment of Apophis
2x Jar of Greed

I didn't build this with Sacred Crane or Dark Magician of Chaos because 4 and 8 are called often but also because DMOC misses timing on a summon off of Serial Spell.

Just as a note, Stein, Oz, Blowback, and Byser Shock add up to 8000 and I have gotten games where that was enough. Catapult Turtle can also finish games or get goats off the board for room. While it has some consistency issues, I think with enough care, it is possible to work out some of the kinks.

Good luck to all player that join!

Antonio

6/11/2021 03:58:52 am

W goat format

6/11/2021 07:44:07 am

so for the dudes bashing and talking percentages, i didn't get a reply button under your posts but anyway:

1) 'these' decks you are referring to are just Library FTK, cause there's not other decks close to or above 20% of getting an actual FTK known atm.
That's 1 of many combo decks playable in the format.

2) i don't know what your numbers are based on, but they are wrong and covering very few cases, ignoring sideboard, card draw, additional soft counters mained anywhere (book, ring, torrent, additional hard counters sideable anywhere (stein, mind crush, cursed seal, magic jammer).

3) even with just your numbers put on (which are extremely gentle toward the library), this wouldn't be good enough to let the deck hit a 50% winrate on its own.
if you want to count, it's so easy to get auto-win turn1s against Library decks g2 and g3 that they are going to get FTK'd in practice way more often than they perform an FTK, if they ever get on the map and people wants to hard-side or play any deck with a good library matchup.

4) if they ever were an unsubstainable problem to the format, i guess we would rather make some honor ban than let people get in randomly and win events with it, but insult anyone playing it like idiots.

6/11/2021 08:50:49 am

1- These decks refers to FTK decks, and if library is the only one getting a decent FTK rate than it is the only good FTK deck. You don't need 10 FTK decks being popular to ruin a format, you just need 1. Besides, aren't you trying to improve these decks via this challenge? For an FTK deck that means improving consistency.

2- This site, goatformat.com, states that Library has a 50% FTK rate. Even if you deck is filled to the brim with counters, since there are no handtraps, if you lose RPS you don't get to play YGO 25% of the time. How is this wrong? I remind you that this is number is 0% for non-degenerate decks.

3- How is this a defense? You are ignoring that you have go second in either G3 or G2, but letting that slide, if these decks are going to get FTK'ed by cocoon of evolution or whatever other tech card, people still don't get to play YGO. You are basically saying either the FTK player or their opponent won't get to play the game. Then why don't they flip a coin to determine the winner and play solitaire on their own?

4- People not playing the deck doesn't mean it isn't good or even the best. For example in Goat format Goat control was tier zero, even though chaos is actually a better deck. Maybe giat is actually the format Uraby FTK is tier zero but no one has caught up to thay fact yet.

6/11/2021 09:33:38 am

1- my challenge is related to all the combo decks, not library ftk.
ignoring the whole deck category is ignorant to me, because there is skills and different thought process that combo decks bring.

2- Ok but a 25% winrate would be comparable to the worst players in the format so that alone isn't very helpful.
To me, the amount of trash cards library is forced to play and the amount of hard counters for the deck will give just as many or more autolosses so i don't find it unfair from a competitive point of view.
Then if it's just about fun you can play fun games with your friends and the rules you prefer.

3- I get what you say. But bitching and crying about something that exists and is legal is a problem.
Ignoring that thing and telling people not to do that only makes it when someone doesn't listen to you and plays it:
now nobody is prepared since people just pretends it doesn't exist and it will keep being a problem forever.

Or we can let that thing be and be played and see what happens.
If that deck is actually too good and too unfair and ruining everyone's experience then maybe we might get it to be banned.
Or maybe that build of the deck is not good enough to hold with the stronger decks in the format so it's not even a problem.

4- so we need to explore things to find out what's true, no?

6/12/2021 02:53:03 am

@TheNano

In response to your 2nd bullet point. The odds to win I listed was strictly for the first turn. Obviously most of these OTK decks can achieve a 50% win rate.

I was not ignoring side-board. I already stated that game 2 is very likely to have interaction between players due to the side board. This does not change the fact that the OTK player will be going first in game 3, and you can side-board all you want, there is a large chance that you do not get to draw.

It is fair of you say I should include book of moon and ring in into the odds. Very well. Even if you have 3 solemn, 3 book of moon, 3 Raigeki break, 3 magic jammer, and hell, 3 cursed seal, and 1 ring, There is still a ~22% chance that you do not open 2 of these, rendering you unable to play YGO. (Most of the time, only having one of these is not enough.)

No one is calling for a soft ban on OTK decks. I am just politely disagreeing with how you are trying to paint them in a positive light. They do not help grow the community, they are not fun to play against regardless of what little interaction MIGHT happen, and they are not even fun to spectate. Learning when to scoop against them to make the torture end faster is not making up for any of that.

6/12/2021 11:04:31 am

Well reaching 50% winrate still wouldn't be considered even close to good nowadays, is it?

The case you listed covers 12,5% winrate Library will automatically get because of the FTK rate, considering it requires going 1st g1 (1/2 your matches) and will still only succeed 25% of the time (hitting 50% FTK twice).
Now the remaining 87,5% will be facing interaction+the opponent's game plan and it happens that Library is VERY affected by opposing interaction and has a much lower 1TK rate even facing 1 monster interaction card.
Now it might be against some dude who decided to ignore Library g1 and main 3 Scapegoat+Sakuretsu Armor, kill in 10 turns and just be a very easy matchup, because of matchups not because of 'fairness'.
or it might be against decks that have >50% of winning vs Library even pre-board going 1st.

Also, once again you are just talking about Library FTK with your points so i don't see how you jump this into 'OTK decks' in general, as all of them have different skills required, interaction points and choices.

TheNANI? link

6/12/2021 02:56:52 pm

Bad Idea.

You can return to current format if you wanna play combo all day long.
I sure hope combo players continue to be bullied and people continue to refuse to play against them.

We didn't return to goat time for this.

6/12/2021 11:48:24 pm

I mean it's not like the reason you play goat format Is the reason everyone plays goat format
For example bullying people Is not part of my fun or interest and i would look somewhere else if i needed such manners to protect my fun here.

But you can have your own for fun only control group with your friends and noone will tell you anything.
Also every TCG has combo decks honestly, while the current Yu-Gi-Oh decks are quite an unique case and dont share much with goat format combo decks

6/13/2021 04:23:22 pm

You don't need to keep arguing with all these casual players in the comments. They have beginner mentality and that's something they need to overcome for themselves.

TheNani? link

6/13/2021 04:37:37 pm

@Thenano

A lot of us play it for that reason. You are obviously in the minority. Bullying is a bad thing but if that's what it takes to get rid of all the combo players on the ladder why not.

Appart from that I don't play for fun. I play to win in a skilled game. I sincerely hope even competitive player won't play combo because of the lack of good practice they can get thanks to this bullying/refuse to play plan.

I hope we can have a competitive format without library FTK running around everywhere. You can play rock paper scissor competitively too. That's not an argument. We wanna play seriously a game where we can actually play. A battle of wits.

@Johny Li

Lol You're a current player you're obviously biased. you accepted every f*cked up change to the game one after the other. Of course you're ok to accept combo in goat format too.
In life that would be a good mentality. But here in goat that's not the idea. When I play goat that's not the part of my brain I wanna train. I wanna train my decision process in an uncertain environment. there's no decision to be made against library FTk. I don't consider that goat. I wouldn't even feel good winning against library. Ok my side deck card performed well.. And ? That's not goat format ! Goat format is winning through decision, plays, read.

I truly think that if library become too much of an issue and start taking too much place it could deserve a ban from competitive play. Of course we're not there yet. But with thoses initiative that's where we're going.

Dunnker

6/15/2021 05:19:24 pm

The Nano. You are not being charitable at all to these arguments. I don't have any statistics or percentages, but I can tell you that when I play against Empty Jar or Library FTK, I often think about how I could be doing anything else with my time. Setting Ring of Destruction and praying that you do not have Giant Trunade is not remotely interesting. Using MST on your Archfiend's Oath and praying that you brick hardly counts as interaction. I do not like to use the term 'bullying', but the reason Empty Jar/Library players are frowned upon is because it makes the game unenjoyable for everyone but them.

Also, just because other games may have degenerate combo decks does not change the fact that they are degenerate. Most people realize that Empty Jar and Library FTK perform well, you don't need a challenge to prove this. The only reason these two combo decks do not regularly top events, is simply because barely anyone wants to play these decks. Imagine if the next 128 man tournament had 40 Empty Jar decks that entered. No one would be shocked or impressed if Empty Jar took up 3 of the top 8 slots.

6/14/2021 05:34:54 am

Half of the guys here talks about skill and brain, but i bet 500 that they cant even play without duo + charity + pot.
And aniway, if library ftk or similar decks are so good, why nobody has won a shit in the modern era with those kind of decks? I mean, probably 3 top 8 in total, nothing special

Morppadorp

6/14/2021 09:48:55 pm

Di4na won the SJC Dark End Dragon tournament with Library FTK lol

her list: https://www.goatformat.com/home/sjc-freeroll-top-8-decklist

6/15/2021 01:42:40 am

In the recent past, there are no significant result with this deck, and as I say, if the combo decks are good as people say, why basically they top only 2/3 times in 1/2 years?

Voice of the people

6/14/2021 05:02:58 pm

It’s a bummer Skully even published this trash challenge. And Johnny li you calling along people filthy casuals and putting people down because they don’t want to play against FTK holds zero weight. No one gives a fuck about your little elitist comments, you’ve accomplished very little in some formats that mean absolutely nothing to anyone on this page. Go suck ACP Dick some more. The fact is that you have your right to want to be the champion of combo players all you want and the majority of the people keeping this format alive simply don’t fucking agree with you.

This shit is PRE af

Voice of more people

6/14/2021 09:16:32 pm

the *vast* majority of people "keeping this format alive," whether on goatformat.com or format library or nostalgic duelist or anywhere else, constantly and consistently encourage everyone to play whatever decks they want. i would bet a lot of money that you, by contrast, have never spent an hour of time in your life organizing a single thing for the community

6/14/2021 05:51:47 pm

Many people applied and responded in a positive way to this challenge and i know that many TCG players from outside like combo decks so It surely can be a pleasurable experience.
Its going to be 4 players accepted for this challenge so i dont see how 4 guys playing a deck category are going to ruin the whole format.

The purpose of this challenge and anything that might come from me after this will be learning more about what the card pool offers and what people can do with what's legal.
I think this is enjoyable and useful to the community or i wouldnt have posted, if you actually enjoy skill you surely want something more complex than just being good at goat control mirrors, having more common matchups would be a 1st step for sure.

TheNan0

6/15/2021 11:44:30 pm

I know you’ll have more than four people playing your challenge. I’ve personally read of two other people who are going to do your challenge but aren’t registering.

I’ll be personally creating alt accounts (cleverly named like this one) to 1) gatekeep the entrants from winning 2) give the fat heads a harder chance of pinning down contestants to their combo strategy 3) screw reasoning, thunder dragon, warrior, netdecked decks and all these horrible, non-skilled, cry baby fb duelist.

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