What is Goat Format?

11/10/2018

“Goat Format” refers to a Yu-Gi-Oh! format that was officially played during the summer of 2005. It gets its name from the popularity of the card Scapegoat during this time period. It is a format that is still widely played today using the same card pool, ruleset, and banlist. The most popular deck used during this format was called Goat Control, known for the powerful combination of Scapegoat and Metamorphosis.

Although the legal card pool evolved throughout the format, the widely-used community standard (and the one that GoatFormat.com follows) is to mirror the card pool used for US Nationals, SJC Seattle, and SJC Indianapolis, in which The Lost Millennium (TLM) was legal but Exarion Universe and Cybernetic Revolution (CRV) were not. It is worth noting that, historically speaking, there was no period of time at which Exarion Universe was legal but Cybernetic Revolution was not. For more detail on this subject, see Cybernetic Revolution (CRV) in Goat Format.

Today, the Yu-Gi-Oh! Goat Format is widely played online and in real life, mostly by people who were not competitively active during 2005 and want to try a new way to play Yu-Gi-Oh! However, there are some older generations of players who play to seek a more nostalgic experience. Goat Format is not supported by Konami and is maintained by a dedicated and passionate group of players who want to share the game that they love with others.

We at GoatFormat.com consider ourselves a part of that dedicated group. We wanted a central resource for everything that there is to know about goat format -- rules, decklists, tournaments, and strategy -- so we made one. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to learn more about your favorite format and share it with your friends. We do this so that the Yu-Gi-Oh! Goat Format community can grow and be enjoyed for years to come.

Now that you understand what the Yu-Gi-Oh! Goat Format is, we recommend also reading Why Play Goat Format?

12 Comments

goatboi link

10/27/2019 12:40:53 am

I'm so f'n passionate!

marios

1/24/2020 11:41:04 am

in the"why i should play?"
you say"While the current Yu-Gi-Oh! format emphasizes technical skill in which players execute complex combos to gain a winning position over their opponent in the first few turns of the game, Goat Format rewards strategic skill in which a winning position is gained over the course of a longer game through careful management of resources"

that's not true.most people i play do too many combos all the time.

sure it is not as broken as the modern yugioh but it does not reward resource management like you make it look like.

not to mention that there is a broken combo which allows to a player to do infinite damage and you mofos refuse to do anything about it.(you could at least try to make it so no player can have those 4 cards in their deck AT THE SAME TIME but nooooooo,you can't.)

the banlist in this format really needs some work,the banlist is the reason why it does not reward resource management.

Manuel

4/1/2020 09:33:57 am

Hi,

As I am new to this format, what is the broken combo you are mentioning?

Nanashi

5/30/2020 10:16:06 pm

Magical Library OTK would be my guess.

Xander

5/4/2020 05:18:02 pm

I don't believe there is a true infinite damage combo during this time. The only one I can think of that was actually a thing during this time was Butterfly Dagger - Elma + Woodland Sprite, which BD-E was banned on the very first banlist, and has remained their since. (I believe Woodland Sprite was also given errata).

Maybe you're referring to a DmoC loop for infinite spell damage? Seems extremely difficult to pull off, imo, and I don't even know if it was possible to do it during then as I forget the actual combo.

Maybe Manticore combo? :v

necromancy4kids

12/24/2020 06:04:23 pm

DmoC + Spell Economics + Mass Driver/Cannon Soldier/Toon Cannon Soldier + Dimension Fusion.

Tribute DmoC, it gets banished by its effect, deal the burn damage from the tribute effect. Activate Dimension Fusion to bring back DmoC (free due to Spell Economics), use DmoC to return Dimension Fusion to your hand. Rinse and repeat.

While this FTK does exist, I've never seen anyone actually attempt it, much less get it off, in all my time playing Goat Format. One reason being you need to get DmoC onto the field first to even start the combo, and play an otherwise completely dead card in the form of Spell Economics.

Aleph

2/1/2021 09:11:03 am

As much as I like GOAT I have to agree here. All of these "GOAT is so skillful" posts refer solely to the original meta in 2005 where everyone was playing Goat Control in a slow playstyle. In today’s meta virtually nothing of this is left, Chaos Turbo and aggressive Warrior variants take up most of the landscape, often ending duels within 5-6 turns.

Resource management becomes comically if your opponent can simply go +1 and makes you go -2 because he got blessed by the RNG. Some single cards are surpassing the power of all others by an insane amount, purely luck-based openings and topdecking are dominating entire matches, to a vastly greater extent than in later formats.

Ever tryharding opponents and degenerative decks like Library FTK, Empty Jar and Last Turn are sucking out all motivation a potentially new player had left for the format and because the heads of the community refused to adjust the banlist (until now) we will not see anything of this change.

As the meta progresses so should the banlist. I'd argue that balancing the meta and bringing GOAT back to what it USED TO BE LIKE is more important than a "historically accurate" banlist that has failed this task as the formats’ landscape isn't historically accurate anymore.

South Carolina Model Hookups link

10/30/2022 11:56:09 am

Great reead thank you

Rare Hunter

1/16/2023 02:14:10 pm

The banlist is absolutely preposterous. This broken cards should be banned Envoy of the Beginning, Sinister Serpent, Delinquent Duo, Pot of Greed and Snatch Steal. Plus many other broken cards that aren't even limited to 1 at the least. Like Metamorphosis and Thousand Eyes Restrict and Chaos Sorcerer. These cards were absolutely broken in Goat format. Who in their right mind made that list to play competitively?

Anwar Rehman

4/12/2023 04:59:04 pm

I am so happy to find this here. I was literally hoping I wasn't alone with thinking like this. I'm an old player returning. Seeing what has happened to the game is so saddening to me. There is practically no reason for traps and magic cards because monsters do everything now. It's a joke. They even reduced skill drain to only 1 card. They definitely want to move in the direction of broken abilities which removes the fun of strategy from the whole thing. Can't wait to get into this with those who think alike and enjoy the game I love again!

Mariah J link

6/21/2024 09:55:39 am

Great bllog

Marik

6/21/2024 11:18:44 am

Goat gets boring after a while. If you are interested in a more diverse format (up to GX) join us in this server.

https://discord.com/invite/6DMVXnMmck

What is Goat Format?

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