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Anteaus'
History of Yu-Gi-Oh!
One of the coolest parts of Goat Format, in my opinion, is
the limited card pool that we can work with. There are only
so many cards that you can play in the format, and of those
only a handful are actually considered useful. But as the
format has changed and evolved over the past ten years or
so, many players have found new cards that, with some
thinking and testing, can be considered worthy additions to
a deck.
This article is not about those cards.
This article is about the “fringe” of the format - those
cards that are often overlooked when combing through the
commons box, or the ones that you think “hey that’d be kinda
cool!” but then you dismiss it because you can’t find room
or the theory just doesn’t quite work. In an undefined meta
you would likely cut these cards too. But if you find
yourself having trouble overcoming problem decks or cards
over and over during play, these are definitely some cards
to think about.
Am I saying you should play them? Not at all. Am I saying
you should think about playing them before dismissing
them out of hand? Most definitely.
I know a lot of people don’t like “listicles” but this is
going to be one of them simply because it’s a lot easier to
organize an article talking about specific cards if you do a
list. So that’s what I’m doing here.
Light of Intervention
This card is one of the reasons I wanted to write this
article. Light of Intervention is a continuous trap card
that makes it to where neither player can set any monsters,
and if they want to, they have to summon them face-up.
Immediately a few uses come to light: for one, it shuts down
any and every Tsukuyomi-based lock deck out there. Sick of
seeing Magician of Faith, Magical Merchant, Night Assailant
or Dekoichi, the Battlechanted Locomotive getting flipped
face-down again and again? Light of Intervention prevents
any monster from going face down, so it shuts any lock down
cold. You could also argue that it’s an interesting tech
against burn because they can’t set Des Koala or Stealth
Bird.
But the card doesn’t actually generate any advantage, and in
a standard Goat Control build can actually be detrimental
since you can’t set your own Flip monsters or setup your own
Tsuk Lock with Thousand-Eyes Restrict. It is vulnerable to
standard Spell/Trap removal as well as Breaker, the Magical
Warrior and the Monarchs. It also does nothing against more
aggressive decks like Chaos, Monarchs and Zoo.
However, those decks in particular can really use the card
well if the meta is ripe. If you’re going up against a lot
of Flip-based decks in your meta, and you yourself are
running something other than Standard Goats, it could be a
decent call. Flip monsters and Thousand-Eyes locks can give
a Zoo deck serious problems even if it’s packing Mystic
Swordsman LV2. While ultimately I personally feel that Light
of Intervention is fringe for a reason, it may have its uses
in some areas where passive players reign supreme.
King Tiger Wanghu
This is a card I’ve long wanted to include in a deck, but he
always seems to just miss the cut. He’s a 1700 ATK Beast
that says that if any monster with an ATK of 1400 or less is
summoned, they’re immediately destroyed. It’s a cool little
card that, in theory, can really stop cards like Scapegoat
and Thousand-Eyes Restrict dead in their tracks.
Theoretically, being able to preempt one of the best
defensive cards in the game should give you the upper hand.
But King Tiger only has 1700 ATK so he’s immediately
susceptible to death by battle. Cards like Exarion Universe
and D.D. Assailant can run over or crash into him and get
over his <1400 ATK destruction effect. It doesn’t really
deal with any of the problem monsters you end up
encountering and doesn’t really advance your board state.
This is the biggest problem with a lot of fringe cards -
they just don’t do quite enough, and sadly, Wanghu is in the
same boat.
In some situations he could be advantageous simply because
he stops your opponent from doing anything passive. While
they can still set against it (which can be problematic when
it comes to something like Tsuk-lock), they have to have
something big enough to beat over it. And like Light of
Intervention it’s useless against more aggressive decks like
Zoo and Chaos and Monarchs. He can actually end up fueling
win conditions against Chaos and even Dimension Fusion
Turbo, which often likes to fuel its banish pile with Bazoo
the Soul-Eater. Against many of the the decks we see in
modern Goat Format, it seems that King Tiger simply cannot
do enough to warrant inclusion, though that doesn’t mean
there will never be a meta he can’t be a part of.
Lightning Vortex
In 2005 this card was anything but fringe. Vortex was in
almost everyone’s deck and used to clear boards full of
monsters and tokens alike. But over time its usage has
slowly fallen off, and today it is definitely considered a
“fringe” card. Many people have written it off in modern
Goat Format simply because big boards are rarely seen. Many
people choose to use cards like Exarion Universe to deal
damage through Scapegoat tokens rather than try to wipe them
off the board. Back in 2005, Exarion Universe wasn’t around,
and Scapegoats were everywhere. Vortex, at the end of the
day, could clear a way for damage to be dealt much more
easily than it can now.
This card, I think, gains a lot of power without Exarion
Universe because not having Exarion frees up decks to play
more defensive cards such as Spirit Reaper. If you’ve read
my past articles you know my stance on Reaper in Exarion
Goats. But take Exarion away and more cards have a chance to
shine. In addition to clearing goat tokens and Spirit
Reaper, Vortex’s other use was to clear Gravekeeper’s Spy
off the board to get rid of those soft walls. This is where
the card comes into play today; in more modern Goat Format
decks, many people side Gravekeeper’s Spy as a soft wall
against Airknight. If you know your opponent is doing this,
Vortex can give you another option to remove it.
But this means that Vortex is heavily dependent on the
metagame you’ll be playing in. If aggressive decks that like
to put multiple monsters on board are common in your area,
Vortex can be a way to keep them in check. But if you’re
playing in a more passive meta, the card may not be all that
great due to lack of big plays. It’s less useful than Heavy
in that you have multiple ways to deal with monsters but
only so many backrow killers. Couple that with the modern
tendency to eschew big boards for smaller, tighter boards
that only have one or two monsters at a time, and this leads
to fewer situations where Vortex can actually generate you
any advantage.
Zaborg the Thunder Monarch
The last card I want to discuss in this article is Zaborg
the Thunder Monarch. I personally love Zaborg for a number
of reasons, but many modern Goat players really don’t like
it. They have some good points. The card has a solid effect
but if your opponent doesn’t have a good board it can be a
dead card, since it has to kill something when it’s
summoned. If you special summon it from the graveyard you
don’t get to pop something, which makes Premature Burial and
Call of the Haunted less viable and gives you fewer
recursion targets. It also dies hard to Tsukuyomi as it only
has 1000 DEF.
However, it’s a LIGHT monster, which fuels Chaos,
particularly Black Luster Soldier-Envoy of the Beginning. It
is also a Level 5, which gives you access to Dark Balter the
Terrible like Airknight does. It also has 2400 ATK, which
beats over Chaos Sorcerer and Airknight and crashes with
Jinzo and other Monarchs. Zaborg can be a solid choice if
you’re finding yourself battling against aggressive Chaos
decks time and time again.
Zaborg doesn’t generate advantage aside from a one-for-one
exchange. You lose the monster you tributed, and your
opponent loses a monster of their own. This is solid, but
when you play Zaborg in the main you start to notice that,
over the course of many games, you start to lose more than
you win. People can play around Zaborg easily and while it
can really throw a wrench in your opponent’s plans,
ultimately it just doesn’t do enough. Airknight makes your
opponent hesitate to set against it; Zaborg does not.
Zaborg’s best use, arguably, is to clear out your opponent’s
tribute monsters as well as their TER and, perhaps most
importantly, Gravekeeper’s Spy. If you see a lot of GK Spy
or Spirit Reaper in your meta, Zaborg can be a solid choice.
It gains power against decks that can’t handle high-ATK
monsters, and in the Goat mirror match can be a good side
option if you know the meta runs a lot of stall. It gains
power as well in pre-Exarion Goats, where you don’t have the
double threat of piercing from Airknight and Exarion.
This leads to more defensive plays and monsters with less
than 1900 ATK, which Zaborg can really power through.
Ultimately, what you play is up to you. These are not cards
that you should try to build a deck around or really focus
on including in your deck. These are cards that may work if
you’ve tried most everything else and still can’t find the
out to something. They require solid testing and
understanding of the theory behind them in order to maximize
their potential, but they can be useful in the right
situations. Try them for yourself and see what you think.
That’s it for this time. As always, check out the
Pojo Goat Format Thread
for the latest Goat Format discussion, and e-mail me any
time at
anteausonyugioh@gmail.com.
There’s also a Discord server for Goat Format - check it out
here.
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