A Goat Format World Championship Retrospective: Losers Rounds

In this series, Mascis documents their journey to and their experience in the Goat Format World Championship. This is part four of five.

Looking at the bracket, I can’t lie and say I wanted to play against Kris especially coming after a loss. It wasn’t because I thought I was going to lose going into it or anything of that sort, I just knew the game would be really hard to play and I didn’t want that after losing the last round. However you got to just take it one game at time regardless of the opponent. I knew Kris was playing Chaos Control most likely given that he won a recent tournament with it, and I guessed that Paul may have informed Kris that I was on Goat Control before the match started.Losers Round 3 vs Kris Perovic [Chaos Control]https://www.duelingbook.com/replay?id=2669-22596422Game 1:  He starts by discarding Thunder Dragon and only searches one. Yikes. He just sets one and passes it over. I fire off Pot of Greed and find BLS and MST, two of my favorite acronyms. I test the back row with Asura Priest and eat a Torrential. I set the Dustshoot and MST and pass it over. When he passes priority, I don’t Dustshoot because I already know Thunder Dragons are in the hand and he didn’t summon or set a monster last turn, instead going for Torrential. I decided that I would hold it for when he attempted to make a push because I figured It would live due to the Thunder Dragons just hanging out. He just summons Tomato, attacks, and passes. I flip it down with Tsuk and use Nobleman, making sure a dark doesn’t hit the graveyard. He sets a monster next turn. I draw a Creature Swap and pass it back. He summons Thunder Dragon, tributing Sinister and hits me. I use MST on his Scapegoat during the end phase. I see the window where I can win now with Ring and BLS, next turn I Tribe the Thunder Dragon to put the dark in the graveyard, Summon BLS, attack, set Ring and pass. After he adds back Sinister and passes priority, so I activate Dustshoot to check to see if he has a Book of Moon. Thankfully, there is nothing that can stop Ring in his hand so when he activates Charity I chain the Ring for game.Game 2: He set a card in the back and passes without using a Thunder Dragon this time. I have Pot of Greed again, super lucky! I draw Meta and Snatch, then try and get Asura in for some damage but see Torrential Tribute again! I set Dustshoot and gun it once he passes prior. I used it this time because I had less information than I did last game. I see Breaker, Tomato, Scapegoat, Dust Tornado, MST,  and Raigeki Break. MST and Dust are really good vs the Snatch I have in hand. I can attempt to clear breaker with the Blade Knight I have so Tomato looks like the best option. He summons the Breaker and attacks, then sets a Backrow. I have to assume this is MST or Dust. I attempt to Snatch and I get hit with Dust Tornado as expected. I then set everything but the Creature Swap I drew for turn. This is a mistake, as I should have sided Swap out and I should have set it over the Heavy Storm. Big Blade Knight runs over Breaker. He draws and random MSTs my Meta then sets two which I have to assume that at least one of them is the Raigeki Break. I just attack with Blade Knight for 1600, then I set swap to see if will actually Raigeki Break the new set but he’s better than that so he just draws for turn. He sets a monster then passes. I fire off the topdeck Graceful Charity and see Faith, Ring, and Mirror Force. I am not super pleased but I discard Tsukuyomi to get a dark in the graveyard and the Mirror Force since I value Ring’s ability to close the game out. I finally am hit with Raigeki Break when I attempt to attack so I set my cards in hand and end. He draws, and it’s Pot of Greed! He flips a Mimic after and then Nobleman’s my Faith. I draw a Scapegoat and do nothing since I already have so much face down already. He levels up into Mimic LV3 then swings in. I draw Dutshoot and set it. He draws and attacks once more. I rip BLS and I decide to banish since I already know I'm not killing through the Scapegoat that I saw earlier. He draws for turn and I gun the Dustshoot seeing Graceful Charity, Asura, Mimic LV3 and Thunder Dragon. It’s weird to put Thunder Dragon back but I sorta kinda have to in this situation. He does nothing to follow up. I draw Creature Swap and really regret not siding the card out here. I attacked two Sheep Tokens I knew were coming. He then uses Charity and finds Heavy Storm, which I did play into and with in the Blade Knight play earlier admittedly. He then Summons BLS and that about ends the game on the spot. I draw a Kycoo but I can’t effectively use Swap duo to him having two Sheep Tokens up already.

Game 3: Pot of Greed all three games is exactly what I need to have a chance versus anybody really. This time my sixth card is Fusilier and I draw BLS off of Pot. I set Scapegoat and pass. He T-sets for his turn. I draw another Saku, Nobleman of Crossout on his Mimic LV3, and pass it back. He sets another monster and passes. I draw Meta and I go for it, King Dragun. Dragun runs over Newdoria which is so good for me. He draws and passes. I swing in. He draws and sets a monster. I draw a Book of Moon and swing into Tomato. He finds Mimic LV1 so that he can level up next turn. He puts a new monster face down. I draw Torrential and attack the new set, which is Sinister Serpent. I draw Tsukuyomi for turn so I decided to go for an aggressive play by attempting Snatch the Mimic and reset it with Tsukuyomi. The reason I did this was because I thought the back row was a Book of Moon. Responding to Snatch with Book of Moon wouldn’t really do anything and would open him up to getting hit I with Nobleman. However, the play works out for me and I get to steal his lunch box. I get 1000 points of damage before seeing a Scapegoat, killing two Sheep Tokens. He summons Breaker and I Book it cause I don’t want him to get value out of hitting my Scapegoat if he targets it. Also, Book here prevents him from attacking over his Mimic, but he has Meta into Darkfire Dragon anyway. He gets the draw and sets a new back row. I draw Dustshoot and don’t summon Tsukuyomi to play around a potential Raigeki Break (if I ever put my own Dragun face down he can clear it with targeted removal). I attack over the Darkfire, set Dustshoot and Saku then pass. He draws and uses Thunder Dragon to fetch two more. I Dustshoot after priority is passed and see a grip of the Dragons, Sinister, Snatch, Nobleman, Tsuk, Sorc, and BLS. This hand is very bad against King Dragun. I could put Sorc back to try and get him to summon BLS and attempt to attack but I decide it’s safer to just tuck the best card in the format away. He sets a monster and passes. I top a great card in Asura Priest. I have to attack the Sheep he has first in order to play around Tsuk that he could have set. The face down monster is in fact the Tusk and my Asura goes face down. Another 2400 from Dragun brings Kris down to 1300 life points. I send the turn over to him and he flips Nobleman. I think this is weird because he knows that I know he has another Nobleman of Crossout in his hand, and I have been trying to play around the potential card he could have had face down for a number of turns. However this play does work out for him because he sets a monster, summons Sorc for defense, then sets a new back row, which scares me again since there is one card in his hand that is unknown to me. I put him on that he set a Sinister her which is what he wants me to believe. I summon Magician of Faith, which can clear the Sinister and if it dies I have BLS in my hand. I kill Sorc with Dragun and unfortunately hit a Mimic LV1 with Faith. He gets Pot of Greed in Graceful on the following turn. Scary! He tells me that he has to do math and I'm terrified that I could just be dead somehow to Heavy Storm plus BLS. He tanks for awhile before discarding both Thunder Dragons in hand, then summons a new Sorc and banishes Faith.

He uses Metamorphosis and chains MST targeting Scapegoat. I think that he may be setting up some kind of elaborate play with BLS and Ryu Senshi so I go ahead and just chain it. However he makes Ojama King, which Dragun cannot get over! I am also just locked out of playing monsters until I somehow remove my own Sheep. Ojama King would then not allow me to summon more than two monsters even if I do.  He sets a monster and passes. I draw Kycoo and just attack Mimic. He sets a new back row and passes. I draw Heavy and attack Serpent that’s face down. He draws, adds Serpent, and now a new face down monster. I draw Dustshoot, attack Serpent again, then I add Saku and Dustshoot to my to my back row but my Saku gets Dust Tornado’d. I attack his Sinister one more time and the next time he brings it back I just use Dustshoot to tuck it away because I want to know what the heck I’m dealing with here and I want the snake gone. I see Duo which is bad in this spot, Asura, Ring, Heavy Storm, and a Snatch which I knew was there. He passes. I draw Magic Jammer for turn, a card I sided in over the Creature Swap I had last game. I set it and pass back. He sets another back row and passes back. I draw another Tsukuyomi and pass it back. I haven’t been getting my Sinister Serpent back because there isn’t really a point at all, I'm just going to have to discard it anyway. He draws and passes. I draw Charity, finally some action. I get Serpent back and use Charity to find Dustshoot, Breaker, and Ring of Destruction. I discard Breaker and the snake, then set to a full five back row adding Dustshoot and Ring. In the End Phase, he uses his own Scapegoat then uses Torrential Tribute to clear the board, finally getting rid of the King Dragun. He draws, then uses Heavy Storm. He could have done the Torrential play earlier but I guess he was waiting for more gas and maybe for me to commit more to the back row. The miser’s Magic Jammer counters Storm. He attempts to summon BLS into my four back rows, trying to make something happen. In response to the summon, I Dustshoot. The reason here is because I know that the back row he has is the Nobleman from turns ago, because the second Dustshoot showed me that it wasn’t in hand anymore. I could have also assumed this after he attempted to Heavy Storm, because he was willing to trade two of his cards for my five. I check with Dustshoot once again to see if he drew a Book of Moon. If he did I would have to either Torrential the next monster that he adds to the board or I need to get him to chain it to the Saku when he tries to attack. Thankfully the only card I didn’t know was a second Asura Priest. On his next action, I activate the Ring of Destruction to end the game. An intense duel for sure.

Losers Round 4 vs ptranxp [Chaos Turbo]https://www.duelingbook.com/replay?id=2669-22598110Game 1: I get to go first and I open with a Dustshoot. I set it along with Book and pass it over. He draws, and I don’t gun the Dustshoot right away. This is a mistake, because after he adds Thunder Dragons, I use my Dustshoot and I see Raigeki Break and Phoenix Wing Wind Blast along with Sangan, Tomato, and BLS. If I just flip the Dustshoot before he adds with Thunder Dragon, I can put Thunder Dragon back and the discard traps become very bad.  I send back the Sangan because I have Fusilier so if get to Meta im fine vs the discard stuff. I also have Creature Swap to steal BLS and Tribe for backup. He summons his culinary vegetable and puts his traps in the back row. I draw Tsukuyomi and am not in a great position at all. I set Serpent and pass. He Wind Blasts it back to the top. He doesn’t add anything to the board on his turn, just swings in again and passes. I get my snake back and I set it. I considered maybe using Creature Swap to attempt to bait Raigeki Break, but I valued Swap here to get a Chaos monster. This could have cleared the way for Tribe, but I then would not have actually had an answer for Chaos. He attacks then sets a monster. I draw my friend Sangan and set him. He draws for turn and flips his Night Assailant, Sangan finds Morphing Jar. I get Jar since I already have Serpent and a Tsukuyomi. Grabbing Jar might spook him into using Raigeki Break on the Sinister Serpent I set instead. If I can clear the back rows, I have a play where I set Jar, Swap it for anything, then attack my own Jar to hopefully find some good cards and get rid of his BLS. He attacks and sets another back row. I finally get Metamorphosis but it’s too late in the game at this point. I can’t really attack, but he can just summon Thunder Dragon in hand and then use Raigeki Break on my book and summon BLS. I attack anyway but I kind of knew I had a very slim chance after not gunning the Dustshoot. Game 2: I open Jar, BLS, Pot, Duo. I always get Jar and BLS together in openers for some unholy reason. Pot and Duo are great to see though. I duo first and hit Faith. He discards Gravekeeper’s Spy. This signals that he may have a Chaos monster already. I Pot of Greed and find Meta and Graceful Charity. I decided to fire off Charity because I don’t really want to use Morphing Jar after using Pot and Duo already. I could have played this whole turn differently with Jar, just setting it and the power spells and trying to protect myself, but this instantly loses to Nobleman or a Standby Phase Raigeki Break. I wanted to have a strong turn one after losing the first game, and playing Duo and Pot allows me to attempt this. I draw Kycoo, Protector of the Sanctuary and Book of Moon. Protector allows me to keep Jar but I have to position myself carefully in order to resolve the combo. I wanted to keep the Nobleman I had in case he did have another monster he could set. When I saw Kycoo, I knew I had to put it out to fish for removal. Even though BLS isn’t live, you still want to keep it because it’s the best card in the format. So I forced myself to discard a Book of Moon and Meta here. I summoned Kycoo and set the other Book. He draws and sets two to his spell and trap card zones. I draw Fusilier for turn, kicking myself that I didn’t have the Meta anymore. He sees my hand with Dustshoot and decides to send back BLS. This puts me in an awkward spot because it’s hard for me to bluff with setting monsters now. I just attack with Kycoo and he Raigeki Breaks my monster discarding Serpent. At this point, I know he has to have a Chaos monster in hand, likely a Sorc. I took about 30 seconds to decide on the options that I had. Setting Jar means that he can refuel his hand if he summons Sorc and Sinister and attacks. I basically can’t put out Protector because it does nothing in this scenario. I pretty much have to just summon Fusilier, face up. This way if he does try and Sorc I can set it with my Book of Moon and reset Fusilier’s stats. Nobleman can clear Sorc if he tries to just attack it instead after I set it with the Book of Moon. He draws for turn, summons Sorc and uses the effect. I Book my own monster in response but he drew Tribe-Infecting Virus! This will get rid of the Dual-Mode Beast, leaving me with a bunch of nothing in my hand. I draw a Dust Tornado, set it and Nobleman and pass. He draws and sets back row after getting snake back and attacks me, dropping me to 3100. Dust Tornado will pick up Ring of Destruction so he knows what my other back row card is now. I draw my own Serpent and then I set Morphing Jar. I hope he just doesn’t draw another monster so maybe I can survive and get some cards I can play with. Instead he tops a Tomato, but now he has to attack properly. If he thinks I set Protector of the Sanctuary, swinging with a little guy won’t be lethal. However, he identifies that it is in fact Morphing Jar. and attacks with Tribe to close the game out.

I feel like hindsight is 20/20 with this match. Coming off of an intense three game set with Kris I was exhausted, but I’m not going to blame that as the reason why I lost. I made avoidable mistakes game one and ran into an unfortunate topdeck game two after some rough decision making.

To be concluded in part five.