Four Steps for Better Side Decking in Goat Format

​One of the most common questions I see in the Goat Community is "how do I side deck as x deck for y matchup"? More often than not, the answer people will get in response is "it depends", and that isn't because people don't want to help others learn how to side - it's because this is probably one of the most open-ended questions you can ask a Yu-Gi-Oh! player and depends on a variety of factors. These factors include things like how common a bad matchup is, how many cards you can afford to side in/out without making the overall strategy fall apart, and what you expect your local metagame to be.

​​For example, if you're playing a deck that is relatively non-linear and has a lot of interchangeable parts, such as Goat Control, you can choose to side a lot for a specific matchup if you deem it necessary to do so. I personally side 12 cards as Goat Control against most aggro decks, and while a lot of people would deem that as being overkill, the reality of the matter is that a) the matchup is generally so unfavorable to the point where I feel this is justified; b) in my local metagame, it is common enough to warrant being this prepared for it; and c) I can afford to do so without rendering my deck choppy and unplayable. On the flip side, if you're playing a deck that is relatively linear and has few interchangeable parts, such as Flip Control, you have less slots to work with in terms of what you can take out. With Flip Control, you can't take out too many Flips (otherwise you won't be able to reliably generate advantage and recur your resources), you can't take out too many power Spells, and you certainly can't take out most of the Traps allowing you to Tsukuyomi lock your opponent alongside another Flip Effect monster. For this reason, you might not be able to side as much for a matchup as you would otherwise want to, so you will have to make a compromise somewhere and either settle for high-impact cards that are relatively narrow or lower-impact cards that are better against a wider variety of decks. Another very important thing to note is that a card that is good in one Side Deck is not necessarily good in all of them. For example, just because Royal Decree is good against Burn doesn't mean I should be siding it as an Anti-Meta Warrior player: doing so would shut off my own Traps, and I need those for my deck to function properly. Thus, in this particular scenario, one would need to consider alternative cards that are equally as effective, such as Xing Zhen Hu or Mobius the Frost Monarch. There is no way I can write a "Side Decking for Goat Format" article that would do the topic justice, so I've decided to limit the scope of this article to a simple four-step process that can be used to improve anyone's Side Decking game. ​

Siding Out

Start off with making a list of all the cards that could potentially come out of your Main Deck in any given matchup during Games 2 and 3. Obviously, not all of these cards will come out for every matchup, but making this list gives you a clear understanding of what is necessary for your deck to function and what isn't. For example, in Frank's 3rd place Goat Control deck, this list would include, but not be limited to: