World Championship 2022 Top 16 Player Interviews (Part Two)

Part two of our top 16 player interviews. See what some of the best players in the world had to say about the event, their decks, and more! 

​How did you prepare for today's event? Did you practice with a specific person or team?I played few matches on DB, but not so many to be honest.​What deck did you play in this event and why?Chaos Control, having not so much time for testing I played the deck I'm the most comfortable with. With a similar list I won Italian Nationals (194 players) in July.What decks or players were you looking forward to playing against?NoneWhat decks or players were you NOT looking forward to playing against?Burn in general, and of course I wanted to avoid Italian players. What card had been overperforming for you during the event?Three Royal Decree, really good even in the Turbo match-up.What has been your favorite moment of the event so far?Winning the last round for a 5-2 record, meaning that I made the top cut.What predictions do you have for the rest of the event?I think Chaos Turbo will win the event.If you could go back, what (if any) changes would you would make to your deck today?I have to think about that honestly, I can't tell it right now. All the cards performed rather well. What would winning the world championship mean to you?A cool belt and 2000$Any shout outs you would like to make?A huge shout out to Goat Community Italia staff and team. You're my family.Of course, also to my girlfriend Noemi that supported me throughout the tournament. I love you.

​How did you prepare for today's event? Did you practice with a specific person or team?I practiced, theorized, and tested extensively with my team Ultra Instinct. I would not be here without all of them, without support from some other in the community, and big shoutouts to Roghnach for all the help with his list as well. ​What deck did you play in this event and why?Earth Aggro. I have been hot with it and think it was a great meta call. I thought a bunch of players would bring Warriors with main decks for Turbo to combat Turbo maindecking for the mirror match. I went 3-0 vs all the Warrior matchups I had, and 2-2 vs Turbo. The deck is well suited for this meta and overall just a very strong deck. What decks or players were you looking forward to playing against?Warrior and Burn, I was super prepared for both those lists.What decks or players were you NOT looking forward to playing against?Control. I have no TT but three Tigers. You have to play very, very well vs control to win. However in prior tournaments and testing I had a winning record vs all the tier one decks. What card had been overperforming for you during the event?The whole deck has been so strong. Smashing Ground, Dust Tornado and Goblin Attack Force are insane.What has been your favorite moment of the event so far?Crashing Rat into a Don Zaloog to get a Kinetic Soldier to hit a Sasuke, and attacking direct with Goblin. That felt amazing.What predictions do you have for the rest of the event?I am bringing the belt home to Florida.If you could go back, what (if any) changes would you would make to your deck today?I'm not sure yet. I think the deck overall has been really solid. Maybe a third Dustshoot in the side.What would winning the world championship mean to you?It would mean a lot to me. I used to be so bad at this game. In not even a year, I made it to World's and then top 16. Winning would mean all the hard work paid off.Any shout outs you would like to make?Shoutout to the entire Ultra Instinct team and to everyone who has supported me along the way on my journey. I love you all.

​How did you prepare for today's event? Did you practice with a specific person or team?Unfortunately I do not have as much time to play as pretty much any other competitive player. My job takes up a lot of my time and it is very demanding opening and operating new bars within my hotel space. I practiced very little on ladder and I was spectacularly hungover on Friday prior to the event. I got some games in with my team and we discussed side decks, etc. If world's had been delayed to due tech issues - I don't think it would have made much of a difference.  All I could do was play when and where I could - and here we are. I would love to play more - and I am looking into doing so eventually. ​What deck did you play in this event and why?Chaos Turbo. It's the deck I picked up when I started playing GOAT format online around two years ago. I always played Scapegoat decks with my old testing circle many years ago -- but when I discovered how diverse Goat format was - I knew I wanted to play something consistent and slightly unfair. It's the deck I know inside and out and thought it gave me the best chance of going deep in the event. What decks or players were you looking forward to playing against?The Turbo mirror as I have the most time and matches against it. I think I am pretty well positioned against it. I was excited to play against all the players who have such a huge presence online and are well-accomplished overall. Particularly, Ivan Rossitto - we have yet to play and I think this would have made for a great opportunity to do so. What decks or players were you NOT looking forward to playing against?I believe it will be the same for everyone in saying Reasoning Gate / Cyber stein decks. They can honestly kill you out of what seems like nowhere and with the lack of Solemn in the format they seem very well positioned to do extremely well. Player wise - AJTBLS - he has been on a tear this season and is one of the few Turbo players I look up too. It's hard to contest someone who can and does, play so much (particularly the mirror match). My side deck was positioned for Burn - but it still is not an enjoyable game. What card had been overperforming for you during the event?Jinzo - the man of the hour. He did the mot when he really did not have too. It just made no sense - very difficult to out in a simplified game state. I also changed Zombrya the Dark to Berserk Gorilla last minute. What has been your favorite moment of the event so far?Almost winning vs Don't Copy's opener of Thunder Dragon, Pot, Graceful, Duo, NoC. Followed by the call on our team chat waiting for the final standings. What predictions do you have for the rest of the event?I'm hoping to make top eight cut. I think Turbo has the best chance to win - however these Scapegoat decks have been doing the work and it would not surprise me if one of those take the whole event. If you could go back, what (if any) changes would you would make to your deck today?

​How did you prepare for today's event? Did you practice with a specific person or team?I didn't have a lot of time to prepare for this event, but I regularly attend our local Goat Format tournaments at Gamer's Choice in New York. Our locals is competitive. Duck, WZ, Joeyneutralgrounds, BobbyBodega, and Prowaite attend our locals among other excellent players. Playing with them has certainly sharpened my game. I've been playing Yu-Gi-Oh since 2002 and have played Goat Format since 2013. I've played through most if not all its modern iterations (Exarion, pre-Exarion, pre-Burn, etc.). However, most of my hours are spent playing with Austin, Shams, and Alex, three of my lifelong friends. ​What deck did you play in this event and why?Chaos Turbo. In my opinion, Chaos Turbo is the most consistent deck despite having a slightly lower ceiling than other variants. I have invested many hours over the past two years thinking about the deck, so I felt very comfortable going into the tournament with it. It plays the strongest cards in the game and is able to access them quicker than most other decks. What decks or players were you looking forward to playing against?I was looking forward to playing Labounty. Fortunately, I had the pleasure of playing him in round 6 of the tournament. Was an awesome match! I was also looking forward to playing against our Gamer's Choice crew in the later rounds of the tournament.What decks or players were you NOT looking forward to playing against?None. What card had been overperforming for you during the event?Card Destruction. It's powerful in disrupting your opponent's plays and getting you to your power cards quickly.What has been your favorite moment of the event so far?I had to forfeit my Round seven match to make a prior commitment despite going into the round 5-1. I was so happy when I got a text saying that I still made Top 16!What predictions do you have for the rest of the event?I think Chaos Control will win. It has a strong matchup against Turbo. If you could go back, what (if any) changes would you would make to your deck today?None.What would winning the world championship mean to you?It would fulfill a childhood dream!Any shout outs you would like to make?Austin, Alex, Shams, Michael, the GC boys, and of course, Pari. ​

​How did you prepare for today's event? Did you practice with a specific person or team?I prepared for the event mostly by discussing with my teammates (GCI), especially Andrea and Enrico. I haven't had much opportunity to test the deck. We relied heavily on theory and less on practice.​What deck did you play in this event and why?I decided to play Goat Control with a very consistent warrior engine expecting a very high percentage of Turbo at the event.What decks or players were you looking forward to playing against?Especially Chaos Turbo having prepared the deck to face it, but also Warriors in less quantity.What decks or players were you NOT looking forward to playing against?Alt-win decksWhat card had been overperforming for you during the event?I reply not by naming a specific card but the whole Warrior engine. It helped me a lot in the early turns of every game.What has been your favorite moment of the event so far?The certainty of having reached the top cut was a beautiful momentWhat predictions do you have for the rest of the event?I hope I can do well myself and my teammate Riccardo.If you could go back, what (if any) changes would you would make to your deck today?I didn't like Soul Release very much, probably also because I drew it in moments where it wasn't very useful.What would winning the world championship mean to you?It would certainly be an important satisfaction. I would dedicate it to all the friends of my team who were always there to support us during the event and to help us before the event.Any shout outs you would like to make?A special thanks to all of GCI, but a big thank you to Andrea aka juve89 for our continuous morning audio on the way to work that make us change our minds every day about the deck to play haha.TEAM GCI! <3

​How did you prepare for today's event? Did you practice with a specific person or team?I started practicing all the different decks on Friday (the day before) to see what I liked the most. A couple days prior I had decided not to play, but after seeing the prize support, decided I would at least try.  I was seriously considering Burn, Chaos Control, Chaos Turbo as main options, with tomato/Zaborg Monarch + Reasoning Gate on my radar.  I quickly determined that RGT is not viable due to consistency issues, and also since I am out of practice, it would present to many problems that I would have a hard time working through and likely lead to mistakes being made.  I decided against the Tomato + Zaborg Monarch, and realized I just think Chaos is better, and wanted to play a deck using Dekoichi (this card is one of the best in the format).  You can play Tomato and Dekoichi together, but I think playing Chaos Sorcerer and Zaborg, things can start to get clunky,  So I eliminated Tomato + Monarch from contention.Panda Burn I really like, but I think it gets complicated when it comes to side decking, and because again, I am out of practice, didn't think I would do a good job. I also felt a bit unconfident around certain rulings and timing issues, which I thought could become an issue - so I decided against this deck as wellI started to test with Chaos “Turbo” and Chaos with Goats.  Eventually I decided against using the build with goats because the goat control build can create a lot of complicated game states late game, and again because I am out of practice, I thought this would be disadvantageous for me. I want to clarify that I really really like Chaos playing goats, and I usually would play a control based deck, and had I prepared more in the weeks leading up, this hands down would have been the deck I play.So with all of these choices out of the way, I started to test with Chaos “Turbo” based on Ivan Rossitto’s build from the Clash of Champions.  I have always liked this deck, and really like the versatility Raigeki Break presents, and do think that Chaos Turbo is a bit easier to pilot than a build playing goats, which is something I was realizing I value given my present day skill level.After testing with Chaos Turbo more, I started to lose confidence in the mirror match when playing against a good player.  And realized there is a lot of mental/head games that are going on that I am not in tune with.  And since the entire tournament was likely to be Chaos heavy, I didn’t want to enter into that fight.After giving up on all decks that I had considered, I remembered that Warrior was still an option.  So I pulled up a list from SDKilla from the Clash, and started to test with that.  I played for about two hours from 9pm to 11pm Friday night and realized I started to like the Warrior option.  It has some power plays, can lock up the game, and has limited strategic options, and often brings about more simple game states, which I thought could benefit me.  I thought that I would be at a skill disadvantage going into this tournament, so simplifying things and relying a bit more on luck seemed like a good idea to me.  I was going to need to play well, and get lucky to do well in this tournament, and Warrior seemed like the best way for me to do that.  So I went to bed, and woke up early to practice some games before the deck list submission period at 9am.  I made a bunch of changes, finally submitting my final draft 1-2 minutes before the deadline. I almost panic switched back to Chaos Turbo before this deadline, but decided to trust my decision to play something simpler, and let things be what they will be.(as for testing partner, people in Goat rated - I did test day two with Ivan Rossitto to prepare for my round one match against Leo, and he helped me figure out a siding strategy going into that match, so much appreciation to Ivan)

​How did you prepare for today's event? Did you practice with a specific person or team?N/A​What deck did you play in this event and why?N/AWhat decks or players were you looking forward to playing against?N/AWhat decks or players were you NOT looking forward to playing against?N/AWhat card had been overperforming for you during the event?N/AWhat has been your favorite moment of the event so far?N/AWhat predictions do you have for the rest of the event?N/AIf you could go back, what (if any) changes would you would make to your deck today?N/AWhat would winning the world championship mean to you?N/AAny shout outs you would like to make?N/A​

​How did you prepare for today's event? Did you practice with a specific person or team?NJ / NYC weekly locals and of course play testing online with my UI teammates​What deck did you play in this event and why?Warriors. I'm the most comfortable with it and I feel it can match up well against the meta, pre and post side.What decks or players were you looking forward to playing against?Decks: Warriors and Reasoning Gate  Players: It's world's! Everyone is playing high level comp!What decks or players were you NOT looking forward to playing against?Anyone from UI and Goats :orange: What card had been overperforming for you during the event?Magician of Faith went crazy!! What has been your favorite moment of the event so far?Seeing that I made the top cut at 16th seed! What predictions do you have for the rest of the event?I predict goat control to make the finalsIf you could go back, what (if any) changes would you would make to your deck today?Need Asura ASAP!!What would winning the world championship mean to you?It would mean a lot! Didn't get a chance as a youngster to travel, so competing and potentially winning would be awesome!Any shout outs you would like to make?Lots of shoutouts (forgive me). Shoutout to my first team 5G1K, My guy Ludo (Nice Boy) Rizzo,  Moxies + Labounty who helped me a lot in technical play.  Insids, Fox, Kalish (Jinzodude9), Chris Pittao and AJTBLS for traveling to GGPs together and testing all weekend.   Shoutout to GCNYC Locals  (Goose, Joey NG, Carl, WZ, Arvind) my UI fam who helped refined my game to get me here and last but not least the Captain Shaggy Powers!!