Well I'll be damned...

And who said Yu-Gi-Oh!'s art was kiddy?

If you don't believe this is a real card, check here: http://www.konami.com/yugioh/articles/?p=4096#more-4096

Way to sell an archetype. I'll definitely be looking into Prophecy monsters because of this guy.

I for one am impressed. Let's have more stuff like this, Kevin.

Quick Thought - 1

This is a little idea I had to make it easier to post frequently as well as stimulate the community. These probably won't be more than a paragraph or even a sentence long, but the idea is to use a little rhetoric to convey ideas. If they're popular, I'll keep them coming. The idea is I post a little notion and then it is up to you all to decide what to make of it. There will often be implied meaning in these posts.

Can you imagine this format without Effect Veiler?

Building the April 2005 Community

This post will be a little shorter as it's an ongoing project, but hopefully it's one that should interest you all.

As you all know, I've been working on setting up an April 2005 format group. What I have discovered is that duelistgroundz also has its own Goat community with a bulkier player roster. Naturally I am now registered and subscribed. Although they do have a larger community, they do seem to be a little unorganised, so perhaps I could lend assistance there.

I intend to do something a little unorthodox; I plan to create an inter-forum community. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to go about this and to my knowledge nothing like this has been attempted before. The end objective is to make one large group instead of several small groups. What this will do is make it easier to find games and perhaps increase the community's influence overall.

To my knowledge, DN still doesn't have a community for this, so this will be my next project once I can at least secure interactions between the communities.

If we can get enough demand, we may be able to persuade the DN admins to have a fully fledged option for this format.


On another note, I have fully retired from Advanced gameplay. I've grown sick of the metagame and how boring it is. Most decks play themselves and build themselves, and most games are decided by raw luck more than anything else. It's gotten to the point where it's fairly safe to say that skill is largely irrelevant in the meta. I've had games where I've misplayed the entire way and still gotten wins simply because the deck I'm using is so obscenely powerful. Winning this way isn't satisfactory, and losing this way is bitter. I can't take it anymore.

Standardising the April 2005 Format

Hello blogosphere. Today I present you all with one of my pet projects that I have been ardently devoted to. That of course would be the recreation of the April 2005 format, more commonly referred to as the Goat Control format. I wasn't made aware of any standardised set up for this, and the community seemed to be a little everywhere because of how recent the upsurge in demand for this format is.

Again, as stated in my previous blog entry, I attribute the start of this demand to Michael Bonacini. I plan to contact him fairly soon since he has more direct experience of the format whereas my knowledge lies primarily on the logistical side of things

When I was first setting this up, I noticed the Yu-Gi-Oh! Wikia's record of this format's Forbidden & Limited list was inaccurate, so I spent a little time with a few veterans of the format to ensure that the list we would be using was entirely accurate. Another pressing matter was set legality. For now, I and the others on Pojo are fairly settled on using the pre-CRV TCG legality. The only disparity between the TCG and OCG at this time was the fact that the OCG was a few sets ahead of the TCG (with the post-CRV sets having a fairly negative impact on the game) and a few exclusives like Crush Card Virus and Foolish Burial (again, fairly negative impact).

Once we had that established, it became apparent that people were trying to abuse the format by building solitaire decks such as OTK decks, burn decks, mill decks, stall decks, etc. These were all present in the format and although they had no substantial advantage, it's fairly safe to say that they took away from the overall game state. Other decks like Warrior Chaos, Zombies or Apprentice Monarchs, however, are acceptable.

To solve this problem with out detracting from the authenticity of the format, I devised an Honour Bans system. What this essentially is is a sub-F/L list that is completely optional. It forbids cards that specifically detract from the game whilst leaving the natural gameplay unchanged.

With all that said, here are the lists for this format. It should provide you with everything you need to know to play the format:

The Official April 2005 Forbidden & Limited Card List
Forbidden
• Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End
• Fiber Jar
• Magical Scientist
• Makyura the Destructor
• Witch of the Black Forest
• Yata-Garasu

• Butterfly Dagger - Elma
• Change of Heart
• Confiscation
• Dark Hole
• Harpie's Feather Duster
• Mirage of Nightmare
• Monster Reborn
• Painful Choice
• Raigeki
• The Forceful Sentry

• Imperial Order

Limited
• Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning
• Breaker the Magical Warrior
• Cyber Jar
• D.D. Warrior Lady
• Dark Magician of Chaos
• Exiled Force
• Exodia the Forbidden One
• Injection Fairy Lily
• Jinzo
• Left Arm of the Forbidden One
• Left Leg of the Forbidden One
• Marshmallon
• Morphing Jar
• Protector of the Sanctuary
• Reflect Bounder
• Right Arm of the Forbidden One
• Right Leg of the Forbidden One
• Sacred Phoenix of Nephthys
• Sangan
• Sinister Serpent
• Tribe-Infecting Virus
• Twin-Headed Behemoth

• Card Destruction
• Deliquient Duo
• Graceful Charity
• Heavy Storm
• Lightning Vortex
• Mage Power
• Mystical Space Typhoon
• Pot of Greed
• Premature Burial
• Snatch Steal
• Swords of Revealing Light
• United We Stand
• Call Of The Haunted
• Ceasefire
• Deck Devastation Virus
• Exchange of the Spirit
• Magic Cylinder
• Mirror Force
• Reckless Greed
• Ring of Destruction
• Torrential Tribute

Semi-Limited
• Abyss Soldier
• Dark Scorpion - Chick the Yellow
• Manticore of Darkness
• Marauding Captain
• Night Assailant
• Vampire Lord

• Creature Swap
• Emergency Provisions
• Level Limit - Area B
• Nobleman of Crossout
• Reinforcement of the Army
• Upstart Goblin

• Good Goblin Housekeeping
• Gravity Bind
• Last Turn

Note that neither Crush Card Virus nor Sixth Sense had TCG prints at this time.


Honour Bans
• Cyber Jar

• Dimension Fusion
• Level Limit - Area B
• Monster Gate
• Reasoning
• Wave-Motion Cannon

• Gravity Bind
• Last Turn

- Cyber Jar was banned to prevent mill decks and OTKs.
- Dimension Fusion was banned to prevent OTKs.
- Wave-Motion Cannon was banned to prevent OTKs and burn (this was a serious issue).
- Monster Gate and Reasoning were banned to kill OTK engines.
- Level Limit - Area B and Gravity Bind were banned to kill stall, burn and mill.

April 2005 TCG Set Legality

Booster Packs

• LOB - Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon

• MRD - Metal Raiders

• MRL - Magic Ruler

• SRL - Spell Ruler

• PSV - Pharaoh's Servant

• LON - Labyrinth of Nightmare

• LOD - Legacy of Darkness

• PGD - Pharaonic Guardian

• MFC - Magician's Force

• DCR - Dark Crisis

• IOC - Invasion of Chaos

• AST - Ancient Sanctuary

• SOD - Soul of the Duelist

• ROD - Rise of Destiny

• FET - Flaming Eternity

• TLM - The Lost Millennium

Starter Decks

• SDY - Yugi

• SDK - Kaiba

• SDP - Pegasus

• SDJ - Joey

• SKE - Kaiba Evolution

• SYE - Yugi Evolution

Structure Decks

• SD1 - Dragon's Roar

• SD2 - Zombie Madness

• SD3 - Blaze of Destruction

• SD4 - Fury from the Deep

Tin Promos

• BPT - 2002 and 2003 Collector's Tins

• CT1 - 2004 Collector's Tins

• CT2 - 2005 Collector's Tins

Special Editions

• IOC-SE - Invasion of Chaos SE

• ROD-SE - Rise of Destiny SE

• TLM-SE - The Lost Millennium SE

TCG Reprint Sets

• DB1 - Dark Beginning 1

• DB2 - Dark Beginning 2

• DR1 - Dark Revelation Volume 1

• DR2 - Dark Revelation Volume 2

• DR3 - Dark Revelation Volume 3

Tournament Packs

• TP1 - Tournament Pack 1

• TP2 - Tournament Pack 2

• TP3 - Tournament Pack 3

• TP4 - Tournament Pack 4

• TP5 - Tournament Pack 5

• TP6 - Tournament Pack 6

Jump Magazine Subscription Cards

• Blue-Eyes White Dragon

• Red-Eyes B. Dragon

• Archfiend of Gilfer

• Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon

Miscellaneous Sets

• MP1 - McDonald's Promotional Cards

• PT1 - Pharaoh's Tour Championship Prize Cards 2005

Miscellaneous Cards

• Kanan the Swordsmistress

• Black Luster Soldier

• Firewing Pegasus

A few thoughts

It's been a very long while since I made a blog post, and in all honesty with the game as inert as it is it's very hard to make consistent posts. I've been following Michael Bonacini's initiative and have revisited the April 2005 format.

I've been very impressed with the format to the point where I play it more than I play Advanced. Surprisingly, the demand has been very large and I'm having no difficulty in finding a game. More surprisingly, I've managed to get a decent following for it on Pojo, perhaps suggesting it isn't the completely inane well of idiocy some portray it to be.

With that point raised, I'd like to respond to one of Michael's posts briefly. Link to post here. The content of his post is accurate. I can't disagree with anything he said because in all honesty it's true. What I will say, however, is that his post seems somewhat mis-targeted. From my personal experience, I do find that this sort of player extends far beyond the boundaries of just Pojo; I find them wherever I go, be it YouTube, DuelingNetwork, locals or wherever I venture. Although Pojo does seem to have a disturbing accumulation of these players, especially (if not, exclusively) in the Forbidden/Limited forums, I don't think it's accurate to say that Pojo is the sole culprit of the game devolving as it is.

I'm also becoming increasingly frustrated with Konami. Their motives are so blatantly about pushing product that it's sad. Kevin's F/L list articles are a crude attempt to make the list seem altruistic when in reality it acts solely as a form of pseudo set rotation. This goes for their other articles too. They seem to be more about pushing the card than discussing its relevance and design in an honest and open way. And to no discredit to the authors, some of the articles are very misleading or at least show lack of proper knowledge. When I read the Void Ogre Dragon article suggest that people should be discarding cards in an Infernity deck, part of me died.

On that note, my Chain Infernity variant has been testing flawlessly. It has good match-ups against most of the meta. Dino Rabbit just doesn't have outs to Barrier, Chaos Dragons aren't designed to be able to handle mass back row, Inzektors have a tough time handling the negation and Wind-Ups lose their win condition after I take a turn. If the OCG weren't so busy maining triple Beetle in a redundant attempt to summon VOD on the first turn, they might have noticed how obscene Lavalval Chain was as a brute consistency engine. Running the first turn VOD variant (A.K.A. BVOD) is quite frankly idiotic. The deck can't do what Dino Rabbit does and forfeiting so many plays for a mediocre boss monster that dies to Fiendish Chain/Compulsory Evacuation Device is asking for trouble. It's far better to abuse what Infernity is best at: raw advantage. The BVOD variant just doesn't have a reliable +1 engine to fall back on after their field gets dismantled.

I'll go into a bit more detail about Infernity in an upcoming post. There's an awful lot to talk about.

Goat Control format has been very appealing to me so far. The fact that I can be hit by a first turn full trinity and still win leaves a very nice feeling. The deck is also a lot of fun and the format is unbelievably balanced. It's nice to actually play against my opponent rather than just their deck. I highly recommend trying out the format.

Here's a guide I made on Pojo if you need somewhere to start. Link here. A lot of people don't have accurate access to the F/L list or legality for the format (the Wikia's one is inaccurate), so that thread is pretty good in that regard.

On another note, I'll probably be removing the rating system below. While I've always wanted honest feedback and I do appreciate the good ratings I get, I don't want to have to restrain myself just to appeal to readers. I want to be more honest in my posts and I feel that it's the best way to go about it.

Leave a comment if you want.

~Valafar123