Goat Format Singles

Overview

Just because you’ve got design ideas for a bunch of archetypes and series doesn’t mean new, smaller ideas won’t keep popping up, with inspirations ranging from random YouTube videos, to old or unreleased cards, and even current events in the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom. The singles here were all designed with Goat Format in mind, perhaps supporting cards from this era of Yu-Gi-Oh!, but all designed to be of an appropriate power level and simple enough for this era.

Des Slime

① When this card is destroyed by battle and sent to the GY: You can add 1 “Slime” monster from your Deck to your hand. ② While this card is in your GY, when a “Revival Jam” you control is destroyed by battle and sent to the GY: Special Summon that destroyed “Revival Jam”.

While browsing the custom cards subreddit, I found some custom Slime cards someone had made. They reminded me how Revival Jam had been severely weakened when it was printed in the TCG compared to the anime. From there, I got the itch to make a support card restoring Revival Jam’s true functionality of reviving immediately on being destroyed by battle.

As Des Slime would be an extra card to run in a Slime deck, I opted to also make it an archetypal support monster to help with classic Slime decks’ consistency and make it all the more appealing to use. That said, having support for Slime cards would necessitate Revival Jam and Jam Defender being errata’d with archetype conditions noting that they are indeed Slime monsters, so I put those together as well using their most recent rules text from the wiki:

In terms of power-level, on the one hand, Revival Jam having its anime functionality would have made Revival Jam much, much more powerful back in classic Yu-Gi-Oh!, especially if its anime functionality was in-built rather than supplied by a support card, opening up the possibility of it being abused similarly to Sinister Serpent. On the other hand, Revival Jam would need to be destroyed by battle rather than sent to the graveyard via any means, and removal cards would have be able to take care of Revival Jam easily enough without triggering its effect, especially nowadays. As such, I doubt that Des Slime or Revival Jam would need to be Limited or even Semi-Limited.

Des Slime is based Revival Jam and is intended to restore its anime-functionality to it, taking inspiration from Helpoemer for how to go about it. It’s art is Necro Defender’s art re-coloured using Revival Jam and Humanoid Slime as a baseline, and with Eye of Illusion as the background (in reference to a Marik-posessed Strings running Slimes in the anime), but zoomed in and with the background colours modified to better resemble Revival Jam’s background colour scheme, and the Eye of Wedjat’s colours modified to give more of an impression of it glowing.

The Hateful Blade

① Target 1 monster on the field; if it is in Defense Position, change it to face-up Attack Position, then you can equip this card to it with this effect.

● The equipped monster must attack if able, also it cannot change its battle position.

While browsing Reddit, I came across a post asking about “unethical” plays you’ve made in a duel. One comment recounted a duel in Master Duel where they equipped Big Bang Shot to an opponent’s monster, and then their unsuspecting opponent willingly attacked with it and lost from the piercing battle damage Big Bang Shot inflicted on them. That sort of play seems like it would have been fun in Goat format, but not everyone is unwise enough to walk right into a trap like that, so I wanted to make a combo piece to force such a scenario.

When doing my research, I noticed that the only card in Goat format with an effect for forcing an opponent’s monster to attack was Amazoness Archers, which wouldn’t benefit any non-Amazoness decks. Beyond Goat format, you do have cards like All-Out Attacks that works on Special Summoned monsters, Battle Mania for applying the effect to all of your opponent’s monsters for 1 turn, and Savage Colosseum to force every monster on the field to attack. However, while skimming over the search results, I didn’t see a simple, persistent, single-target variant. So, I made The Hateful Blade an Equip Spell with the rules text “① When this card is equipped to a monster: Change that monster to Attack Position. ② The equipped monster cannot change its battle position, also it must attack if able.” and posted it to Reddit.

A lot of commenters felt that it was underwhelming, even for Goat format (which I hadn’t communicated effectively that it was targeted at). A few of them gave suggestions on how it could be improved, which I took into account when updating it. Firstly, I made The Hateful Blade a Trap Card, to minimise the chances of the equipped monster being Tributed or destroyed before it could be forced to attack. Second, I reworded the clause forcing the equipped monster into Attack Position to make it sequential, allowing The Hateful Blade to target face-down monsters and equip to them after they’ve been flipped face-up. As I wanted The Hateful Blade to only force monsters to attack and be used in conjunction with other cards that your opponent wouldn’t want to attack into, I opted not to add any of the other bonuses that were suggested, like doubling battle damage or inherently reflecting it back on the monster’s controller.

The Hateful Blade is based on an anecdote of a player winning after equipping an opponent’s monster with Big Bang Shot and their opponent attacked with it. It’s art is Sword of Deep-Seated’s recoloured with a sample from Sword of Dark Destruction, and the background replaced with Allure of Darkness with its saturation increased, and the eyes from Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.

Extraordinary Reincarnation

① Target 1 monster in your GY that cannot be Normal Summoned/Set; Special Summon it.

Extraordinary Reincarnation is another Monster Reborn retrain aimed at Goat format, this time for monsters that cannot be Normal Summoned/Set, only Special Summoned. Yes, it is another support card for Rare Metal Dragon, but also any properly Special Summoned Ritual or Fusion Monsters (or any Extra Deck monster, in formats where they’re legal) or Special Summon monster, such as Chaos monsters or Gate Guardian. While I wasn’t too concerned about Hollow Rebirth’s power level, I am somewhat concerned about this one’s, given the prevalence and power level of Chaos monsters in Goat format. So, if you’re downloading Extraordinary Reincarnation and using it for your casual Goat format games, I’d recommend Limiting it to 1 copy so that it doesn’t provide Chaos decks with too much recursion.

Extraordinary Reincarnation is based on Monster Reborn and inspired by Rare Metal Dragon. I created its artwork using the art for Fusion Tag, Monster Reborn, Monster Reincarnation, the card image for Chaos Sorcerer (IOC-EN023), and the Yu-Gi-Oh! card backing.

Hollow Rebirth

① Target 1 monster in your GY that does not have an effect; Special Summon it.

While testing other designs for Goat format, it’s made me sad that all of the monster revival cards printed at the time were either banned (Monster Reborn), limited (Premature Burial, Call of the Haunted), or not great (Archfiend’s Roar). So I got the itch to retrain a couple.

Hollow Rebirth is intended to be a Monster Reborn retrain aimed at Goat format for monsters without effects. Yes, not Normal Monsters or Non-Effect Monsters. Monsters without effects. Though I don’t know if it would technically work, I worded it that way rather because I wanted it to be able to Special Summon Rare Metal Dragon, which while an Effect Monster technically only has a Summoning condition but no effects. I know Konami would never print something with that specific edge case, but I love Rare Metal Dragon and wish it was better, so I’m deliberately building that edge case in. In fact, providing more support for Rare Metal Dragon is what prompted me to design a couple of revival Spells in the first place.

Valid targets for Hollow Rebirth include:

• Normal Monsters (including Normal Pendulum Monsters, regardless of any Pendulum effects, and Gemini Monsters treated as Normal Monsters)
• Non-Effect Monsters that are not Normal Monsters, such as Ritual, Fusion, Synchro, Xyz, or Link Monsters that are not Effect Monsters.
• Effect Monsters whose monster rules text contains no effects but is instead comprised solely of non-effect text like conditions or maintenance costs. These monsters include:

Card	Non-Effect Rules Text
Aggiba, the Malevolent Sh’nn S’yo	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Amatsu-Okami of the Divine Peaks	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Armament of the Lethal Lords	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Backup Warrior	Summoning condition, unclassified condition
Blackwing – Kochi the Daybreak	Material limitation condition
Card Breaker	Summoning condition
Chimera, the Master of Beasts	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Clara & Rushka, the Ventriloduo	Unclassified condition
Cyber Harpie	Name condition
Dragon of Illumination, Sanctuary’s Shield	Summoning condition, match winner condition
E☆HERO Pit Boss	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Elemental HERO Mudballman	Summoning condition
Elttaes, the MASTER of DUELS	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Emperor of Lightning	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Exodia the Forbidden One	Duel winner condition
Gatebridgeo the Waterfront Warbeast	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Gate Guardian	Summoning condition
Ghost Ship	Summoning condition
Gladiator Beast Essedarii	Summoning condition
Grandopolis, the Eternal Golden City	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Great Moth	Summoning condition
Grinder Golem	Summoning condition, unclassified condition
Grizzly, the Red Star Beast	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Harpie Lady Sisters	Summoning condition
Iron Knight of Revolution	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Juno, the Celestial Goddess	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Kaiser Eagle, the Heavens’ Mandate	Summoning condition, match winner condition
King Landia the Goldfang	Summoning condition, match winner condition
King of Destruction – Xexex	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Kuzunoha, the Onmyojin	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Larvae Moth	Summoning condition
Legendary Dragon of White	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Legendary Magician of Dark	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Linkerbell	Unclassified condition
Lorelei, the Symphonic Arsenal	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Luster Pendulum, the Dracoslayer	Material limitation condition
Majestic Dragon	Material limitation condition
Malefic Parallel Gear	Material limitation condition
Mara of the Nordic Alfar	Material limitation condition
Masterful Magician, Servant of the Sanctuary	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Metalzoa	Summoning condition
Meteo the Matchless	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Mono Synchron	Material limitation condition
Noritoshi in Darkest Rainment	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth	Summoning condition
Queen Nereia the Silvercrown	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Queen of Fate – Eternia	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Rare Metal Dragon	Summoning condition
Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon	Summoning condition
Royal Swamp Eel	Material limitation condition
Sanctity of Dragon	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Skuna, the Leonine Rakan	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Skyfaring Castle of the Black Forest	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Speedroid Dominobutterfly	Material limitation condition, unclassified condition
Stardust Divinity	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Testament of the Arcane Lords	Summoning condition, match winner condition
The Twin Kings, Founders of the Empire	Summoning condition, match winner condition
The Unfriendly Amazon	Maintenance cost
Trap Eater	Summoning condition
True Exodia	Duel winner condition
Tyr, the Vanquishing Warlord	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Ulevo	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Victory Dragon	Summoning condition, match winner condition
Wall Shadow	Summoning condition
White Wing Magician	Archetype condition, unclassified condition

Hollow Rebirth is based on Monster Reborn and inspired by Rare Metal Dragon. I created its artwork using the art for Monster Reborn and Swords of Concealing Light, and a stock cloud image provided by wirestock on www.freepik.com.

No-Eyes Dark Maw

① FLIP: Target 1 face-up monster your opponent controls; equip this card to it. ② While this card is equipped to your opponent’s monster, take control of it, but it cannot attack, and it’s effects are negated.

I saw a post on Reddit discussing some of the oldest unreleased Yu-Gi-Oh! cards from the Duel Monsters anime and manga, and one of the unreleased cards was an unnamed monster resembling Relinquished that Pegasus Tributed for its Ritual Summon in the manga, but that we never learned anything about beyond what it looked like and that it would have to be an Illusion Magic user, and it never got adapted into the anime or released in the card game. I decided to do something with it and create my own design for it: No-Eyes Dark Maw.

As a Ritual material for Relinquished in the manga alongside Dark-Eyes Illusionist, I wanted it to act like an incomplete version of Relinquished’s absorption and shielding using other monsters, in a similar manner to how Dark-Eyes Illusionist reflects an incomplete version of the opponent’s monsters being unable to harm Dark-Eyes Illusionist or its owners. I also wanted it to feel like it could have been released alongside Dark-Eyes Illusionist and Pegasus’s other monsters that he used after he made his second duel with Yugi into a Shadow Game, so I made it a reasonably simple Flip Effect monster that wouldn’t be out of place in Goat format stall or control deck alongside Dark-Eyes Illusionist or Relinquished.

No-Eyes Dark Maw is based on an unnamed and unreleased Illusion Magic monster used by Pegasus in chapter 129 of the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga (i.e. chapter 70 of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist). I created its art using a screenshot of the manga to trace sections of its design as a starting point, and then adjusted the lineart and coloured it in from there, using Relinquished and monsters related to it as reference.

Details

Development: October 2024 – July 2025

Latest Errata: May 2025

Format: Goat Format

Made With: GIMP, www.cardmaker.net

Copyright

Yu-Gi-Oh! is the creation of Kazuki Takahashi and the property of Studio Dice / Konami. All copyright for Yu-Gi-Oh! goes to them. My custom cards are fan cards I designed based on various inspirations from Yu-Gi-Oh!, as well as other media properties and real life inspirations. All copyright for my cards’ non-Yu-Gi-Oh! bases go to the appropriate creators as noted above.

All card artworks and anime images used in my custom cards’ artoworks were sourced from yugipedia.com for Yu-Gi-Oh! card arts, from the appropriate source media or wikis for cards inspired by other media properties as noted, or from stock image websites as noted, and as such, I do not own them. All images used were then edited and combined in GIMP as outlined under each card. Their rules text follows a hybrid of the original Japanese cards’ numbered effect formatting, and the Problem-Solving Card Text format used for English-language cards, using the most recent cards as examples. The finished card images were created using www.cardmaker.net.