#hat format

Good Morning, Duelists! It’s me, Luna, the Duel Reporter and it’s Friday, March 31, 2023! Today, I’d like to bring attention a way to play Yu-Gi-Oh that you might not have tried. As I’ve stated more than a few times in this blog, I think Yu-Gi-Oh is a fantastic game, and there’s a near infinite amount of ways to play it.

Well, today, I’d like to start with one of my favorites, it’s a Time Wizard format that is a bit under the radar. Allow me to introduce you to HAT Format.

What is HAT Format?

HAT Format is a Yu-Gi-Oh format based on the cards legal in early July, 2014, also meaning it’s Master Rule 2, meaning there are no Extra Monster Zones, the player going first gets to draw a card, their can only be one Field Spell at a time, and the latest product releases were Primal Origin and the Lightsworn Structure Deck.

The name HAT comes from one of the best decks in the format, Hand Artifact Traptrix, a powerful control deck that revolved around a completely reactionary control base, using Traptrix monsters to Xyz Summon and set Trap Holes, Fire Hand and Ice Hand to pop monsters and spell/traps respectively, and Artifacts, which can react on being destroyed to do a myriad of things, but, primarily stun a turn to summon monsters and destroy cards without targeting, which was a huge deal back in 2014.

That being said, HAT wasn’t the only good deck in HAT Format, as the format has a myriad of powerful decks in it! Infernity returns to the format as a strong DARK Xyz deck, Madolche and Evilswarm are powerful Rank 4 decks, Hieratic, Sylvan, and Mermail provide an easy way to climb into high level and high rank plays!

HAT Format mostly uses the April 2014 banlist, which can be found here: https://www.db.yugioh-card.com/yugiohdb/forbidden_limited.action?forbiddenLimitedDate=2014-04-01

Here are my personal decks, if you want to get a good starting place for HAT!

Hieratic Rulers

Here’s Hieratic Rulers, it’s a powerful combo deck that has a strong going first or second game that can build huge boards and occasionally OTK, depending on your build. I personally play mine as a toolbox of Dragon Ranks, but, I’ve played against a few people who play more into the Synchros, the Rank 6’s and the Rank 7’s.

Hieratic Dragons tribute each other to swarm and activate effects, and when they do get tributed, they summon a Normal Dragon from hand/deck/GY, making Synchro, Xyz and Dragon Ruler set ups easy!

Here’s the link to my deck on Dueling Nexus!

https://duelingnexus.com/editor/adb9eb06a0851be9d340bd4092a89372

Evilswarm

Evilswarm is a really fun, really strong control deck that revolves around using the Rank 4 toolbox as a control tool to limit and restrict your opponent’s resources as much as possible before swinging for the kill.

Here’s the link to my decklist on Dueling Nexus!

https://duelingnexus.com/editor/ffe142b8ddbb5657a8ad4d52753629be