Episode 5 – Gravekeepers

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Episode Trivia
The World Championship Promos for 2010 are quite interesting, quite interesting indeed. Do you remember those monsters that end a match, not just a duel, by reducing your opponent’s life points to 0 (e.g. Victory Dragon)? The 2010 series introduces a monster known as Grizzly, The Red Star Beast and is the second Synchro in this elite set of monsters. I think is has a pretty awesome name and awesome artwork.

Accessory Talk
Monster Binders – We find that Monster Binders have create quality and have a lot of slots for our cards. They are a little pricey, but they are worth it if you have the extra scratch.

Utra Pro Deck Boxes – These are very common deck boxes, which makes clearly speaks to their reliability and quality. Cheap and simple. Though their are more premium and specialized deck boxes.

Utra Pro Binder PagesIn case you want something simple, a few of these pages and and a binder can go a long way. We recommend a slim binder to make storage and organization easier.

Goal
The goal of a Gravekeepers deck is to overwhelm your opponent with force while maintaining control of the Graveyard. The key to this is the Field Spell, Necrovalley. Without it, the Gravekeepers loose a lot of their momentum. So, for this deck to be in full swing, you have to get this out.

Some History
Gravekeepers have been around for a long time, since Pharonic Gaurdian. This set was released in Japan in March of 2002 and in America over two years later in December of 2004. At the time they were introduced, they rivaled a lot of decks. Chaos decks were really popular at the time, and Necrovalley got in the way since they needed to dig into the Graveyard. They never became top tier though, but they definitely held their own.

Deck Construction
This archetype has a big arsenal and a lot of versatility.  The monsters and spells cover offense, defense, searching, and maintain a consistent hand. Depending on how you want to play, you could go aggressively anti-meta with a lot of control, or more beat down. They’re dark-spellcasters, so that brings them dark support like Allure of Darkness, and spellcaster support like Magician’s Circle.

Regardless of what style you prefer to play, each Gravekeeper brings something unique to the table. Gravekeeper’s Spy sets up a 2000 defense and when it flips, it brings another Gravekeeper to the field. Gravekeeper’s Guard is another defensive option at 1900 and removes a monster from your opponents side of the field when it’s flipped.

For offense, Gravekeeper’s Assailant has the ability to change a monster’s battle position before it attacks, Necrovalley has to be out, though that makes it a 2000 ATK monster. Gravekeeper’s Spear Soldier has piercing without Necrovalley, but only 1500 ATK, so it definitely relies on that 500 ATK boost.

Along with Spy, the GK have two other searching options, Gravekeeper’s Commendant allows you to discard it from your hand to add Necrovalley from your deck, and Gravekeeper’s Recruiter provides a “Witch of the Black Forest-like” ability.

They also have two “big” monsters, Chief and Visionary. Chief is a level 5 monster that maintains your field presence since, when it is tribute summoned, it allows you to Special Summon a Gravekeeper monster in your Graveyard and it removes Necrovalley’s restrictions. Visionary is a level 8 that can be normal summoned if you tribute 1 Gravekeeper monster. It’s tough to get rid of, since it has 2000 ATK and you can discard a GK from your hand to prevent it from being destroyed, and it gains 200 ATK for each GK monster in your Graveyard.

Going for the competitive aspect, a GK deck is going to focus on the speed. That’s 3 Spys, 3 Recruiters, 3 Commendants, 3 Descendants, and 3 Assailants. Focusing on monster recovery with Gravekeeper’s Stele, and hitting your opponent’s hand with Royal Tribute will put you quite far ahead in terms of strategy and card count. Necrovalley will give them a hard time trying to get any of those monsters back, and any monster they do manage to summon can be taken care of with good defensive cards like Book of Moon, Bottomless, D-Prison, etc. Gravekeeper’s Stele, an amazing card from Absolute Power Force, allows you to add two GK monsters in your graveyard to your hand. It will increase your recovery and advantage against your opponent.

Notable Cards
Gravekeeper’s Priestess

Episode 1 – Blackwings

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ShowNotes:

Blackwings Discussed:
Blackwing – Aurora the Northern Lights
Fixes:

D.D. Unicorn Knight, we stated that it’s effect was “Special Summon any Lv3 or lower tuner monster” It is, in fact, SS any non-tuner monster. We apologize for any confusion, and now we am sad.