[Deck Review Article] Rest In Peace !!

Hey Everybody..What's Up ?!! yo there kid..why're you crying ?!
Prodigy *An Imaginary Character*!! I told you to give everyone cookies so that i can write the article in silence.
"He's not crying because of the cookie Jackass,He's crying because he doesn't know what to use after March Banlist"
Oh I see...Well Chill,Kid ! Today We've got a competitive deck to show especially after the release of Absolute Powerforce.Yeah I'm talking about Gravekeepers !!
"Sorry I don't have experience with noob decks...what're gravekeepers anyway ?"
Prodigy...Do you even have experience with anything ?! Anyway let's start defining Gravekeepers :
The Gravekeeper's are a series of monsters based on ancient Egyptians who guarded the Pharaoh's tomb.They're all Spell Caster-Type monsters which prevent your opponent from affecting cards in the graveyard as well as having good field presence and good control"

-----FlashBack-----
Gravekeepers were first introduced in Pharaonic Guardian more than 6 years ago.They were the first true archetype ever.
They used to have unique presence in the meta either by providing fodders for "Light and Darkness Dragon" or by giving easy synchro materials.Anyway,Their true strength wasn't in the monster cards themselves but it was in their field spell ; "Necrovalley".Necrovalley is probably the best field spell card ever released. Not only does Necrovalley prevent effects targeting cards in the graveyard, it also gives all your Gravekeepers a handy 500 point attack and defence boost, making Gravekeepers probably the most threatening non-tribute monsters in the game.
However new cards were released and dominated the dueling world and gravekeepers were quite forgotten as a deck but remained as tech cards in some decks such as Synchro cats,Monarchs,Tele/SalvoDAD decks.


New Cards Released
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And Now with the release of Absolute Powerforce..Gravekeepers playstyle would be turned upside down.They now can manage to work competetively on their own.
Let's Check the new cards released :

1- Gravekeeper's Visionary : 2000/1800 8 Stars
"You can Normal Summon this card by Tributing 1 "Gravekeeper's" monster. This card gains 200 ATK for each "Gravekeeper's" monster in your Graveyard. If this face-up card on the field would be destroyed, you can discard 1 "Gravekeeper's" monster instead."

-Even though “Gravekeeper’s Visionary” is a Level 8 monster, you can Normal Summon it by Tributing just 1 Gravekeeper’s monster which is pretty great imo.you can also special summon it using "Rite of Spirit","Gravekeeper's Chief" or Simply "Magician's Circle"
-Not only does “Gravekeeper’s Visionary” get 200 ATK for every Gravekeeper monster in your Graveyard, but you can also discard a Gravekeeper monster whenever it would be destroyed*boosting its attack by 200*, in order to keep it on the field. This makes him an annoying card for most meta cards. (Don't forget he'll get 500 ATK for necrovalley)

2- Gravekeeper's Descendant : 1500/1200 4 Stars
"You can Tribute 1 face-up "Gravekeeper's" monsters you control, except this card, to destroy 1 card your opponent controls."

This card works great with cards like "Rite of the Spirit" & "Gravekeeper's Spy" and such cards that help you swarm the field with "Gravekeeper's".Descendant gives you a way to deal with many opposing threat and his attack would be boosted by 500 to become a 2000 ATK beatstick with such a great effect.

3- Gravekeeper's Priestess : 1000/1500 3 Stars
"The field is treated as "Necrovalley". If there's a face-up Field Spell Card. This effect is not applied. All face-up "Gravekeeper's" monsters gain 200 ATK and DEF.

This card is a worse version of "Necrovalley" as it wastes a summon and it doesn't give you 500 ATK.But Still,It gives you the ability to activate some cards such as "Royal Tribute".and combining her small attack boost with Necro valley,you'd get 700 ATK boost.

4- Gravekeeper's Stele : Normal Spell Card
"Select 2 "Gravekeeper's" monsters in your Graveyard and add them to your hand. This effect cannot be negated by the effect of "Necrovalley""

This card is giving you advantages over your opponent after using "Royal Tribute".It allows you to restore your gravekeeper's monsters tributed by descendant giving you some visionary's targets.you might even use it to get Commandant and re-search "Necrovalley".

More Into Gravekeepers
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A) Main Advantages
-All Gravekeepers are Dark Type Monsters which means you can easily tech in Allure of Darkness for some draw speed.well this can be a negative point as well as they can be easily stopped with "Shadow Imprisoning Mirror",You'll find it in 3s in any side deck because of the dominating Blackwings.
-Almost all Gravekeeper's are 1500- Atk..which means they're all searchable by cards like "Sangan","Mystic Tomato" & "Dark Eruption"
-All Gravekeeper's are Spellcasters which mean they can easily adapt "Spellcasters" Support such as "Magician's Circle" and they give you easy access to "Arcanite Magician" and "Tempest Magician".
-Gravekeepers got support cards that overcome "Necrovalley" giving you great advantage over your opponent.

B) Mechanism
Gravekeepers play defesively until they search their key cards using "Gravekeeper's Spy" & "Gravekeeper's Commandant".They also shut your opponents options to play monsters from hand or graveyard using "Royal Tribute" and "Necrovalley",This will gives you control enough over your opponent to beat him easily.
Because of the effects of Necrovalley, this deck tends to be some-what anti-meta, countering chaos and Teledad decks as well as Lightsworn, Zombie, and to a certain extent Gladiator Beasts, therefore making it desirable to use anti-meta style cards such as Burden of the Mighty, Thunder King Rai-Oh, and others.

C) Support
"Well that sounds good...but where's their support.?!"
Gravekeepers now got all support they need to play competetively especially in such a slow format.Their Biggest support is "Necrovalley" then come "Royal Tribute","Rite of Spirit","Gravekeeper's Servant" & "Gravekeeper's Stele".

"EJ,I'm bored...Can you end this with an example deck so i can netdeck and leave."
If so I'd type more 600 words
"Comeon EJ...I can't wait to see myself in YGO GX today's Episode which will start in 10 minutes"
ok ok.

Deck Example :
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Monsters :
First of all,We need to choose our Gravekeepers.3 Spies are essential as they're the soul of this deck and a 1/2 Guard for its powerful effects.Then To search "Necrovalley" we'd add a couple of "Gravekeeper's Commandant" which is agreat beatstick in itself while "Necrovalley" is active on the field.Despite of Descendant's good effect..We'd only add two of him since it's pretty easy to search him and 3 Visionarys are a must since he's easy to be searched and got pretty good effect.then comes the classic Assailant for his great effect which can help ya overcome lots of monsters.
3x GK Visionary
3x GK Spy
3x GK Assailant
2x GK Descendant
2x GK Commandant
1x GK Guard
1x Gale
2x Krebons
2x Caius the Shadow Monarch
1x DAD

DAD is a stable in any dark deck tho you won't enjoy its broken effect in this deck,Caius is a MUST here since you can't imagine how easy here you'd get fodders...gale and krebons are just there to give them ability to Synchro.you can feel free to replace krebons with DeepSea Diva.

Spells :
Heavy Storm,Mystical Space Typhoon and Brain Control are staples. A complete playset of Book of Moon also gets added for its general utility. It also helps that Guard and Spy are both flip effect monsters, meaning you can re-use their effects. 3 Necrovalley are added as well, obviously. 1 Gravekeeper’s Stele also make the cut.2 Royal Tribute also allows you a good measure of Hand Control over your opponent. With the many ways of recycling your Gravekeeper’s, it hurts you a lot less than your opponent.The final addition is Emergency Teleport so that you can special summon your krebons easily from your deck,hand. The spell line-up looks like this.
3x Necrovalley
3x Book of Moon
2x Royal Tribute
1x GK Stele
1x Heavy Storm
1x Brain Control
1x MST
1x E-Teleport

Traps :
3 Rite of Spirits are a must when running 2 Royal Tribute as it gives you great advantage over you opponent and it also gives you free tribute fodders for Caius and Visionary.then come the Staples : A couple of BTH,TT,MF.
3x Rite of Spirit
2x BTH
1x Mirror Force
1x Torrential Tribute

"Faster EJ...Faster !!"
We're almost done idiot.
"Nah we're not...You forgot the side deck."
Yeah Right.
well it'll be an easy one
2x Magician's Circle *An offensive approach to get your gravekeeper's faster*
3x Rai-Oh *If you felt like Stunning*
1x Lightning Vortex *For Swarm Decks like BWs,LS,Somehow GBs*
3x Light Imprisoning Mirror *For LS*
1x Trap Eater *For Royal Oppressions,Skill Drain,Royal Decree and such annoying stuff*
3x Mirrors of Oaths *For this format toptier deck GBs*
2x Malevolent Catastroph *For Gadgets,Stun,Macro & Counter fairies*

You might want to consider a copy of Starlight Road.

Well I guess we're done
*Slaps EJ and runs*
I hopeYouEnjoyedAndLearn......
*Couldn't finish typing so i could catch prodigy*

Last edited by EJ on Sat May 22, 2010 7:24 pm; edited 3 times in total

Nice Article EJ. Liked it a lot.

Also I would replace 2 krebons with 2 Psychic commanders since u can bring arcanite so easily with that.

Gravekeeper's Visionary This card is going to dominate. Just like Stardust But D-prison can take care of it. but still its a great card.

Nice article EJ Keep it up. 9/10

Great article 10/10 liked the funny stuff but i have a question i didn't get something this "This card is a worse version of "Necrovalley" as it wastes a summon and it doesn't give you 500 ATK.But Still,It gives you the ability to activate some cards such as "Royal Tribute".and combining her small attack boost with Necro valley,you'd get 700 ATK boost."
how do they get 700 ? if necrovalley on field the eff does not apply

"The field is treated as "Necrovalley". If there's a face-up Field Spell Card. This effect is not applied. All face-up "Gravekeeper's" monsters gain 200 ATK and DEF."
if necrovalley on field his eff won't work " If there's a face-up Field Spell Card. This effect is not applied" or his second eff with 200 doesn't have anything to do with the first ?

It means that his first effect won't work...but his 2nd one would work normally.
and thanks for positive comments.

Nice Article EJ ... Keep up the good work.

Good, fun, not super informative, but good. You focused way too much on fun though, and you completely forgot about your English and sentence structure.

In the speech parts you didn't use quotation marks or dashes ( - ), and you capitalize words which don't need capitalization. Of course this isn't a story, it is an Article and your English is what makes people rate your article as 'pro' or not.
But, keep up the good work EJ 8/10

thanks for comments...It might not be super informative because i only focused on the new support and gave a short brief on GKs.and about fun,well sorry if i overdid it but it makes the article too full of life.