Welcome to the last day of Gravekeeper’s
Beatdown Week. I originally wanted to do one
Week Gravekeeper’s Burn and the other
Gravekeeper’s Beatdown, but between okaying the
idea and actually sending in the lists, college
started. :-P It made things pretty hectic. I am
writing this intro since I noticed that some of
the CotD staff members were annoyed again. I
just view the CotDs differently, I guess. I try
for theme weeks, and I normally like to end
Fridays with a “fun” card, or the least relevant
card to the week’s theme, since this way I built
up a combo, and give people more time to
contemplate the serious stuff, before they head
out to weekend tournaments. It’s a lot easier
to look for a card over five days instead of
over one.
As I said, I had some order issues these last
two weeks; in retrospect, Gravekeeper’s Spy
could have been last week, or the Chief, and
moved Royal Tribute, a useful, but not “staple”
card of either deck. There were two pairs of
cards that I did not want to split though:
Gravekeeper’s Cannon Holder and Curse (the “Burn
Brothers”), and Gravekeeper’s Assailant and
Spear Soldier (the “Beatdown Brothers”).
Interestingly enough, you’ll note that a lot of
the Gravekeeper’s Monsters form nice little
duos: Guard and Spy (Defensive Dynamos), Chief
and Spy (Sultans of Swarm), Guard and Assailant
(Control Freaks, or Killer Control if you want
to continue with alliteration)… this is what the
game needs more of, monsters that are incredible
when combined, but pretty useless on their own.
Have you noticed that the biggest enemy of a
diverse environment is several diverse, powerful
cards… that can be used together without any
problems? You take the best Spells with the
Best Traps with the best beatsticks with the
best supporters… and so on until you have one
mean deck. Oh, it does take skill to build said
decks to their fullest, but the difficulty curve
is almost flat. Also, as of now, this game
rewards such decks while punishing the theme
decks (Tribe Infecting Virus, in addition to the
obvious benefit of cards for which combos are an
afterthought). Okay, enough of a rant, it’s
time for me to do my job, eh?
Stats:
Gravekeeper’s Spear Soldier continues the
tradition of being a Dark/Spellcaster, and like
2/3s of Gravekeeper’s Monsters, is a Level 4.
This means that he has the same solid foundation
as those cards: Chaos Food (and other Dark
support), and Spellcaster-love… now that I look,
I can’t find any that directly helps the one’s
we looked at this week. I only had time for the
most cursory of checks though. Moving on, we
come to an ATK of 1500, which is serviceable (if
the monster has a useful effect), and a paltry
DEF of 1000. These stats mean that this monster
can be searched and brought out of your deck
into hand by both Sangan and Witch of the Black
Forest, or searched out from your deck and
Special Summoned by Mystic Tomato and
Gravekeeper’s Spy. Like all Gravekeeper’s this
card has an effect, so let’s move on to it.
Effect(s):
This card can trample. For those unfamiliar
with the term, it means that when it attacks a
monster in DEF mode whose DEF is less than this
cards ATK, the difference is inflicted as Battle
Damage to the opponent’s Life Points, just like
it would if this monster attacked a monster in
ATK mode whose ATK was lower than its own ATK.
Trample has been a solid effect.
Uses/Combinations:
When this card came out, this effect was in high
demand, possessed by Airknight Parshath, Cyclon
Laser, Dragons (if Dragon’s Rage was in play),
Fairy Meteor Crush-equipped monsters, Mad Sword
Beast, and Spear Dragon. Sounds like a lot, but
only Mad Sword Beast and Spear Dragon were Level
4 “beatsticks”. So this (Super-Short Print?)
Common was pretty nice for some side-decks. If
you need a Dark Trampler, this is your monster.
If you need a Spellcaster Trampler, this is your
monster. Of course, not too many decks need
those, but at least it has its own small niche.
…
Oh yeah, this is a Gravekeeper! Yes, I left
this until the end to explain why this was
probably the best Gravekeeper, overall. See, it
has a decent use on its own. Used with
Necrovalley, it can be pretty sick, giving you
an otherwise draw-back free Level 4 2000 ATK
super-searchable Trampler! Combined with its
brother in Beatdown, Gravekeeper’s Assailant,
and things get even better. You more or less
choose how your opponent’s monsters die, usually
in a manner to maximize the damage. If there is
a single monster, then yes, it can be a bit less
effective, or if they are all incredibly good
with stats at 2000/2000 plus. Anyway, by
manipulating the two, you can usually get at
least one of Assailant or Spear Soldier
inflicting damage. Say they have two Archfiend
Soldiers in play. Assailant can attack one,
switch the other into DEF mode, and do
100 damage. Then Spear Soldier can hit the
other for 500 damage. “Big deal, that’s only a
400 increase” some might say. Try changing one
Archfiend to The End of Anubis. Now, in a
situation where two Spear Soldiers would have
lost field control and two Assailants would be
able to gain it, but only inflict 100 damage,
instead you just gained field control and
inflicted 2100 damage. Against Scape Goat, they
are just hilarious.
Ratings
Just a quick reminder, these scores are for use
in an actual Necrovalley deck. Again, this goes
against how I used to rate cards, or else I
wouldn’t even mention it.
Casual:
4/5, 4.25/5 with bans, 4.5/5 with October 1st
bans. You can make people pay for setting weak
effect monsters here, as well as Spear Dragon
and Goblin Attack Force use.
Tournament:
3.75/5, 4/5 with bans, 4.25/5 with October 1st
bans. You see less of Spear and GAF here, as
well as less weak effect monsters being set.
Also, higher ATK scores on beatsticks are more
common.
Limited:
3.5/5-A solid attacker in this format and it
will do trample. That can be vital, since it
makes it harder for your opponent to set up
chump stallers… like Spirit Reaper, who is in
this set.
Summary
Note, this is probably the best of the
Gravekeepers, even though the scores don’t
automatically reflect that-unlike the others,
this can help just about any deck, although
there are better options available in most cases
(Enraged Battle Ox or Spear Dragon). Since I
didn’t use general scores, I didn’t want this to
be overlooked. If you need more proof, this was
the next to last obvious card I got for my
Gravekeeper’s deck, and when I compared prices,
it was second only to Gravekeeper’s Chief/Necrovalley
(they were the same) in price.
