Gravekeeper's Visionary

This is the new "Boss" monster from ABPF that supports the Gravekeeper theme. The card is Gravekeeper's Visionary, A level 8 monster with 2000 ATK and 1800 DEF of the DARK Spellcaster variety. Those stats are actually abysmal. Stardust is even a littl elow for a level 8 at 2500 ATK, so 2000 is simply unacceptable.

However, the effects make up for it. You can Tribute it with only one tribute by Tributing a Gravekeeper monster. It also gains 200 ATK for each Gravekeeper monster in your graveyard. If it would be destroyed, you can discard a Gravekeeper monster instead.

The ability of this card to get enormous while on the field should not be underestimated. Thos card can even stand up to the mighty Judgment Dragon and sneer in it's face so long as you have a mitt full of Gravekeepers, and if they are in the graveyard, you can really put the hurt on an opponent with a basically indestructible guy that gets bigger each time you use it's effect.

You can even combine it with the card Gravekeeper's Stele to get back Gravekeeper monsters from your graveyard either for Summoning or to use with Visionary's effect. The best thing about it's effect is that it does it whenever it is destroyed, not just by battle or by effects like previous cards.

The big question for the deck is how many of these bad boys to run. It competes directly with Gravekeeper's Chief, which is the older Boss monster. I find that a singleton of Chief is better, and a pair of Visionarys allows you to ge tthe best pf both worlds, and your deck should be able to run with Necrovalley out, which is the whole point, so Chiefs second effect is fairly less useful.

This card is good, but only in the Gravekeeper deck, which limits the playability of the card, but makes the deck that much better since other decks cannot abuse it at all.

Traditional-1/5
Advanced-4.5/5

Gravekeeper's Visionary, I recently ran Gravekeeper's with the new Gravekeeper's monsters. Before I go into detail about Visionary, Skill Drain decks are probably Gravekeeper's worst enemy. Anyways, Visionary is a level 8 monster, so it can be easily used as a cost for Trade-In, giving Gravekeeper's speed. It also can be tribute summoned by tributing one Gravekeeper's monster. It gets 200 attack for each Gravekeeper's monster in the graveyard and if it would be destroyed while face up, whether it be in battle or by card effect, you can simply toss a Gravekeeper's monster in your hand to negate its destruction. Its searchable via Magician's Circle, with Necrovalley on the field its an automatic 2500 attacking monster with its +200 boost for each Gravekeeper in the graveyard, and since all the Gravekeeper's are spellcasters you can easily summon it from your hand with Magical Dimension, and destroy a free monster on the field thanks to Dimension's seccond effect. Visionary certainly is a decent monster but I dont think more than 2 is really necessary.

Traditional: 3/5
Advanced: 4/5

Name: Gravekeeper’s Visionary
Level: 8
Attribute: Dark
Type: Spellcaster
ATK: 2000
DEF: 1800

Stats: Gravekeeper’s Visionary is one of the new support monsters for the Gravekeeper’s decks, and by “support” I mean “big boss monster to build the deck around”.  To begin with, he has Gravekeeper’s in his name, entitling him to all the normal Gravekeeper support.  While fairly obvious and expected, when Konami thinks a card is powerful enough, they’ll name it so that it doesn’t get access to all its theme’s support, like Rainbow Dragon and the Crystal Beast series.  Gravekeeper’s Visionary is Level 8, so you could run Trade-In for some draw power, but since he’s the only Level 8 Gravekeeper and the deck has so much support to sort through, I don’t recommend it. 

As a Dark monster, Gravekeeper’s Visionary has some of the best support in the game at its disposal.  Spellcasters aren’t as successfully supported as Warriors, but they still have some ingenious tricks.  His 2000 ATK is very low for a Stage 8, but fortunately we’ll see that it’s okay on this card, and it make it a legal target for Magician’s Circle (as are all other Gravekeeper’s monsters).  1800 DEF is respectable, as it will let you survive hits from the average beatstick, especially when boosted by the effects of Necrovalley or Gravekeeper’s Priestess. 

With the exception of the small ATK, this is a pretty solid card even before we get to its effects, and I feel it worth noting it is still the biggest Gravekeeper’s monster in the game. 

Effects: Like its kin worth playing, here is where Gravekeeper’s Visionary shines.  The first effect makes it easier to Normal Summon: you can sacrifice a single Gravekeeper’s monster instead of the two monsters you’d normally need.  It is already easy to Special Summon, but better to be a little easier to Normal Summon than not.  The second effect explains the low base ATK score… for each Gravekeeper’s monster in your graveyard, he gets +200 ATK.  Historically, Gravekeeper’s decks have been monster heavy: most builds will focus on Necrovalley, but as much for its boosting effects to Gravekeeper’s monsters as its debilitating effect on the opponent.  While they don’t always stay there long, you can reliably have at least two Gravekeeper’s monsters in your Graveyard after the opening turns and thanks to Necrovalley, it will be hard for your opponent to get rid of them. 

The normal problem plaguing a bigger Monster once you get it into play is keeping it in play.  The final effect of Gravekeeper’s Visionary will help against standard Monster destruction, though not against “bounce” effects or the like.  Still, the ability to discard a Gravekeeper’s monster to avoid Visionary being destroyed is potent.  Unlike several past monsters with similar effects, this one was worded so it can be used to survive an attack or destruction effect.  An added bonus is that after using this effect, his previous ATK boosting effect will have made him larger.  If you were being attacked, this can be quite the lifesaver. 

Uses and

Combinations: As stated, this is the new major monster of the Gravekeeper’s decks and it will be replacing the old “boss monsters”.  It is indeed plural: Gravekeeper’s decks have long sought a monster centerpiece to rally behind, but nothing ever showed up that was clearly superior.  What would be considered the official (and original) candidate is Gravekeeper’s Chief.  With Necrovalley out, Chief was a respectable 2400 ATK single tribute requiring Monster that replaced whatever you used as tribute with a Gravekeeper’s monster from your Graveyard.  Unfortunately he had two additional effects that proved to be significant drawbacks: you could only have one face-up copy of him on your side of the field at a time, and the unintentional drawback of him enabling Graveyard manipulation for his controller that would normally have been prevented via the effect of Necrovalley.  If he only had enabled his own effect to bypass it, that would have been fine.  Instead, all your opponent had to do was find a way to take control of your copy of Gravekeeper’s Chief to regain access to their Graveyard. 

Two examples of alternative “boss monsters” that weren’t officially part of the Gravekeeper’s clan are The End of Anubis and Guardian Sphinx.  The former was partnered with Necrovalley because, while it clashed with other Gravekeeper’s support, it shutdown nearly all the Graveyard related effects that Necrovalley did not.  Guardian Sphinx was one that surprised me; besides looking the part, it was quite useful for the passive-aggressive take on the deck.  Most players (myself included), don’t know what to make out of an opponent “Tribute Setting” a monster, especially in a Gravekeeper’s deck.  With its 2400 DEF it usually could survive the Battle Phase, so if an opponent didn’t get rid of it fast, you’d use its effect to shift it back into face-down Defense position during your Main Phase, then manually Flip Summon it to trigger its mass bounce effect.  Add in something to deal with your opponent’s backfield and you could then swarm and attack for game. 

Gravekeeper’s Visionary easily trumps all the past and current choices, in my opinion, though Gravekeeper’s Chief still may make a showing in Gravekeeper’s decks; he does revive a fellow Gravekeeper’s monster when he is Tribute Summoned and that would include Gravekeeper’s Visionary. 

Unless you’re expecting a lot of Trap hate, you should main deck a copy or two of Magician’s Circle to easily search Gravekeeper’s Visionary from your deck when attacking with another of your Gravekeeper’s monsters… or if you are fortunate enough for your opponent to attack you with a Spellcaster.  Magical Dimension isn’t much of a shortcut for Gravekeeper’s Visionary since he can be Normal Summoned with a single Gravekeeper’s monster as tribute, but popping him out during your opponent’s turn while trading a Spell for their monster is still useful. 

Some more Traps you will want to consider are some excellent Dark supporting cards, though again they are more for your Side Deck than the Main.  I said earlier effects like bounce are one of the few things Gravekeeper’s Visionary can’t defend itself against.  A lot of the commonly run bounce cards target.  Dark Illusion is a Counter-Trap that negates and destroys a card that targets a Dark monster, so when your opponent Synchro Summons Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier to return Gravekeeper’s Visionary to your hand, you can respond to both save him and destroy Brionac.  With how big Necrovalley gets most Gravekeeper’s monsters and how much Gravekeeper’s Visionary pumps itself up, Deck Destruction Virus and even Epidemic Eradicator Virus can destroy several cards while giving you a look at their hand and next few draws.  With the normal Graveyard denial of Necrovalley, sending so much there is extra effective. 

Of course, this is all in addition to the normal Gravekeeper’s supporting cards you should be running, like Rite of Spirit, (possibly) Royal Tribute, a varied selection of the Gravekeeper’s monsters themselves, and probably Field Barrier as the most efficient means of protecting Necrovalley from all but bounce (and related) effects.  I will highlight Gravekeeper’s Stele quick, as we haven’t reviewed it yet and it actually combos a little extra with Gravekeeper’s Visionary.  All it does is add two Gravekeeper’s monsters from your Graveyard to your hand (and is capable of ignoring Necrovalley to do so), but it becomes a literal lifesaver later in the game when you’re running low on Gravekeeper’s monsters in hand. 

Ratings 

Traditional: 3.5/5 – Necrovalley still denies Chaos, and Necrovalley and Royal Tribute can wreck a lot of FTK/OTK decks.  With that backing, Gravekeeper’s Visionary can press for the win. 

Advanced: 4.5/5 – Here it is able to grow large, survive a lot of destruction, and enjoy named, Attribute, and Type based support. 

Summary 

Gravekeeper’s Visionary gives Gravekeeper’s decks the boss monster they’ve been waiting for.  Small enough to be readily accessible and yet still large through its effect, Gravekeeper’s Visionary is then rounded out with a built in protection effect to prevent being destroyed in battle or through effects.  Had they granted it any other benefits, it’d have been too much.  It is so potent it doesn’t even have to rely on Necrovalley, though it will gladly enjoy the benefits of it.  The only things lacking for Gravekeeper’s now would be themed draw (they have ample search, though) and Tuner/Synchro Monsters.  We’ll cover their new destruction card tomorrow.

Gravekeeper's Visionary ...

I like him. i like him alot. First off - he's dark & 8 stars. We've talked about this. All the Allure of Darknesses and Trade Ins of the world fit perfectly with those aspects. He gets all the Gravekeeper support, with no limitations on his summonability, and he gets a boost of 200 ATK for every Gravekeeper in your graveyard. So including the 1 Gravekeeper u may have used to tribute summon him, as well as Necrovalley on the field, the Visionary should come out the gate with 2700 ATK points. Not too bad for 1 tribute. And of course, the more Gravekeepers in the grave, the stronger he'll be. He can become MAMMOTH. And what makes him EXTRA awesome? - His self protection. He's going to be destroyed? - u can discard a Gravekeeper instead. I love it. He will be tough to kill, as that can be by battle OR special effect. And then of course - the Gravekeeper discarded will only make the Visionary stronger.

What's not to like?
Gravekeepers are excellent, and if I put a deck together - I would make him the new deck Boss.

Traditional: 4/5
Advanced: 4.5/5

- FREEZA