Gravekeeper’s Trap – #MAMA-EN029
While “Exchange of the Spirit” is in your GY, your opponent cannot activate the effects of cards in the GY, or Special Summon monsters from the GY. You can only use each of the following effects of “Gravekeeper’s Trap” once per turn. During the Main Phase: You can discard 1 card; add 1 “Gravekeeper’s” or EARTH Fairy monster from your Deck to your hand. During your opponent’s Draw Phase, before their normal draw, if this card is already face-up on the field: Declare 1 card name; look at the card(s) drawn for their normal draw, and if it was the declared card, send it to the GY.
Date Reviewed: January 6th, 2023
Rating: 3.41
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
Gravekeeper’s Trap is the one trap you see from the new Ishizu support that players are running.
If you were to run it along “Exchange of the Spirit” and that card in the grave, you would lock your opponent out of using their graveyard effects or Special Summon from the grave. While a great effect against Tearlament/Ishiuz, as well as other decks, there are cards like Necrovalley and Soul Drain that do that already and are one-card floodgates versus a two-card combo.
EARTH Fairy monster or Gravekeeper monster searcher during the Main Phase is a good 1-for-1 search that will trigger the retrains when they hit the grave and is a good piece of Gravekeeper search material.
The final effect of Gravekeeper’s Trap is an interesting one: If you have this card face-up already you can predict their draw and if you are right you send it to the grave. Now, in most cases I could see this backfiring. Tearlament/Ishizu for now is everywhere. Decks outside that incorporate their graveyard into their strategies now, it’s no longer a big bummer to have a card plucked from your hand and sent to the grave. That won’t always be the case. If your opponent has stacked something like a hand trap or something they need that isn’t going to hurt you by being sent to the grave, you’ve got the advantage with this card. This effect really enjoys the first effect it has revolving around “Exchange of the Spirit” because then you have no fear of the card hurting you. The retrains of cards and this new card really want to work Exchange of the Spirit into their strategy, even if you don’t use Exchange of the Spirit as it is intended.
Gravekeeper’s Trap would mainly be played for the search ability for the new EARTH Fairy retrains. If it could also search “Exchange of the Spirit” like Keldo could, it would be even better considering the lockdown ability against grave effects combined with the guessing game with your opponent’s Draw Phase you’d get to play until Gravekeeper’s Trap was taken care of. Good piece of search power, its upside grows if you have “Exchange of the Spirit”, like all the new retrains.
Advanced-3.5/5 Art-4.5/5
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
The week ends off with the best new Trap for the Ishizu support: Gravekeeper’s Trap.
Gravekeeper’s Trap is a Continuous Spell that prevents the opponent from activating effects of cards in their graveyard or summoning monsters from their graveyard while Exchange of the Spirit resides in yours, giving you a decent reason to run Exchange of the Spirit to try and mill, cause a one-sided Necrovalley-like effect is very good. The remaining effects are hard once per turns, with the first letting you discard a card during the Main Phase to search for any Gravekeeper’s monster or any EARTH Fairy, which is alright searching. Idk how much you’d run this in Gravekeeper’s, since you can already consistenty get to Necrovalley and it’s already a Deck that doesn’t need graveyard effects itself, making the first effect redundant, so the main reason you’d run this is for a search each turn, though the archetype already has decent searchers. The main cards you’d probably be searching are EARTH Fairies like the Ishizu retrains, Madolches, Vernusylphs, and more. The final effect triggers during the opponent’s Draw Phase before their normal draw, letting you declare a card name and look at the card the opponent draws, letting you send the card to the graveyard if it is the declared card. Idk how often you’ll send cards to the grave with this effect, as even if you know what the opponent is playing, you got to gamble on them drawing the card you guess and hope it’s a card they might actually run in their variant most of the time, meaning the most reliable way to resolve this is if either player stacks the opponent’s Deck to resolve this. Getting the knowledge of what they draw no matter what is kind of nice at the very least. Gravekeeper’s Trap is a fine card that makes for odd Gravekeeper’s support, but is mainly good with the other Ishizu cards. If you do want to run Exchange of the Spirit to buff your Ishizu cards, you might as well have this as well, since Mudora the Sword Oracle can activate it from Deck.
Advanced Rating: 3.5/5
Art: 4/5 Hi, Ishizu.
Alex
Searcy
Forcing more synergy with Exchange, this time with Gravekeeper’s? Well, let’s see how that works out. Gravekeeper’s Trap (so lazily named, is this what we’ve arrived at?) is a Continuous Trap, with all the benefits and flaws therein. Exchange in your Grave prevents your opponent from using their Grave Effects AND from Special Summoning out of their Grave. That can be absolutely crippling, but this is so fragile given you have to protect it and keep it there. Next are two Once per Turn Effects:
First-Discarding during the Main Phase nets you a Gravekeeper or Earth/Fairy from your Deck to your Hand. Nice, honest 1-for-1 there, and it never hurts to pull literally whatever Monster you need in your particular situation.
Second-Declare a card name before your opponent conducts their Normal Draw. If said card is what you called, said card goes to the Grave. Which CAN help, that’s more of a crapshoot as to who it helps and when. Some of those will be draws. But the real joy in that Effect (and remember, both Gravekeeper’s and the Fairies can do this) is seeing what your opponent Draws, whether you were right or wrong.
It’s a mixed card, but it’s a fair card. It’s above average, but is it next tier above average?
Rating: 3.6275/5 (Not a typo)
Art: 4.5/5 Gorgeous
Mighty
Vee
Since the Ishizu cards don’t really have a boss, the only card we can really close the week with is Gravekeeper’s Trap, a Continuous Trap that can be activated directly by Mudora the Sword Oracle or otherwise searched by Keldo the Sacred Protector and various Gravekeeper cards. Gravekeeper’s Trap’s first effect is only active while Exchange of the Spirit is in the Graveyard, preventing your opponent from both activating effects in the Graveyard and Special Summoning monsters from the Graveyard. Naturally, this effect is devastating for Graveyard decks, though it’s worth mentioning that Necrovalley is much more accessible and requires less hassle to set up. Gravekeeper’s Trap’s other effects are both hard once per turns, the first letting you discard any card during the Main Phase to search a Gravekeeper monster or an EARTH Fairy (so, an Ishizu or Vernusylph monster). While having a ROTA on a Trap is always questionable, it can help with the grind in longer games, especially as Mudora and Keldo continuously recycle your resources. The final effect can only be activated during your opponent’s Draw Phase before their draw if Gravekeeper’s Trap was already face-up, letting you guess guess which card (or cards, if they somehow have an effect that lets them draw two) they will draw; if you guess right, you can send that card straight to the Graveyard. This effect is obviously an anime reference and is more or less a meme, but it can cheese certain situations where your opponent topdecked a card (like with Raiza the Mega Monarch). Otherwise, it’s easily the least useful effect. Gravekeeper’s Trap saw a lot of play initially just for the Necrovalley-like effect, since Ishizu Tearlaments decks were running Exchange of the Spirit. Now that Exchange of the Spirit is seeing less play, you pretty much only run it to get some value off of Mudora if you’d like, but even then it’s not strictly necessary.
Advanced: 3/5
Art: 4/5 Guess who?
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