Gravekeepers is a solid anti-meta deck that has held up reasonably well over the since the release near the beginning of the game. This deck has never gotten lower than the top 4 in around half a dozen local tourneys I've went to in the past 6 months since I got into the game in early 2022. From halting prank-kids to super polying all the Albaz, Dragoons, and Despias to shutting down Eldlich and Tearlelements, this deck has held up quite well in the past few formats in one way by just locking graveyards and stealing monsters. Even against decks that don't use the graveyard very often, the 500 point boost from Necrovalley is just enough to punch through a lot of opponents' creatures. Necrovalley is a busted card that denies opponents resources and, following suit, the deck revolves around constantly denying opponents resources.
This is a static deck list I have archived in September because I wanted to give this deck a facelift. A key issue with this deck is that it is a weenie deck that does not do well against a massive board presence. Going second against a board of, say, Tearelements, Dinos, or Speedroids and multiple omni negates is very difficult. The deck also completely dies to Skill Drain. I do not plan to update this list only because it already works well as it is and I need to test out new deck builds. Ideas include, but are not limited to, Lord of Heavenly Prison, to protect backrow and cheat out a 3k monsters, set rotation in the main board, angel statues as generic level 4 monsters and summon negate.
Individual Card break down:
3 super polys in this deck are essential only because the deck needs monsters. Worst case scenario is that you super poly your own creatures into big boss monsters. With the release of Garura, super poly has much more utility (although at its October price of $25, it might be a tough sell. I'm very happy to have gotten it for $8 a little after release). 3 solemn strikes and 2 judgments. It's more common for anti-meta decks to use 2 strikes and 3 judgements, but because the deck is mostly focused on denying creatures so you can beat down your opponents, you want to remove creatures more than negates spells and traps. Plus, strike is better going second than judgement. 3 Imperms: I believe in the current format it is essential to run hand traps, but you can easily cut these for a solemn or a crackdown if you're on a budget. Gravekeeper's Watcher: Hand trap that negates and destroys activated abilities that discard; kills Danger engine, brave engine's Fateful adventure, morphing jar, etc. Otherwise, it's just a polymerization or rank 4 target. It's not awful but very conditional. An inherent issue of Gravekeepers is that being such an old archetype, they're lacking monster cards that actually do things.
Gravekeeper Archetype notes:
Gravekeeper's Heretic: Very good in master duel only. Catches people off guard, but in TCG, it's just too weak.
Necrovalley Temple: Sideboard mostly: Use it to boost gravekeepers even more.
Hidden Temple of Necrovalley; very good but they don't do enough. Hidden Temple of Necrovalley is not particularly good because of the destruction restriction. If your card is bounced or banished or just beaten over, the card is useless. Again, a problem with gravekeepers is that they lack efficient monsters; fossil dyna does the same job often better,
Budget builds:
If you don't want to shell out the money for super polymerizations and its fusion targets like Garura or Predaplants, add generic rank 4s and link 2s like Knightmares. Instant fusion it's that bad either. Try spellcaster routes, polymerization routes like Predaplants or Edge Imp Fluffals, etc.
Get Angel Statue generic Rank 4 targets.
You also don't need Zeus, but if you're really into the game, I really recommend investing in one because you can shove it into any deck with XYZ monsters and 1 extra deck space (it's a dumb card). Don't deny the power of Zoodiacs because it can get 4 material Zeus. which can push one negate spell speed 2 negates or have two consecutive boardwipes one on your opponent's standby.
Gravekeepers was My first deck ever and I have fond memories of using the deck back in 2003 in elementary school. While I hope this archetype can get more support (the april OCG support is necrovalley support for everything EXCEPT a competent gravekeeper deck), I'm happy to keep toying around with what's available.
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