Gravekeeper's

The Gravekeeper's are a series of monsters based on ancient Egyptians who guarded the Pharaoh's tomb. The Gravekeeper's Deck usually activates "Necrovalley" and gains power from it, while using loopholes to avoid being affected by its drawbacks. This deck tends to prevent the opponent from affecting cards placed in the Graveyard, as well as keeping field control with its ability to swarm. They were introduced in Pharaonic Guardian as the first true Archetype.

The Gravekeeper's Chief was present in the anime. He duels against Jaden Yuki, giving the duelist a hard time, but eventually Jaden manages to beat him. After the defeat, he gave Jaden a half of the Shadow Charm Pendant, telling him that another person (Atticus Rhodes) has the other half of the pendant.

The anime reveals that the Gravekeeper's Assailant is female. She is known as Yasmin. She fights alongside Gravekeeper's Chief, hesitating when asked to attack, which earns her a slap.

Playing Style
A themed deck that revolves around monsters that have "Gravekeeper's" in their card name. All Gravekeeper's are Spellcaster-Type monsters, most have a DARK-Attribute, with the exception of Gravekeeper's Commandant that has an EARTH-Attribute.

The key card to the Gravekeeper deck is Necrovalley. Necrovalley is a field spell that will increase that attack and defense of Gravekeeper monsters by 500. Necrovalley also stops spells, traps, and monsters effects from targeting the Graveyard, like Monster Reborn, Magician of Faith and Call of the Haunted. Necrovalley also stops either player removing from play from their Graveyard for any reason with cards like Soul Release and Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End. Notice that Necrovalley does not prevent effects that activate in the graveyard, only those that target cards in the graveyard, so cards like Mystic Tomato and Pyramid Turtle will still have their effects activate.

Because of the effect of their field spell Necrovalley this deck tends to be some-what a anti-metagame deck since it countered chaos back when it was still legal and still has the ability to counter Teledad decks as well as Lightsworn, Zombie, and to a certain extent Gladiator Beasts. Because this deck tends to be anti-meta it is good to use anti-meta style cards such as Burden of the Mighty, Thunder King Rai-Oh, and many others.

Because the most of the Gravekeeper's are dark-attibute they can also use Allure of Darkness, and some more dark attribute support, however be aware when building your Gravekeeper's deck that Necrovalley will stop Monster Reborn, and many other effects that involve the use of the Graveyard.

A Trap known as Rite of Spirit will allow you to Special Summon any Gravekeeper monsters from the Graveyard, even if Necrovalley is on the field. The monster, Gravekeeper's Chief, will also unlock access to your Graveyard while Necrovalley is on the field. Gravekeeper's Chief also allows you to Special Summon a Gravekeeper monster from your Graveyard when you Tribute Summon it. You can also use Magician's Circle to summon Gravekeeper's Chief/Any other Gravekeeper. A Combo with The End of Anubis will shut down the Graveyard COMPLETELY (except costs), but will also hinder your own swarming abilities by stopping Rite of Spirit and Gravekeeper's Chief.

The best Gravekeeper monsters to use include: Gravekeeper's Assailant, Gravekeeper's Spear Soldier, Gravekeeper's Guard, Gravekeeper's Spy, and Gravekeeper's Commandant. The best supporting monsters are Mystic Tomato, Sangan and Monarchs due to the high amount of Special Summon this theme possesses.

Gravekeeper's Chief has been obsolete in the current meta game for a while now. There are various cards that work with the Graveyard without being hindered by Necrovalley since they don't target anything in the Graveyard. Such cards include Stardust Dragon, Goyo Guardian, Level Eater, Plaguespreader Zombie, and Fox Fire as well as the 2300 ATK Dark World monsters just to name a few. Gravekeeper's Chief also opens up your Graveyard for removal by D.D. Crow. And your opponent can also open up their Graveyard by taking your Gravekeeper's Chief by any number of cards such as Brain Control and Mind Control among others. And with the upcoming release of Gravekeeper's Visionary to the TCG in Absolute Powerforce, there's no reason to use him for the ATK power either.

Dark Magician is an option when using Skilled Dark Magician as a 1900 beatstick, but may take too long to pull off without Dark Magic Curtain and that cost is too heavy for typical play, besides, single tribute cards like Great Maju Garzett or (especially) Brain Golem are more worth it.

Another option for Gravekeeper's is a Swarm/Burn strategy. Gravekeeper's Cannonholder can Tribute Gravekeeper's to do 700 damage, so a Swarm/Burn strategy can allow the player to attack the opponent with a mass of monsters, then Tribute them to Gravekeeper's Cannonholder. This is a risky but potentially lethal strategy. In such a deck, the deceptively weak Gravekeeper's Curse is useful for its ability to inflict damage whenever it is summoned in any fashion. Dark Room of Nightmare is also helpful for increasing the damage done. However, the player must be careful when Tributing their monsters to Gravekeeper's Cannonholder, as this leaves them highly vulnerable to attack.

Some useful cards for a Gravekeeper's deck are Magician's Circle and Magical Dimension since all Gravekeepers are spellcaster monsters, and also Book of Moon (perhaps in multiples]] as both Spy and Guard have flip effects.

A normal Gravekeeper can match a Dark Armed Dragon's attack by having both Necrovalley and Solidarity on the field. It makes Gravekeeper's capable of being a beatstick in low levels and cost for summoning!

The current strongest Gravekeeper is Gravekeeper's High Priest which is capable of forming a beatstick and negate its destruction. Make sure you have a high supply of gravekeepers in the hand and in the graveyard to maximize its potential, one card that surely helps is Gravekeeper's Lithograph that return 2 gravekeeper's monsters from your graveyard to your hand (its effect is not negated by necrovalley). Also, Gravekeeper's Descendant is capable to destroy any card on the field, making it a deadly gravekeeper's monster when your field is full of gravekeepers.

Monsters
Level 7 & Higher
 * Gravekeeper's Visionary

Level 5-6
 * Gravekeeper's Chief

Level 1-4
 * Gravekeeper's Spy
 * Gravekeeper's Spear Soldier
 * Gravekeeper's Commandant
 * Gravekeeper's Assailant
 * Gravekeeper's Descendant
 * Gravekeeper's Guard
 * Gravekeeper's Priestess

Other Monsters
 * Mystic Tomato

Spells

 * Allure of Darkness
 * Gravekeeper's Stele
 * Necrovalley
 * Royal Tribute
 * Terraforming
 * Magical Dimension

Traps

 * Rite of Spirit
 * Magician's Circle
 * Mirror Force
 * Solemn Judgment
 * Bottomless Trap Hole

Strengths and Weaknesses
The use of Necrovalley in this Archetype prevents the opponent from using the Graveyard as a resource. A very large number of opposing strategies, therefore, will be at a severe disadvantage when this card is on the field (Cyberdarks, Destiny Heroes, Lightsworn, Zombies, Dark Armed Dragons etc.). The ATK-boost of Necrovalley to "Gravekeeper's" monsters makes them very strong at low levels, making it feasible for a Gravekeeper user to press their advantage early, and there is enough variety in their effects for a number of variant strategies (aggro, stall/burn, control, etc.)

Currently the strongest Gravekeeper's monster, Gravekeeper's High Priest, is only at 2000 ATK (at base value, however his own effect as well as that of Necrovalley increase it), so Gravekeeper's Decks tend to be weak at higher levels unless external support or more Gravekeeper monsters are used.

To help make up for their lack of bulky monsters and protection, Gravekeeper's have a ludicrous amount of recycling available to them, putting them almost in league with Zombies. Between Gravekeeper's Chief, Gravekeeper's Lithograph, and most importantly Rite of Spirit (all of which ignore the effects of Necrovalley), it's not uncommon to get 3 to 4 uses out of a single monster card in a duel.

Their intense reliance upon Necrovalley makes them very vulnerable to opponents who enjoy using Spell and Trap destroying effects, so cards to protect it (like Field Barrier) and traps that can help the player maintain a field and hand advantage over a stronger opponent are highly recommended.

But one must be careful when one uses Field Barrier. If Caius the Shadow Monarch, Raiza the Storm Monarch, or Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier remove Necrovalley from the field, Field Barrier will remain and prevent you from replaying Necrovalley.

Optional Support

 * The End of Anubis -- Strong, and further prevents the use of Graveyard effects by negating all effects that occur within the Graveyard. Note that using him will prevent Gravekeeper's cards from utilizing the loopholes that allow them to summon cards when Necrovalley is on the field.
 * Magician's Circle -- This card can draw ANY Gravekeeper straight out of the deck to the field due to their low ATK (Gravekeeper's High Priest is a particularly good choice as it has the highest ATK of them all).
 * Magical Dimension -- Another fast way to Summon a Gravekeeper like Gravekeeper's High Priest to the field with the added bonus of destroying and opponent's monster.
 * Curse of Royal/Magic Drain/Magic Jammer -- It's good to have one of these side-decked to prevent an opponent from destroying your Necrovalley (or even your Field Barrier), Curse of Royal is useful if your opponent is using Mystical Space Typhoon, Dust Tornado, or Twister as it has no cost to use, however it can't stop cards like Giant Trunade or Heavy Storm
 * Allure of Darkness -- Adding draw power to any deck is helpful. All of the Gravekeeper's monsters are DARK, excluding Gravekeeper's Commandant and Charm of Shabti (EARTH), making this Spell Card useful for speed.
 * Mystic Tomato -- This monster adds speed to the Gravekeeper's Deck. This card can summon almost all of your Gravekeeper's (the only exceptions being Gravekeeper's Chief, Gravekeeper's Commandant, and Gravekeeper's High Priest)
 * Sangan -- This helpful critter can get almost every monster in the Gravekeeper's theme of monsters. Add it to your hand to have it attack your opponent next turn, or stall with Gravekeeper's Spy or Gravekeeper's Guard. He can also grab you a Charm of Shabti to protect your Gravekeepers, or even just put a Gravekeeper in you hand to feed Gravekeeper's High Priest's effect (and ATK)
 * Solidarity -- Great way to increase the Gravekeeper's attack strength outside of Necrovalley. The only downside is that the user must give up the usage of Charm of Shabti in order to maintain graveyard dominance for the type spellcaster.
 * Caius the Shadow Monarch -- With all the advantage you'll be generating with Gravekeeper's Spy, this card can use a newly special summoned card as tribute fodder. As a bonus, he's DARK so he becomes another Allure target and has a great effect overall.