Since Spell Ruler, when they were first introduced to Yu-Gi-Oh, Gravekeepers have been a common choice for non-meta cards.
Their main plan is to use Necrovalley to keep your opponent out of their graveyard while you can do whatever you want with their graveyard.
Even though I’ve been playing this game for 10 years, I just now realized that this is because they are actually grave keepers…)
As a side note, you need to know what Necrovalley is used for to really understand the plan that Gravekeepers go for and to get the most out of this list.
This is exactly what Necrovalley does:
All “Gravekeeper’s” monsters gain 500 ATK and DEF. You can’t get rid of cards that are in the Graveyard.
Stop any card effect that would move a card in the Graveyard to a different place. Stop any card effect in the Graveyard from changing Types or Attributes.
This list will show you how to add a few Gravekeeper’s monsters to your deck or build a full-fledged anti-meta Gravekeeper’s deck.
How to Play Gravekeeper’s Cards
The Gravekeeper’s family is a strong anti-meta deck that is still used in professional play.
They did well during the link monster era because they don’t rely too much on extra deck summoning.
This line of dark spellcasters has an amazing ability called “graveyard lockdown,” which can stop your opponent’s discard pile-based effects and leave them with no way to stop your magical attack.
15. Gravekeeper’s Oracle
Gravekeeper’s Visionary is a strong ace, but I like Oracle better as the boss monster for the archetype. As a rare level 10 titan, he has some awesome effects that let you summon him with a range of tributes.
You can normally call him by sacrificing two monsters, like most level 10s, but his effects also let you sacrifice any three monsters or a single Gravekeeper’s unit instead.
Why would you give up extra creatures?
Well, Oracle gets stronger based on how many sacrifices you use for his tribute summon. Each sacrifice gives him one of the following benefits (only once):
- Oracle gets an amount of attack equal to the total levels of its gifts. 100
- destroy all of your opponent’s set cards
- All monsters your opponent controls right now lose 2000 ATK and DEF.
All three skills are strong and can be used in many different ways. The first is especially dangerous with three tributes, giving Oracle up to 1000 ATK.
With Solidarity and Necrovalley, he’ll have one of the best raw ATK scores in the game.
14. Magician’s Left Hand
Magician’s Left Hand was made for the Magician archetype, but it’s a powerful card in any spellcaster build. Each turn, it removes the first trap card or effect your opponent plays, as long as you control a spellcaster.
Since all Gravekeepers meet this condition, Magician’s Left Hand should be active almost the whole time you are fighting. It will protect your valuable monsters from traps and keep them around long enough to swarm your opponent.
Other ways to get rid of traps, like Royal Decree, have downsides, like getting rid of your traps as well. But with Magician’s Left Hand, you don’t have to worry about anything and are free to use the traps that your opponent can no longer use.
Even though only the first trap is stopped each turn, causing your opponent to “waste” one just to get to the second one is a good reason to use Left Hand.
13. Allure of Darkness
Almost every Gravekeeper has a dark attribute, which is good because dark has a lot of powerful attribute-specific boosts.
Allure of Darkness is a strong way to draw cards. It lets you draw two cards right away, but then you have to get rid of a dark monster from your hand.
If you can’t, you’ll have to give up your whole hand, but with your base hand + two cards, you should easily have at least one Gravekeeper (or another dark card) to exile.
Allure of Darkness lets you quickly go through your deck, throw away what you don’t need, and keep what you do, all while keeping the same number of cards in your hand.
12. Solidarity
We’ve seen it before, we’ll see it again. As long as you only have one type of monster in your graveyard, this ongoing spell boosts the power of all monsters you control of that type by 800 as long as you only have one type of monster in your graveyard.
Since everyone in Gravekeeper is a spellcaster, you shouldn’t have to worry about putting unwanted types into your graveyard and accidentally making the effect go away.
800 ATK for all of your Gravekeepers and any other spellcasters you use really adds up, especially when mixed with Necrovalley or even just two copies of Solidarity.
11. Gravekeeper’s Recruiter
As we’ll see later, Necrovalley, the classic Gravekeeper’s field spell, increases ATK/DEF by 500 for all Gravekeepers. This makes Recruiter’s 1200 ATK and 1500 DEF into a solid 1700/2000.
But more than that, Recruiter acts like a Witch of the Black Forest for Gravekeepers.
Whenever Recruiter is sent to the graveyard, you can search your deck for any Gravekeeper with 1500 DEF and add it to your hand.
This works well whether the Recruiter was sacrificed, killed in battle, killed by an effect, or sent by another effect. This makes it a great target for a tribute, ritual, fusion, synchro, or link summon.
10. Gravekeeper’s Descendant
Gravekeeper’s Descendant is a great removal spell.
You can destroy any card your opponent has by attributing a Gravekeeper’s monster you already control.
This means that you can kill magic, traps, monsters, and so on.
Most of the time, a good Yu-Gi-Oh deck will have cards that can get rid of these risks one by one.
You’ll have effects that let you get rid of monsters (like Man Eater Bug or Nobleman of Crossout) and effects that let you get rid of spells and traps (like Mystical Space Typhoon, Harpie’s Feather Duster, and all your other favorite cards!)
This card combines all of these effects into one, giving you space in your deck for stronger tactics and monsters.
9. Gravekeeper’s Priestess
Necrovalley is the field spell for Gravekeeper’s that stops your opponent from moving cards into and out of the graveyard.
It’s the main way to win with this deck, since it lets you special call a lot of monsters from your graveyard while your opponent can’t.
A lot of other decks also have great field spells, which is a shame.
As a result, there is only one copy of the main search cards for field spells, which are Terraforming and Metaverse.
This makes it almost impossible to find field magic.
But the field is still treated as Necrovalley as long as Gravekeeper’s Priestess is on it.
This means that you have 6 copies of Necrovalley in your deck, or 8 copies if you also have Metaverse and Terraforming.
8. Gravekeeper’s Headman
Even so, 500 attack doesn’t exactly scream “I’m a powerful monster”
But Gravekeeper’s Headman has a great effect that makes it worth including in any Gravekeeper’s plan!
When it’s called (specially or normally), you can special summon a level 4 Gravekeeper’s monster from your graveyard, either face-up to attack or face-down to defend.
Necrovalley, which usually stops cards from going into and out of the graveyard, has no effect on this effect.
This means that you can use this card to go on the attack and bring back some strong fighters, or you can use it to build a strong defense.
7. Gravekeeper’s Ambusher
You might not think that a monster with no defense is the best card to put in defense position.
I mean, in battle, just about anything can beat it, right?
Well, the best time to use Gravekeeper’s Ambusher is when it gets destroyed in fight!
When it goes to the graveyard after being turned over, you can add a copy of Necrovalley from your graveyard to your hand.
This is a great way to keep the plan for Necrovalley going.
A lot of Yu-Gi-Oh players know how strong a Gravekeeper’s deck can be and will try to destroy Necrovalley as quickly as they can.
This is no longer a problem now that you have Gravekeeper’s Ambusher. And you can keep your opponent from ever getting back into their deck.
6. Gravekeeper’s Commandant
If we’re talking about cards that look for Necrovalley, you can throw this one away to look for a copy of Necrovalley in your deck.
I like what I hear.
This makes it even easier to find your field spell, and it’s also a strong monster on top of that.
This monster is one of the best Gravekeepers can use to attack.
At level 4, it has 1600 attack, which may not sound like much, but Necrovalley gives all of your Gravekeeper’s monsters an extra 500 attack.
This makes Gravekeeper’s Commandant a standard summon with 2100 attack, which is a crazy high number for a monster that doesn’t need tributes to be called.
5. Gravekeeper’s Nobleman
In a Gravekeeper’s plan, the Nobleman is a great defensive card.
When it is killed in battle, you can special summon a face-down Gravekeeper’s monster from your deck.
You can choose from some great Gravekeeper cards with flip effects (see cards higher up on this list), and this effect makes sure you’re not defenseless when your opponent is going to war.
You know what they say: the best way to attack is with a good defense.
4. Gravekeeper’s Shaman
One easy way for your opponent to stop a Gravekeeper’s plan is to destroy your copy of Necrovalley.
Once they do that, they can go to their graves whenever they want, while your monsters no longer get that important attack boost from your Gravekeeper.
Gravekeeper’s Shaman is a great way to stop that from happening because it stops field spells from being cast or killed.
This monster also stops effects from happening in the graveyard unless they are caused by Gravekeeper’s monsters.
This card is a strong way to keep your monsters and their effects on the field and safe in a format where hand traps are the norm and usually go off in the graveyard after being thrown away.
3. Gravekeeper’s Chief
The best thing about Necrovalley ruining the graveyard is that it makes it all one way.
Gravekeeper’s Chief makes sure that Necrovalley has no effect on any of your acts, whether they are Gravekeeper’s or not.
This card is a must-have if you want to make a Gravekeeper’s mix deck or play monster cards that don’t belong to the Gravekeeper’s archetype.
With this card, you can bring them back from the dead as special summons without any limits.
Even though 1900 attack for a monster that costs one tribute isn’t great, when this guy is called with a tribute, you can special summon any other Gravekeeper’s monster from your graveyard.
This means you’ll get a lot more attack power than you would usually get from a monster that costs one tribute.
2. Gravekeeper’s Guard
This card is easily the best general Gravekeeper’s card, as is our number 1 pick.
This one is a mainstay of the GOAT version of Yu-Gi-Oh, which includes cards up to and including The Lost Millennium.
How this card works is as follows:
When it is turned over, you can send one of your opponent’s monsters back to their hand. The best targets for this effect are monsters that were special summoned from the extra deck.
That way, your opponent will have to lose monsters all over again to bring it back.
This guy has a good defense of 1900, and his attack is also pretty good, which will stop most level 4 enemies in their tracks.
1. Gravekeeper’s Spy
Without a question, Gravekeeper’s Spy is the best Gravekeeper’s card in Yu-Gi-Oh.
It’s a 2000 defense wall, which is hard to get past even in current Yu-Gi-Oh.
Most likely, your opponent will have to either pay a tribute to call a bigger monster or summon a bigger monster from the extra deck, neither of which is easy.
When Gravekeeper’s Spy is turned face-up, you can special summon a Gravekeeper’s monster with 1500 or less attack from your deck in any position.
The most common way to use this card is to call another Gravekeeper’s Spy, which makes that high defensive wall twice as strong.
And this card is a great way to make sure you have two level 4 monsters on the field at the same time. This makes it a great way to set up XYZ calls from your extra deck.
