I’m going to be honest with you—the current format favors aggressive play over controlling play. You will notice that many successful plays you saw in the US National Championship coverage involved aggressive and risky plays in hopes of getting a huge payout through Spirit Reaper disruption or through making a serious dent in the opponent’s life points. Many of the players who had success during that weekend took the risk of over-committing in hopes that it would seal up the game. For example, Kris Perovic did this during the tournament, and he knew what would happen if his opponent had a face-down Mirror Force. However, a player such as Kris could be making a prediction based on his or her opening hand on whether or not he or she had any chance late in the duel, or if his or her resources only permitted early game advantage.

The advantage to aggressive play right now is that the best cards can be very aggressive. Cyber Dragon can be a safety net that will often bait out unwanted Sakuretsu Armor cards from your opponent, but it is still best used as an aggressive monster that can help devastate your opponent’s field in the first two turns when teamed up with Spirit Reaper. Spirit Reaper works best as almost anything, whether you’re using it as an aggressive hand-destruction device or as a stall utility.

Gravekeeper’s Spy is another strong example of a card that can play either the aggro or control game. This card is obviously best suited as a defensive tool with its high DEF value, but some decks can make use of its card advantage and fast-tempo–generating ability for a quick win.

Basic Breakdown

Gravekeeper’s Spy stands high up as one of the few flip effect monsters with reasonable stats. Its 2000 DEF will allow it to survive attacks from most level 4 monsters, and the flip effect will usually net you another Gravekeeper’s Spy in defense position. A control player cannot ask for a better field than two big walls protecting him or her until he or she draws into something that will blow the opponent out of the game.

However, Gravekeeper’s Spy is also an effective aggro card. Despite the ATK and DEF values that obviously favor it as a control monster, it has an ability that aggro players really like: it can give its user a dramatic jump in tempo.

The key part of Gravekeeper’s Spy is that it special summons a monster from the deck. This means that when its flip effect activates, you get a free monster that doesn’t cost you any actual cards. Not only does this gain the aggro player some advantage, but it gives him or her another monster to work with. Gravekeeper’s Spy is the reason why Gravekeeper Aggro can go from, “I have no options,” to, “I smash your face in,” in just one turn! Of course, Gravekeeper’s Spy is simply one portion of a good deck, since that deck’s power to win is enhanced by versatile monsters such as Gravekeeper’s Spear Soldier.

Gravekeeper’s Spy also makes decks like Soul Control much more consistent. The biggest weakness to that old (and for some reason forgotten) archetype is that there would be games in which you drew nothing but tribute monsters, or else drew no real threats at all. Drawing a Gravekeeper’s Spy will either survive Cyber Dragon’s attack and leave you with a monster to use as a tribute for Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch, or it can provide you with two solid tributes. If you aren’t drawing any threats, the defense of your Spy should slow your opponent down until you draw into something relevant.

However, Gravekeeper’s Spy can be a difficult monster to use effectively, much like Thunder Dragon. It is with Gravekeeper’s Spy that I see mistakes made in the deckbuilding stage of a player’s tournament preparation. Here’s a breakdown of a few dos and don’ts to keep in mind when you’re working with this monster.

Do!

Use this card in decks with hefty and “real” tributes.

This could be seen as a given, but Gravekeeper’s Spy isn’t going to win the game for a control player simply through its effect. As nice as that extra card may be, advantage doesn’t win games. It just makes it harder for you to lose. You need to be actively using your defensive monsters late in a game, and any threatening tribute monster works. Mobius the Frost Monarch and Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch are great examples, and it’s a reason Soul Control uses the Spies with great efficiency. In this case, Cyber Dragon doesn’t count. In fact, I wouldn’t even want to run Cyber Dragon in a deck with Gravekeeper’s Spy monsters or other field-presence monsters such as Mystic Tomato, Apprentice Magician, Nimble Momonga, and, on occasion, Spirit Reaper. You want to treat Cyber Dragon like a free 2100 ATK beatstick. Tribute summoning that Machine is more demoralizing than being forced to tribute summon your own Spirit Reaper for Patrician of Darkness.

Run three copies of this card in a Gravekeeper deck.

This should be another automatic decision. Search effects are amazing. If players could run three copies of Sangan, you know they would. Three copies of Gravekeeper’s Spy is an efficient way of thinning your deck and keeping your field fresh and full of attackers with the Gravekeeper Aggro deck.

Don’t!

Run this card with only two Gravekeepers.

This is one of the biggest mistakes I see when players are building decks. I commonly see players running only two copies of Gravekeeper’s Spy. This is an incredibly dangerous strategy, since it can leave you highly vulnerable to drawing both of them at one point. Two Gravekeeper’s Spy monsters in your opening hand isn’t awful (like Treeborn Frog and Royal Decree in an opening hand), but it’s certainly not efficient. It might slow your opponent down, but it’s going to slow you down far more since it leaves you with few real threats. If your first Gravekeeper’s Spy were to be destroyed, then the second one in your deck isn’t going to help you dig yourself out of a bad situation. It’s just going to be a random monster that will get trampled by a Monarch later in the duel.

It’s more efficient to run a full set of Gravekeeper’s Spy monsters, or two Spies and one Gravekeeper’s Guard. This gives you a third monster to special summon if you draw two Gravekeeper monsters at the beginning of the game. While you may risk drawing into a potentially third and less useful Gravekeeper later in the duel, it guarantees that the first monster you draw will at least be useful in providing board presence.

Put this card in decks with more efficient search monsters.

Tomato-Control does not need Gravekeeper’s Spy. It can certainly be useful in the side deck as an optional monster to summon with Mystic Tomato for some Tsukuyomi shenanigans during your next turn, but it isn’t necessary. Mystic Tomato makes that deck work far more efficiently, since it has a broader range of monsters to search out for you. It’s fine to experiment with Gravekeeper’s Spy in this deck, but don’t treat it as an automatic inclusion. Strike Ninja prefers Dark monsters that hit the graveyard faster, but if your build is more focused on winning with a Monarch, and you can make room  for and deal with the tempo sacrifice of Tsukuyomi, Gravekeeper’s Spy may work.

I personally don’t prefer it here, and if I were to run any other search monsters in Tomato Control, it would probably be two Apprentice Magician cards. This is because most of the time they would share more synergy with my cards, which tends to open up the number of controlling options I have.

Final Thoughts

Gravekeeper’s Spy is one of my favorite level 4 monsters. Its effect is tremendously useful in the decks that it belongs in, and it’s definitely one of the reasons to run Soul Control right now. Could Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch make a comeback at an upcoming Shonen Jump Championship? I believe it can, if a player spends the time to look at how beneficial that deck type is in the current metagame. Such a player will almost certainly consider running three flip effect Gravekeepers in his or her deck.

If you have any questions or comments regarding this or previous articles of mine, feel free to e-mail me at Mrosenberg@Metagame.com. If you haven’t received a response from me yet over the past few weeks, hang tight! I’m finishing up with the last few weeks of my sophomore year here at college, and I’ll have ample time to get back to each of you in a few days.