When I was a wee lad, I played a ton of Yu-Gi-Oh! I was enrolled in after-school daycare in the early 2000s; what else was I supposed to do? Whole afternoons would be spent dueling in the trading card game — activating trap cards, summoning monsters, attacking an opponent’s life points (LP). When I’d get home, I’d play even more Yu-Gi-Oh! on my Game Boy Advance with Yu-Gi-Oh! The Eternal Duelist Soul. Whether I was playing against people or pixels, my strategy would always remain the same and was built around a specific magic card, Gravekeeper’s Servant.
The goal of Yu-Gi-Oh! is simple enough: get your opponent’s life points (LP) down to 0 before they do the same to you. That’s the most conventional way to win, but I’ve found myself with a different goal in mind: eliminating my opponent’s deck, which Gravekeeper’s Servant is excellent at. If a player has no cards left to draw at the start of their turn, they lose, regardless of who has more LP.
With Gravekeeper’s Servant face-up on the field, any time your opponent attacks, they must discard the top card from their deck to the graveyard. Whether they’re attacking your life points directly or targeting a face-down set monster, they must discard a card. Yu-Gi-Oh! decks run between a minimum of 40 cards and maximum of 60, but most players will want their decks closer to 40, making the process of whittling it down quite speedy with Gravekeeper’s Servant in play.
With high-defense monsters protecting my LP — hello, good ol’ classic Giant Soldier of Stone and your 2,000 defense points — I can play prevent defense and send face-down effect monsters out to tempt my opponent into attacking them. Needle Worm is a favorite here, as once it’s flipped over, the top five cards on your opponent’s deck get sent to the graveyard. Cyber Jar is also useful if you don’t mind harming yourself a bit; once flipped, all monsters on the field are destroyed and both players draw five new cards from their decks, summoning any level four or lower monsters.
Basically, any card that revolves around forcing my opponent to discard cards from their deck can make its way into my deck. Once my opponent can’t draw any more cards, victory is mine. It may not be the most honorable way to win — and I imagine it’s quite annoying to play against — but a win is a win all the same.
Lately, though, I’ve only had pixelated opponents to duel, so being annoying isn’t a concern. I’ve been enjoying February’s Yu-Gi-Oh! Early Days Collection, a compilation of 14 games from the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance days. Specifically, The Eternal Duelist Soul: we could all use a little childhood nostalgia as the world crumbles around us, no?
I don’t think I’ll be able to annoy any IRL opponents with my Gravekeeper’s Servant strategy as I don’t think I even own the card any more — or any Yu-Gi-Oh! card for that matter. Like so many regretful 30-year-olds, I likely donated my Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, and many more childhood relics, between various moves (though I’m still hoping they live in a moving box… somewhere in my parents’ garage). Perhaps someday I’ll rebuild a real deck and find opponents to annoy with Gravekeeper’s Servant, one discarded card at a time.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
