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What is grave-relevance in yu-gi-oh?
Grave-relevance in Yu-Gi-Oh is any important or game-defining effect that resides in your graveyard (GY). Most of the time, these effects include an interaction that either protects card(s) on your field, or extends your plays to help you reach game. Whether or not your deck uses GY effects, learning different decks chokepoints in their GY’s can help you understand how to utilize important hand traps like Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion and the Bystial cards!
When to respond
Many hand traps, like the greatest Yu-Gi-Oh cards that exist, are hard once per turn. Meaning you have to know when to respond to your opponent to best hurt their strategies. Many times this will be when your opponent activates a monster effect in the GY that either special summons itself, or special summons another monster using itself in the GY. A meta relevant example of this would be Tearlament effects in the GY, like Tearlaments Scheiren, which fusion summons a monster by shuffling itself from the GY. Meaning that if you use an effect like Bystial Saronir or D.D. Crow to banish Scheiren in the GY, you can negate a huge extender from your opponent. And, since many of the decks in this format rely on their GY for plays, you can always hit your opponent’s chokepoints by simply keeping track of their important GY effects.
What cards should You use?
Many players spend HOURS testing different hand traps and their impact on the meta. And as they continue looking for hidden gems from the history of Yu-Gi-Oh, all you really need can be found easily (and cheaply) in recent prints. A huge example being Artifact Lancea, which in my own experiences has proven to be an amazing defensive and offensive card. As it defends your own cards from getting banished by Evenly Matched and it blocks your opponent from banishing cards from their GY to enable their combos! Another example could be D.D. Crow, which banishes any card in your opponent’s GY, meaning you can target a Runick spell, Nouvelles “Recipe” card, or even a Sky Striker card. But, really, any card that has an interaction with any GY is extremely capable of causing interruptions for your opponents. A few being;
- Ghost Belle & Haunted Mansion
- Any Bystial card
- D.D. Crow
- Artifact Lancea
- Skull Meister
- Silent Graveyard
- Dark World Puppetry
Conclusion
Ultimately, always look out for the right effects in any GY. Whether it’s an effect to extend your play or your opponent’s, you can always defend against either by paying attention. And, if you ever find yourself having trouble learning to check either GY for effects. Then learn a small signal you can use in duels to remember, like a die in your left hand, or a coin on heads. But, as always, remember to read your cards and continue improving! ‘Till next time duelists.
