Combating the Format: Nekroz

[Stardog]

I know that I already do stuff on YGO news but I still feel as if I don't enough around here so I thought I would try to give advice in YuGiOh. This is a new idea that I popped into my head from the post I made on a thread question that Tormmentor asked. So I give props to Tormmentor for giving me this idea.

It's still early in the meta but according to my sources; Nekroz and Burning Abyss are not dead and are indeed still topping, but give other decks a chance of topping since they have been slowed down from the April 2015 Banlist. Other decks that are topping as well include: Ritual Beast, Satellarknight, Shaddoll, Infernoid, Volcanic, HERO, Fire Fist, Yosenju, Mermail and surprisingly a Blackwing deck topped as well.

I'll go over on these decks strategy and how to counter them. Starting from decks that are OU at the moment. Since it's early on in the meta, I'll only be going over 1 deck at the moment which will be Nekroz. I apologize for this only covering 1 deck. I will be making posts covering many more decks but I wanted to get this post out ASAP.

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Nekroz

Primarily, the Nekroz Ritual Monsters ATK or DEF stats similar to those of their Synchro counterparts, while also having the same Level. The effects of those ones with Level from 3 to 6 are used to suppress monsters Summoned from the Extra Deck, while the effects of those ones whose Levels range from 7 to 11 give to the player more card advantage, mainly by destroying and/or banishing other cards. In addition, all of them feature a second ability that can be activated by discarding them; these effects range from protecting and powering your Nekroz monsters to reviving them and searching for resources. This remarkable property alleviates the recurring problem with Ritual monsters becoming dead draws when the player does not have means of Ritual Summoning them. In addition, the discard-based effects of those ones with Level from 3 to 6 are Spell Speed 1, while the ones with Level 7 and above can be activated during either player's turn.

Weaknesses: The main threat to the Nekroz strategy are cards that lock its owner's deck from searching effects, such as Thunder King Rai-Oh and mainly Mistake; this counterstrategy is particularly threatening because it can single-handedly shut down Clausolas, Brionac, Shurit, Reinforcement of the Army, Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands, Senju of the Thousand Hands and Preparation of Rites, and the second effect of the Ritual Spell Cards. One can also use "Shared Ride" to take profit of their many searcher effects. Nekroz ritual monsters are also vulnerable to effects that shut down on-hand effects, such as Mind Drain, Debunk, etc. Imperial Iron Wall can lock your graveyard from the effect of the ritual spell cards and the effects of Nekroz of Valkyrus, Trishula and Decisive Armor.

Masked HERO Dark Law, Macro Cosmos and Dimensional Fissure are also very powerful counterpicks, once it will banish any fodder for the ritual summons while also will banishing the ritual spell cards themselves after their resolve, making the deck run out of resources on the long run (This is only referring to Macro Cosmos and Masked HERO Dark Law. Dimensional Fissure will not banish any Spells or Traps). Masked HERO Dark Law also banishes a random card from the hand at the time a searching effect resolves, potentially crippling the Nekroz strategy.

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I hope this helps you guys combat Nekroz. Again, I will be covering a lot more decks as the week/month progresses. If there is a specific deck you'd like me to cover and expose it's weaknesses and how it functions, leave a response to what you'd want that deck to be.

[Kira Yoshikage]

Crush Card, Eradicator Virus, and Mind Crush are also powerful picks in this matchup because you are almost always going to hit SOMETHING when you use them. Also, Eradicator Virus didn't get the errata that Crush Card has, screwing them on Ritual Spells for the next few turns. Decks that can play these cards include: Evilswarm, Blackwing, Dark World, Gravekeeper's, Archfiends and Red-Eyes. Also, Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer is my personal option to side against them with the usual stuff because he prevents the Ritual Spells grave effects, and when he dishes out battle damage to the opponent: He forcefully banishes 2 cards from their graveyard.
The next deck I would like for you to cover is Burning Abyss, btw

[Flip Flapper]

thanks for doing this, what i would want to know how to battle though is satellarknights, i have ALWAYS had trouble when dealing with them, also how would you counter nekroz in a normal pendulum deck with fire warriors? (i have been testing igknights on ygopro and they have become one of my, if not my favorite deck) i feel like if they get that lock with that djinn you have basicly lost (they only have 2 main deck monster (and i have wicked avatar to) that can take down some of their monsters with brute force and they are hard to summon without the mass pendulum of the normal igknights)

[Nosferatu Alucard]

Just don't play Shared Rida and Mistake at the same time XD

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