With the release of The Secret Forces three new Deck types have been introduced: Ritual Beast, Yosenju, and Nekroz. The latter has been the most dominant Deck of this tournament, so Duelists have been doing their best to find ways to put the match up in their favor. Let us take a look at the most popular ways they have done so:

Artifact Lancea

Nekroz of Trishula is one of the most powerful cards that Nekroz has access to, simply being able to banish a bunch of your opponent’s cards for minimal resources is a huge deal against Decks like Burning Abyss and Qliphort that rely on their cards hitting the Graveyard or being destroyed respectively. In addition to that, being able to banish Monsters from the Graveyard to Ritual Summon, such as using the effect of Djinn Releaser of Rituals or Nekroz Mirror, helps Nekroz either lock out the opponent or gain more ways to Special Summon without costing them too much. These reasons are why Artifact Lancea is a huge pick for the weekend, being able to tribute itself from your hand during your opponent’s turn in order to avoid losing out to Nekroz of Trishula or Djinn Releaser of Rituals are keys ways to make Nekroz significantly less efficient.

D.D. Warrior Lady and Bull Blader

Having ways to get a Nekroz ritual Monster off the Field after it has been Summoned using Djinn Releaser of Rituals as a material is super important, and because a lot of Nekroz Duelists have been using Reinforcement of the Army for added consistency, they have begun also Side Decking a few value targets to get around this such as D.D. Warrior Lady and Bull Blader! Both have their ups and downs; D.D. Warrior Lady is awesome because it can’t be stopped by either Nekroz of Gungnir or Nekroz of Trishula discarding themselves, but Bull Blader stays face up if he survives the battle, meaning that it they can use it as an Xyz Material later that turn.

Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer

Much like Artifact Lancea, Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer has key advantages against Nekroz. What makes it a bit better than Artifact Lancea is that it stays in play, so if the opponent needs to banish their Ritual Spells from the Graveyard in order to get going they simply cannot. It also works doing your turn, unlike Artifact Lancea, meaning that you can attack without fearing Nekroz of Valkyrus stopping you. Being a Monster also has downsides though, because it is able to be removed from the Field whereas Artifact Lancea is safe in the hand.

Mathematician for Glow-Up Bulb and Tackle Crusader

Mathematician has been a popular choice for Nekroz Duelists as a good way to send Djinn Releaser of Rituals, opening up a good fast way to get that going. What has been more innovative this weekend is using it to send Glow-Up Bulb, and then Special Summoning it via its own effect and Synchroing away the Mathematician for Herald of the Arch Light! Not only does its continuous effect hinder opposing strategies, but being able to negate something and then search a key Ritual Monster or Ritual Spell is a a great way to maintain card flow. Tackle Crusader fills the roll as a way to get rid of pesky cards like Vanity’s Emptiness as well a Ritual Monsters Summoned using a Djinn Releaser of Rituals as a material or something like Vanity’s Fiend.

Book of Eclipse

Half of what makes Nekroz so powerful is their ability to Special Summon a Ritual Monster using Djinn Releaser of Rituals and then being able to protect it via Nekroz of Trishula and Nekroz of Gungnir. So how do you get around this? The most popular way to do so this weekend was Book of Eclipse by a long shot; a simple and effective way to get Flip the Monster face down and render the Djinn useless. It also lets Nekroz Duelists reuse Senju of the Thousand Hands or Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands if they control it when activating Book of Eclipse, so the additional upside is always nice.

Shared Ride

One way to put Nekroz is a tough situation is forcing them to choose whether searching is owrth it or not when that is the one thing their Deck does best. Shared Ride does exactly this, replacing itself with another card when Chained to something like Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands, Nekroz of Brionac, or Preparation of Rites, and forcing the Nekroz player to either stop progressing their game plan or give you a ton of free cards in the process!

There is a lot of options when choosing what you want to try to fend off Nekroz, even more than what we have listed above, so find what way works best for you and go with it!