Hi everyone!

My name is Daniele Stella from Italy and I’m an Intern Player from United Gosus. This is my first article and it will focus on the new Nekroz theme which will be legal with the next booster set: “The Secrets Forces”. This is a sample decklist which I’m going to explain the card choices:

Monster: 22
3 Manju of the Ten Thousand Hands
3 Senju of the Thousand Hands
3 Nekroz of Brionac
3 Nekroz of Unicore
3 Nekroz of Valkyrus
2 Shurit, Strategist of the Nekroz
2 Nekroz of Clausolas
1 Nekroz of Trishula
1 Nekroz of Gungnir
1 Djinn Releaser of Rituals

Spell: 18
3 Mystical Space Typhoon
3 Reinforcement of the Army
3 Preparation of Rites
2 Nekroz Kaleidoscope
2 Nekroz Mirror
2 Nekroz Cycle
2 Book of Eclipse
1 Raigeki

If you don’t know how the Nekroz cards work, then you should watch this video:

How do the cards work?
Nekroz is a toolbox deck. This means that it can search different cards for different situations. Manju and Senju are the best searcher for the deck (surprise, surprise). In this deck Senju can also search the Ritual Spell cards! For example you can add Nekroz of Clausolas and discard him to search the Spell card. In other words: Senju can work like Manju!

Shurit, Strategist of the Nekroz is used as a complete tribute. You tribute him and then you can search either Nekroz of Brionac, Nekroz of Clausolas or Nekroz of Trishula. I play Reinforcement of the Army to get him as soon as possible.

Djinn Releaser of Rituals is the best card for the Nekroz mirror match. He is also used to summon Nekroz of Clausolas for Nekroz Cycle and you can send it to graveyard with Lavalval Chain.

Nekroz of Brionac is the best Ritual monster in the deck. He can search all Nekroz monsters from the deck and when he’s on the field then you can shuffle 2 monsters from the extra deck back to where they belong. Important note: if you shuffle Pendulum-Monsters back, they return to the Main Deck and not the Extra Deck.

Nekroz of Clausolas is a Warrior monster level 3, so you can search it with Reinforcement of the Army and you can also discard him to search a Ritual Spell card from your deck.

Nekroz of Trishula is the best Ritual monster in the mirror match and you only need 1! He shares the same effects as his Synchro brother Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier who is banned at the moment so you can imagine that this card is really strong. You can play 2 copies but I prefer to play only 1.

Nekroz of Unicore is based on the Fabled Unicore. He’s a level 4 monster who is really good against Evilswarm because you can negate Ophion’s effect with him. You can also use him to make an XYZ monster like Lavalval Chain (to send the Djinn to the graveyard) together with either a Manju and Senju from a previous turn.

Nekroz of Valkyrus is the boss monster! In fact he has 2900 ATK points. I will explain some combos with him later on.

Nekroz of Gungnir is our Safe Zone and he’s really good against Qliphort. I wouldn’t play more than 1.

I play 2 of all the Ritual Spell cards because all of them are strong. Nekroz Kaleidoscope is in my opinion the best Nekroz Ritual Spell card. You can send Herald of the Arc Light to the graveyard to summon Nekroz Unicore! This is a basic combo of the deck.

Nekroz Mirror is suited best for the mid/late game. You can summon Nekroz of Clausolas and banish the Djinn and prevent your opponent’s special summons. Basically you will have a Vanity’s Fiend on the field.

If you compare Nekroz Cycle to the previous Nekroz Ritual Spell card then they seem stronger than this one but you can summon a lot of Ritual monsters by tributing Shurit, Strategist of the Nekroz so I think that I need to play also 2 of it. Just to have enough Ritual summons for one big turn.

WOMBO COMBO!
You start with either Manju or Senju and Kaleidoscope or Unicore. You summon one, search the missing part, so you can activate Kaleidoscope sending Herald of the Arc Light to the graveyard and summon Unicore. Then you add Clausolas with Herald and then Nekroz Cycle with Clausolas. Now you Summon Lavalval Chain and send the Djinn to the graveyard. Afterwards you activate Cycle, banish the Djinn and summon Clausolas from the graveyard.

So you have Lavalval Chain and Clausolas on the field and also your opponent can’t special summon monsters. This should be gg (= good game) in mirror match or against Burning Abyss, if the Burning Abyss plays no traps.

A good card in mirror match against the “Djinn lock” could be either Dark hole or Raigeki,but your opponent can discard Gungnir from his hand to protect Clausolas from it and if it happens then you will cry! Book of Eclipse cannot neither be countered by Gungnir nor Trishula, but has some drawbacks on it’s own.

When they changed the ruling about Snatch Steal and Djinn, I changed my mind and kicked it. Another reason is that it was the only card to make my opponent’s Mystical Space Typhoons alive; now they have 3 dead cards in their Deck.

If you want to see all the combos the deck can pull off the you should watch this video:

MATCH-UPS
Qliphort: Qliphort isn’t a good match-up because the deck runs 3 Skill Drain and 3 Vanity’s Emptiness. Both cards are more than strong against Nekroz!

Burning Abyss: If they play too many traps then you can play Denko Sekka but the match-up is easy at the moment because their traps don’t hurt Nekroz and Trishula is a big problem for them!

Shaddoll: This is the best match-up! You never summon monsters from the extra deck and you play Djinn Releaser of Rituals! Resolving Trishula against Shaddoll is also a great way to win.

Mirror match: The mirror match is really difficult. The only real win condition card is the Djinn lock! Other than that you need keep your board free of Monsters, so your opponent cannot use Trishula on you. Nekroz of Valkyrus helps you to survive with an open field. Number 80: Rhapsody in Berserk can help you to play against Valkyrus and OTK anyway.

Satellarknight: Satellar can be a bad match-up because it can play Vanity’s Emptiness and the XYZ monster Stellarknight Constellar Diamond is really strong against Nekroz!

If you want to see how Nekroz plays against Satellar you should watch this video:

This is it. I hope this will help you with your Nekroz experience and if you see me at an European event (eg. YCS Prague) then don’t be shy and say hello!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniele Stella is an Intern Player and has been a member of United Gosus since 2015. For more information on Daniele check out his member profile.