EARTH
2Ancient Gear Cannon
Archetype:
Ancient Gear
ATK:
500
DEF:
500
View:
3507
You can Tribute this card; inflict 500 damage to your opponent, and if you do, neither player can activate Trap Cards during the Battle Phase of this turn.
Ancient Gear Cannon — Power Evaluation
Final Score: 45 ± 6 · Confidence: Medium
- Intrinsic: 47 · Deck: 46 · Meta: provisional
- Primary role: Utility · Secondary: Floodgate/Control, Material body
Why it scores here
Ancient Gear Cannon is a Level 2 Earth Machine that converts itself into 500 damage and, only if that damage lands, a Battle Phase lock on Trap Cards for both players. The card's own text supports a one-shot finisher with a conditional floodgate, not an engine. Its 500 ATK and 500 DEF earn nothing; the score comes from its clean, generic body and its presence in 38 sampled decks across seven archetypes. No combo boards were recorded, so its board-building and interaction value remain inferred rather than measured.
Axis scores
| Axis | Score | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | 45 | Reaching it depends on drawing or searching it, and the evidence has no searcher or starter data; it is present in 38 sampled decks, but that confirms availability, not reliability (observed). |
| Combo & Conversion | 25 | Its text converts only one 500-damage hit plus a conditional trap lock, and combo data has 0 boards, so it builds no board on its own (verified). |
| Resource Economy | 20 | It sacrifices itself for 500 damage with no draw, search, or recovery in its text, so the card advantage is negative (verified). |
| Effect & Interaction | 35 | The Battle Phase Trap lock is symmetric, conditional on dealing damage, and limited to one turn's Battle Phase, so it is soft interaction (verified). |
| Material Utility | 40 | Level 2 Earth Machine is a clean body for Level-based summons, and the Synchron, Simorgh and Junk decks in the sample suggest that use, but no material data supports it (inferred). |
| Resilience & Flexibility | 30 | Its effect can be negated before the Tribute resolves, and the damage-dependent lock fails if no damage is dealt, so it is fragile across turns (inferred). |
| Deck-Building Efficiency | 70 | It is a single generic slot with no garnet or lock-in restriction, and it is splashable at 1 to 3 copies; the Duel Links copy limit of 1 is a minor restriction (verified). |
Calculation
Weight profile: 0.7 Utility + 0.3 Floodgate/Control. Intrinsic ≈ 47, Deck ≈ 46, Meta = provisional. Modifiers: Duel Links Limited-to-1 (-2). Final formula: 0.40*Intrinsic + 0.60*Deck
Strengths
- Level 2 Earth Machine body that can serve as generic material (inferred)
- Generic text with no archetype dependency, so it fits seven archetypes in the sample (observed)
- One card delivers both 500 damage and a Battle Phase Trap lock (verified)
- Clean deckbuilding: single slot, no garnets, splashable (verified)
Weaknesses
- Sacrifices itself for its only effect, a net -1 card (verified)
- Trap lock depends on the 500 damage landing and lasts only through the Battle Phase (verified)
- No recorded combo boards, so combo value is unproven (observed)
- Duel Links copy limit of 1 (verified)
Counters / choke points
- Negating its effect before the Tribute resolves stops both the damage and the lock (inferred)
- Decks with no Trap Cards gain nothing from the lock, so it is weaker against them (inferred)
Best use
Level 2 tribute-for-damage utility with a conditional Battle Phase Trap lock. Decks: Ancient Gears, Synchron, Simorgh, Junk, Train. Suggested copies: 2.
Evidence & gaps
- Verified: Effect Monster, Level 2, EARTH Machine, 500 ATK / 500 DEF; Text: Tribute this card; inflict 500 damage to the opponent; if you do, neither player can activate Trap Cards during the Battle Phase of this turn; legal copies lists duellink: 1; Appears in 38 sampled decks, 14 of them Ancient Gears
- Observed: 38 decks run it, with an average of 1.79 copies per deck; Top partners appear alongside it in roughly 47-53% of decks; 84.2% of decks use gameplay type 7; 7 distinct archetypes; combo data records 0 boards containing the card
- Inferred: Its Level 2 Machine body is used as material in Synchron, Simorgh and Junk lines; Its main value is as a one-shot damage finisher with a conditional lock, not a board builder; Negating the effect before the Tribute resolves removes both the damage and the lock
- Data gaps: no combos supplied; combo conversion is text-only inference no usage statistics (StatisticsCard); archetype inclusion is inferred from the 38-deck sample only no rulings or FAQ; the timing of the Battle Phase lock relative to damage is inferred from text legal copies lists only duellink; limits in TCG, OCG and Master Duel are unknown two distinct archetype ids (693 and 322) are both named 'Ancient Gears'; the split was not resolved the guide mention is thin: one Vietnamese guide snippet