Trap
ContinuousAncient Gear Duel
Archetype:
Ancient Gear
View:
4023
"Ancient Gear Golem", and monsters that mention it, in your Monster Zone are unaffected by your opponent's activated monster effects. If your opponent controls a monster: You can Fusion Summon 1 Fusion Monster that mentions "Ancient Gear Golem" from your Extra Deck, by banishing monsters from your field or GY as material, including "Ancient Gear Golem" you control, and if you do, it can make up to 3 attacks during each Battle Phase. You can only use this effect of "Ancient Gear Duel" once per turn.
Ancient Gear Duel — Power Evaluation
Final Score: 51 ± 6 · Confidence: Medium
- Intrinsic: 47 · Deck: 53 · Meta: provisional
- Primary role: Extender · Secondary: Boss/End-board
Why it scores here
Ancient Gear Duel converts a board of field and graveyard monsters, plus Ancient Gear Golem, into a Fusion Monster from the Extra Deck that can attack up to three times in a Battle Phase. That makes it a real Fusion-extension and boss-making piece inside its home archetype, but the score is capped by its conditions: it needs the opponent to control a monster, it spends material, and its first clause only protects Golem-family monsters from monster effects. The 400-deck sample shows it runs in nearly every Ancient Gears list at one copy, which confirms accessibility and practical use but does not raise power. No combo evidence was supplied, so the conversion score rests on text, and the card is a Trap with no material value of its own.
Axis scores
| Axis | Score | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | 55 | Present in 400 of 400 sampled decks at about 1 copy each, mainly Ancient Gears homes, but no combo starter or searched data exists to confirm how often it is live in hand (observed for deck presence, inferred for liveness). |
| Combo & Conversion | 65 | The text converts field and graveyard material into a Fusion Monster with up to three Battle Phase attacks, a strong conversion when the opponent has a monster, but no recorded board examples confirm it (inferred). |
| Resource Economy | 40 | It banishes monsters as Fusion material, which costs board and graveyard bodies, and it has no recursion or refuel clause in the text (verified). |
| Effect & Interaction | 30 | It only protects Golem-family monsters from opponent monster effects and offers no negation, removal, or hand-trap reach (verified). |
| Material Utility | 5 | As a Trap card it cannot be material, so the body contributes nothing and the score reflects the effect alone (verified). |
| Resilience & Flexibility | 45 | The protection clause helps the Golem line resist monster-effect interaction, but a face-up Continuous Trap can be removed by spell or trap effects and the effect is once per turn (inferred). |
| Deck-Building Efficiency | 55 | One copy in almost every list is a cheap slot, but the Golem-mention text restricts it to Ancient Gear builds (observed for copy count, verified for text). |
Calculation
Weight profile: 0.7 Extender + 0.3 Boss/End-board. Intrinsic ≈ 47, Deck ≈ 53, Meta = provisional. Modifiers: none. Final formula: 0.40*Intrinsic + 0.60*Deck
Strengths
- Turns field and graveyard material into a Fusion Monster from the Extra Deck with no search needed (verified)
- Lets the resulting Fusion attack up to three times in a Battle Phase (verified)
- Protects Ancient Gear Golem and related monsters from opponent monster effects (verified)
- Runs in 400 of 400 sampled decks at one copy, so it is a cheap, consistent slot in its home (observed)
Weaknesses
- Requires the opponent to control a monster before its Fusion effect works (verified)
- Spends field and graveyard monsters as material, so it costs board presence (verified)
- Offers no negation, removal, or hand-trap reach (verified)
- Its once-per-turn limit and the Golem-mention restriction narrow where it fits (verified)
Counters / choke points
- Opponent spell or trap removal that destroys the face-up Continuous Trap (inferred)
- Opponent monster-effect removal against the Fusion before or during the Battle Phase, since protection covers only Golem-family monsters (inferred)
Best use
Fusion extender and protection for the Ancient Gear Golem line. Decks: Ancient Gears (archetype 693, gameplay 7), Ancient Gears (archetype 124, gameplay 3). Suggested copies: 1.
Evidence & gaps
- Verified: Continuous Trap that protects Ancient Gear Golem and monsters that mention it from opponent monster effects; Fusion Summon from Extra Deck by banishing field or graveyard monsters as material, including Ancient Gear Golem you control; Fusion Monster can attack up to three times in a Battle Phase when this effect is used; Effect requires the opponent to control a monster and is once per turn; Present in 400 of 400 sampled decks, with 379 at one copy
- Observed: Near-total co-occurrence with Ultimate Ancient Gear Golem, Ancient Gear Fortress, and Ancient Gear Catapult in the sampled decks; Inclusion of 100% in three Ancient Gears usage-statistics rows and 70% in one
- Inferred: The Fusion route is the main reason the card is played rather than the protection clause; Continuous Trap removal by opponent spells and traps reduces its uptime; Liveness is decent but unconfirmed without combo starter data
- Data gaps: no combos supplied, so conversion and starter, searched, and material shares are text-only no banlist token, so copy limit is assumed to be 3 no rulings or timing notes for the Continuous Trap set and activation sequence legal_copies is empty for all four formats no per-format top-card ranking (not top card)