Trap
NormalBackup Soldier
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4655
While there are 5 or more monsters in your Graveyard: Target up to 3 non-Effect Monsters with 1500 or less ATK in your Graveyard; add them to your hand.
Backup Soldier — Power Evaluation
Final Score: 53 ± 8 · Confidence: Medium
- Intrinsic: 52 · Deck: 54 · Meta: provisional
- Primary role: Recovery/Recursion
Why it scores here
Backup Soldier is a recursion trap: once 5 or more monsters are in the Graveyard, it returns up to 3 non-Effect monsters with 1500 or less ATK from the GY to hand, which is a potential +2 card advantage for one card. Its value is concentrated in Exodia, which accounts for 31 of 54 sampled decks and the five Forbidden One pieces as top partners. The score is held down by the Graveyard threshold, the narrow monster filter, the lack of any combo or interaction evidence, and the fact that it is a set trap; the high deck count is treated as confirmation of accessibility, not of raw power.
Axis scores
| Axis | Score | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | 55 | Trap with a Graveyard threshold of 5 monsters; Exodia decks fill the GY, but no combo starter data is supplied (observed deck frequency, inferred access). |
| Combo & Conversion | 35 | Adds up to 3 bodies to hand but builds no board on its own, and no combo examples exist (inferred from card text). |
| Resource Economy | 80 | Up to +2 card advantage from one trap via recovery of non-Effect GY monsters with 1500 or less ATK (verified from card text). |
| Effect & Interaction | 5 | No negation, removal or disruption on the card text (verified from card text). |
| Material Utility | 25 | Returns monsters to hand rather than serving as material; the filter excludes Effect bodies (verified from card text). |
| Resilience & Flexibility | 40 | Set trap that is exposed to backrow removal and trap negation, and needs a full GY to function (inferred). |
| Deck-Building Efficiency | 50 | Single trap slot that is mostly used for Exodia at 1.61 average copies, with a narrow target filter that limits flexibility (observed from deck sample). |
Calculation
Weight profile: Recovery/Recursion primary; no secondary role (no combo evidence supports Searcher or Utility). Intrinsic ≈ 52, Deck ≈ 54, Meta = provisional. Modifiers: none. Final formula: 0.40*Intrinsic + 0.60*Deck
Strengths
- Converts a full Graveyard into up to 3 monsters in hand, giving up to +2 card advantage from one trap
- Strong Exodia placement: 31 of 54 sampled decks, and the five Forbidden One pieces co-occur in 90%+ of those decks
- Rules text is clear and unambiguous
Weaknesses
- Needs 5 or more monsters in the Graveyard before it does anything
- Only recovers non-Effect monsters with 1500 or less ATK, which limits targets outside Exodia
- No combo, starter or searched evidence in the supplied data
- Set trap that is vulnerable to backrow removal and trap negation (inferred)
Counters / choke points
- Backrow removal (inferred from set-trap status)
- Trap negation (inferred from card type)
Best use
Recovery of Exodia pieces from the Graveyard. Decks: Exodia. Suggested copies: 2.
Evidence & gaps
- Verified: Card text: 5+ monsters in GY condition, up to 3 non-Effect monsters with 1500 or less ATK added to hand; Card type: Trap, formats TCG/OCG/MasterDuel/DuelLinks
- Observed: 54 sampled decks, 31 of which are Exodia (57.4%); Average 1.61 copies per deck (distribution 1:31, 2:13, 3:10); Five Forbidden One pieces appear as top partners at 90%+ co-occurrence in Exodia decks
- Inferred: Recovery is the primary role, based on text, with no combo evidence to confirm it; Vulnerability to backrow removal and trap negation as a set trap; Suggested copies of 2 for Exodia
- Data gaps: no combos supplied, so combo conversion is text-only inference no guides supplied no banlist token, so 3 copies assumed (unlimited) no usage statistics (StatisticsCard), so archetype inclusion is inferred from the deck sample only no top-card ranking data supplied