Spell
NormalDark Element
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If you have a "Gate Guardian" monster in your GY: Pay half your LP; Special Summon 1 Level 11 or higher "Gate Guardian" monster from your hand, Deck, or Extra Deck, ignoring its Summoning conditions. You can banish this card from your GY; add 1 of your "Sanga of the Thunder", "Kazejin", or "Suijin" from your Deck or banishment to your hand. You can only use each effect of "Dark Element" once per turn.
Dark Element — Power Evaluation
Final Score: 53 ± 6 · Confidence: Medium
- Intrinsic: 51 · Deck: 60 · Meta: provisional
- Primary role: Combo enabler · Secondary: Searcher/Tutor
Why it scores here
Dark Element converts a Gate Guardian graveyard into two things: a Level 11+ Gate Guardian Special Summon for half your LP, and a one-card search of Sanga, Kazejin or Suijin by banishing itself from the graveyard. Its power comes from being a reliable enabler inside Gate Guardian shells, which the decks data confirms (98.6% of its 278 decks also run Gate Guardians Combined). It has no interaction, no material value, and no combo observations, so the score stays in the middle. The card's high view count and 66.7% usage in one archetype were not used to raise the score.
Axis scores
| Axis | Score | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | 72 | Live in 278 decks, most of them Gate Guardian, and the banish-to-search route needs no board presence (verified deck counts; the GY condition for effect 1 is verified from text) (verified). |
| Combo & Conversion | 70 | Effect 1 can Special Summon a Level 11+ Gate Guardian, and the top partners confirm the Gate Guardian line is real, but no recorded combo boards exist, so the conversion rate is unmeasured (inferred). |
| Resource Economy | 45 | Banishing itself from the graveyard to add one card is a one-for-one recursion. The LP cost is a real price, so the net advantage is roughly even (verified text, inferred net value). |
| Effect & Interaction | 5 | The card has no negation, removal or hand-trap reach (verified text). |
| Material Utility | 5 | A Spell card cannot be used as material, so its body value is nil (verified frame type). |
| Resilience & Flexibility | 55 | Two effects, each once per turn, with the search effect working from the graveyard, give some redundancy across zones (verified text, inferred). |
| Deck-Building Efficiency | 45 | The card needs a Gate Guardian monster in the graveyard and a half-LP payment, which restricts it to Gate Guardian decks; it runs 1 to 3 copies with an average of 1.65 (observed deck data, inferred restriction). |
Calculation
Weight profile: 0.7 Combo enabler + 0.3 Searcher/Tutor. Intrinsic ≈ 51, Deck ≈ 60, Meta = provisional. Modifiers: Self-locking restriction (-3). Final formula: 0.40*Intrinsic + 0.60*Deck
Strengths
- Searches one of three Gate Guardian-support cards from the graveyard
- Special Summons a Level 11+ Gate Guardian without its summoning conditions
- Near-universal partner density inside Gate Guardian decks (98.6%)
Weaknesses
- Needs a Gate Guardian monster in the graveyard and half of your LP for the Special Summon
- Zero interaction and zero material value
- Narrow to one archetype family (34 distinct archetypes, most decks are Gate Guardian)
Counters / choke points
- Graveyard hate, since both effects depend on graveyard resources
- LP-based disruption, since the Special Summon costs half your LP
Best use
Combo enabler and searcher from the graveyard. Decks: Gate Guardian.
Evidence & gaps
- Verified: Effect 1: pay half LP and Special Summon a Level 11+ Gate Guardian from hand, Deck or Extra Deck, ignoring summoning conditions, if a Gate Guardian monster is in the GY; Effect 2: banish from the GY to add one of Sanga of the Thunder, Kazejin or Suijin from Deck or banishment to hand; Both effects are once per turn; Present in 278 decks, 98.6% alongside Gate Guardians Combined
- Observed: Average 1.65 copies per deck, max 3; Usage in Gate Guardian (1682) at 66.7% inclusion
- Inferred: The GY-based search is a one-for-one recursion with roughly even card advantage; Gate Guardian lines get redundancy from having two independent effects
- Data gaps: No combos supplied, so combo conversion is text-only inference No guides supplied No banlist token, so 3 copies assumed (unlimited) Activation zone of effect 1 is not stated in the text