Trap
ContinuousHead Judging
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5090
When a monster on the field activates its effect: You can make the activating player toss a coin and call it. If they call it right, send this card to the GY. If they call it wrong, negate that effect's activation, and if you do, change control of that monster to their opponent. You can only use this effect of "Head Judging" once per turn.
Head Judging — Power Evaluation
Final Score: 56 ± 6 · Confidence: Medium
- Intrinsic: 56 · Deck: 56 · Meta: provisional
- Primary role: Removal / Negation · Secondary: Board breaker / Going-second
Why it scores here
Head Judging is a reactive Continuous Trap that answers only a field monster's effect activation, and its outcome is a coin call: a right call sends the trap to the GY with no effect, while a wrong call negates the effect and steals the monster. Its value therefore comes from a coin-gated steal and negation, not from the card body. The 62-deck footprint across 40 archetypes shows it is a real, portable staple, but that frequency only confirms accessibility, not strength. The lack of combo data means combo conversion is scored from text alone, and the card's bodyless, trap-zone-only nature earns almost nothing in material utility.
Axis scores
| Axis | Score | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | 55 | Set-able Trap in 62 of the sampled decks at about 1.5 copies, but it needs a field monster effect to activate and a draw to reach hand (decks_evidence; inference from text). (observed/inferred) |
| Combo & Conversion | 35 | No combo boards recorded and the card creates no board on its own; it only converts an opponent's field effect into a steal (combos_evidence empty; verified from text). (verified) |
| Resource Economy | 50 | A right call spends the trap for nothing, while a wrong call nets a monster steal plus negation, so the expected return is roughly even (verified text; 50% coin outcome inferred). (inferred) |
| Effect & Interaction | 60 | Negates and steals a field monster's effect with no board or hand restriction beyond the once-per-turn clause, but the 50% coin gate caps its reliability (verified text). (verified) |
| Material Utility | 5 | A Trap card is never material and has no body to convert, so this axis is near zero (verified from frame_type). (verified) |
| Resilience & Flexibility | 40 | Lives in the Spell/Trap zone and is spent on a right call; it has no recursion or multi-zone reach (verified text). (verified) |
| Deck-Building Efficiency | 72 | A single trap slot with no garnet, lock, or self-restriction, and it is splashable and cheap to run at 1-3 copies (decks_evidence; verified text). (observed) |
Calculation
Weight profile: 0.7 Removal/Negation + 0.3 Board breaker/Going-second. Intrinsic ≈ 56, Deck ≈ 56, Meta = provisional. Modifiers: Limited-to-1 (Duel Links legal copies) (-2). Final formula: 0.40*Intrinsic + 0.60*Deck
Strengths
- Negates a field monster's effect and can steal the monster on a wrong call
- Playable in 40 archetypes, with consistent 1-3 copy inclusion across 62 decks
- Clean deckbuilding: no garnet, lock, or self-restriction
Weaknesses
- Coin-gated: a right call wastes the trap with no effect
- Works only on field monster effects, so spell, trap, and hand effects are not answered
- Once per turn, and spent on use; no recursion
Counters / choke points
- Hand or GY effects, and spell or trap effects, that this trap cannot answer
- Coin-call outcome: a right call leaves the monster's effect unnegated
Best use
Set trap for answering a field monster's effect in a generic interaction slot. Decks: Altergeist, Alien, Fairy Tail, Knightmare shells with Compulsory Evacuation Device. Suggested copies: 1.
Evidence & gaps
- Verified: Coin-toss-gated negation and control change, once per turn, field monsters only (card.description); Trap frame type; no material value (card.frame_type); Duel Links legal copies capped at 1 (legal_copies)
- Observed: Present in 62 decks, 40 archetypes, mostly at 1-3 copies (decks_evidence); Frequent with Compulsory Evacuation Device, Knightmare Phoenix, and Knightmare Unicorn (top_partners)
- Inferred: About 50% chance of negation and steal, since the activating player's call is independent of the coin result; Interaction value is strongest in archetypes that rely on field monster effects
- Data gaps: no combos supplied: combo conversion is text-only inference no guides supplied no usage statistics (StatisticsCard): inclusion is from the deck sample only legal_copies only lists duellink; TCG/OCG/MasterDuel limits unknown