EARTH
4Hyper Hammerhead
ATK:
1500
DEF:
1200
View:
2795
At the end of the Damage Step, if an opponent's monster that battled this card is not destroyed: Return that opponent's monster to the hand.
Hyper Hammerhead — Power Evaluation
Final Score: 45 ± 8 · Confidence: Medium
- Intrinsic: 46 · Deck: 45 · Meta: provisional
- Primary role: Board breaker
Why it scores here
Hyper Hammerhead is a generic Level 4 body whose only effect is a battle-timed bounce: it returns an opponent's monster to hand at the end of the Damage Step, but only if that monster battled it and was not destroyed. That gives tempo and soft board interaction, not card advantage, and it is blanked by anything that stops the battle. The 1500 ATK and Level 4 earn nothing by themselves; the score comes from the conditional bounce and the cheap, single-copy deck cost. Presence in 10 decks across 8 archetypes confirms portability, not strength, and there is no combo evidence to lift combo conversion above a text-only inference.
Axis scores
| Axis | Score | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | 40 | Plain Level 4 body with no searcher or hand effect in the text, and it appears in 10 decks, but there is no starter/searched breakdown to confirm how reliably it is drawn or summoned (inference from text plus deck count; medium confidence). |
| Combo & Conversion | 15 | The card does nothing on its own and no recorded boards exist, so conversion rests on the text alone: one body that only acts after a battle (inferred). |
| Resource Economy | 10 | The bounce returns an opponent's monster to hand, which is tempo rather than card advantage, and there is no GY refuel or search (verified from card text). |
| Effect & Interaction | 45 | The bounce works only when an opponent monster battles it and survives the Damage Step, a soft and situational form of interaction (verified from card text). |
| Material Utility | 45 | A Level 4 Earth Dinosaur is a generic Level 4 material and keeps that value even when its effect is negated (inferred from stats and text; no as_material observations). |
| Resilience & Flexibility | 30 | The effect dies to any non-battle removal or negation before the Damage Step, and there is no redundancy or multi-turn value (inferred from text). |
| Deck-Building Efficiency | 80 | Average 1.2 copies per deck, no garnet or lock, and a single-copy-friendly body make it cheap to run and easy to splash (observed in decks_evidence). |
Calculation
Weight profile: Single primary role: Board breaker / Going-second; no secondary blend. Intrinsic ≈ 46, Deck ≈ 45, Meta = provisional. Modifiers: none. Final formula: 0.40*Intrinsic + 0.60*Deck
Strengths
- Cheap single-copy body whose battle-timed bounce returns an opponent monster to hand
- Level 4 Earth Dinosaur is a generic Level 4 material and keeps that value when its effect is negated
- Appears across 8 distinct archetypes in the sample, so it is portable across homes
Weaknesses
- Effect only fires when an opponent monster battles it and survives the Damage Step
- No searcher, no combo evidence, and no card advantage
- Battle-timed effect is lost to any non-battle removal or negation before the Damage Step
Counters / choke points
- Non-battle removal or effect negation before the Damage Step
- Opponent monsters that are destroyed in battle, so the bounce never triggers
- Opponent declining to battle the card
Best use
Single-copy battle-timed bounce on a generic Level 4 body. Decks: Dinos, Kaiju, Ninja, Harpie, Egyptian God. Suggested copies: 1.
Evidence & gaps
- Verified: Level 4 Earth Dinosaur Effect Monster, 1500 ATK / 1200 DEF (card text); Effect: at the end of the Damage Step, if an opponent's monster that battled it is not destroyed, return that monster to hand (card text); Present in 10 of the 400-deck sample, averaging 1.2 copies per deck (decks_evidence)
- Observed: Appears in 8 distinct archetypes; 80% of decks are gameplay type 4 (decks_evidence); Frequent co-occurrence with Raise Body Heat, Ultra Evolution Pill and Dust Tornado in 7 of 10 decks (decks_evidence); Mentioned in one guide, which lists it in a Core section (guides_evidence)
- Inferred: Effect is conditional and tempo-only, so its value is modest against non-battle interaction (from text); Generic Level 4 material value survives negation (from stats and text)
- Data gaps: no combos supplied: combo conversion and starter/material rates are text-only inference no banlist token: assumed 3 copies (unlimited) no usage statistics (StatisticsCard): archetype inclusion % inferred from the deck sample only no average starter count available, so DeckResilience is estimated from archetype spread alone no rulings available for the Damage Step timing of the battle trigger