WIND
4Praying Mantis
ATK:
1500
DEF:
1200
View:
3195
Once per turn, when an opponent's monster declares an attack: You can send 1 card from your Spell & Trap Zone to the GY; return that opponent's monster to the hand. You can only use each of the following effects of "Praying Mantis" once per turn. During your Standby Phase: You can Special Summon 1 "Baby Mantis Token" (Insect/WIND/Level 1/ATK 500/DEF 500). You can banish this card from your GY; Special Summon 1 "Baby Mantis Token".
Praying Mantis — Power Evaluation
Final Score: 61 ± 7 · Confidence: Medium
- Intrinsic: 61 · Deck: 60 · Meta: provisional
- Primary role: Board breaker / Going-second · Secondary: Material body
Why it scores here
Praying Mantis is a generic Level 4 body whose value is an on-field attack interaction: once per turn it sends one of your Spell/Trap cards to the GY to return an attacking opponent monster to hand, and it recurs a Level 1 Baby Mantis Token from the Standby Phase or by banishing itself from the GY. Its 1500 ATK and 1200 DEF earn nothing; the score comes from the bounce, the recurring token body, and a one-copy slot that fits 25 archetypes. The bounce is a tempo trade that costs a Spell/Trap card, so it is capped by the S/T requirement and has no combo data behind it to lift the conversion axis.
Axis scores
| Axis | Score | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | 50 | Plain Level 4 monster with no searcher or starter evidence; it is drawn normally in one copy per deck (inferred, no combo data) (inferred). |
| Combo & Conversion | 40 | Text gives a bounce plus a token each Standby and GY-banish turn, but no combo boards show what it converts into (inferred). |
| Resource Economy | 45 | The bounce costs one of your Spell/Trap cards and returns an opponent monster to hand, which is tempo rather than card advantage; the token recursion adds bodies (verified). |
| Effect & Interaction | 60 | Once-per-turn bounce on any opponent attack declaration, requiring only a Spell/Trap to send, a real but situational interaction (verified). |
| Material Utility | 55 | Level 4 Insect WIND body is generic; the Level 1 Insect Baby Mantis Token is a usable material, but no as_material observations exist (inferred). |
| Resilience & Flexibility | 65 | Works from the field and the GY (banish for a token), giving multi-zone recursion; the bounce itself can be answered by the opponent (verified). |
| Deck-Building Efficiency | 80 | One copy in 400 of 400 sampled decks (avg 1, max 2 in 2 decks), no garnets or locks in the text, and a cheap generic slot (observed). |
Calculation
Weight profile: 0.7 Board breaker / Going-second + 0.3 Material body. Intrinsic ≈ 61, Deck ≈ 60, Meta = provisional. Modifiers: none. Final formula: 0.40*Intrinsic + 0.60*Deck
Strengths
- Once-per-turn bounce answers an attacking monster on the opponent's turn at the cost of one Spell/Trap card
- Recurs a Level 1 Insect token from the Standby Phase and from the GY by banishing itself
- Single-copy generic slot that fits 25 archetypes in the sample
Weaknesses
- Bounce requires a Spell/Trap card in your zone to send; with none, the effect is unusable
- Returning a monster to hand is tempo, not card advantage; the opponent can replay it
- No combo, starter, or guide evidence to show it converts into a larger board
- Body is 1500 ATK / 1200 DEF with no evidenced use as a board breaker beyond the bounce
Counters / choke points
- Opponent attacks while you have no Spell/Trap card to send
- Opponent responds to the bounce activation with an effect that stops or redirects it (inferred from the activation structure, not a named card)
- Opponent removes or negates the card on the field before its effects are used (inferred)
Best use
Board breaker / Going-second utility with token recursion. Decks: Beetrooper, Battlewasp, Ragnaraika, Inzektor. Suggested copies: 1.
Evidence & gaps
- Verified: Once per turn: when an opponent's monster declares an attack, send 1 card from your Spell & Trap Zone to the GY to return that monster to hand; Standby Phase: may Special Summon 1 Baby Mantis Token; the Standby and GY-banish effects are each once per turn; Banish from GY: Special Summon 1 Baby Mantis Token; Sampled decks: 400 of 400 run it, 1 copy in 398 decks and 2 copies in 2 decks
- Observed: Ran in 400 of 400 sampled decks across 25 archetypes, most often Beetrooper (31%), Battlewasp (27.2%), Ragnaraika (17.5%); Gameplay type 7 in 91% of sampled decks; Top partners appear in roughly 81–97% of sampled decks
- Inferred: Bounce is a tempo play rather than a card-advantage play; Effect is generic enough to slot into most homes, so deckbuilding efficiency is high; Combo conversion is text-only with no recorded boards
- Data gaps: no combos supplied — combo conversion is text-only inference no guides supplied no banlist token — assumed 3 copies (unlimited) no usage statistics (StatisticsCard) — archetype inclusion % inferred from deck sample only deck sample is entirely decks that run the card (400/400), so population inclusion rate cannot be read from it no Baby Mantis Token data; token stats taken from card text only