Trickstar Delfiendium

Trickstar Delfiendium — Power Evaluation

Final Score: 45 ± 6 · Confidence: Medium

• Intrinsic: 44 · Deck: 45 · Meta: provisional
• Primary role: Recovery/Recursion · Secondary: Material body, Boss/End-board

Why it scores here

Trickstar Delfiendium is a Link-3 whose effect only functions when it declares an attack while pointing to a Trickstar monster, and whose banish-recovery is capped by the number of Link Monsters the opponent controls — often zero — so in many matchups it converts into little more than a 2200 ATK body. Its home archetype does make the '2+ Trickstar monsters' material requirement realistic (Candina, Light Stage and Festival appear in ~83–98% of the decks running it), and as an Extra Deck card it costs no main-deck slots, which keeps it a reasonable one-of. The 2200 ATK and the attack-locked 1000 ATK bonus earn no points here; the score is driven by its conditional recovery, weak interaction and heavy dependence on the opponent's board. It is a playable in-archetype toolbox piece, not a reliable win condition.

Axis scores

Calculation

Weight profile: 0.7 Recovery/Recursion + 0.3 Material body. Intrinsic ≈ 44, Deck ≈ 45, Meta = provisional. Modifiers: Extra Deck no-slot cost (1). Final formula: 0.40*Intrinsic + 0.60*Deck

Strengths

• Recovers banished "Trickstar" cards to hand, refuelling the grind game Trickstar is built around.
• Archetype's searchable material base (Candina, Light Stage, Festival) makes the 2+ "Trickstar" requirement realistic.
• Link-3 body with Top/Bottom-Left/Bottom-Right arrows that can ladder into higher-Link plays.
• Costs no main-deck space — it is an Extra Deck option run as a single copy.

Weaknesses

• Effect only triggers when it declares an attack while pointing to a "Trickstar" monster.
• Recovery is capped by the opponent's Link Monster count, so it is blank against most non-Link boards.
• No negation, removal or disruption of any kind.
• The 1000 ATK-per-card bonus, while large on paper, is battle-locked and irrelevant to power.

Counters / choke points

• Effect negation (e.g. Infinite Impermanence, Effect Veiler) before the attack declaration.
• Removing it with monster removal before the Battle Phase.
• Controlling no Link Monsters, which reduces its recovery to 0 cards.
• Negating the attack declaration so the trigger never resolves.

Best use

In-archetype Link-3 recovery/finisher body. Decks: Trickstar. Suggested copies: 1.

Evidence & gaps

• Verified: Link-3 LIGHT Fairy, 2200 ATK, arrows Top / Bottom-Left / Bottom-Right; summoning condition 2+ "Trickstar" monsters.; Effect: when it declares an attack while pointing to a "Trickstar" monster, target your banished "Trickstar" cards up to the number of Link Monsters the opponent controls, add them to hand, and it gains 1000 ATK per card added until end of turn.
• Observed: 106 decks run it; 97 run exactly 1 copy and 9 run 2 (avg 1.08).; ~80% of the sample decks are tagged Trickstar; co-deck rates: Candina 98.1%, Corobane 96.2%, Light Stage 93.4%.; 0 appearances in recorded combo boards.
• Inferred: Against opponents with no Link Monsters the recovery adds 0 cards, making the effect effectively blank.; The ATK gain is battle-locked and contributes no consistent strategic value.
• 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