Trap
CounterUnwavering Bond
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3060
When your opponent activates a Pendulum Monster's effect, or an effect of a card in the Pendulum Zone: Negate the activation, and if you do, banish that card.
Unwavering Bond — Power Evaluation
Final Score: 44 ± 6 · Confidence: Medium
- Intrinsic: 45 · Deck: 44 · Meta: provisional
- Primary role: Removal / Negation · Secondary: Utility
Why it scores here
Unwavering Bond is a Counter Trap that negates and banishes a Pendulum Monster's effect or a Pendulum Zone card's effect — a hard, clean piece of interaction, but one that only functions against a narrow class of cards. Because it is a Trap it must be Set and survive a turn, it appears in no recorded combo lines, and it produces no body, so it converts into disruptive value only in the specific Pendulum matchups where its text is live. Its high negation quality is capped hard by its very low applicability, and its ATK/DEF are irrelevant (it is a Trap with no stats). It scores in the mid-forties as a narrow, situational tech Counter Trap rather than a broadly powerful card.
Axis scores
| Axis | Score | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Accessibility | 38 | No searcher or archetype evidence exists and it is a Trap that must be Set and held a turn, so it is only live in the opening when drawn and Set (verified). |
| Combo & Conversion | 15 | It does nothing proactively; combo data shows 0 appearances and 0 starter role/material role, so it builds no board on its own (observed). |
| Resource Economy | 48 | Negating the activation and banishing the card trades 1-for-1 while denying the opponent's effect, roughly even value but no refuel (verified). |
| Effect & Interaction | 38 | It is a genuine Counter Trap hard-negate plus banish, but the target must be a Pendulum Monster's effect or a Pendulum Zone card's effect, making it dead against non-Pendulum decks (verified). |
| Material Utility | 5 | As a Trap it provides no body or material and cannot contribute to any summon route (verified). |
| Resilience & Flexibility | 28 | A single-use Counter Trap that needs prior Setup and only applies to Pendulum-specific interactions leaves it dead in most spots (inferred). |
| Deck-Building Efficiency | 55 | No archetype lock, no garnet, and 1.14 average copies across 14 decks show it is cheap to slot, though it is a narrow tech pick (observed). |
Calculation
Weight profile: Negation/Interaction primary (.7) blended with Utility secondary (.3). Intrinsic ≈ 45, Deck ≈ 44, Meta = provisional. Modifiers: none. Final formula: 0.40*Intrinsic + 0.60*Deck
Strengths
- True Counter Trap that negates the activation and additionally banishes the card
- No archetype lock and no cost, so it is splashable in any deck
- Hard, non-destruction removal that bypasses many protection effects
Weaknesses
- Only functions against Pendulum Monster effects or Pendulum Zone card effects, dead against non-Pendulum decks
- Must be Set and survive a turn before it can be used
- Provides no body or material and generates no card advantage
- Appears in zero recorded combo lines, so it never advances your own plays
Counters / choke points
- Non-Pendulum opposing decks where its condition never triggers
- Trap removal such as Twin Twisters or Cosmic Cyclone before it resolves
- Pendulum decks that can play around it by not relying on on-field Pendulum effects
- Generic Counter Trap negation such as Solemn cards
Best use
Situational anti-Pendulum Counter Trap for mirror or Pendulum-heavy matchups. Decks: Pendulum Magician, Odd-Eyes, Performapal. Suggested copies: 1.
Evidence & gaps
- Verified: Card text: negates the activation of a Pendulum Monster's effect or a Pendulum Zone card's effect and banishes that card; Card is a Counter Trap with no ATK/DEF, archetype, or Lock
- Observed: 14 decks run it, all in the main deck, at 1.14 average copies (13 decks at 1, one at 3); 6 distinct archetypes use it, most prominently Pendulum Magician and Odd-Eyes; combo data reports 0 appearances across all recorded boards
- Inferred: Because it is a Trap it must be Set for a turn before it can be activated; Its value is confined to Pendulum-heavy opposing boards, so it is a tech pick rather than a core engine piece
- 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