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Pojo's Magic The Gathering Card of the Day


Image from Wizards.com

Rough & Tumble
Planar Chaos


Reviewed March 5, 2007

Constructed: 2.50
Casual: 2.92
Limited: 3.75

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

Click here to see all our 
Card of the Day Reviews 

BMoor

Rough & Tumble

Split cards are always worth a second look, and I don't mean just because you can never tell what's going on in the first look. On the one hand, you can play Rough and sweep the board of smaller non-flyers, or in the alternate universe of Planar Chaos, you can Tumble down some flying creatures. Well, Rough is a great way to take out a weenie rush efficiently, but most successful Red decks in most constructed formats are the ones producing the weenie rush. Tumble can be very useful in a deck with no flyers, but since a lot of decks don't rely on flying creatures, there's a much bigger chance of this not actually having anything to kill. And there is always Pyroclasm. So I can't see this taking off, or taking anything down, outside of Limited.

Constructed- 1.5
Casual- 2
Limited- 3

-David N

Monday - Rough/Tumble

Rough - A baby earthquake. Great mass removal against many weenie decks. Since it does the damage to all creatures, takes care of untargetable creatures too.
Tumble - Set hurricane in red. Cost is too much. If you need it to deal with fliers bigger than 6, you're probably already dead. Could see some action in R/G decks with mana accelerators. Split cards must be rated with both cards in mind. However, I see the rough side seeing a lot more play.

Constructed: 3
Casual: 3
Limited: 4
David Fanany Rough / Tumble

Call me crazy, but I quite like this card. Pyroclasm has always been playable (fluctuating slightly in quality with the availability of cards like Kird Ape and Soltari Priest), and even now Rough will eliminate many problematic creatures. The Tumble side is also the most efficient mass removal of fliers we're likely to have until Hurricane returns in the Tenth Edition. I could see this card making it into a Standard deck, particularly since red decks often struggle against creatures like Blazing Archon and Angel of Despair (it doesn't help the Akroma problem, though). In Limited, Rough / Tumble should be useful as well, though it has no effect on many of the Time Spiral block's Limited bombs like Akroma and Spectral Force. Casual is probably the format where it'll be least important, given the overwhelming number of choices for either effect. If you can't afford the rare Earthquake and Hurricane, though, you could certainly give Rough / Tumble a shot.

Constructed: 3/5
Limited: 3/5
Casual: 2/5
LennonMarx Monday, March 5th. Rough//Tumble

Last I checked, pyroclasm was really good. Thus... this us pretty good, and it had the added bonus of killing dragons and other nasty flying stuff. All in all, this is pretty solid.

Constructed:
Red mass removal is nice is a red contolish deck ala Big Red pops up.
The problem is that such a deck isn't around right now. Still a strong card, and amazing should the need for it arise.
3.5/5

Casual:
The format of dragons and multiple opponents. This is gold, pure red gold. Might draw fire your way in a multiplayer game if you wipe out everyone's team, but yet... you just wiped out everyone's team. If you play red and are remotely controlish, play 4.
4.5/5

Limited
Removal is removal, and this is mass removal that takes out pretty much every bomb in the format. First pick it, possibly with a windmill slam and a little jig on the side.
5/5 (I wish I could rate it higher).
PsychoAnime Split cards are usually good because of their versatility, so how about
Rough // Tumble?

For 2 mana, you get a Pyroclasm for non-flyers. If you use fliers, this
would be better but considering red gets next to no fliers means Pyroclasm
is just better. So let's look on the other side.

On the other side, it's 6 mana to pretty much wipe out all the fliers in
play except for Akroma. Again, red gets next to no fliers but the only decks
that really run flier can counter this. And seeing this is red and it costs
6 mana, the likelihood for your opponent not winning the counter war is slim.

This just isn't very practical. In Limited though, this is amazing as it's a
board clearer and those are hard to come by.

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 5/5
Arcane Rough and Tumble

We’re definitely seeing red this week at COTD, and today we’re reviewing another of the split cards from Planar Chaos, the uncommon Rough and Tumble. Two different spells in one is always a bargain but how does it stack up in the different environments?

Constructed: Not quite pyroclasm, Rough doesn’t hit any fliers at 2 mana leaving that to its six mana other half. It would play well against Boros decks if it wasn’t for the fact that Soltari Priest and Paladin en-Vec had Protection from Red, and Knight of the Holy Nimbus has the built in Regeneration ability so it’s really going to only hit Lions (and Isamaru in Extended). If Saprolings or slivers become a more dominant type then it might see a bit more play. Tumble will deal with dragons which may come up if any of the PC Dragons (or red Akroma) start seeing some constructed play, but for now you’re going to be paying six mana to clear out Sacred Mesa tokens which Pyroclasm just does better right now anyway.

Casual/Multi: Mass Removal is always a plus in casual/multi games allowing you the luxury of dealing with multiple threats without ignoring any one player over another. The disadvantages can be played around in this format in ways that other mass removal like WoG can’t be by playing with all 3+ toughness creatures for the rough side. Red Casual playters tend to love their dragons though so I don’t see Tumble being as popular with the casual crowd (unless everyone else at your table really likes dragons too)

Limited: Good rule of thumb is that any removal is good removal, but red in TS block limited seems to have a plethora of it already with cards like Rift Bolt, Shivan Meteor. Grapeshot, Lightning Axe and the other split card Dead and Gone. But R&T has the advantage of being mass removal, and allowing you to deal with a huge army on the other side of the table, or fliers out of the range of your other removal spells.

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 2.5/5
 

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