Monday

Thesalos the Mega Monarch. I'm not really a fan of these "upgraded" Monarchs. Sure new support and revival for old themes is fun, but they just aren't good enough. This guy is close, but he still just doesn't quite pan out either. I do, however, feel this is the best of the Mega Monarchs we've reviewed thus far. You can Tribute Summon this card by Tributing one Tributed Monster. Which is nice enough I suppose, but still two tributes, and in the big picture, no real advantage for you. The thing that gives this guy hope is his effect. In Fire (say Fire Fist perhaps?) his effects can win you a game. When Tributed, you look at the opponet's Hand and discard a card, and they take 200x Damage equal to the Level of the Monster chosen. Assuming you were able to choose a Monster of course. And he gains the ability of if a Fire Monster was Tributed for him, you deal 1000 Damage also. That could be enough total to win you a game. He's still not great, but he's on the right track.

Ratings:

Traditional: 1.5/5
Advanced: 2.5/5
Art: 4.5/5

Thestalos the Mega Monarch
 
Another new Mega Monarch to start this week, in this case Thestalos the Mega Monarch. So far the Mega Monarchs haven’t been that good, with their effects being slightly more power versions of their original effect and generally not being worth the effort, will Thestalos the Mega Monarch change the Mega Monarchs’ fortunes?
Statwise it is a Level 8 FIRE/Pyro which is a good combination with 2800 ATK, a good attack for a level 8 and 1000 DEF bad for any tribute monster.

Effectwise, it has the same alternate summoning condition as the other Mega Monarchs, as with the others it is okay but it is still giving up 2 monsters for tribute summon just not at once. As with all Monarchs it gets its effect when Tribute Summoned and this case you can look at your opponent’s hand and discard a card and if it was a monster, the opponent loses 200 life points per level of the discarded monster. The biggest bonus here is being able to look at the opponent’s hand allowing you to see what they are planning. Then you can get rid of what would be the biggest threat to you and if it was a monster will they get some damage as well. 200 life points per level isn’t massive but it can still add up. Overall a nice effect when all put together and a big improvement over the random discard and weak damage of the original.

Of course like all Mega Monarchs Thestalos the Mega Monarch has a bonus effect if you tributed a FIRE monster to summon this card which gives an additional 1000 points of damage to the opponent. Not a massive effect but again a nice little bonus and nicely fits in with the rest of the card’s effects.

Overall, a Mega Monarch that is actually better than the original, shame the terrible DEF and the fact that this is still a level 8 monster with a one-shot tribute effect do hurt this card.

Traditional: 1.5/5
Advanced: 2.5/5

Hello Pojo Fans,

Another “Mega Monarch” but this one isn't as good as the previous one. Same effect as all “Mega Monarchs” regarding their summoning. An increase of 100 Life Points damage in the discard effect versus the original Thestalos isn't that much of a plus, and neither is the added bonus of dealing 1000 Life Point damage if you tribute a Fire monster in the summoning of this mega monarch. Mobius was better, and Granmarg at least let you draw a card as the added bonus of sacrificing an Earth monster in his summon. Fire-based decks won't be running this guy, and tribute decks won't either, there isn't enough advantage to playing this “Mega Monarch”.

Traditional-1/5
Advanced-1/5
Art-3.5/5

Until Next Time
KingofLullaby

Thestalos the Mega Monarch

While I'm happy Konami gave us these Mega Monarchs as good fan service to players like me who loved the 06-07 Monarch formats, these cards are bad. This card, Thestalos TTM, especially, is bad.

Like I said with Mobius TTM. You have to tribute a monster; then wait a turn and pray your opponent does nothing to remove your Monarch. Then you have to have the Mega Monarch in your hand and use up a summon just to summon a monster that's just 400 ATK stronger.

It's a combo-based card in a deck that is full of them. You already have the spells/traps like March of the Monarchs and the upcoming one that lets you tribute monsters during your opponent's turn. Monarchs already have the strain of needing tribute fodder and the tribute monster. All this does

The burn effect is passable and can do 1600 damage if you're fortunate, but that's not a whole lot to justify all the work. The second burn effect of inflicting 1000 damage only works if you tribute a FIRE tribute monster. This means Thestalos (the original). However, the original Thestalos isn't amazing either. Raiza and Caius are superior, especially since Thestalos can fuel graveyards.

Yes, I know this effect is comparable to the forbidden Consfiscation but anyone who praises this card must forget what makes Confiscation so good. Confiscation can be activated immediately. It doesn't rely on other cards, and most importantly, it gives you the advantage during the first turn if you draw it opening hand. Having to wait several turns to bring this card out totally misses the point. Maybe if you got to discard 2 cards, it would be a different story, but this card is still situational toward a deck that needs consistency.

Collectors may want to pick this up for nostalgia sake, though I'd recommend waiting until people realize this card is crap and it plummets down to a few bucks.

Traditional - 1
Advanced - 1.25

What the dilly in the fahilly, mahnilly? Be chilly, readily, and prepare for the calamity.

My gibbering nonsense aside, welcome to another Terrorking review. Today, we tackle another Monarchy type thing. This one happens to be another Mega Monarch. Thestalos, the Mega Monarch to be precise. Sit down and prepare for a sad tale: a tale of a man that was once on top but fell to the bottom by no doing of his own. This, dear reader, is the story of the firestorm Monarch, Thestalos. In ye olde days of Soul Control, back when only four Monarchs existed and the game was slower, Thestalos was a powerful man that stood as the best there ever was. His ability to hit the hand and field (with Soul Exchange) was quite good. Back then, when a card was sent to the Graveyard, it usually meant that you'd either not get usage of that card further, or you'd have to jump through hoops to get it back.

What is the point of this history lesson, you might wonder? Well, my dearies, it's rather simple: Thestalos was never good for his burn. Monarchs are all about card advantage. Burn as insignificant as the one on this card is terrible. Thestalos' main selling point is picking a card from the hand. A proper firestorm Mega Monarch should've changed "discard" to "send" (Dark Worlds, lol) and maybe up the number discarded. Another point: the only useful FIRE decks are FIRE Beast/Beast-Warrior/Winged-Beast decks. They have no room for this guy, especially since Konami kind of forgot that FIRE as an attribute likes to burn back when they made a bunch of FIRE cards in Cosmo Blazer (with only 1 Pyro monster being in said set).

Advanced: 1.5/5
Traditional: 1/5

Thestalos the Mega Monarch

As I said when we reviewed the trap monarch support recently, Monarchs have a soft spot in my heart and when they announced new support I was quite happy. However, I really think they went the wrong way with it. Granted Mega Thestalos isn't, well, horrible, it just isn't that good either. 2800 for a two tribute is decent however synchros/xyz's pfft on that. The effect is good, what you'd expect for a bigger beefier Thestalos. It's almost like a confiscation to actually PICK a card from the hand to discard, allowing for either maximum damage or a loss of utility by discarding a necessary spell/trap card. If you hit the monster, you can deal a good chunk of damage, typically an average of 800, sometimes up to 1600 depending on what deck you're playing. If you take away a spell, but tributed Mega Thestalos with a Fire Monster, you deal another 1000. So lets say you play vs Lightsworn and manage to drop this: You hit a JD with the effect and deal 1600, plus another 1000 for the secondary effect and swing direct. You just hit for 5500 in 1 entire turn with 1 monster. This might be searchable by Return of the Monarchs, and summonable via The First Monarch, but realistically, it's just not worth the effort to sit there and run it just to get off it's good, albeit difficult, effects.

Traditional - 1/5 - getting 2 monsters to stay on a field is difficult enough let alone keeping 1 around in this format

Advanced - 1.5/5 - Regardless of how good the effect is or the fact it's searchable, the amount you give up just isn't worth it in the long run. It isn't a TOTAL waste though, hence not going bottom of the barrel with the rating