Magician of Faith has led an interesting “life”.  When she first came out, you’d usually want to run at least to and many times three copies of her.  Why?  Because then, just like now, there were many, many Spells that were quite good that are Restricted or Semi-Restricted.  Then came Jinzo and Nobleman of Crossout.  These really hurt flip effects: the classic strategy was to use a protective Trap to allow you to get the Flip Effect without losing the Monster that gave it to you, then make use of the reclaimed Spell and unless it was Dark Hole, use Magician of Faith to pay for Summoned Skull’s Summon.  A simple combo that often culminated in the opponent losing at least 2500 Life Points.  Eventually though, Flip Effects were come to be seen as too slow for the game, and largely were.  Magician of Faith use plummeted, waning and waxing opposite Nobleman of Crossout use.  With Metamorphosis use on the rise, as well as several potent but Restricted/Semi-Restricted Spells filling decks, Magician of Faith came to be in most decks irregardless of the prominence of Nobleman of Crossout.  After all, now not only could she get a precious Spell back, but she could also be flipped back down with Book of Moon or ‘morphed into Thousand-Eyes Restrict.  Hitting your opponent with a double Delinquent Duo or using a double Pot of Greed was fantastic.  Additionally, there were enough other Monsters being set that Nobleman of Crossout could scarcely keep up.

 

Perhaps the biggest help was Change of Heart being banned.  One of the worst things that could happen to a Magician of Faith was having your opponent gain control of it, Flip Summon it and get Change of Heart back (free temporary Monster Removal/Flip Effect negation from their perspective) or a better Spell.  When they were done, you got a used of Magician of Faith if you survived.  Not happy.  That is gone now, though you may need to worry about the occasional Creature Swap.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional       : 2/5-Much riskier here.  Change of Heart and plenty of true Monster removal.

 

Advanced        : 3.85/5-A great card you’ll be hard pressed to find a reason to avoid.

 

Limited            : 4/5-Whatever great Spell you pulled; you essentially got a second copy.

 

Summary

Simply put, Magician of Faith easily fits into almost any competitive deck, unless it is very, very speed oriented (and even then it becomes a hard call).  I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: cards that are easy to run in any deck eventually accumulate to the point where all of the sudden I can get 40 of them spread nicely across Monsters, Spells, and Traps, allowing me to build a strong “generic” deck out of them.  That was how Beatdown started in Yu-Gi-Oh, after all.  So maybe Magician of Faith may need banning someday, even though completely on her own, she’s a waste (you always need at least one other card to make good use of her, even if said card is a Spell already in the Graveyard).  Such generic cards only work when they trade of potency in order to be generic.  A good example would be Spell Reproduction: it’s a generic Spell in that any deck can use it to retrieve a spent Spell, but it requires you discard two other Spells to pay for it.  This means a generic deck could use it, but instead of ending up with a “better than average deck” with no real weakness, you end up with something with neither strengths nor weaknesses.