Ordeal of Traveler is a defensive Trap that I must say I quite like.  As it is Continuous, it is unlikely to enjoy any substantial play until Spell/Trap removal and negation are brought down to a reasonable level.  For quite some time, 10%-20% of competitive players’ decks are cards that can destroy and/or negate Traps, including Heavy Storm, which blasts both players’ S/T Zones free of occupants.  Until Spell/Trap removal is reduced so that it becomes a precious thing meant to take out only the most terrible, powerful Spell and Trap cards and negation is limited to those one time or repeated payment cards (in other words, not Jinzo or Royal Decree), then this card probably won’t see play.

 

Ordeal of Traveler’s actual effect is that when an opponent declares an attack, you may choose to let them attempt to guess whether one random card from your hand is a Monster, a Spell, or a Trap.  It can’t be activated if you have no cards in hand.  I don’t know what would happen if somehow your hand were emptied before it resolved.  You generally want to maintain a three card hand when using this, with one of each card in your hand for the best odds.  A two thirds chance of not only negating an attack but bouncing the attacker is very potent.  Not unlike Fairy Box, even though the opponent can succeed in attacking, the possibility of their attack not only being ruined but of utterly backfiring will lead many to try to wait it out.  There is an exception: Breaker the Magical Warrior and similar Monsters who like being bounced will obviously charge ahead recklessly, since either the attack goes through or they get bounced and can try to re-use their effect.  If the opponent does attack, they are risking a Monster, and as we all know Monsters in play are very valuable since normally they are the hardest cards to get into play and rarely can be utilized elsewhere.

 

The card requires a fairly “balanced” deck in terms of card count.  Not running even amounts of each kind of card, but rather having a deck where cards can sit in your hand when you need them too, or be played when you need them to be.  You want enough Monsters that you can keep one in hand but also just like in any other deck; you want to be Summoning at least one most turns.  The same goes for Spells and for Traps.  You also want to keep from building up too many of them too, making things tricky.  Oh, and you can activate multiple copies of Ordeal of Traveler against the same attack, making this card actually something you’d want to stack.

 

All in all this appears to be a good, balanced card even if it is luck dependant.  You can easily get it from Structure Deck 7, the Earth/Rock one.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional: 1/5 – No, too much S/T removal.

 

Advanced: 3/5 – Nice, but hurt by the overabundance of removal and negation.