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Pojo's Duel Masters Card of the Day
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Image from
Wizards Duel Master site |
Rothus the
Traveler Base Set
Date Reviewed: 3.22.04
Constructed
Average Rating: 3.7
Limited Average Rating: 3.8
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst. 3 ... average.
5 is the highest rating. |
Scott
Gerhardt
* Game Store owner in
CA, ShuffleAndCut
Multiple M:TG Pro Tour Appearances |
Rothus the
Traveler
This guy is quite strong. He's cheaply cost for a
4000, and is good removal as well. Worse case, he
can be played in simply to kill an opponent's
creature. Play in the fast red deck to clear our
opponent's creatures and off that weenie you don't
need anymore. He's very solid when you play him with
heavy removal and are going for the fast kill.
In limited, he's not quite as strong since both
players tend to have more creatures and offing a bad
one isn't usually too hard. That doesn't make him
less of a early pick, though. He's still a 4000 and
he can still be used situationally to give you an
advantage over your opponent.
Overall, he's one of the better rares in the set and
another reason why red is probably the best primary
color in the game right now.
 Constructed: 4.5
Limited: 4 |
Christine
Gerhardt
* game store
owner in CA, ShuffleAndCut |
Monday - Rothus, the
Traveler
Rothus is a decently
costed creature with a nice added ability. If
the situation is right (you have more creatures
than your opponent), you can tip the advantage
even more toward you by forcing a creature
sacrifice on your opponent's part. Yes, you have
to sacrifice also, but if you are ahead in
creature count, it actually ups your ratio,
giving you more of an advantage. If you don't
have more creatures, and/or you cannot afford to
sac something, you can always use him as mana.
THAT is the one great thing about Duel Masters.
If a card becomes unuseful, you can always make
it useful as mana. While you don't want toooo
many situational cards in your deck, this
feature does allow you to include a few.
Because he's included in the starter, he's easy
to obtain and should be available at a decent
price.
In draft, again
situational, but probably worth a mid-pick if
you're going red.
Constructed: 3.5
Limited: 4
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DeQuan
Watson
* Scrye writer since 2002 |
Monday - Rothus
OK, you better be prepared to deal with this guy.
Everyone will have him, since he is so easy to get.
He hits relatively hard, but he also kills
creatures. For now, in the early goings for Duel
Masters, you can expect this to be a highly played
card.
Rating: 4 |
Ray "Monk"
Powers
*DCI Tournament Organizer
*Game Store Owner (Gamer's
Edge) |
Rothus the
Traveler:
I love this guy. He's a 4000 for 4, which makes him
pretty solid. I always prefer a bigger normal Power
than the Power Attacker ability. I want my guy to be
equally strong on offense and defense, and also to
not fall prey to a Crimson Hammer, or some such card
because its normal Power is lower than it should be.
His ability makes him even better. In the worst
case, he kills himself to make your opponent lose a
creature. In the best case, he gets rid of a card
that may not be useful any more, like a Deadly
Fighter Braid Claw, while at the same time still
making your opponent lose his good creature, like
their only blocker. All in all, this guy is solid,
while not over powered. He'll require some thought
to play right, but he's worth playing.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 4
Limited: 4 |
Otaku |
Name:
Rothus, the Traveler
Type:
Creature
Civilization:
Fire (Red)
Race:
Armorloid
Cost:
4
Power:
4000
Effect:
When you put this creature into the battle zone,
destroy 1 of your creatures. Then your opponent
chooses 1 of his creatures and destroys it.
Flavor Text:
“I have been to ten thousand dimensions, and yet
still I search for home.”
Mana#:
1
Set/Card#/Rarity:
DM-01(Base Set); #85/110, 85a/110; Rare
Attributes:
For those not familiar with my style, when I use the
term “attribute”, I am referring to the more
“static” factors, like the card’s name (should that
matter), it’s type (creature or spell), Civilization
(color), Race (which appears below creature cards’
names), the cost (to summon), the creatures Power
(the number in the lower left-hand corner), and the
mana number (how much mana it provides). Well,
let’s get on with it, since I should have been in
bed 2 hours ago.
Currently, I don’t think anything on any of the
cards in the game refer to name other than the basic
rule of having no more than four copies of a card
with the same name in a deck. So the first
attribute to look at is type. This is a creature,
meaning it will be used for battling and/or any
effects it might possess. This is a Fire creature.
Currently, Fire creatures specialize on hitting hard
and fast, but usually at a cost. There are
currently no blockers for the Fire Civilization.
Most people will run two to three colors, so this is
mainly a foot note for now. We see that this is an
Armorloid. On its, own, this means little, but when
we get to the section on uses and combinations, it
will matter. This creature costs four mana to
summon. Normally, you expect roughly 1000 Power per
mana used to summon, at least on the smaller
creatures. This creature meets that mark, as it
cost four mana to summon and has a Power score of
4000.
Abilities:
This section refers to the effects listed on the
card. Rothus requires you destroy one of your
creatures when you summon it. I would assume that
if you summon Rothus to an otherwise empty field,
that it would target itself then. Why? The effect
is triggered by the Summoning of Rothus, so it is
always going to be on the field and thus a legal
target. If I am wrong, that makes this card much
better. As is, this isn’t too bad an ability,
though it would be better if it were optional. As
is, you’ll probably be able to spare a monster if
the deck is geared around expecting that kind of
cost (like my own current deck). Your opponent is
less likely to have some fodder on the field, giving
you a slight edge.
Uses/Combinations:
Possibly a way to clear the field while summoning a
monster mid-game. I tend to run Fire with Nature
(the green cards). Nature provides a lot of mana,
and some nice, disposable creatures, lessening the
impact of having to destroy one even more.
Armorloids already have some extra use-another Fire
Creature-the Human Fatal Attacker Horvath-gets a
Power Bonus if there is at least one Armorloid in
play. Fire monsters in your graveyard also have an
extra use: Bolshack
Dragon, which looks promising in and of itself, gets
+1000 Power while
attacking for each Fire Creature in the Graveyard.
Ratings
Newbie Format:
3.25/5-A solid card to run in this format. Of
course, no one knows what this is, so let me
explain. Currently, I would estimate that roughly
half the Duel Masters populace is still new to the
game, a newbie. Since people are new, they make
more “mistakes”, and sometimes those mistakes can
ruin a good deck. In Yu-Gi-Oh, for example, one of
my friends runs a lot of burn cards in most of his
decks. He doesn’t run the really good stuff, but
the kind of lame early Burn Spell cards. Normally,
this wouldn’t faze most people, but I favor Suicide
Beatdown decks for that game. That is where you use
cards that use up your Life Points (the stuff that
you will lose automatically if you run out of it),
to play many powerful cards. Newbie Burn eats that
deck, which in its height dominated our local scene
in the days of early Yu-Gi-Oh, and still holds its
own now. For Duel Masters, it will take a long time
for people to be intentionally creative-weird decks
will show up because people misjudge cards a lot
more or because they don’t have a lot. Eventually,
this format will all but die out and the creative
player’s will form a “casual” playing format that
focuses on creativity and/or fun.
Standard:
3/5-This is the format that emerges when people get
competitive and begin to figure out what works
best. Here, it is less useful, as I think there are
better ways to get rid of monsters. Still, for
certain decks, this will work out well.
Limited:
3/5-It gets better in terms of Power here, since
most of the high Power creatures are Rare or
better. The monster removing effect may be weaker
though, since unless one or both players have only
one monster on the field, and it’s useful, the
effect probably won’t mean much to either of you.
Summary
A
good monster to cut your teeth on, as the card pool
and average player experience grows; I predict it
will see less and less use. Of course, these are
not guaranteed.
-Otaku |
|
Hydromorph |
Rothus, the
Traveler
A nice card with a nice effect. The way lots of Fire
decks are shaping up, it should see a considerable
amount of play. It lets you fling off a next to
useless creature to take out one of your opponents.
Unfortunately, your opponent gets to decide which
one they send off as well. Since most fire decks
will be running removal like Tornado Flame and
Crimson Hammer, it could possibly come out as
pinpoint removal for your opponent’s only line of
defense.
Speed decks will usually use Rothus as Tornado
Flames 5-8, while other decks running it will use it
to maintain creature quality. Expect to see things
like the Vizier of Lightning and Aqua Hulcus being
played turn 3, then sent off to Rothus the following
turn to gain you some muscle. Awesome in a deck that
supports it, and half-way decent on it’s own.
Rothus, the Traveler - 3.5/5 |
|
ssj2_dork |
Rothus, the
Traveler
Wow, my first Card of the Day for Pojo. I am so
excited ;x And I get to do it on one of the more
cooler cards! =)
Rothus, the Traveler: Fire Creature, 4-Mana, 4000
attack power, and you get one in the Starter Decks.
Not impressed? It's power says that when you put
Rothus, the Traveler into play, destroy one of your
creatures, then your opponent has to destroy one of
his/hers.
I personally like this card. You can just simply
play it on your fourth turn and destroy one of your
weak 1000/2000 attack creatures while bringing a new
4000 attack creature into play, AND your opponent
has to destroy one of his creatures. A cool combo
that comes to mind is Dark Reversal and Rothus, the
Traveler. Rothus' effect happens once it is in play,
so you can destroy Rothus, the Traveler for its
effect if you wanted to. After it is in the
graveyard, you can use Dark Reversal to put it back
into your hand. If you have six Mana you could pull
off this combo, but you couldn't play any creatures,
and you would eventually run out of Dark Reversals
to cast.
Pros: small Mana cost, creature removal, 4000 attack
power for 4-Mana, easy to get a hold of
Cons: destroys own creature
Obviously the Pros outweigh the Cons. If you're
playing Red, it would be a good idea to play at
least two of Rothus, the Traveler; it is an awesome
tech card and surprise tactic, plus it is
combo-able. Sure it's not a fatty, but it's an
awesome little card on its own.
Casual: 3/5
Tournament: 3/5 |
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