I wasn’t going to do a CotD for today, but after reading what some of my peers have said on Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch, I had to.  Its one thing to disagree with a score, but that’s not what this is about: most of the CotD crew got that right.  An almost throw away comment on it (and the Monarch Monsters in general) has prompted me to submit a CotD, albeit it a late one, just so that anyone looking this card up in the future will see my view to balance out what I disagreed with.  Oh, and I am not knocking any of my fellow staffers: I just strongly disagree with one of their observations is all (I won’t even name who, though it should be obvious after reading this).  First, let me do my duty and review the actual card.

 

Thestalos the Firestorm Monarch is a Level 6/Fire/Pyro/Effect/2400/1000.  Thanks to the power and popularity of the Monarch Monsters as a whole, 2400 ATK is a solid score for a Level 6 Monster: any lower and the other Monarch Monsters would be able to safely run over it, and any higher and we threaten game balance.  Thestalos will be a solid beatstick once it is in play.  It does have a low DEF of just 1000, so position shifting cards tend to be very effective against it.

 

Thestalos may be a Fire Attribute Monster, but it doesn’t have any effects dependant upon Fire or Fire support.  Likewise, it is a Pyro Monster, but again it can be added to any deck and still function perfectly well.  So that leaves us with the effect, which is what barely ties it into the theme you’d think it would Support (Fire/Pyro).  Instead, this Monster is a little bit of Hand Disruption with a slight chance of doing some burn damage (that will rarely be significant).  Due to some of the better Burn cards having effects pertaining to Fire or Pyro Monsters, this card gives a better imitation of Attribute/Type based theme support.  The best example would be Solar Flare Dragon, whose effect does 500 burn damage during your End Phase and keeps it from being attacked while another Pyro Monster is in play.  Also, Burn decks gain a benefit from Hand Disruption for the obvious reason that they tend to focus on stalling and depriving an opponent of a hand will make fighting back hard.

 

None of the Monarch Monsters are real Attribute/Type “theme Support”.  In fact, they tend to just reinforce the generic, universally appealing themes of hand and field control.  Still, if I look at what is healthy for the game (in my opinion), then Thestalos is actually the best of the Monarch Monsters: at least he does a little burn damage (and it does make sense to specialize burn with one or two Attributes and/or Types) and it is a little harder to capitalize on Hand Disruption and killing two Spell/Trap cards or a Monster.  If you’re wondering, Granmarg the Rock Monarch fails the other way: he’s the one Monarch that is a bit weak.  And he doesn’t really fit his theme.  Granted, if the rest of the game were better balanced, he’d still border on being too potent… but that is best left to an article, not a CotD.

 

Ratings

 

Traditional: 1.5/5 

Advanced: 4/5