Classic COTD Reviews – Magician’s Force (2003)

Card Name

Pojo Avg

My Rating

Spell Canceller

2.4

2

I feel like players were trying to make this cheeky card work 

It negates your spells too (which you should be using a lot of if you’re actually trying to win the game).  And at 1800 ATK for 1 tribute, you -2 if its destroyed by a 1900 beater and -1 if it’s traded with a 1800 beater.

In theory, this is a deck card for OTK/combo that use a ton of spell cards, you could side deck this in.  But it would still require a tribute and you still might not be able to summon it on turn 1 before they unload all of their spells on you

Cliff the Trap Remover

2.8

2

I see this card somewhat counterintuitive against destroying face-down spell/card cards AFTER a successful attack because they could just use their Torrential/Ring/Mirror beforehand to destroy this.  Or what if you just end up destroying a chainable trap card.

With ample spell/trap removal cards out there, not only does this card face more competition, but the opponent is less likely to use the kinds of really slow spell/traps cards this card is keen on destroying.

It’s not all bad.  It’s searchable by ROTA.  It can plausibly go +1.  And you could maybe side 1 against stall/burn decks to destroy their Gravity Bind and such, especially if you have ROTA in your deck.  Or just side Dust Tornado…

Tribe-Infecting Virus

4.1

4.5

One of the staple cards of this set.  

The discard can help you fill your graveyard, or at least synergize with Sinister Serpent.  It has “priority”.  Its effect can be used more than once.  

Clearing the opponent’s field helps you both in a favorable gamestate (push for 1600 damage) and helps in a pinch when the opponent’s board is overwhelming you.

Strong against archetype decks but good for any situation.

Diffusion Wave-Motion

2

1

Dead card 95% of the time.

There are no good LV7+ Spellcasters, and even if they were,  it only working on a two-tribute monster is very underpowered.

Other downsides.  1000 life point cost and if the opponent uses a trap card to stop your attack or destroy your monster, you -1 on this card.

If this card worked on any Spellcaster monster (and maybe had its life point cost reduced), this card could be a 3+ rating and Spellcaster decks could be more viable.

D.D. Crazy Beast

2.7

2

It plusses against 2 cards (Witch/Sangan).  But with its low 1400 ATK, it minuses to lots of other cards.  

It can destroy battle recruiters like Mystic Tomato and negate its effect, but if Tomato (or Giant Rat) are in attack mode, this is a 1-for-1 trade since they have equal ATK.

This also won’t get over a Pyramid Turtle or Giant Rat in defense mode.

2 seems fair.  If it were 1500, it could get over the battle recruiters more consistently and I’d bump it higher..

Breaker the Magical Warrior

4.3

4.5

Was a staple card for years.  Versatile in either being a beater or spell/trap removal.

Easy to essentially +1 on (you get a free 1600 ATK floater).  It is possible that a set spell/trap you target is chainable, but nonetheless, you can summon this first to see if the opponent has a trap, and so you can Premature or Reborn.

What I like about this card’s design is the skill component to deciding whether you want to use this cards effect first, or attack first with 1900 ATK.  

Magical Scientist

4.4

4.5

This card really is lifepoint as a resource.  To plus from this, you would need to pay 1000-2000 + have this in ATK mode vulnerable in battle.

You can use it to summon TER (to steal an opponent’s monster and attack another one with it).  Or get Senshi/Balter/FiendSkull to negate all sorts of effects.

But most importantly, there’s the Scientist OTK so the format for this set (Scientist Format) is aptly named after that combo.

Roulette Barrel

2.5

1.75

Having a 1 in 6 chance of destroying a specific monster you want to destroy isn’t good.  

Since you can’t summon it in face-up defense mode, you have to set it for a turn.  Unless you’re okay with summoning it in ATK mode and almost certainly going minus.

It’s a 2000 DEF wall, and it’s a LIGHT for decks that need one I guess.  But still… meh.

Double Spell

2.5

2.5

This is technically a -1, though you can make it break even by discarding one of your weaker spells to get their Pot of Greed or Delinquent Duo.

Because you have to discard a spelll, this card will probably never be a +1.  But this can come in clutch late-game if a Raigeki, Reborn, HFD/Heavy, Snatch is exactly what you need to win.

But this card is very weak early game.

It’s never seen much play despite looking so good on paper.  

Apprentice Magician

2.5

3

Forget about the spell counter effect.  It searches out Magician of Faith which lets you +1 from power spells.  Also enables Old Vindictive Magician and gives you a flip effect to use as tribute fodder.

It has to be attacked into, so it’s better against aggressive decks than against defensive decks.  But at this point in time, beatdown monsters are very common.

It’s definitely good, but I’ll limit the score to 3 because it’s a little bit slow (it doesn’t do anything until its attacked into).

Dark Paladin

2.8

1.25

Very good effect, but no viable way of bringing out.

Fusion summoning is inherently a -1 or 2.  

And the materials for this card aren’t good.  Buster Blader and Dark Magician are both two-tribute monsters with no utility effects aside from their ATK power.

In Goat Format, this would see a tiny bit of play – as a niche deck – with Fusion Gate and Dimension Fusion.

Skilled Dark Magician

3.6

3.25

It’s basically a vanilla 1900 beater since Dark Magician is unviable at this time.

Compared to Gemini Elf it has much higher DEF but isn’t searchable by Witch.  

But does DEF matter?  Tsukuyomi isn’t a factor yet.  I guess there’s the occasional Book of Moon.  But basically you use it for the ATK power.

I’m trying to think of a situation where the DEF matters.  Your life points are low, the opponent has Breaker/Tribe, but you don’t want to summon it face-up and risk a Torrential/Mirror Force?

It would later become a DARK monster for Chaos.

If you noticed, this card’s rating is a bit lower than what I gave Gemini Elf.   Not because it’s worse but because good effect monsters have come out since then and deckspace is more competitive.

Skilled White Magician

2.4

2

It’s basically a vanilla monster since Buster Blader isn’t viable.

The defense is good.  If you’re looking for a defense wall that can also deal damage when you need to, this might be it.  But it risks being a -1 in attack position if you go for damage.

I would bump this up to a 2.5 or 2.75 when CHAOS monsters come out, since it’s a light.  But that time is not right now.

Dark Magician Girl

2.5

1

This card is horrendo and I hope reviewers didn’t give her bonus points for being an anime waifu.

Low ATK.  Its effect has no utility other than having an ATK boost which is mild and extremely situational.

It would need 2 Dark Magicians in graveyard just to be playable. (And that card is a two-tribute vanilla monster, so why even use it?)

Chaos Command Magician

2.5

2

It’s ATK is competitive, and it’s defense will survive against a beater if it’s flipped down.  But on release, there are very few commonly used monsters with effects that target monsters. Just Exiled Force.  That’s it!

I just read that D.D. Warrior Lady (which comes out next set) doesn’t target, so yikes… This card gets hard-countered next set and would go down to 1.75

I would bump this rating up to 2.75 or 3 in Goat format since there are a lot of meta monsters that target like TER, Night Assailant, Chaos Sorcerer, etc.  And it’s a LIGHT for Chaos.

Amazoness Fighter

2.25

1

It has weak stats.  No way of generating field or hand advantage. 

 Its effect doesn’t contribute to any win condition; aside from not taking 500-600 damage against a beater.  Which you can accomplish by just using a beater with no ATK.

Amazoness Archers

3.5

1.5

Requiring specific monsters and it only being able to activate during your Battle Phase already makes it situational.

And while the effect says “all the opponent’s monsters”, realistically speaking, players will generally have just 1 or 2.

The main downside is that none of the Amazoness monster cards are good.  

Amazoness Tiger

~3

1.25

How did reviewers fall for this???

It does nothing by itself.  Even having 1 other Amazon on the field puts its ATK power too low and makes it a minus.  It needs 2 other specific Archetype cards just to have the standard 1900 stats.

Its effect of forcing the opponent to attack this card doesn’t matter when it’s stats (realistically) aren’t good.

Amazoness Spellcaster

2.4

1.5

This is a useful effect.  It will never plus but it’ll get you over stuff.  But Rush Recklessly is just better in most cases; as a quick play spell that works on any monster.

But the main downside is that Amazon monsters are just not good.

Amazoness Swords Woman

2.25

1.25

Why is this Amazon archetype so bad, and why do their effects have no synergy with each other!?

In a typical case, with a 1600-1900 beater destroying this in battle, you’d -1 but only deal 100-400 damage to the opponent.

900 damage with battle a bigger monster Jinzo wouldn’t be terrible, but that’s 1 matchup against a whole deck.

Giant Orc

3.5

2.5

Inferior to Goblin Attack Force: lower ATK and it can’t be searched by ROTA.

It’s still a beater, and could be okay for a Dark Necrofear fiend deck.

Cards like Skill Drain, Final Attack Orders and Deck Devastation Virus would come out later, and I’d rate this card a 3 instead of a 2.5, but it’s average right now.

Royal Magical Library

2

3

Great defense, but the downside is that you have to summon in ATK mode with 0 ATK, or set it and have to wait a turn.

It has a place in combo/OTK decks with tons of spell cards, but is probably not the best card otherwise.

I mean, it can plus, and it can be a defense wall I guess.  But it’s only for specific decks.

Pitch-Black Power Stone

1.3

1.25

This wouldn’t be terrible if there were more viable cards that could receive spell counters.

But even so its very slow.  It’s a trap so you have to wait until your next turn.  And you need to wait 3 more standby phases to transfer all of them.

If this were a spell, it would be quicker and it would also give a spell counter to cards like Magical Marionette and Royal Magical Library.

Anti-Spell

1.7

1

Would be good if Spell Counters were an actual archetype.  Right now, Breaker is the only good card that receives spell counters (it’s limited to 1 copy and it has 1 counter max).

This is in the category of “bad because it forces you to use a lot of bad cards for it to work”.

Mega Ton Magical Cannon

1.2

1

As stated above, even getting 2 counters is difficult.  10 is practically impossible.  

Not only would this require specific cards but it would likely require more cards to trigger this effect than it would actually destroy.

Would’ve maybe been playable if the requirement were 3 instead of 10.

Magical Marionette

3.25

2

This is one of those cards that seems really good on paper but just doesn’t play out like you’d expect it to.

Having to use 2 spell cards just to make its ATK power competitive means (With the tribute and this card), you have to expend 4 cards to make this work.

Consider that a lot of the powerful spells in the game you want to save for key moments.  You don’t want to use up your Monster Reborn or Snatch Steal, or various other cards up early just for this.

Yes the opponent can use a spell card to give it a counter, but they’re probably going to use a spell that destroy this or take control of it.

Des Koala

1.6

3

This could realistically deal 1200-1600 damage, which is a lot for 1 card.  Even 800 wouldn’t be terrible considering this is also a defense wall.

1300 ATK isn’t that bad for a flip effect.  It gets under Gravity Bind.  1800 DEF isn’t bad either.

Most decks shouldn’t use it.  But it’s viable for a dedicated burn deck (or maybe the occasional eccentric aggro deck)

I get that burn isn’t exactly meta, but this card still got done kinda dirty.

Mass Driver

2.5

1.5

This is a tough card to rate.  It could be a 1 or a 5 depending on the format.

Due to the lack of limits in using this card, this card would later become overpowered with combos that allow you to keep summoning monsters.

But in context of when it was released, it’s a -1 that relies on you having other monsters to work.  

Cannon Soldier not only does 500 damage, but it can attack too, and it can tribute itself.

Cannon Soldier + 1 monster = 1000 damage 

whereas Mass Driver + another monster = 400 damage lol

While this card remains face-up, there’s ample spell/trap removal to destroy it, assuming its even an issue.

Even burn decks have plenty of burn cards that don’t require you to sacrifice monsters.

Secret Barrel

1.75

3

This is one of the best burn cards.  Chainable.  Can realistically deal 1000-1400 damage especially if you’re stalling the game.

My rating for this card next set with Ojama Trio allowing it to deal 600 more damage.

This card would be a 3.5 or maybe even higher in Goat Format (just for burn decks).  Because there are more decks to side against, and not as much room to side against burn.

But in 2003-2004, Harpie’s Feather Duster is legal and can hit their stall cards, and players can dedicate most of their side deck against burn or stall decks because the meta isn’t varied.

Wave-Motion Cannon

3

3

Great in burn.  Might be playable in an aggro deck that wants to focus on life point advantage.

See the same comment about burn being better in Goat format, but maybe not as good before the.

That being said, both Heavy Storm and HFD legal means you’d -1 if you set another card that’s not chainable alongside this.

Poison of the Old Man

~3

3

Maybe viable in burn decks, and I guess gaining life points can help against a burn deck.  

Definitely not a card you should main deck (outside of a dedicated burn deck) because it’s a -1 that doesn’t help your field or hand advantage at all.

But I like the option of both effects.  Being a chainable quick play spell helps too.  It’s viable as a side deck card.

I could be totally wrong and this might be the Mandela Effect making me remember things that aren’t true, but I recall players in tournaments with strict time limits would side deck this in to try to get life point advantage just before the timer ends?