Ugh. I hate Rath so much. It is THE hero that has the most impact on the meta of the game. It's insanely easy to use while still hard to counter (its only real counter was bringing your own Rath, before Enlightened heroes started showing up).
Rath won't bring a lot of "variation" and certainly no "strategy". Unless you think putting Rath in a corner, using Divine and hoping you've upgraded him far enough that he won't die, is "strategic".
That all being said, I was fearing Skull Mage would get enlightened, which would 100% break the game so there's still hope at least.
Edit: Rath is fairly useless now, but I'm sure he'll change into the overpowered hero eating monster we all know him for, very soon.