Dark Magician – #LOB-005
The ultimate wizard in terms of attack and defense.
Date Reviewed: March 28th, 2022
Rating: 3.88
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
The 20th Anniversary Celebration Week starts today. We’re reviewing iconic cards all week and we’re starting with one of the most iconic cards ever released in the game: Dark Magician.
Originally, DM wasn’t even a great monster, even in the smaller card pool days. A two-tribute, Level 7 with 2500ATK wasn’t even the best high level monster out the Starter Deck, that being Summon Skull. Despite that, Dark Magician is iconic with the game, and over the many many years has gotten countless amounts of support. Only recently though has it gotten good, and will likely continue. Things like Soul Servant, Dark Magic Circle, Eternal Soul, Apprentice Illusion Magician and Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon now exist to help Dark Magician along. The card can have a mostly dedicated deck now that has potential to be Tier 2 in the meta, if not maybe a lucky Tier 1 appearance here and there. It sure has come a long way since the early days of Yu-Gi-Oh, much like the final card we’ll review this week: Blue-Eyes White Dragon, the other most iconic card.
Alone, it’s terrible, and that’s coming from a big BIG fan of the card. With the support its been given, it can be a pretty dark good card, but that is because of those cards. Alone, it’s Allure fodder and maybe a Rank 7 material summoned through Monster Reborn or something. You need support for this guy, and there’s no shame in that.
Advanced-4/5- With all the support it is a much better card.
Art-5/5 Too many arts to choose from. Gotta love the original Starter Deck version though, it’s too iconic.
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
So the game did turn 20 years old a few weeks ago, but Pojo has its 20th Anniversary of the first review this week, so this will be the week we turn back the clock 20 years to celebrate with the classic LOB cards starting with Yugi’s ace himself: Dark Magician.
Dark Magician is a Level 7 DARK Spellcaster Normal with 2500 ATK and 2100 DEF. So standard protaganist ace stats, minus the 2100 DEF when the rest later became 2000, and we also got that great DARK Attribute and a very good Spellcaster typing. Now, of course this is a vanilla monster, but Dark Magician has a ton of support and keeps getting more to this very day. The Dark Magician strategy is based on summoning Dark Magician as often as possible to use his related Spells and Traps, mainly Dark Magical Circle for a banish. You got both Eternal Soul and Magician’s Navigation to help summon the ultimate wizard in terms of attack and defense. You get several Fusions you can get with Dark Magician through either The Eye of Timaeus or various other ways. A ton of monsters help get your Dark Magician and/or support cards like Magicians’ Souls, Magician’s Rod, and Illusion of Chaos to name a few, on top of the other effect of Dark Magical Circle looking at the top cards of your Deck for the Dark Magician himself or any of his Spell/Trap support. Dark Magician is a well supported strategy and is pretty decent at that. I don’t know if you have to max out on Dark Magician in his own Deck anymore, but you always use 2-3 in his dedicated Deck and 1 if you’re still wanting to run Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon.
Advanced Rating: 4/5
Art: 5/5 for SDY art, 3.5/5 for LOB art, 2/5 for tablet art, 4.5/5 for 10th Anniversary art, 4/5 for the 2016 Yugi Structure Deck art, 4/5 for the DSOD movie art, 4/5 for the Duel Power art, 3/5 for the 25th Anniversary of the manga art, and 3/5 for the Power Pros campaign art that Japan will likely only get
Alex
Searcy
20 years of the game? Makes me feel like I’ve seen a lot in my day, and I’m very honored and privileged to have been here doing CotD for y’all (thank you Pojo) for 15+ of those years! Ironically and appropriately, we’re looking at some OLD cards (Dark Magician not chosen by me) whom I know I’ve reviewed many times (at least 8) and here we are again. Dark Magician, aside from being a fan and player favorite to many, didn’t see MUCH play for a long time. Even with all the Spellcaster support in Magician’s Force, outside of say, Skilled Dark Magician, there wasn’t really much worth a damn. And despite the near sickening level of support and options and Extra Deck Monsters that Dark Magician has (as well as GOOD support) there’s just as much that’s…not so good. But a Dark Magician Deck, in various forms, can certainly be a tournament viable Deck. Spellbooks eventually helped with that as well. Dark Magician is certainly the epitome in this game of ‘a card that’s all but awful on its own’ but with the right support and accessories, he can be a badass.
Rating: 4.25/5
Art: Dear God, there are a LOT of arts for Dark Magician these days, but my favorite(s) are the one of him in the black suit, and then of him coming off the Egyptian tablet. Both of those are 5/5. (Also, the purple picture that Yugi uses and in the original starter, is 1/5, my least favorite.)
Mighty
Vee
No, you haven’t traveled back in time; this year marks the 20th anniversary of the TCG format (OCG had its 20th anniversary 2 years ago!), so this week we’re covering some classics that may be outclassed, but certainly not forgotten. Our first card is the iconic Dark Magician, best known as the ace monster of Yugioh anime protagonist Yugi Muto. As a level 7 DARK spellcaster, Dark Magician has a rather low 2500 attack for a level 7 monster, and 2100 defense doesn’t quite make up for it, so in a vacuum, good old DM is really starting to show its age.
As a normal monster, Dark Magician has no effects whatsoever, though it can take advantage of normal support like Piercing the Darkness. Rather, Dark Magician’s main strength comes from its seemingly infinite array of support cards that people hate to love and love to hate. Illusion of Chaos and Magician’s Rod can search pretty much the whole deck, with Eternal Soul making Dark Magician itself easier than ever to summon while Dark Magical Circle gives it some much-needed disruption. Of course, the deck proper still hinges on three bricks and its ceiling leaves much to be desired, but it’s still more than serviceable in modern times, which is more than can be said for some decks (poor, poor Red-Eyes). Overall, not too shabby for one of the most recognizable cards of all time, if only because of all the support propping it up.
Advanced: 3.25/5
Art: 4/5 There are way too many alt arts of this guy to keep track of, but the folded arms one pictured here is probably my favorite.
BillAs people have mentioned it a few times, here is a link to our very first Dark Magician COTD review from April 2002.
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